62. Pauline Einstein to the Winteler family, Dec. 30, 1895, CPAE 1: 15.
63. Einstein to Marie Winteler, Apr. 21, 1896.
64. Entrance report, Aarau school, CPAE 1: 8; Aarau school record, CPAE 1: 10; Hermann Einstein to Jost Winteler, Oct. 29, 1995, CPAE 1: 11, and Dec. 30, 1895, CPAE 1: 14.
65. Report on a Music Examination, Mar. 31, 1896, CPAE 1: 17; Seelig 1956a, 15; Overbye, 13.
66. Release from Würtemberg citizenship, Jan. 28, 1896, CPAE 1: 16.
67. Einstein to Julius Katzenstein, Dec. 27, 1931, cited in Fölsing, 41.
68. Israelitisches Wochenblatt , Sept. 24, 1920; Einstein, “Why Do They Hate the Jews?,”Collier’s, Nov. 26, 1938.
69. Einstein to Hans Muehsam, Apr. 30, 1954, AEA 38-434; Fölsing 42.
70. Examination results, Sept. 18–21, 1896, CPAE 1: 20–27.
71. Overbye, 15; Maja Einstein, xvii.
72. Einstein to Heinrich Zangger, Aug. 11, 1918.
CHAPTER THREE: THE ZURICH POLYTECHNIC
1. Cahan, 42; editor’s note, CPAE 1 (German), p. 44.
2. Einstein 1949b, 15.
3. Record and Grade Transcript, Oct. 1896–Aug. 1900, CPAE 1: 28; Bucky, 24; Einstein to Arnold Sommerfeld, Oct. 29, 1912; Fölsing, 50.
4. Einstein to Mileva Mari, Feb. 1898; Cahan, 64.
5. Louis Kollros, “Albert Einstein en Suisse,”Helvetica Physica , Supplement 4 (1956): 22, in AEA 5-123; Adolf Frisch, in Seelig 1956a, 29; Cahan, 67; Clark, 55.
6. Seelig 1956a, 30; Overbye, 43; Miller 2001, 52; Charles Seife, “The True and the Absurd,” in Brockman, 63.
7. Record and Grade Transcript, CPAE 1: 28.
8. Seelig 1956a, 30; Bucky, 25 (a slightly different version); Fölsing, 57.
9. Seelig 1956a, 30.
10. Einstein to Julia Niggli, July 28, 1899.
11. Seelig 1956a, 28; Whitrow, 5.
12. Einstein 1949b, 15–17.
13. Einstein interview in Bucky, 27; Einstein to Elizabeth Grossmann, Sept. 20, 1936, AEA 11-481; Seelig 1956a, 34, 207; Fölsing, 53.
14. Holton 1973, 209–212. Einstein’s stepson-in-law Rudolph Kayser and colleague Philipp Frank both say that Einstein read Föppl in his spare time while at the Polytechnic.
15. Clark, 59; Galison, 32–34. Galison’s book on Poincaré and Einstein is a fascinating exposition on how they developed their concepts and how Poincaré’s observations were “an anticipatory note to Einstein’s special theory of relativity, a brilliant move by an author lacking the intellectual courage to pursue it to its logical, revolutionary end” (Galison, 34). Also very useful is Miller 2001, 200–204.
16. Seelig 1956a, 37; Whitrow, 5; Bucky, 156.
17. Miller 2001, 186; Hoffmann, 1972, 252; interview with Lili Foldes, The Etude , Jan. 1947, in Calaprice, 150; Einstein to Emil Hilb questionnaire, 1939, AEA 86-22; Dukas and Hoffmann, 76.
18. Seelig 1956a, 36.
19. Fölsing, 51, 67; Reiser, 50; Seelig 1956a, 9.
20. Clark, 50. Diana Kormos Buchwald points out that a careful examination of the picture of him at the Aarau school shows holes in his jacket.
21. Einstein to Maja Einstein, 1898.
22. Einstein to Maja Einstein, after Feb. 1899.
23. Marie Winteler to Einstein, Nov. 4–25, 1896.
24. Marie Winteler to Einstein, Nov. 30, 1896.
25. Pauline Einstein to Marie Winteler, Dec. 13, 1896.
26. Einstein to Pauline Winteler, May 1897.
27. Marie Winteler to Einstein, Nov. 4–25, Nov. 30.
28. Novi Sad, the cultural center of the Serbian people, had long been a “free royal city,” then part of a Serbian autonomous region of the Hapsburg Empire. By the time Mari was born, it was in the Hungarian part of Austria-Hungary. Approximately 40 percent of the citizens there spoke Serbian when she was growing up, 25 percent spoke Hungarian, and about 20 percent spoke German. It is now the second largest city, after Belgrade, in the Republic of Serbia.
