Einstein's War

by Matthew Stanley

  Britain was almost completely: MacLeod, “The Chemists Go to War,” 459.

  Their formal request: Marwick, Deluge, 229.

  The military had: Ibid., 230.

  A committee of major scientists: Peter Alter, The Reluctant Patron: Science and the State in Great Britain (New York: Berg, 1987), 96–97.

  “On our side”: William Van der Kloot, Great Scientists Wage the Great War (Oxford: Fonthill Books, 2014), 93.

  The Royal Society Council: Heilbron, “The Work of H.G.J. Moseley,” 336.

  The Braggs were so effective: Arne Schirrmacher, “Sounds and Repercussions of War: Mobilization, Invention, and Conversion of First World War Science in Britain, France and Germany,” History and Technology: An International Journal 32, no. 3 (October 9, 2016): 269.

  In an effort to maintain: Roy MacLeod, “Sight and Sound on the Western Front,” War and Society 18 (2000), 23–46, 39.

  By the end of the war: MacLeod, “Scientists,” 451.

  Much of the gas: Hartcup, War of Invention, 168.

  The cylinders: Ibid., 98–100.

  The British system: MacLeod, “The Chemists Go to War,” 466.

  Australia sent about half: Roy M. MacLeod, “The ‘Arsenal’ in the Strand: Australian Chemists and the British Munitions Effort 1916–1919,” Annals of Science 46 (1989): 58.

  She was denied: MacLeod, “The Chemists Go to War,” 475.

  One industrial chemist: TNA:PRO: MH 47/1: Central Tribunal Minutes.

  After the system: MacLeod, “The Chemists Go to War,” 474.

  They argued that: Cambridge Observatory Syndicate Minutes, 1896–1971, December 6, 1915, Cambridge University Archives, UA Obsy A1 iii.

  The Society was still: RSCM, February 22, 1917.

  Life for scientists: Hartcup, War of Invention, 35.

  They, too, had no clear guidelines: MacLeod, “The Chemists Go to War,” 474.

  “standing eye to eye”: Niall Ferguson, The Pity of War (Basic Books, 1998), 207.

  Erwin Schrödinger: Walter Moore, Schrödinger: Life and Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 83.

  A year into the war: Van der Kloot, Great Scientists Wage the Great War, 34.

  “no longer knew”: Ibid., 34.

  Meitner felt strongly: Russell McCormmach, Night Thoughts of a Classical Physicist (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1982), 171.

  “Einstein played the violin”: Hubert Goenner and Giuseppe Castagnetti, “Albert Einstein as Pacifist and Democrat During World War I,” Science in Context 9, no. 4 (December 1996): 369.

  Walther Schücking: Ibid., 336.

  Einstein took it out: CPAE volume 8, document 86, “Einstein to Heinrich Zangger, 28 May 1915,” 100–101.

  “until now not politically active”: Goenner and Castagnetti, “Albert Einstein as Pacifist,” 372.

  “a woman’s world”: Emmanuelle Cronier, “The Street,” in Capital Cities at War: Paris, London, Berlin 1914–1919: A Cultural History, vol. 2, eds. Jay Winter and Jean-Louis Robert, Studies in the Social and Cultural History of Modern Warfare (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 88.

  Some 70,000 Eastern European Jews: Ibid., 96.

  Right-wing groups: Adrian Gregory, “Religious Sites and Practices,” in Capital Cities at War, vol. 2, 406–17, 406–8.

  This should not be mistaken: McCormmach, Night Thoughts, 213.

  It was not well received: John Heilbron, The Dilemmas of an Upright Man: Max Planck as Spokesman for German Science (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), 74–78.

  CHAPTER 6

  He speculated about: A. S. Eddington, “Some Problems in Astronomy XIX: Gravitation,” The Observatory 484 (1915): 93–98.

  Cunningham was: Andrew Warwick, Masters of Theory: Cambridge and the Rise of Mathematical Physics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 409; Andrew C. Thompson, “Logical Nonconformity? Conscientious Objection in the Cambridge Free Churches After 1914,” Journal of United Reformed Church History Society 5, no. 9 (November 1996): 551.

  “would mean that gravitation”: Eddington, “Some Problems,” 98.

  “There is the problem”: Leo Corry, “The Origin of Hilbert’s Axiomatic Method,” in The Genesis of General Relativity, vol. 4, ed. Jürgen Renn (Dordrecht: Springer, 2007), 771.

  Hilbert had refused: Albrecht Fölsing, Albert Einstein: A Biography (New York: Viking, 1997), 364; CPAE volume 8, document 101, “Einstein to Heinrich Zangger between 24 July and 7 August 1915,” 115–16.

  “Berlin is no match”: CPAE volume 8, document 94, “Einstein to Heinrich Zangger, 7 July 1915,” 110.

