and Betty J. "How Albert Einstein (1879-1955) Changed the Way We See the Universe,” by FranklinParker, bfparker@frontiernet.net, review of Walter Isaacson’s Einstein, His Life and Universe, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2007, and related sources, given 21 Apr. '08, Uplands Retirement Village. Pleasant Hill, TN.

Betty: Frank, Walter Isaacson, author of Einstein, His Life and Universe, Simon & Schuster, 2007 best seller, is a journalist.1 He was Time magazine’s editor when his staff chose Einstein as the most important person of the 20th century. 2 He now heads the Aspen Institute, Washington, D.C., a leadership think tank.3

Frank: The new Einstein mania spurt includes, besides Isaacson's biography, German science writer Jürgen Neffe's highly regarded Einstein: A Biography, Farrar Straus Giroux, English version, 2007, plus film rights to Isaacson's book, with Isaacson as film consultant, plus news of other forthcoming Einstein films. Einstein is a household name as a scientific genius, yet so little known. Our pleasant task is to share who Einstein was, and how and why he changed the way we see the universe.4

B: About Albert's family: his father Hermann Einstein (1847-1902), at age 29, in Bavaria, Germany, married Pauline née Koch (K-o-c-h, 1858-1920), age 18, in 1876. Both were non-observing Jews.. Pauline, a prosperous grain dealer’s daughter, was cultured, well read, a pianist and music lover. Hermann, whom she dominated, was a salesman in a relative's featherbed factory; generous, thoughtful, a devoted husband and father who finally failed in business.

F: Albert Einstein was born March 14, 1879, in Ulm (U-l-m), near Stuttgart, Germany; born into a world and universe whose clockwork orderliness Isaac Newton's (1642-1727) laws of motion and gravity explained some 200 years earlier (1685). Newton’s laws, then being questioned by Michael Faraday's (1791-1867) electromagnetism and by James Clerk Maxwell's (1831-1879) unitary view of electromagnetism and light, Albert Einstein would soon change forever .

B: Albert grew up in family involved in electromagnetism, generators, motors, electricity. His uncle, engineer-inventor Jakob Einstein (1850-1912), was electrifying southern German towns as Thomas Edison (1847-1931) did in New York City.5 Pauline encouraged Hermann’s partnership with Jakob backed by her family's loan. Just after Albert’s birth, the Einsteins moved (1880) from Ulm to Munich for better business opportunity.

F: Albert’s big head at birth made Pauline fear he was abnormal until reassured by her physician.6 Also a late talker, Albert later told a biographer, Q "My parents were worried because I started to talk comparatively late, and they consulted a doctor…."7EQ He was 2 when his only sibling sister was born, Marie, called “Maja” (M-a-j-a) Einstein (1881-1951). She later described him as quiet and introspective.8

B: When Albert was age 4 and ill, his father gave him a compass to play with. Albert later wrote: Q “When I saw…[its needle always point north, no matter how I turned it], the fact that it behaved in such a fixed way changed my understanding of the world. Until then, I thought that one thing had to touch another to make it move…. I realized that something deeply hidden had to lie behind things” 9 EQ [an early hint of his lifelong search for unity in nature].

F: Albert's schooling: he was kept at home until age 7, taught the 3 Rs by a tutor, and was enrolled in a nearby Catholic primary school, ages 7 to 9, 1885-88. He did well academically, received Catholic religious instruction in school plus state-required private Jewish instruction from a relative at home.

B: Taken as a little boy to watch a Prussian military parade, he cried out in horror: Q"I don't want to be [regimented like]…those poor people" EQ10 He disliked school discipline and rote learning, especially in secondary school at Munich's Luitpold Gymnasium (L-u-i-t-p-o-l-d), 6 years, ages 9 to 15, 1888-94.

F: Good in science and math, less interested in other subjects, he irritated some of his teachers by questioning their knowledge. His home room teacher, asked about Albert's potential, said disparagingly: Q “Nothing will ever come of him." EQ Told by that home room teacher that he was not welcome in class, Albert said he had done nothing wrong. His teacher said: Q "Yes, …but you sit there in the back row and smile and your mere presence here spoils the respect of the class for me."11 EQ. Albert later called his primary teachers sergeants, his gymnasium teachers lieutenants.

B: He learned more from reading textbooks on his own. Algebra Uncle Jakob taught him enthralled him. He mastered calculus by age 12. Math and science books reinforced his appreciation of orderliness in nature. He later said: Q "As a boy of 12, I was thrilled to see that it was possible to find out truth by reasoning alone, without the help of any outside experience."12 EQ

F: He took piano and violin lessons, urged by his mother; was a lifelong violinist; and saw harmony and unity in music, science, and nature.

B: Max Talmey (T-a-l-m-e-y, 1867-1941), 21, a poor Jewish medical student from Poland, invited to Thursday night Einstein meals from 1889 for a few years, shared with Albert, age 10, table talk on science, math, and philosophy.13

F: Talmey gave Albert a book series on natural science by Aaron Bernstein’s (1812-84) which described current scientific experiments. They were full of imaginative, creative what-ifs, leading Albert at 16 to ask: what if I could ride alongside a beam of light? Ref: People's Books on Natural Science.

B: Years later (1921) in New York, asked what he thought of Bernstein's books, Albert said: very good books, Q "[They] exerted a great influence on my whole development."14 EQ

F: Talmey, who influenced Albert at an impressionable age, remarked in his 1932 book about young Albert's Q "exceptional intelligence [which enabled him to discuss with me, a college graduate,] subjects far beyond the comprehension of so young a child." EQ. 15

B: Before age 10, Albert went through a religious phase. But from age 12 he doubted religious dogma. He and Max Talmey read philosopher Immanuel Kant's (1724-1804) very difficult Critique of Pure Reason. They discussed Kant’s belief that the universe can be understood by thought alone. Albert later read and agreed with philosopher Benedict Spinoza’s (1632-77) view that God works through nature's orderliness.