29. Desanka Trbuhovic-Gjuric, 9–38; Dord Krstic, “Mileva Einstein-Mari,” in Elizabeth Einstein, 85; Overbye, 28–33; Highfield and Carter, 33–38; Marriage certificate, CPAE 5: 4.
30. Dord Krstic, “Mileva Einstein-Mari,” in Elizabeth Einstein, 88 (Krstic’s piece is based partly on interviews with school friends); Barbara Wolff, an expert on Einstein’s life at the Hebrew University archives, says, “I imagine that Einstein was the main reason Mileva fled Zurich.”
31. Mileva Mari to Einstein, after Oct. 20, 1897.
32. Einstein to Mileva Mari, Feb. 16, 1898.
33. Einstein to Mileva Mari, after Apr. 16, 1898, after Nov. 28, 1898.
34. Recollection of Suzanne Markwalder, in Seelig 1956a, 34; Fölsing, 71.
35. Einstein to Mileva Mari, Mar. 13 or 20, 1899.
36. Einstein to Mileva Mari, Aug. 10, 1899, Mar. 1899, Sept. 13, 1900.
37. Einstein to Mileva Mari, Sept. 13, 1900, early Aug. 1899, Aug. 10, 1899.
38. Einstein to Mileva Mari, ca. Sept. 28, 1899.
39. Mileva Mari to Einstein, 1900.
40. Intermediate Diploma Examinations, Oct. 21, 1898, CPAE 1: 42.
41. Einstein to Mileva Mari, Sept. 10, 1899; Einstein 1922c (see bibliography for explanation about this Dec. 14, 1922, lecture in Kyoto, Japan).
42. Einstein, 1922c; Reiser, 52; Einstein to Mileva Mari, ca. Sept. 28, 1899; Renn and Schulmann, 85, footnotes 11: 3, 11: 4. Wilhelm Wien’s paper was delivered in Sept. 1898 in Düsseldorf and published in the Annalen der Physik 65, no. 3 of that year.
43. Einstein to Mileva Mari, Oct. 10, 1899; Seelig 1956a, 30; Fölsing, 68; Over-bye, 55; final diploma examinations, CPAE 1: 67. The essay marks as recorded in CPAE are multiplied by 4 to reflect their weight in the final results.
44. Final diploma examinations, CPAE 1: 67.
45. Einstein to Walter Leich, Apr. 24, 1950, AEA 60-253; Walter Leich memo describing Einstein, Mar. 6, 1957, AEA 60-257.
46. Einstein, 1949b, 17.
47. Einstein to Mileva Mari, Aug. 1, 1900.
CHAPTER FOUR: THE LOVERS
1. Einstein to Mileva Mari, ca. July 29, 1900.
2. Einstein to Mileva Mari, Aug. 6, 1900.
3. Einstein to Mileva Mari, Aug. 1, Sept. 13, Oct. 3, 1900.
4. Einstein to Mileva Mari, Aug. 30, 1900.
5. Einstein to Mileva Mari, Aug. 1, Aug. 6, ca. Aug. 14, Aug. 20, 1900.
6. Einstein to Mileva Mari, Aug. 6, 1900.
7. Einstein to Mileva Mari, ca. Aug. 9, Aug. 14?, Aug. 20, 1900.
8. Einstein to Mileva Mari, ca. Aug. 9, ca. Aug. 14, 1900. Both of these letters came from this visit to Zurich.
9. Einstein to Mileva Mari, Sept. 13, 1900.
10. Einstein to Mileva Mari, Sept. 19, 1900.
11. Einstein to Adolf Hurwitz, Sept. 26, Sept. 30, 1900.
12. Einstein to Mileva Mari, Oct. 3, 1900; Einstein to Mrs. Marcel Grossmann, 1936; Seelig 1956a, 208.
13. Einstein’s municipal citizenship application, Zurich, Oct. 1900, CPAE 1: 82; Einstein to Helene Kaufler, Oct. 11, 1900; minutes of the naturalization commission of Zurich, Dec. 14, 1900, CPAE 1: 84.