  “clarified very much”: Fölsing, Albert Einstein, 364.

  With a verbal shrug: Ibid., 365.

  “Hilbert now regrets”: CPAE volume 8, document 94, “Einstein to Heinrich Zangger, 7 July 1915,” 110.

  A planning meeting: Hubert Goenner and Giuseppe Castagnetti, “Albert Einstein as Pacifist and Democrat During World War I,” Science in Context 9, no. 4 (December 1996): 342.

  Surely there must be: CPAE volume 8, document 98, “Einstein to Hendrik A. Lorentz, 21 July 1915,” 113.

  The powerful would forever: CPAE volume 8, document 103, “Einstein to Hendrik A. Lorentz, 2 August 1915,” 117.

  “no education and intellectual”: CPAE volume 8, document 101, “Einstein to Heinrich Zangger, between 24 July and 7 August 1915,” 115.

  By the fall: Thomas Levenson, Einstein in Berlin (New York: Bantam Books, 2003), 142.

  Elsa had been cooking: CPAE volume 8, document 94, “Einstein to Heinrich Zangger, 7 July 1915,” 110.

  The German High Command: Elizabeth Fordham, “Universities,” in Capital Cities at War, vol. 2, eds. Jay Winter and Jean-Louis Robert (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 252.

  A replica of a front-line trench: Levenson, Einstein in Berlin, 118.

  Einstein hoped that Germany: Goenner and Castagnetti, “Albert Einstein as Pacifist and Democrat During World War I,” 340.

  This was aggravated by: See CPAE volume 8A, 166 and 277.

  “Milk and honey”: CPAE volume 8, document 115, “Einstein to Elsa Einstein, 3 September 1915,” 125.

  Besso helped mediate: CPAE volume 8, document 133, “From Michele Besso to Einstein, 30 October 1915,” 139–40.

  “very vivacious and serene”: Rolland’s diary, quoted in Fölsing, Albert Einstein, 349.

  “It is being harassed”: CPAE volume 8, document 118, “Einstein to Romain Rolland, 15 September 1915,” 127.

  Humiliatingly, a soldier: CPAE volume 8, document 120, “Einstein to Heinrich Zangger, 19 September 1915,” 129.

  “Nature always uses”: Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, (April 15, 1744), 417–26.

  He immediately sat down: CPAE volume 8, document 122, “Einstein to Hendrik A. Lorentz, 23 September 1915,” 131.

  But in retracing: Michel Janssen and Jürgen Renn, “Arch and Scaffold: How Einstein Found His Field Equations,” Physics Today 68 (2015): 30–36; Michel Janssen and Jürgen Renn, “Einstein Was No Lone Genius,” Nature 527, no. 7578 (November 2015): 298–300.

  “electrifies me enormously”: CPAE volume 8, document 123, “Einstein to Erwin Freundlich, 30 September 1915,” 132.

  “I must depend”: CPAE volume 8, document 123, “Einstein to Erwin Freundlich, 30 September 1915,” 132.

  In early October: Jürgen Renn and Tilman Sauer, “Pathways Out of Classical Physics,” in The Genesis of General Relativity vol. 1, ed. Jürgen Renn (Dordrecht: Springer, 2007), 113–312.

  He agreed to do so: Goenner and Castagnetti, “Albert Einstein as Pacifist,” 346.

  “animal hatred”: Ibid., 348.

  He called for: Fölsing, Albert Einstein, 367.

  “unscrupulous opportunist”: Albert Einstein, “Remarks C
oncerning the Essays Brought Together in This Co-Operative Volume,” in Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist, ed. Paul Arthur Schlipp (Evanston, IL: The Library of Living Philosophers, 1949), 683–84.

  He described how: Fölsing, Albert Einstein, 372.

  “I have immortalized”: CPAE volume 8, document 153, “Einstein to Arnold Sommerfeld, 28 November 1915,” 152.

  This certainly made for: Michel Janssen and Jürgen Renn, “Untying the Knot,” The Genesis of General Relativity vol. 2, ed. Jürgen Renn (Dordrecht: Springer, 2007), 850–51.

  “In the last few days”: CPAE volume 8, document 134, “Einstein to Hans Albert Einstein, 4 November 1915,” 140.

  “I am curious”: CPAE volume 8, document 136, “Einstein to David Hilbert, 7 November 1915,” 141.

  “the glorification of war”: CPAE volume 8, document 138, “Einstein to Berliner Goethebund, 11 November 1915,” 143.

  Einstein particularly noted: CPAE volume 8, document 139, “Einstein to David Hilbert, 12 November 1915,” 143.

  He would be happy: CPAE volume 8, document 140, “Hilbert to Einstein, 13 November 1915,” 144.