F: When Albert was 15, business failure led the two Einstein families to move to Italy near their northern Italy partner firm in Milan, then to nearby Pavia. Albert needed 3 more years to complete secondary school. His parents decided he should remain in Munich where an Einstein relative would look after him until he graduated.

B: Lonely, unhappy, Albert continued for six months at the Munich’s Gymnasium, which he did not like, knowing some teachers disliked him. He also dreaded German compulsory military service at age 17, two years ahead.

F: Albert asked the family physician for a letter stating that because of isolation from his family he was suffering from nervous exhaustion and needed the bracing air of northern Italy. From his math teacher he got a letter listing his high scores in math.

B: On Dec. 29, 1894, Albert, now a school dropout, took a train to Pavia, Italy, arriving unexpectedly at his parents' home. He told them why he had dropped out of school and how he planned to continue his education.

F: He would study on his own, take the entrance exam in autumn 1895 to enter the highly regarded Polytechnic College in Zurich, Switzerland,16 which did not require secondary school graduation if an applicant passed its difficult entrance examination, which he would take in autumn 1895. He also said: I want to renounce my German citizenship.

B: His parents listened, concerned. His father prudently delayed submitting renunciation of German citizenship forms until Albert in Switzerland had applied for Swiss citizenship. Released from German citizenship Jan. 1896, Albert was stateless until granted Swiss citizenship in 1901.

F: Albert helped in the family’s Pavia shop with its electric lighting equipment. He so impressed Uncle Jakob by solving electrical problems that Jakob assured everyone: Q “You will hear from him yet.” EQ

B: In spring and summer 1895 Albert hiked the Alps and Apennines from Pavia to Genoa to see his maternal Uncle Julius Koch. He visited art and other culture centers. He delighted in Italians' natural friendliness, so different from German stern discipline.

F: He read physics textbooks to help him prepare for the Zurich Polytechnic entrance exams. He would be 16 when he took the Polytechnic entrance test intended for age 18 and older. A family friend petitioned Zurich Polytechnic director Albin Herzog (1852-1909) to waive the age requirement.17

B: Albert passed the Zurich Polytechnic test in math and science but failed in literature, French, zoology, botany, and politics. Polytechnic Director Herzog suggested that Albert take a final secondary school year of guided study at nearby Aarau high school (A-a-r-a-u), whose graduates were automatically admitted to the Zurich Polytechnic.18

F: Aarau Cantonal School, 25 miles west of Zurich, influenced by progressive Swiss educator Johann Pestalozzi (1746-1827),18+ was teacher-friendly, student-centered, and fitted Albert's contemplative mind and independent spirit.

B: He later told a friend: Q "In Aarau I made my first rather childish experiments in thinking that had a direct bearing on the Special [Relativity] Theory. If a person could run after a light wave with the same speed as light, you would have a wave arrangement which could be completely independent of time…."19 EQ

F: He boarded with Jost and Rosa Winteler (W-i-n-t-e-l-e-r). Jost Winteler (1846-1929) was history and Greek professor. Marie, one of their 7 children, was Albert's first girl friend; she 18, he 16. 19+

B: With the Wintelers, Albert developed a quick wit and debonair jesting manner. When not in class or studying or hiking or playing violin duets or flirting with Marie Winteler, Albert warmed in the glow of the family's liberal conversation. 20

F: Graduating from the Aarau Cantonal School with the second highest grades except in French, he wrote of his future plans as follows:

B: Q "…I will enroll in the Zurich Polytechnic. I will stay there four years [1896-1900] to study mathematics and physics…. I will be a teacher …of these sciences…. ¶[I have a] talent for abstract…thinking…. I am attracted by…the profession of science." 22 EQ

F: Albert enrolled, Oct. 29, 1896, in Zurich Polytechnic's department preparing secondary school math and physics teachers, headed by Prof. Heinrich Weber (1942-1913). 22+

B: Romance came to Albert at Zurich Polytechnic. He met Mileva Maric (M-i-l-e-v-a M-a-r-i-c 1875-1948), the only woman student in this department. She was from Novi Sad (N-o-v-i S-a-d), Serbia, daughter of a wealthy landowner and judge. She had a congenital hip dislocation and limped slightly.

F: Mileva, bright in math and physics, determined to succeed, had won top honors in an all-male Serbian science school. She at 21, Albert at 17, were at first casual friends who hiked together in the summer of 1897. Albert, a debonair ladies' man, dropped Marie Winteler to woo Mileva Maric. Besides their shared interest in science and math, Albert admired Mileva for being, like himself, a rebel, outsider, survivor.23

B: Their friendship ripened into love. He called her "Dollie"; she called him "Johnnie." Mileva Maric became, in Walter Isaacson's words: Q "Einstein's muse, partner, lover, wife [17 years, 1903-19]…and [finally] antagonist." 24 EQ

F: In his last two years at Zurich Polytechnic Albert skipped Prof. Heinrich Weber's physics lectures, disappointed at Weber's not covering modern scientists, particularly Scottish James Clerk Maxwell. Albert avidly read and discussed with science friends in Zurich cafes Maxwell's Electricity and Magnetism, 1873; and Matter and Motion, 1876.25

B: Albert irritated his major professor by addressing him as "Herr Weber" instead of the more respectful "Herr Professor." Prof. Weber gave Albert a dressing down (1898-99): Q "You're a clever boy. But you have one great fault: you'll never let yourself be told anything." 24 EQ

F: Albert's other physics professor, Jean Pernet (1845-1902) asked his assistant: Q "What do you make of Einstein? He always does something different from what I have ordered." EQ The assistant replied, Q "He does indeed, Herr Professor, but his solutions are right and the methods he uses are of great interest." 25 EQ

B: Albert focused more on physics, less on math. He neglected math Prof. Hermann Minkowski's (1864-1909) advanced math courses, much to his later regret.26 EQ

F: Studying only what interested him, Albert risked failing the all-important final exams. He was tutored by friends: engineering student Micheleangelo Besso,26+ math major Marcel Grossmann (1878-1936), and Mileva Maric. Marcel Grossmann, whose lecture notes particularly helped, understood Albert’s independent spirit, recognized Albert's talents, and told his parents, Q "This Einstein will one day be a great man." 26+Grossman EQ

B: Albert barely passed his final exams. Mileva Maric failed but planned to try again.27

F: Financial aid from his family stopped after Albert finished his Zurich studies.27+ His fellow graduates all got coveted teaching or research assistantships. But no one answered Albert’s application,s which he sent far and wide.