14. Einstein to Mileva Mari, Sept. 13, 1900.
15. Einstein to Mileva Mari, Oct. 3, 1900.
16. Einstein, “Conclusions Drawn from the Phenomena of Capillarity,”Annalen der Physik , CPAE 2: 1, received Dec. 13, 1900, published Mar. 1, 1901. “The paper is very difficult to understand, not least because of the large number of obvious misprints; from its lack of clarity we can only assume that it had not been independently refereed ... Yet it was an extraordinarily advanced paper for a recent graduate who was receiving no independent scientific advice.” John N. Murrell and Nicole Grobert, “The Centenary of Einstein’s First Scientific Paper,”The Royal Society (London), Jan. 22, 2002, www.journals.royalsoc.ac.uk/app/home/content.asp.
17. Dudley Herschbach, “Einstein as a Student,” Mar. 2005, unpublished paper provided to the author.
18. Einstein to Mileva Mari, Apr. 15, Apr. 30, 1901; Mileva Mari to
Helene Savi, Dec. 20, 1900.
19. Einstein to G. Wessler, Aug. 24, 1948, AEA 59-26.
20. Maja Einstein, sketch, 19; Reiser, 63; minutes of the Municipal Naturalization Commission of Zurich, Dec. 14, 1900, CPAE 1: 84; Report of the Schweitzerisches Informationsbureau, Jan. 30, 1901, CPAE 1: 88; Military Service Book, Mar. 13, 1901, CPAE 1: 91.
21. Mileva Mari to Helene Savi, Dec. 20, 1900; Einstein to Mileva Mari, Mar. 23, Mar. 27, 1901.
22. Einstein to Mileva Mari, Apr. 4, 1901.
23. Einstein to Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, Apr. 12, 1901; Einstein to Marcel Grossmann, Apr. 14, 1901; Fölsing, 78; Clark, 66; Miller 2001, 68.
24. Einstein to Wilhelm Ostwald, Mar. 19, Apr. 3, 1901.
25. Hermann Einstein to Wilhelm Ostwald, Apr. 13, 1901.
26. Einstein to Mileva Mari, Mar. 23, Mar. 27, 1901; Einstein to Marcel Grossmann, Apr. 14, 1901.
27. Einstein to Mileva Mari, Mar. 27, 1901; Mileva Mari to Helene Savi, Dec. 9, 1901.
28. Einstein to Mileva Mari, Apr. 4, 1901; Einstein to Michele Besso, June 23, 1918; Overbye, 25; Miller 2001, 78; Fölsing, 115.
29. Einstein to Mileva Mari, Mar. 27, Apr. 4, 1901.
30. Einstein to Marcel Grossmann, Apr. 14, 1901; Einstein to Mileva Mari, Apr. 15, 1901.
31. Einstein to Mileva Mari, Apr. 30, 1901. The official translation is “blue nightshirt,” but the word that Einstein actually used, Schlafrock , translates more accurately as “dressing gown.”
32. Mileva Mari to Einstein, May 2, 1901.
33. Mileva Mari to Helene Savi, second half of May, 1901.
34. Einstein to Mileva Mari, second half of May, 1901.
35. Einstein to Mileva Mari, tentatively dated in CPAE as May 28?, 1901. The actual date is probably a week or so later.
36. Overbye, 77–78.
37. Einstein to Mileva Mari, July 7, 1901.
38. Mileva Mari to Einstein, after July 7, 1901 (published in CPAE vol. 8 as 1: 116, because it was discovered after vol. 1 had been printed).
39. Mileva Mari to Einstein, ca. July 31, 1901; Highfield and Carter, 80.
40. Einstein to Jost Winteler, July 8, 1901; Einstein to Marcel Grossmann, Apr. 14, 1901. The comparison to the compass needle comes from Overbye, 65.
41. Renn 2005a, 109. Jürgen Renn is the director of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin and an editor of the Collected Papers of Albert Einstein. I am grateful to him for help with this topic.
42. Einstein to Mileva Mari, Apr. 15, 1901; Einstein to Marcel Grossmann, Apr. 15, 1901.
43. Renn 2005a, 124.
44. Einstein to Mileva Mari, Apr. 4, ca. June 4, 1901. The letters to and from Drude no longer exist, so it is not known precisely what Einstein’s objections were.