  He asked Hilbert: CPAE volume 8, document 144, “Einstein to David Hilbert, 15 November 1915,” 145–46.

  His calculation said: Renn and Sauer, “Pathways,” 280.

  “Imagine my joy”: CPAE volume 8 (listed in volume 10), document 144a, “Einstein to Heinrich Zangger, 15 November 1915,” 19.

  In these last months: CPAE volume 8, document 147, “Einstein to Michele Besso, 17 November 1915,” 148.

  “Today I am presenting”: CPAE volume 8, document 148, “Einstein to David Hilbert, 18 November 1915,” 148.

  Einstein had the advantage: CPAE volume 8, document 149, “From David Hilbert to Einstein, 19 November 1915,” 149.

  This was probably because: Renn and Sauer, “Pathways,” 280.

  “I was beside myself”: CPAE volume 8, document 182, “Einstein to Paul Ehrenfest, 17 January 1916,” 179.

  “The theory is beautiful”: CPAE volume 8, document 152, “Einstein to Heinrich Zangger, 26 November 1915,” 151.

  Hilbert credited Einstein: Jürgen Renn and John Stachel, “Hilbert’s Foundation of Physics” in Renn, Genesis vol. 4, 911.

  Another large part: Ibid., 857.

  “In my personal experience”: CPAE volume 8, document 152, “Einstein to Heinrich Zangger, 26 November 1915,” 151.

  Hilbert quickly realized: Renn and Stachel, “Hilbert’s Foundation of Physics,” 911.

  There has been a certain ill-feeling: CPAE volume 8, document 167, “Einstein to David Hilbert, 20 December 1915,” 163.

  “rather fishy”: Matthias Schemmel, “The Continuity Between Classical and Relativistic Cosmology in the Work of Karl Schwarzschild,” in The Genesis of General Relativity vol. 3, ed. Jürgen Renn (Dordrecht: Springer, 2007), 167.

  “agreement of two single numbers”: Schemmel, “Continuity,” 168.

  “As you read”: CPAE volume 8, document 161, “Einstein to Arnold Sommerfeld, 9 December 1915,” 159.

  “trying to poke holes”: CPAE volume 10 (cited as volume 8), document 159a, “Einstein to Heinrich Zangger, 4 December 1915,” 20.

  He wanted something new: CPAE volume 8, document 165, “Einstein to Moritz Schlick, 14 December 1915,” 161–62.

  He was planning a visit: CPAE volume 8, document 168, “Einstein to Michele Besso, 21 December 1915,” 163.

  He did not mention: Ibid.

  CHAPTER 7

  “chain of wrong tracks”: CPAE volume 8, document 183, “Einstein to Hendrik A. Lorentz, 17 January 1916,” 179.

  “walk around without a muzzle”: CPAE volume 8, document 177, “Einstein to Hendrik A. Lorentz, 1 January 1916,” 170.

  “abominable”: CPAE volume 8, document 183, “Einstein to Hendrik A. Lorentz, 17 January 1916,” 179–81.

  One of Einstein’s friends: CPAE volume 8, document 247, “Gunnar Nordström to Einstein, 3 August 1916,” 241.

  The fighting felt close: Martin J. Klein, Paul Ehrenfest, Volume I: The Making of a Theoretical Physicist (New York: Elsevier Science, 1970), 298.

  “a supporter of the peace movement”: Hubert Goenner and Giuseppe Castagnetti, “Albert Einstein as Pacifist and Democrat During World War I,” Science in Context 9, no. 4 (December 1996): 372.

  Surely the war: Albrecht Fölsing, Albert Einstein: A Biography (New York: Viking, 1997), 396.

  “As you see”: CPAE volume 8, document 169, “From Karl Schwarzschild to Einstein, 22 December 1915,” 164.

  “the question of light deflection”: CPAE volume 8, document 176, “Einstein to Karl Schwarzschild, 29 December 1915,” 170.

  “enjoyed and admired”: Andrew Warwick, Masters of Theory: Cambridge and the Rise of Mathematical Physics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 476–77.

  “is why I would regret”: CPAE volume 8, document 181, “Einstein to Karl Schwarzschild, 9 January 1916,” 177.

  “foiled assault”: CPAE volume 8, document 186, “Einstein to Arnold Sommerfeld, 2 February 1916,” 188; CPAE volume 8, document 207, “Einstein to David Hilbert, 30 March 1916,” 205–6.

  “We regard”: Report of the 1915 Yearly Meeting, quoted in John W. Graham, Conscription and Conscience (London: Allen & Unwin, 1922), 162.

  They were formed: James McDermott, British Military Service Tribunals 1916–1918 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011), 16.

  Some 1.2 million: Ibid., 24.