B: Albert complained that Prof. Heinrich Weber's bad references prevented his getting a job. Mileva attributed his joblessness to his rebel attitude and to anti-Semitism. She explained: Q" You know my sweetheart has a sharp tongue and moreover…is a Jew" EQ.28

F: Einstein, an acknowledged genius, could not find an academic position after college graduation. For 18 months his only income was from short term poorly paid substitute teaching.

B: Isaacson described him in this jobless period as: Q "Einstein the Nobody." EQ His father Hermann, knowing Albert had twice unsuccessfully applied for an assistantship to University of Leipzig chemistry Prof. Wilhelm Ostwald, wrote Ostwald, without telling Albert:

F: Q"…Esteemed Herr Professor! ¶.…my son Albert, …22…, unhappy with his present lack of position,…is oppressed by the thought that he is a burden on us, people of modest means….¶I have taken the liberty of [asking you] to…write him… a few words of encouragement, so that he might recover his joy in living and working. ¶If…you could secure him an Assistant's position…my gratitude would know no bounds…. Hermann Einstein." 29 EQ Ostwald never responded.

B: Albert's mother opposed Albert's romance with Mileva Maric, thinking Mileva unsuitable, older, unhealthy, non-Jewish, a foreigner.29+opposed During summer 1900 family vacation his mother asked Albert, Q "What will become of your Dollie now?" EQ

F: Albert curtly replied: engagement and marriage. His mother wept. Still worse, she and Albert's father sent a jointly signed letter to Mileva Maric's parents listing reasons against the marriage.

B: Concerned about Albert's joblessness, his friend Marcel Grossmann told his father of Albert's difficulties. The elder Grossmann spoke to his friend, Swiss Patent Office Director Friedrich Haller (1844-1936). Haller told Albert that he would be considered if he applied when a Patent Office job opened. Pinning his hopes on this possibility, Albert moved to Bern where the Patent Office was located.

F: On a romantic interlude at Lake Como on the Swiss-Italian border, spring 1901, Albert and Mileva conceived a love child. Mileva wrote Albert she was with child. Albert answered, pledging to find a job Q "no matter how humble…[and despite] my scientific goals and my personal vanity." 30 EQ

B: Albert was with his family the summer of 1901 when Mileva retook her failed Zurich Polytechnic final exams. Three months pregnant, sick, her pregnancy a secret, with Albert's parents opposed to their marriage, she failed again. Albert was not with her when, home in Serbia with her family, she gave birth to a baby girl Lieserl (L-i-e-s-e-r-l), Feb. 1902. 31

F: Albert never saw, his parents never knew about, Lieserl. Lieserl's birth first became known in 1986 from newly found Einstein family letters. Behind the secrecy—speculating from Albert's then troubled situation--he was the jobless, unconventional, near-bohemian father of an illegitimate child, unable to support a family, whose parents opposed his love mate. If he became publicly tarred as immoral he might not get the Swiss Patent Office job.

B: Mileva, in Serbia, her family helping, cared for the baby, exchanged anxious love letters with Albert, patiently awaited his hoped for job, his promised marriage. Researchers speculate that Mileva's close friend in Serbia, Helene Kaufler Savic (S-a-v-i-c) took custody of Lieserl and that Lieserl died of scarlet fever.32

F: Needing money, awaiting the Patent Office job, Albert's ad in a Bern newspaper read: Q "Private lessons in Mathematics and Physics….. Trial lessons free,"33 EQ attracted local students Maurice Solovine (S-o-l-o-v-i-n-e, 1875-19580), Conrad Habicht, Micheleangelo Besso, and a few others. Albert's lectures soon gave way to freewheeling discussions on physics, philosophy, classic books, over food and drink, on country walks, and on mountain hikes.34

B: These humorously self-named Olympia Academy avant garde rebels read and discussed classics, including philosophers Spinoza on God in nature and David Hume (1711-76) on skepticism. They discussed rebel scientists Austrian physicist Ernst Mach (M-a-c-h, 1838-1916), French mathematician Henri Poincaré (P-o-i-n-c-a-r-é, 1854-1912), on both of whose works Albert later built his theories of relativity.

F: Finally, June 16, 1902. Albert was appointed Swiss Patent Office Technical Expert Class 3 Provisional. Director Friedrich Haller instructed him: Q "When you pick up an application think that everything the inventor says is wrong." EQ Be critical, vigilant, question every premise, challenge everything--an approach independent, skeptical Albert liked.35

B: Soon expert in judging patent applications, Albert rushed through the day's work to do his own gedanken (thought) experiments, hiding his notes when visitors or Director Haller approached. The Patent Office job, Albert later wrote: Q “…enforced my many-sided thinking and also provided important stimuli to…thought[s on physics].” 36 EQ

F: Hermann Einstein, 55, on his deathbed in Milan, Italy, on Oct. 10, 1902, gave Albert permission to marry Mileva Maric. Albert wept. He and Mileva were married Jan. 6, 1903, in a civil ceremony attended only by two Olympia Academy friends.

