The Jewish Saint
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CHAPTER 5: The Jewish Saint One who would know the secrets of Nature must practice more humanity than others.—Thoreau In late 1933, the most famous living scientist on Earth immigrated to the United States from his native Germany, which had fallen under the dark spell of the Third Reich. Despite worldwide fame, as a Jew, Albert Einstein was persona non grata to the Nazi’s, and his days were numbered. He left in the nick of time. Across the Atlantic, preparations for the prize catch were at fever pitch. The Institute of Advanced Studies had just been created at Princeton University to showcase the originator of the theory of relativity. Dignitaries, festivities, and marching bands awaited his arrival. They were not to be disappointed. As the ship bearing Einstein pulled into dock in New York, the epicenter of physics shifted from Berlin to the United States. Here it has remained for seventy-five years. Grateful but unimpressed, Einstein wrote irreverently of his new home to an old friend: “[Princeton] is a wonderful little spot, a quaint and ceremonious village of puny demigods on stilts. Yet, by ignoring certain social customs, I have been able to create for myself an atmosphere free from distraction and conducive to study.”i There, in an unpretentious home on Mercer Street, he spent the rest of his days (Fig. 10). Figure 1: The house at 112 Mercer Street, Princeton, New Jersey, in which Albert Einstein lived from 1933 until his death in 1955. (Photo credit: the author.) In his adopted country, Einstein was adored by ordinary folk, watched by the FBI, and occasionally revered as a Jewish “saint.” For a rare few, simply meeting Einstein turned mystical. Such was the experience of Hiram Haydn, editor of the American Scholar. In a chance encounter with Einstein en route to a tea in Einstein’s honor, Haydn inexplicably perceived Einstein’s face as belonging to that of a wholly different species. Almost as if he read Haydn’s mind, Einstein smiled. Haydn later recounted. “This act constituted the most religious experience of my life.” Still visibly shaken after the tea, Haydn was comforted by his companion Christian Gauss, Princeton University’s Dean. “Such moments,” Gauss appreciated, “tear a rent in ordinary perceptions, and cut a hole in the fabric of things, through which we see new visions of reality.” ii Haydn’s glimpse through the veil of perception upon meeting Einstein is fittingly symbolic. No other scientist, living or dead, has altered human perceptions of reality more radically than Einstein. New Theory of the Universe—Newtonian Ideas Overthrown With this headline in the London papers in 1919, following the first experimental validation of general relativity, Einstein became an instant cultural icon. The scientific equivalent of Princess Di or the Beatles, Einstein enjoyed rock-star status. No living scientist before or since has received the acclaim lavished upon Einstein. What qualities endeared Einstein to so many, to the scientifically erudite and to the commoner? In the Ascent of Man, science historian Jacob Bronowski likened Newton and Einstein to mythological gods. “Of the two,” he took pains to distinguish, “Newton is the Old Testament god; it is Einstein who is the New Testament figure.” If Newton’s Principia Mathematica was the Old Testament of physics, then Einstein’s relativity was its New Testament, which swept away the old. The post-Einsteinian universe is as different from the Newtonian one as the God of love is from the God of wrath. Einstein, like Jesus, was “was full of humanity, pity, [and] a sense of enormous sympathy.”iii A Life in Review Born to an easy-going father and a domineering mother in Ulm, Germany, March 14, 1879, Albert Einstein was something of an underdog. His father, Hermann, was an engineer and entrepreneur whose failed business ventures frequently necessitated relocating the family. Albert’s musically inclined mother Pauline, the stronger parent, forced violin lessons upon him at a tender age. Tantrums of protest ultimately gave way to an appreciation of Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, and Schubert. In later life, Einstein could charm family and friends with his accomplished playing. The gift of a small magnetic compass, presented to five-year-old Albert by his father as a distraction during a childhood illness, ignited a passion greater than music. In his later years, Einstein recalled that he “trembled and grew cold”iv in excitement while holding the compass, which revealed that “there had to be something behind objects that lay deeply hidden.”v Something in this experience never left him.vi I sometimes ask myself how it came to pass that I was the one to develop the theory of relativity. The reason I think is that a normal adult never stops to think about problems of space and time. These are