Biographical Memoirs Volume 51 (1980) / Chapter Skim
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Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
Pages 96-117
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From page 97... ...
He became a professor in the School of Mathematics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton beginning the fall of 1933, became an American citizen in the summer of 1936, and diect in Princeton, New Jersey on April IS, 1955. In the Berlin where in 1900 Max Planck discoverer!
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From page 98... ...
Today we have less ground than ever before for allowing ourselves to be forced away from this wonderful belief." :: When the climber laboring toward the Everest peak comes to the summit of an intermediate ridge, he stops at the new panorama of beauty for a new fix on the goal of his life and a new charting of the road ahead; but he knows that he is at the beginning, not at the end of his travail. What Einstein did in spacetime physics, in statistical mechanics, and in quantum physics, he viewed as such intermediate ridges, such way stations, such panoramic points for planning further advance, not as achievements in themselves.
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From page 99... ...
~ was not familiar with his subject at that time, but ~ could sense that he had his doubts about the particular version of unified field theory he was then discussing. It was clear on this first encounter that Einstein was following very much his own line, independent of the interest in nuclear physics then at high tide in the United States.
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From page 100... ...
Who does not remember him in difficulty in secondary school, antagonized by his teacher's determination to stuff knowledge clown his throat, and in turn antagonizing the teacher? Who that takes the fast train from Bern to Zurich does not fee} a lift of the heart as he flashes through the little town of Aarau?
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From page 101... ...
close friend, Maurice Solovine, Einstein wrote, "l can understand your aversion to the use of the term 'religion' to describe an emotional and psychological attitude which shows itself most clearly in Spinoza.
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From page 102... ...
In the view of many, the position of clerk in the Swiss patent office was no proper job at all, but it was the best job available to anyone with his unpromising university recorcl. He served in the Bern office for seven years, from ., _ .
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From page 103... ...
From Bern, fate took Einstein to Zurich, to Prague, and then to the Berlin where his genius flowered. Colleagueship never meant more in his life than it did during his 19 years there, and never did he have greater colleagues: Max Planck, James Franck, Walter Nernst, Max von Laue, and others.
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From page 104... ...
They clear with the issues nearest to his heart at the moment, whether the direction of time in statistical mechanics, or quantum fluctuations in radiation, or a problem of general relativity. Or examine his corresponclence with Max Born, or Maurice Solovine, or with everyday people.
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From page 105... ...
Miracle? Would it not have been a greater miracle if anyone but a patent office clerk had discoverecl relativity?
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From page 106... ...
By thus giving up gravitation, Einstein won back gravitation as a manifestation of a warp in the geometry of space. His 1915 and still standard geometric theory of gravitation can be summarized, we know toclay, in a single, simple sentence: "Space tells matter how to move and matter tells space how to curve." ~ Through his insight that there is no such thing as gravity, he had had the creative imagination to bring together two great currents of thought out of the past.
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From page 107... ...
One does not need to go into the theory of gravitationally collapsed objects or the evidence we have today, some impressive, some less convincing, for black holes: one of some ten solar masses in the constellation Cygnus; others in the range of a huncired or a thousand! solar masses at the centers of five of the star clusters in our galaxy; one about four million times as massive as the sun at the center of the Milky Way; and one with a mass of about five billion suns in the center of the galaxy M87.
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From page 108... ...
that the universe should go on from everlasting to everlasting, when to all brought up in the Judeo-Christian tradition an original creation is the natural concept? ~ am indebted to Professor Hans Kung for suggesting an important influence on Einstein from his hero Spinoza.
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From page 109... ...
Proposition XXIX in The Ethics of Spinoza states: "Nothing in the universe is contingent, but all things are conditioned to exist and operate in a particular manner by the necessity of divine nature."* Einstein accepted determinism in his mincI, his heart, his very bones.
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From page 110... ...
A. Einstein, Albert Einstein and Max Born, Brzefwechsel, 1916-1955, Kommentiert von Max Born (Muncher: Nymphenburg, 1969)
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From page 111... ...
"phenomenon" ~ to describe an elementary quantum process "brought to a close by an irreversible act of amplification." ~ Thanks to that word, brought in to withstand the criticism of Einstein, we have learned in our own time to state the central lesson of the quantum in a single simple sentence, "No elementary phenomenon is a phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon." § How couIct the correctness of quantum theory be by now so widely accepted, ant! its decisive point so well perceived, if there had been no great figure, no Einstein, to (lraw the embers of unease together in a single flame and thereby drive Bohr to that fuller formulation of the central lesson which he at last achieved?
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From page 112... ...
Whoever admires greatness, let him read Einstein's words about the goals and the greatness of recently cleparted colleagues, as well as heroes out of the (leeper past. For social justice and social responsibility, Einstein spoke up time ant!
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From page 113... ...
to give he hac! given for his causes, and among them that greatest of causes, the goal toward which he had climbed so high, that snowy peak whose light today shines brighter than ever: "A completely harmonious account of existence." ~ As we look up at the (listant intervening craggy slope, we are amazed suddenly to make out the faint sound of a high far-off violin.
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From page 114... ...
4 B I OGRA P H I C AL M E M O I RS comes an answering burst of song, young voices all. They chorus of the loftiness of the peak, the cianger of the climb, and the greatness of the climber, the man of peace with the white hair.
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From page 115... ...
The 34-page length of this bibliography and its availability in leading libraries makes it appropriate, in the case of Einstein, to replace the bibliography customarily at the end of the usual memorial by a list of some of the more important writings about him. Princeton University Press, on February 22, 1971, signed an agreement with the Estate of Albert Einstein, Otto Nathan and Helen Dukas, trustees, for the preparation of an authorized annotated scholarly edition of the papers of Albert Einstein, the preparation of which is, however, expected to require some years.
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From page 116... ...
Niels Bohr's contribution, "Discussion with Einstein on Epistemological Problems in Atomic Physics," is a so far unrivaled account not only of the great dialogue, but also of the role of measurement in quantum mechanics. More on the dialogue will be found in The Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics by Max Jammer (John Wiley, New York, 1974, xii + 536)
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From page 117... ...
between two outstanding, but very different physicists, beginning with relativity, but then turning to quantum theory and mirroring the physics of the times. Allbert Einstein Hedwig and Max Born, Briefwechsel, 1916-1955, kommentiert von Max Born, Geleitwort von Bertrand Russell, Vorwort von Werner Heisenberg.
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