B: With a steady job, income, marriage, regularity, Albert and Mileva had a son, Hans Albert Einstein (born May 14, 1904-73*ref). Albert also had for intellectual companionship his close friend Michelangelo Besso, who joined Albert as co-worker in the Patent Office, 1904 They endlessly discussed how mass (i.e. matter), light, space, time were related. Between 1901-04 Albert wrote and published reviews of new physics writings and several what he called "practice papers."

F: Then in 1905, later called Einstein's "Miracle Year," in a flurry during 3 months, March-April-May, 1905, Albert wrote four papers published in the German physics journal, Annalen der Physik, plus his doctoral dissertation (*ref), which soon thrust him into the company of Europe's leading physicists. Of this "Miracle Year" 1905 he later wrote: Q “A storm broke out in my mind.” EQ *ref.

B: First of Albert's four 1905 papers was on the photo-electric effect of light, long thought to be a wave. Light, Albert wrote, also acts like fast-moving particles. When electrons in light particles hit some metals they warm the metals, releasing electrons from the metals. This photo-electric effect of light is the basis of light-operated automatic garage and other door openers, laser beams used in surgery, compact disks, television screens, PET scans imaging for cancer, etc.

F: Albert’s photo-electric effect paper also helped establish Quantum Physics, the study of the erratic behavior of electrons circling protons inside atoms. Because this photo-electric effect paper was verifiable and practical it earned Albert the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics. His later Relativity papers were less understood and more controversial. 37

B: Albert's second 1905 paper explained "Brownian Movement," named after Scottish biologist Robert Brown (1773-1858). In 1827 Brown found under a microscope that tiny grains of pollen placed in water suddenly moved about irregularly. Albert proved mathematically, 78 years later, that water molecules randomly hitting the pollen grains caused the jittery motion. His paper convinced doubting scientists that molecules and atoms exist, are active, and can be quantified.39 and 40

F: His third 1905 paper on the Special Theory of Relativity was more important, less understood. We think we sit still in a room. But we and everything else in the universe move as our earth turns on its axis, revolves around our sun, our sun revolves with other suns in our Milky Way galaxy, our Milky Way galaxy moves among a spiral of other galaxies, and so on. Albert’s insight was that all movement, all events are relative to an observer’s place and rate of movement.

B: Isaac Newton's laws since 1685 held that apples fall, heavenly bodies orbit, space and time are separate and fixed because of gravity. Albert's different thought came from Scottish scientist James Clerk Maxwell's finding in 1873 that light, moving at 186,000 miles per second, is actually the visual form of an electromagnetic wave.

F: Building on two certainties—1-physics laws are the same everywhere; 2-nothing travels faster than light—Albert explained that all objects move, all events occur, relative to an observer’s place and rate of movement.

B: On his daily streetcar ride home from work, looking back, Albert saw Bern, Switzerland's famous Clock Tower receding. If his streetcar heading away from the Clock Tower could approach the speed of light, he reasoned, its clock hands would appear to stop while his own pocket watch would tick normally.

F: On earth where the fastest moving thing is a tiny fraction the speed of light's 186,000 miles per second, Newton’s laws hold firm. Time and space do seem separate and fixed. But on a fast moving spaceship, approaching the speed of light, a clock aboard it slows down.

B: The faster the spaceship, the more its clock slows down, called Time Dilation. Time Dilation has been proved, most recently in 1971 with two identically set atomic clocks, one stationary on the ground, the other jet-flown around the world. When the two clocks were compared, the jet flown clock had slowed down.

F: To humans inside a speeding spaceship all seems normal. But as the spaceship passes a stationary outside observer, the front-part of the spaceship looks shortened to the observer, its end-part looks lengthened, called Space Dilation.

B: If these findings seem unlikely, remember: our forebears long believed incorrectly in a flat earth; incorrectly that earth was the center of the universe.

F: Albert's genius was to think differently, outside common thought, "outside the box." Everything in his strangely mixed up life led to these 1905 intuitive grand discoveries. Chance favored his prepared mind.

B: Albert worked out mathematical proof that Time and Space are not fixed, not separate, but are interwoven as timespace. To our 3 dimensions of length, width, and height he added a fourth dimension of spacetime. When he finished this paper he gave his 31 scribbled pages to Mileva to check for math errors, and fell exhausted into bed. 41

F: Albert’s short fourth 1905 paper, an afterthought to his third Special Theory of Relativity paper, held that matter and energy are similar and can be converted one into the other.

B: Marie Curie (1867-1934) had discovered this in l902 when uranium from pitch-blend, which is matter, gave off electronic radiation, which is energy. Albert reduced this matter-to-energy conversion to a formula, E=mc2.

F: E for Energy equals mass (which is, matter), multiplied by c (c for celeritus, Latin for speed of light), squared. 186,000 miles per second, squared, is so huge a number that if atoms on a pinhead could be split apart, those atoms would explode like an atom bomb.42

B: Biographer Walter Isaacson wrote: Q “Einstein’s 1905 burst of creativity was astonishing. He had devised a revolutionary quantum theory of light, helped prove the existence of atoms, explained Brownian motion, upended the concept of space and time, and produced what would become science’s best known equation.“43 EQ

F: His Special Theory of Relativity, Albert knew, covered only bodies moving parallel in straight lines at constant speeds. It would take him 10 years to find a General Theory of Relativity, backed by math, that explained how and why bodies move at varying speeds in curved motion around other bodies. When proven, his General Theory of Relativity would make him world famous.43+

B: Waiting to be recognized, still needing Patent Office income, he wrote other scholarly papers and also completed his Ph.D. dissertation for the University of Zurich, summer 1905.