things which he has thought of as a child. But my intellectual development was retarded, as a result of which I began to wonder about time and space only when I had already grown up. Although the family housekeeper referred to him as der Depperte (the dopey one),vii “retarded” is too strong a word. Einstein was slow to talk. Easily frustrated as a child, Albert was prone to outbursts that bordered on the violent. Quipped his sister Maja, “A sound skull is needed to be the sister of a thinker.”viii Awkward and out-of-place in school, Einstein showed little promise in his early years. His distaste for rote learning irritated his Prussian teachers, and his disinterest in sports provoked the taunts of other boys. School was no refuge for Einstein. Einstein’s curiosity first found nurture around his family’s table, where on Thursday’s at noon, the family regularly set a place for a poor Jewish medical student by the name of Max Talmud. Talmud, sensing Einstein’s intellectual hunger, engaged him in conversations that ranged from science to mathematics to philosophy, treating the boy as an equal. By the age of ten, Einstein was something of a mathematical whiz, quickly solving the tricky problems that uncle Jakob brought weekly to the same table. At the age of twelve, Einstein discovered Euclid, which became for him a sacred text. Einstein’s 12th year was pivotal in another regard. He found a devout faith, to the point of once criticizing his parents for their lack of religious devotion. Piety, however, was short lived. Reading more and more widely of science and philosophy, ix … I soon reached the conviction that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true. The consequence was a positively fanatic [orgy of] freethinking coupled with the impression that youth is intentionally being deceived by the state through lies; it was a crushing impression. Suspicion against every kind of authority grew out of this experience … an attitude which has never left me … Disdain of authority would prove indispensable in challenging a god as large as Newton, but first it would cause him considerable misery. An early act of rebellion was relatively extreme. Just as he became eligible for the German draft, his father’s latest business venture failed. Relatives in Italy came to the rescue, but only on the condition that the Einstein’s move to Milan. German law forbade men to leave the country prior to their completion of military service. Thus, at the age of 15, Albert was left behind in a boarding school in Munich. Without family and friends, and with authoritarian teachers who provoked his animosity, Albert grew increasingly despondent. A kindly family doctor, who treated Albert for a routine illness, recognized that the high-strung teen was headed for emotional breakdown. The doctor’s letter “To whom it may concern,” and the support of a sympathetic math professor, provided Einstein’s ticket to escape. With these two endorsements, Einstein was given his passport to leave Germany and happily renounced his German citizenship, the first of two such occasions. Reunited with family in the freer atmosphere of Italy, his spirits soared. His sister Maja was astounded by the transformation of the withdrawn dreamer into an amiable young man. In Italy, Albert helped with the family business and argued with his father over his future. Albert thought of teaching philosophy. His father demanded he study something practical. The will of the father prevailed, and Albert agreed to study electrical engineering at Zuricher Polytechnikum, Switzerland’s M.I.T. Alas, he promptly flunked the entrance exam. Einstein’s ability in math and science, however, did not escape the notice of the school officials, nor did his youth. The prestigious Polytechnic agreed to admit him at 17 provided he could secure a high-school diploma in the intervening year. For that, his family packed him off to Aarau, near Zurich. In Switzerland, Albert also thrived. Swiss teachers were all that the German ones were not: relaxed, informal, open to free discussion and student invention. One instructor, Jost Winteler, invited Einstein to lodge with his family. The Wintelers, warm people with four children, made Einstein feel as one of their own. There he endeared himself to the young Winteler children by creating and flying homemade kites, and there he fell in love with their oldest daughter Marie, helped along by idyllic walks in the Swiss countryside and musical duets with Marie on piano and Albert on violin. In the fall of 1897, Albert left the Wintelers for Zurich Polytechnic, and Marie went off to a nearby town to teach first grade. They were deeply in love, but it was not to last. In Zurich, Einstein’s rebelliousness flared once again. Accustomed to the relaxed atmosphere of Aarau, Einstein was informal with his professors, an attitude unappreciated in the columned halls of the Polytechnic.