  The Banbury Local Tribunal: Adrian Gregory, The Last Great War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 101–2.

  “He will carry”: J. D. Symon, The Universities’ Part in the War, pamphlet (n.p., 1915), Cambridgeshire Public Library C 45.5, 727–28.

  “The melancholy of this place”: Quoted in Stuart Wallace, War and the Image of Germany: British Academics, 1914–1918 (Edinburgh: John Donald Publishing, 1988), 74.

  “refused to sheathe”: Cambridge Magazine, March 4, 1916, 359.

  While an undergraduate: Warwick, Masters of Theory, 451.

  “Hitherto I had”: Eddington to de Sitter, June 11, 1916, Leiden UB, AFA FC WdS 14, Leiden University Library, Leiden Observatory Archives, directorate Willem de Sitter. Hereafter WdS.

  “I am immensely interested”: Ibid.

  “So far as I can”: Eddington to de Sitter, July 4, 1916, WdS.

  “I was interested to hear”: Eddington to de Sitter, October 13, 1916, WdS.

  “Your theory still seems”: CPAE volume 8, document 243, “From Willem de Sitter to Einstein, 27 July 1916,” 239.

  “It is a fine thing”: CPAE volume 8, document 290, “From Einstein to Willem de Sitter, 23 January 1917,” 279–80.

  His general absentmindedness: Alice Calaprice, ed., The Ultimate Quotable Einstein (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010), 30.

  “very thorough”: CPAE volume 8, document 209a, “Einstein to Elsa Einstein, from Zurich, 6 April 1916,” 22.

  Einstein’s plan: For example, see CPAE volume 8, document 211, “Einstein to Mileva Einstein-Marić, 8 April 1916,” 208–9.

  She was also increasingly ill: Fölsing, Albert Einstein, 395.

  But our enemies: William Van der Kloot, Great Scientists Wage the Great War (Oxford: Fonthill Books, 2014), 194.

  The soap shortage: Roger Chickering, The Great War and Urban Life in Germany: Freiburg, 1914–1918, Studies in the Social and Cultural History of Modern Warfare 24 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 295–307.

  “my aesthetic demands”: CPAE volume 8, document 247a, “Einstein to Heinrich Zangger, 3 August 1916,” 27.

  “I shut my eyes”: CPAE volume 8, document 232a, “Einstein to Heinrich Zangger, 11 July 1916,” 24.

  Unable to continue: Goenner and Castagnetti, “Albert Einstein as Pacifist,” 349, 353.

  “people
will lose faith”: CPAE volume 8, document 264, “Einstein to Werner Weisbach, 14 October 1916,” 253.

  “state of siege”: Jon Lawrence, “Public Space, Political Space,” in Capital Cities at War: Paris, London, Berlin 1914–1919: A Cultural History, vol. 2, eds. Jay Winter and Jean-Louis Robert, Studies in the Social and Cultural History of Modern Warfare (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 288.

  “among the living”: CPAE volume 8, document 223, “Einstein to David Hilbert, 30 May 1916,” 216.

  “artistic pleasure from devising”: CPAE volume 6, document 33, “Einstein’s Memorial Lecture on Karl Schwarzschild,” Victoria Yam, trans.

  “He would have been a gem”: CPAE volume 8, document 219, “Einstein to Michele Besso, 14 May 1916,” 213.

  CHAPTER 8

  “We would rather say”: The Observatory 503 (August 1916): 337–39.

  “Is not the die really cast”: “From an Oxford Note-Book,” The Observatory 500 (May 1916): 240.

  he praised Turner: RAS MSS Grove Hills 1914, Arthur Eddington to Hills, 2/1 14, 27 January, Royal Astronomical Society, London.

  “The dilemma is inexorable”: J. H. Morgan, “German Atrocities: An Official Investigation,” quoted in “From an Oxford Note-Book,” The Observatory 500 (May 1916): 241–42.

  “Above all, there is the conviction”: A. S. Eddington, “The Future of International Science,” The Observatory 501 (June 1916): 271.

  Fortunately, most of us know: Ibid.

  “Naturally I do not regard”: Arthur Eddington to Joseph Larmor, June 7, 1916, MS/603, Larmor Papers, Royal Society.

  “staring at a sunlit picture of Hell”: Siegfried Sassoon, Memoirs of an Infantry Officer (London: Faber and Faber, 1930), 76.

  Capt. W. P. Nevill: Martin Gilbert, A History of the Twentieth Century, Vol. 1: 1900–1933 (New York: William Morrow, 1997), 408–9; John Keegan, The First World War (New York: Vintage, 2000), 308–21.

  He casually lit: J. M. Winter and Blaine Baggett, 1914–1918: The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century (London: BBC Books, 1996), 16.