F: His application to be a University of Bern lecturer required submitting another original physics paper, which allowed him to lecture, unpaid except for student fees, during 1908-09. He had to lecture early, 7 to 8 a.m., before Patent Office hours, and so had few students.44

B: First to inquire about Relativity by letter was world renowned University of Berlin physicist Max Planck (P-l-a-n-c-k, 1858-1947). Planck soon added Relativity to his lectures. Planck's assistant, Max von Lau (1879-1960), sent to Bern to consult Albert, was surprised to find him working as a lowly Patent Office clerk. 44+ Noticed at last, Albert received job offers and soon climbed the academic ladder.

F: Appointed associate professor of physics at the University of Zurich, 1909-10, Albert resigned from the Patent Office July 6, 1909 where his best thinking had been done for 7 years. He moved with Mileva, and 5-year old Hans Einstein to Zurich, Oct. 15, 1909, where their second son Eduard was born, July 28, 1910. 43
B: He next became full professor at German Speaking Karl-Ferdinand University in Prague, 1911-12. From here he attended a science conference in Brussels, Belgium, October 1911, where, at 32, the youngest physicist present, he met for the first time the greatest living physicists of the time. 44-48
F: Albert next became physics professor at Zurich Polytechnic, 1912-14, his alma mater, then upgraded to full Ph.D.-granting status. It was a fortunate move because his friend Marcel Grossmann, then head of the Polytechnic's math department, taught Albert tensor calculus for curved space he would need to prove his 1915 General Theory of Relativity.
B: Albert’s last top European position was at the prestigious University of Berlin, 1914-33, 19 years, through World War I, Germany's defeat and economic collapse, and Hitler’s rise to power, 47+ which forced Albert to move to the U.S. in 1933.
F: As a busy housewife raising two boys, the younger one, Eduard, a schizophrenic, Mileva's science interest waned. She resented Albert’s several extra-marital affairs, was bitter that he took the prestigious Berlin position partly to be near his divorced cousin Elsa Einstein (1876-1936), with whom he had an affair.

B: Marital friction deepened. Albert wrote out conditions under which he would live with Mileva: Q "You make sure . . . that I receive my three meals regularly in my room." EQ Q "You are neither to expect intimacy nor to reproach me in any way." 48 EQ They separated. Mileva and the two boys left Berlin July 1914 for Zurich, Switzerland. WW I began the next month, Aug. 1, 1914.

F: To get Mileva to agree to a divorce Albert promised her and the boys the money from the Nobel Prize in Physics award he expected, having been nominated annually since 1910. The divorce was finalized Feb. 14, l919, with Albert admitting adultery.
B: Einstein and Albert were cousins. She had been married, then divorced. 48+ She had two daughters Lisa and Margot in Berlin where Albert visited her in 1912, before taking the Berlin job.
F: Separation and divorce from Mileva, overwork, lacking regularity, Albert, seriously ill during 1917-19, was restored by Elsa. They married June 2, 1919. Elsa gave him regularity, protection, freedom to think and write.49
B: Albert's first insight into his 1915 General Theory of Relativity came in a thought-experiment in 1907 while still at the Patent Office: if a workman fell from a roof, until he hit the ground, he and everything on him would be weightless in free fall. So too would be people in a falling elevator atop a big building whose holding cable had snapped. His startling insight, which surprised even him, was that moving heavenly bodies, like people and objects in free fall, carry spacetime with them.

F: His insights, simply stated, were: 1-The more mass a moving heavenly body has the more curved timespace it carries with it. 2-Newton’s gravity is really curved timespace. 3-When starlight reaches a large mass like the sun that starlight will be slightly bent by the curved timespace around the sun's enormous mass. 4-If he could figure the precise arc of light-bent around an eclipsed sun, then a photograph of that eclipse would prove his General Theory of Relativity.

B: Helped by tensor calculus for curved space (taught him by math friend Marcel Grossmann at Zurich Polytechnic, 1912-14) Albert published his General Relativity paper, March 20, 1915, with a revision published in 1916. 49+

F: In 1917 with WW I raging, Britain’s Royal Astronomer Frank Watson Dyson (1868-1939) planned for Cambridge University astronomer Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882-1944) to head a British team to photograph an eclipse predicted two years hence, on May 29, 1919. 49++
B: A photo team went to Principe, a Portuguese island off West Africa; another photo team went to Sobral, northern Brazil, the two best viewing sites. Photos confirmed Einstein's degree of light deflection. Einstein's General Relativity Theory was proven true.
F: This news gathered England's greatest scientists in the Great Room, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London, Nov. 6, 1919. After reports by Dyson and Eddington, Royal Society Pres. J. J. Thomson said: Q "If…Einstein's reasoning holds …then [this] is…one of the highest achievements of human thought."50 EQ. (ref:
B: London Times, Nov. 7, 1919, headline: Q ”Revolution in Science. New Theory of the Universe. Newton’s Ideas Overthrown.” EQ Similar headlines, with Einstein’s photo, emblazoned world newspapers, making Einstein an instant hero.50+

F: This hero worship was the public’s sigh of relief that long, bloody, devastating WW I was over. God, morality, good will, peace on earth—which many thought had died in the trenches--were restored.

B: With peace came news that Einstein, an anti-war German-born Swiss citizen had discovered something new about the universe. His discovery was confirmed by an English pacifist Quaker scientist. Peaceful international scientific cooperation temporarily replaced WW I hatred.
F: Amazed at the adulation, Albert called the newspaper accounts Q "amusing feats of imagination" EQ The war-weary public, needing someone to idolize and lionize, embraced a stunned Einstein. What Relativity meant did not matter. His opinion was asked about everything under the sun. His disarming, witty replies, widely reported, brought smiles. His wife Elsa Einstein loved the attention.
B: The Nobel Prize in Physics committee, embarrassed for by-passing Einstein since 1910, awarded Albert its 1921 prize, not for controversial Relativity, but for his practical 1905 photo-electric effect paper. The prize money, $32,000, went as promised to ex-wife Mileva Maric and their two sons. 52

F: Albert never understood the adulation but used it as a platform for his pacifist views. He criticized fellow scientists who worked for Germany's war effort in poison gas and other weapons.