45. Einstein to Mileva Mari, ca. July 7, 1901; Einstein to Jost Winteler, July 8, 1901.
46. Renn 2005a, 118. Renn’s source notes say, “I gratefully acknowledge the kindness of Mr. Felix de Marez Oyens, from Christie’s, who pointed my attention to the missing page of the letter by Einstein to Mileva Mari, ca. 8 July 1901. As, unfortunately, no copy of the page is available to me, my interpretation had to be based on a raw transcription of the passage in question.”
47. Einstein to Marcel Grossmann, Sept. 6, 1901.
48. Overbye, 82–84. This includes a good synopsis of the Boltzmann-Ostwald dispute.
49. Einstein, “On the Thermodynamic Theory of the Difference in Potentials between Metals and Fully Dissociated Solutions of Their Salts,” Apr. 1902. Renn does not mention this paper in his analysis of Einstein’s dispute with Drude, and instead focuses only on the June 1902 paper.
50. Einstein, “Kinetic Theory of Thermal Equilibrium and the Second Law of Thermodynamics,” June 1902; Renn 2005a, 119; Jos Uffink, “Insuperable Difficulties: Einstein’s Statistical Road to Molecular Physics,”Studies in the History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 37 (2006): 38; Clayton Gearhart, “Einstein before 1905: The Early Papers on Statistical Mechanics,”American Journal of Physics (May 1990): 468.
51. Mileva Mari to Helene Savi, ca. Nov. 23, 1901; Einstein to Mileva Mari, Nov. 28, 1901.
52. Einstein to Mileva Mari, Dec. 17 and 19, 1901.
53. Receipt for the return of Doctoral Fees, Feb. 1, 1902, CPAE 1: 132; Fölsing, 88–90; Reiser, 69; Overbye, 91. From Einstein to Mileva Mari, ca. Feb. 8, 1902: “I’m explaining to [Conrad] Habicht the paper I submitted to Kleiner. He’s very enthusiastic about my good ideas and is pestering me to send Boltzmann the part of the paper which relates to his book. I’m going to do it.”
54. Einstein to Marcel Grossmann, Sept. 6, 1901.
55. Einstein to Mileva Mari, Nov. 28, 1901.
56. Mileva Mari to Einstein, Nov. 13, 1901; Highfield and Carter, 82.
57. Einstein to Mileva Mari, Dec. 12, 1901; Fölsing, 107; Zackheim, 35; High-field and Carter, 86.
58. Pauline Einstein to Pauline Winteler, Feb. 20, 1902.
59. Mileva Mari to Helene Savi, ca. Nov. 23, 1901.
60. Einstein to Mileva Mari, Dec. 11 and 19, 1901.
61. Einstein to Mileva Mari, Dec. 28, 1901.
62. Einstein to Mileva Mari, Feb. 4, 1902, Dec. 12, 1901.
63. Einstein to Mileva Mari, Feb. 4, 1902.
64. Mileva Mari to Einstein, Nov. 13, 1901. For some context, see Popovi, which includes a collection of letters between Mari and Savi collected by Savi’s grandson.
65. Einstein to Mileva Mari, Feb. 17, 1902.
66. Swiss Federal Council to Einstein, June 19, 1902.
67. See Peter Galison’s treatment of the synchronization of time in Europe at that period, in Galison, 222–248. Also, see chapter 6 below for a fuller discussion of the role this might have played in Einstein’s development of special relativity.
68. Einstein to Hans Wohlwend, autumn 1902; Fölsing, 102.
69. Einstein interview, Bucky, 28; Reiser, 66.
70. Einstein to Michele Besso, Dec. 12, 1919.
71. Einstein interview, Bucky, 28; Einstein 1956, 12. Both say essentially the same thing, with variations in wording and translation. Reiser, 64.
72. Alas, as a rule, all applications were destroyed after eighteen years, and even though Einstein was by then world-famous, his comments on inventions were disposed of during the 1920s; Fölsing, 104.
73. Galison, 243; Flückiger, 27.
74. Fölsing, 103; C. P. Snow, “Einstein,” in Goldsmith et al., 7.
75. Einstein interview, Bucky, 28; Einstein 1956, 12. See Don Howard, “A kind of vessel in which the struggle for eternal truth is played out,” AEA Cedex-H.
