Einstein (110 page)
Authors: Walter Isaacson
16
. Einstein 1949b, 9; Seelig 1956a, 11; Hoffmann 1972, 9; Pais 1982, 37; Vallentin, 21; Reiser, 25; Holton 1973, 359; author’s interview with Shulamith Oppenheim, Apr. 22, 2005.
17
. Overbye, 8; Shulamith Oppenheim,
Rescuing Albert’s Compass
(New York: Crocodile, 2003).
18
. Holton 1973, 358.
19
. Fölsing, 26; Einstein to Philipp Frank, draft, 1940, CPAE 1, p. lxiii.
20
. Maja Einstein, xxi; Bucky, 156; Einstein to Hans Albert Einstein, Jan. 8, 1917.
21
. Hans Albert Einstein interview in Whitrow, 21; Bucky, 148.
22
. Einstein to Paul Plaut, Oct. 23, 1928, AEA 28-65; Dukas and Hoffmann, 78; Moszkowski, 222. Einstein originally wrote that music and science “complement each other in the
release
they offer,” but he later changed that to
Befriedigung
, or satisfaction, according to Barbara Wolff of Hebrew University.
23
. Einstein to Otto Juliusburger, Sept. 29, 1942, AEA 38-238.
24
. Clark, 25; Einstein 1949b, 3; Reiser, 28. (Anton Reiser was the pseudonym of Rudoph Kayser, who married Ilse Einstein, the daughter of Einstein’s second wife, Elsa.)
25
. Maja Einstein, xix, says he was 7; in fact he enrolled on Oct. 1, 1885, when he was 6.
26
. According to the version later told by his stepson-in-law, the teacher then added that Jesus was nailed to the cross “by the Jews”; Reiser, 30. But Einstein’s friend and physics colleague Philipp Frank makes a point of specifically noting that the teacher did not raise the role of the Jews; Frank 1947, 9.
27
. Fölsing, 16; Einstein to unknown recipient, Apr. 3, 1920, CPAE 1: lx.
28
. Reiser, 28–29; Maja Einstein, xxi; Seelig 1956a, 15; Pais 1982, 38; Fölsing, 20. Maja again has him only 8 when he enters the gymnasium, which he actually did in Oct. 1888, at age 9 and a half.
29
. Brian 1996, 281. A Google search of
Einstein failed math
, performed in 2006, turned up close to 648,000 references.
30
. Pauline Einstein to Fanny Einstein, Aug. 1, 1886; Fölsing, 18–20, citing Einstein to Sybille Blinoff, May 21, 1954, and Dr. H. Wieleitner in
Nueste Nachrichten
, Munich, Mar. 14, 1929.
31
. Einstein to Sybille Blinoff, May 21, 1954, AEA 59-261; Maja Einstein, xx.
32
. Frank 1947, 14; Reiser, 35; Einstein 1949b, 11.
33
. Maja Einstein, xx; Bernstein 1996a, 24–27; Einstein interview with Henry Russo,
The Tower
, Princeton, Apr. 13, 1935.
34
. Talmey, 164; Pais 1982, 38.
35
. The first edition appeared in twelve volumes between 1853 and 1857. New editions, under a new title that is referred to in Maja’s essay, appeared in the late 1860s. They were constantly updated. The version likely owned by Einstein had twenty-one volumes and was bound into four or five large books. The definitive study of this book’s influence on Einstein is Frederick Gregory, “The Mysteries and Wonders of Science: Aaron Bernstein’s
Naturwissenschaftliche Volksbücher
and the Adolescent Einstein,” in Howard and Stachel 2000, 23–42. Maja Einstein, xxi; Einstein 1949b, 15; Seelig 1956a, 12.
36
. Aaron Bernstein,
Naturwissenschaftliche Volksbücher
, 1870 ed., vols. 1, 8, 16, 19; Howard and Stachel 2000, 27–39.
37
. Einstein 1949b, 5.
38
. Talmey, 163. (Talmud wrote his small memoir after he had changed his name to Talmey in America.)
39
. Einstein, “On the Method of Theoretical Physics,” Herbert Spencer lecture, Oxford, June 10, 1933, in Einstein 1954, 270.
40
. Einstein 1949b, 9, 11; Talmey, 163; Fölsing, 23 (he speculates that the “sacred” book may have been another text); Einstein 1954, 270.
41
. Aaron Bernstein, vol. 12, cited by Frederick Gregory in Howard and Stachel 2000, 37; Einstein 1949b, 5.
42
. Frank 1947, 15; Jammer, 15–29. “The meaning of a life of brilliant scientific activity drew on the remnants of his fervent first feelings of youthful religiosity,” writes Gerald Holton in Holton 2003, 32.
43
. Einstein 1949b, 5; Maja Einstein, xxi.
44
. Einstein, “What I Believe,”
Forum and Century
(1930): 194, reprinted as “The World As I See It,” in Einstein 1954, 10. According to Philipp Frank, “He saw the parade as a movement of people compelled to be machines”; Frank 1947, 8.
45
. Frank 1947, 11; Fölsing, 17; C. P. Snow, “Einstein,” in
Variety of Men
(New York: Scribner’s, 1966), 26.
46
. Einstein to Jost Winteler, July 8, 1901.
47
. Pais 1982, 17, 38; Hoffmann 1972, 24.
48
. Maja Einstein, xx; Seelig 1956a, 15; Pais 1982, 38; Einstein draft to Philipp Frank, 1940, CPAE 1, p. lxiii.
49
. Stefann Siemer, “The Electrical Factory of Jacob Einstein and Cie.,” in Renn 2005b, 128–131; Pyenson, 40.
50
. Overbye, 9–10; Einstein draft to Philipp Frank, 1940, CPAE 1, p. lxiii; Hoff-mann, 1972, 25–26; Reiser, 40; Frank 1947, 16; Maja Einstein, xxi; Fölsing, 28–30.
51
. Einstein to Marie Winteler, Apr. 21, 1896; Fölsing 34;
The Jewish Spectator
, Jan. 1969.
52
. Frank 1947, 17; Maja Einstein, xxii; Hoffmann 1972, 27.
53
. Einstein, “On the Investigation of the State of the Ether in a Magnetic Field,” summer 1895, CPAE 1: 5.
54
. Einstein to Caesar Koch, summer 1895.
55
. Albin Herzog to Gustave Maier, Sept. 25, 1895, CPAE 1 (English), p. 7; Fölsing, 37; Seelig 1956a, 9.
56
. This process of envisaging is what Kantian philosophers call
Anschauung
. See Miller 1984, 241–246.
57
. Seelig 1956b, 56; Fölsing, 38.
58
. Miller 2001, 47; Maja Einstein, xxii; Seelig 1956b, 9; Fölsing, 38; Holton, “On Trying to Understand Scientific Genius,” in Holton 1973, 371.
59
. Bucky, 26; Fölsing, 46. Einstein provides a fuller description in his “Autobiographical Notes,” in Schilpp, 53.
60
. Gustav Maier to Jost Winteler, Oct. 26, 1895, CPAE 1: 9; Fölsing, 39; High-field and Carter, 22–24.
61
. Vallentin, 12; Hans Byland,
Neue Bündner Zeitung
, Feb. 7, 1928, cited in Seelig 1956a, 14; Fölsing, 39.
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