B: He stated publicly that if even 2% percent of military draftees refused to serve, all war machines would grind to a halt. His Jewishness plus his opposition to the early Nazi movement made him a marked man.

F: With the rise of Hitler's Nazism his books were burned as Q “Jewish science.” EQ A price was put on his head dead or alive. His money in Berlin banks was confiscated. His country home at Carputh near Berlin was ransacked. He fled to the U.S., worked at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, N.J., 22 years, from 1933 to his death.

B: Hitler's atrocities modified his pacifism. Refugee European physicists told him in the U.S. that Nazi scientists were close to splitting the uranium atom to make a devastating bomb. His Aug. 2, 1939, letter to Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt warning of the catastrophic danger, along with pressure from British intelligence, led to the Manhattan Project.

F: When he learned of the atom bombs dropped on Japan to end WWII, he sadly regretted having been involved.53 He died in Princeton Hospital, N.J., April 18, 1955, age 76, scribbling formulas on paper, still searching to know the mind of God.
B: Final observations: Einstein’s E=mc2 equation founded modern cosmology. It led scientists to search for the origin of the universe and the beginning of timespace in a mammoth Big Bang 13.7 billion year ago, filling our expanding universe, energy bursting constantly from our sun.
F: Einstein’s E=mc2 works its way up from deep layers inside our earth through volcanoes on land and ocean floors; pushes up chemicals below to fertilize our soil, gives us grass, flowers, trees, bread, meat, vegetables, life; fills our clouds with carbon dioxide that creates a protective greenhouse above a habitable life-giving earth.
B: Einstein's E=mc2 uncovered for us Nature's greatest secrets: nuclear energy for industry; lights for our homes. Nuclear power lights 80% of France, including its Eiffel Tower.
F: Einstein's E=mc2 surrounds us everyday in so many ways. Smoke detectors draw energy from tiny bits of americium.53 Emergency exit signs in shopping malls, movie houses, theaters, auditoriums still function from encapsulated radioactive tritium.54 Hospitals' powerful imaging devices known as PET scans (Ref.Positron Emission Tomography) depend on radioactive oxygen isotopes. Einstein’s theories gave us these and so much more. (ref. his inventions)
B: Of Einstein’s genius author Walter Isaacson wrote: he was blessed with imagination guided by a faith in the harmony of nature's handiwork. His non-conformist personality, his instinct as a rebel, his passions and detachments intertwined his science and his politics. His character, imagination, and creativity were as related as the unity in Nature he always sought.
F: In revolting against the status quo young Einstein gave us a new view of the universe. Older Einstein resisted Quantum Physics, which he helped found, because its advocates denied certainty in nature, believing probabilities are all we can rely on.
B: Nature's God, Einstein was convinced, Q" does not play dice."EQ He was a reverential rebel, guided by a secular faith. He was a serenely amused loner, comfortable in not conforming, independent in his thinking, driven by imagination. By breaking away from conventional wisdom, he helped usher in our modern age.
F: We enjoyed reviewing this book. Thank you for being here. We hope next year to review a book about Einstein’s love life and another on the history of E=mc2. Please take a copy of our paper whose footnotes includes more than we could say in an hour. Question time.
END


Dennis Overbye, Einstein in Love, and David Bodanis, E=mc2; both 2000.


Frank: Here’s what a scientist wrote of Einstein’s 1905 findings, 100 years later, in 2005: “E=mc2 is the secret of the stars. It is the cosmic engine that drives the entire universe. It means that even a few tablespoons of matter, if fully [bombarded], can release the energy of an atomic bomb. It’s the reason why the stars shine and why the Sun lights up the Earth. Matter and energy are…the same thing, and can turn into each other. Even a rock can turn into a light ray if the rock [is] uranium and the light ray is a burst of atomic radiation.”6




(ref: White, Gribble, "The Peripatetic Professor," Chap. 7 ": UofZurich, 1910; Karl-Friedrich U, Prague, 1911-12; Zurich Polytechnic, 1912-14; Univ. of Berlin, 1914-32)