76. Solovine, 6.
77. Maurice Solovine, Dedication of the Olympia Academy, “A.D. 1903,” CPAE 2: 3.
78. Solovine, 11–14.
79. Einstein to Maurice Solovine, Nov. 25, 1948; Seelig 1956a, 57; Einstein to Conrad Habicht and Maurice Solovine, Apr. 3, 1953; Hoffmann 1972, 243.
80. The editors of Einstein’s papers, in the introduction to vol. 2, xxiv–xxv, describe the books and specific editions read by the Olympia Academy.
81. Einstein to Moritz Schlick, Dec. 14, 1915. In a 1944 essay about Bertrand Russell, Einstein wrote, “Hume’s clear message seemed crushing: the sensory raw material, the only source of our knowledge, through habit may lead us to belief and expectation but not to the knowledge and still less to the understanding of lawful relations.” Einstein 1954, 22. See also Einstein, 1949b, 13.
82. David Hume, Treatise on Human Nature , book 1, part 2; Norton 2005a.
83. There are varying interpretations of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (1781). I have tried here to stick closely to Einstein’s own view of Kant. Einstein, “Re-marks on Bertrand Russell’s Theory of Knowledge,” (1944) in Schilpp; Einstein 1954, 22; Einstein, 1949b, 11–13; Einstein, “On the Methods of Theoretical Physics,” the Herbert Spencer lecture, Oxford, June 10, 1933, in Einstein 1954, 270; Mara Beller, “Kant’s Impact on Einstein’s Thought,” in Howard and Stachel 2000, 83–106. See also Einstein, “Physics and Reality” (1936)
in Einstein 1950a, 62; Yehuda Elkana, “The Myth of Simplicity,” in Holton and Elkana, 221.
84. Einstein 1949b, 21.
85. Einstein, Obituary for Ernst Mach, Mar. 14, 1916, CPAE 6: 26.
86. Philipp Frank, “Einstein, Mach and Logical Positivism,” in Schilpp, 272; Overbye, 25, 100–104; Gerald Holton, “Mach, Einstein and the Search for Reality,”Daedalus (spring 1968): 636–673, reprinted in Holton 1973, 221; Clark, 61; Einstein to Carl Seelig, Apr. 8, 1952; Einstein, 1949b, 15; Norton 2005a.
87. Spinoza, Ethics, part I, proposition 29 and passim; Jammer 1999, 47; Holton 2003, 26–34; Matthew Stewart, The Courtier and the Heretic (New York: Norton, 2006).
88. Pais 1982, 47; Fölsing, 106; Hoffmann 1972, 39; Maja Einstein, xvii; Overbye, 15–17.
89. Marriage Certificate, CPAE 5: 6; Miller 2001, 64; Zackheim, 47.
90. Einstein to Michele Besso, Jan. 22, 1903; Mileva Mari to Helene Savi, Mar. 1903; Solovine, 13; Seelig 1956a, 46; Einstein to Carl Seelig, May 5, 1952; AEA 39-20.
91. Mileva Mari to Einstein, Aug. 27, 1903; Zackheim, 50.
92. Einstein to Mileva Mari, ca. Sept. 19, 1903; Zackheim; Popovi; author’s discussions and e-mails with Robert Schulmann.
93. Popovi, 11; Zackheim, 276; author’s discussions and e-mails with Robert Schulmann.
94. Michelmore, 42.
95. Einstein to Mileva Mari, ca. Sept. 19, 1903.
96. Mileva Mari to Helene Savi, June 14, 1904; Popovi, 86; Whitrow, 19.
97. Overbye, 113, citing Desanka Trbuhovic-Gjuric, Im Schatten Albert Einstein (Bern: Verlag Paul Haupt, 1993), 94.
CHAPTER FIVE: THE MIRACLE YEAR
1. This quote is attributed in a variety of books and sources to an address Lord Kelvin gave to the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1900. I have not found direct evidence for it, which is why I qualify it as “reportedly” said. It is not in the two-volume biography by Silvanus P. Thompson, The Life of Lord Kelvin (New York: Chelsea Publishing, 1976), originally published in 1910.
2. Pierre-Simon Laplace, A Philosophical Essay on Probabilities (1820; reprinted, New York: Dover, 1951). This famous statement of determinism comes in the preface of a work devoted to probability theory. The fuller line is that in ultimate reality we have determinism, but in practice we have probabilities. The achievement of full knowledge is not reachable, he says, so we need probabilities.
Walter Isaacson Great Innovators e-book boxed set Page 208