Books Read by Authors

1- Clark, Ronald W. Einstein: The Life and Times. NY: World Publishing Co., 1956.
2-Hoffman, Banesh, with Collaboration of Helen Dukas. Albert Einstein, Creator and Rebel. NY: Viking Press, 1972.
3-Isaacson, Walter. Einstein, His Life and Universe. NY: Simon & Schuster, 2007.
4¬-Parker, Barry. Einstein’s Brainchild, Relativity Made Easy. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2000.
5-Schwartz, Joseph and Michael McGinness, E=MC2: Einstein for Beginners. NY: Pantheon Books, 1979.
6-White, Michael and John Gribbin. Einstein, A Life in Science. NY: Penguin, 1993.
7-Zackheim, Michele. Einstein’s Daughter, The Search for Lieserl. NY: Penguin Putnam, 1999.
Children’s Books Read by Authors
1-Caliprice, Alice, Editor. Dear Professor Einstein. Foreword by Evelyn Einstein. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2002. A.E.’s letters to and from children.
2-Cwiklik, Robert. Albert Einstein and the Theory of Relativity. Hauppauge, NY: Barron’s Educational Series. Profiles in science for young people, ages 12-13.
3-Ireland, Karin. Albert Einstein. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Silver Burdett Press, 1989.
4-Lakin, Patricia. Albert Einstein, Genius of the Twentieth Century. NY: Aladdin, 2005.
Footnotes
1Isaacson, Walter. Einstein, His Life and Universe, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2007, pp. xv-xviii, Acknowledgement, lists experts who checked his book’s accuracy, included several editors of Einstein’s papers and some 10 prominent physicists and science historians. Isaacson, interviewed on Dec. 7, 1999, tells why the then editors, past editors, and consulting historians chose Albert Einstein as Person of the 20th Century and discusses Einstein's importance and his views on God. See:
https://www.time.com/time/community/transcripts/1999/122799isaacson.html
2Aspen Institute, Washington, D.C., leadership discussion group with world-wide connections: https://www.aspeninstitute.org/site/c.huLWjeMRKpH/b.4939471
3We were also motivated to review this book because Einstein’s theories were central in Stephen Hawking, A Briefer History of Time, 2005, which we reviewed April 18, 2007. Try accessing our Hawking paper at: https://www.toadfire.com/blog_full.jsp?blogID=3469
or: https://bfparker.blog.co.uk/2007/01/15/p15560474https://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19991231,00.html
4-Neff and 2008 news of Einstein film projects: https://search.curryguide.com/execute/search/nph-web.cgi?query=Albert+Einstein%2C+film+rights&x=20&y=7&ac=pandia&adbg=ffffff&intprom=s&where=&lang=&match=&sum=n%3An&pp=16&sd=
4Isaacson, Chap. Two. For Albert Einstein’s parents, see: https://www.google.com/search?q=Albert+Einstein's+parents&sourceid=navclient-ff&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1B3GGGL_enUS233US234
5-Thomas Edison (1847-1931) electrified a square mile of buildings in lower Manhattan, New York City, Sept. 4, 1882. Source?
5Alb big head.
6late talker…consult a doctor”. By one account little Albert suddenly said for the first time at a meal, Q “The soup is too hot.” EQ His relieved parents asked, “Why haven’t you spoken like this before?” His alleged reply was, "So far everything has been in order." need source:???
7Marie (called Maja) Einstein (1881-1951) and Albert were close all their lives. She later (1909) earned a doctorate in Romance Languages, University of Bern, Switzerland, married, and in 1939 fled Hitler's Germany for the U.S. to live with Albert on Mercer Street, Princeton, N.J. She died at age 70, June 25, 1951. For her writing on her brother Albert, see: ????. See also https://www.einstein-website.de/biographies/einsteinmaja_content.html
8Age 4, ill, compass…hidden behind things.”
9Nova ’97
10Isaacson p21 P
11Isaacp22; David Bodanis
12Isaacson, pp. 17-18.
13www.chem.harvard.edu/herschbach/Einstein_Student.pdf
14Born Max Talmud (Talmud means instruction or the authoritative body of Jewish tradition) it was changed to Max Talmey when he immigrated to the U.S.
14Isaacsp19.
15Max Talmey, Relativity Theory Simplified and the Formative Period of its Inventor, With an Introduction by George B. Pegram, 1932. Talmud gave Albert a book titled Force and Matter, never imagining that years later Einstein would publish theories of relativity, show that matter could be turned into energy, give the world the famous formula, E =mc2, show that space and time were one, and that that Newton’s gravity was really curved spacetime.
16Called Zurich Polytechnic in this paper for clarity it was founded 1854, opened 1855, as Swiss Federation of Technology, known familiarly as ETH, its German abbreviation. It was highly ranked academically when Albert Einstein attended (1896-1900) and since; 21 Nobel Laureates have been associated with ETH. with Albert’s first born son Hans Albert Einstein (1904-73) also attended ETH, received his Ph.D. in technical sciences in 1936. See: Fox and Keck, pp. 49-52; and: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETH_Zurich
17Gustav Maier's banking firm in Ulm, Germany had been located on the same street as Einstein's grandfather's featherbed factory.] See: https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E02E2DB123BF937A25751COA962948260&sec=health&spon=&pagewanted=print
18First entrance exam dates: Oct. 8-14, 1895. On Heinrich Weber, see: https://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Weber_Heinrich.html
18 + Pestalozzi also influenced the John Dewey (1859-1952) child-centered progressive school movement in the U.S.
19thought quest Isaacs26
19+Another Winteler daughter Anna later married Albert's close friend Micheleangelo Besso (B-e-s-s-o, 1873-1955). The Winteler son, Paul, later married Albert's sister Maja, forming a life-long Einstein-Winteler connection.
20Ref ?
21Ref on Wintelers
22Isaacsp.31. essay in French
22+In Summer 1896 after the Einstein electric firm failed, Albert's father started a dynamo business, again on borrowed money.
23On Marie Winteler's despondency, breakdown, recovery, marriage, and more, see: Marie+Winteler&sourceid=navclient-ff&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1B3GGGL_enUS233US234
24Ref. Isaacsp., 34, 42 2Isaacsp.34 Weber quote)
25Ibid., p.34.
25Ibid.,, p.35. Einstein ignored Prof. Jean Pernet's lab instructions, caused a lab explosion, which injured his (Einstein's) right hand.
26Ibid., p.35; Math Prof. Minkowski, who later remarked that Einstein was: Q "…a lazy dog [who] never bothers about mathematics at all," ironically in 1907, 7 years after Albert graduated from Zurich Polytechnic, developed the mathematical framework that made Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity more acceptable to scientists.. Prof Minkowski said sometime after 1905: “For me it [Einstein’s work] came as a tremendous surprise .. . for in his student days Einstein had been a lazy sluggard [Faulpelz]. He never bothered about mathematics at all.” See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Minkowki
26++Michelangelo Besso later married Anna Winteler of Aarau.
26+Grossman Marcel Grossmann, whose father owned a factory near Zurich, later helped Albert in two turning points of his life; first, by persuading his father to speak to the Swiss Patent Office director about Einstein's abilities, leading to Einstein's Patent Office job (1902-09); and secondly, then math Prof. Marcel Grossman taught Einstein during 1911-12 (both then taught at Zurich Polytecnic) the special math for curved space Einstein needed for his 1915 General Theory of Relativity.
27 and 27+Albert Einstein’s final exam score at Zurich Polytechnic was 4.9 out of 6, allowing him to graduate on July 28, 1900. Mileva's Maric’s failing score was 4 out of 6.
White/Gribble p. 40, 49.
28Isaacs, p. 61; Ref: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/einstein/bodanis.html)
29 Shortened from full version in: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/einstein/bodanis.html
29+Neither Marie Winteler nor Mileva Maric were Jews.
30Isaacson, p. 66 Mileva’s love child
31Ibid., p66; Chap 4, "The Lovers."
32Ibid. Savic
33Ibid., Chap 4. For a photo of Habicht, Solovine, and Einstein, see: https://www.einstein-website.de/z_biography-e.html
34????
35Isaap. 79-84 [Read Sophocles, etc. ]
35Marcel Grossman first told Einstein of the possible Swiss Patent Office position at Bern in April 1901. Einstein applied for the post in Dec. 1901; was offered the post, June 16, 1902; stared work there, June 23, 1902; his job was confirmed as permanent, Sept. 1904; he was promoted to Technical Expert Second Class, April 1, 1906; and resigned July 6, 1909, to become University of Zurich physics professor. ?Souce:?
36https://www.einsteinyear.org/facts/timeline/
37Albert Einstein, "On a Heuristic [i.e., Hypothetical] Point of View Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light," Annalen der Physik, Vol. 17 (June 9, 1905).
38https://www.onlineathens.com/multir
39Albert Einstein, "On the Movement of Small Particles Suspended in Stationary Liquids Required by the Molecular-Kinetic Theory of Heat," Annalen der Physik, Vol. 17 (July 18, 1905)
40https://www.aip.org/history/einstein/great1.htm
41Albert Einstein, "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies," Annalen der Physik (Annals of Physics), Vol. 17 (Sept. 26, 1905); Isaac Chap 5 and 6; https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/einstein/kaku.html
43Isaac p. 140)
43---Einstein's University of Zurich Ph.D. dissertation (1905): "A New Determination of Molecular Dimensions," became his most cited publications because of its usefulness in ??????. His earlier submitted Relativity paper as his dissertation was rejected as inadequate.
43+Speculation abounds on the origin of Einstein’s genius. His father had a markedly careful way of looking at things from every possible angle. His mother may account for his independence and determination. Judaism may account for his reverence for an all-knowing God who works through nature's wonders His minority status as a Jew among Christians may have spurred his drive for thinking /doing the impossible.
44The two were his friend Michele Besso and Albert’s sister Maja, then studying for the University of Zurich Ph.D. in Romance Languages. White and Gribble, p. 75.
43Sickly second son Eduard Einstein (1910-65) succumbed to schizophrenia in 1930 and died at age 55 in a Zurich mental asylum. Mother Mileva as caretaker bore most of the emotional burden and Albert paid the financial cost.
44-48Einstein, 32, met for the first time: France's Marie Curie, 44 J.H. Poincaré,46, Louis-Victor. de Broglie.47 Germany's Max Planck,45 England's Ernest Rutherford, and Holland’s H.A. Lorentz 44Marie Curie wrote: “I much admire the work which Einstein has published…and think…his work as being in the first rank.” White & Gribble, p. 109.
43+The mysteries is how, alone, in his head, during 10 hectic troubled years, ages 16 to 26, he took insights from earlier scientists' findings and put them together in new remarkable ways. Few before in all history had ever made such imaginative leaps. Many have speculated on the source of his rare intelligence; his boldness to be, do, and think differently. What influences came from father, mother, Judaism, minority status, vicissitudes, temper of the time? Why was he the right person at the right time with the right insight?
44 +University of Berlin physicist Max Planck became Einstein's mentor and father figure; his assistant von Lau became Einstein’s helpful friend.
45Max Planck wrote: “If Einstein’s theory should prove to be correct, as I expect it will, he will be considered the Copernicus of the twentieth century.” Amir D. Aczel, God’s Equation: Einsteiin, Relativity, and the Expanding Universe. NY: Four Walls Eight Windows, 1999, p. 27.
46Isaac, pp.168-71.
47+In Berlin, 1914-33 Albert was also a member of the Prussian Academy of Science and directed research at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute Ref.
48https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/einstein/life/family.php
48+Elsa Einstein was married to and then divorced Max Lowenthal (1864-1914) in 1908.
49https://www.einstein-website.de/biographies/einsteinelsa.html
49+An abortive attempt was to photo-test a summer 1914 eclipse best seen in the Crimea, Russia by Berlin's Royal Prussian Observatory assistant Irwin Freundlich (1885-1964). He got to the Crimea with photo equipment just as World War I erupted, was captured as a spy, and was luckily released in an exchange of prisoners. This failed attempt strangely helped Albert for he had made a mistake in math so that his degrees of arc of bent-light was slightly off. Had the photo expedition been successful his General Relativity Theory would have been discredited.
49++Albert's copy of his 1915 General Relativity paper to University of Leyden (Netherlands) astronomy Prof. Willem de Sitter (1872-1935), was forwarded via Finland to Cambridge University astronomer Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882-1944) who. Was soon a convinced Relativity believer.
50htttp://einsteinyear.org/facts/timeline
50+from Hawking4 Clark, Ronald W. Einstein: The Life and Times. NY: World Publishing, 1965, p. 208-209)
51Bodanis interview, in Epilogue, p. 204f, https://www.panmacmillan.com/interviews/displayPage.asp?PageID=3365
52Einstein's 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics. White and G, pp. 100, 125, 165-166, 179-180. Reasons Einstein was by-passed for the Nobel Prize in Physics until 1921, although nominated annually since 1910: 1-the selection committee initially lacked theoretical physicists; 2-his relativity theories were controversial, little understood; 3-jealous scientists resented his growing fame; 4-Anti-semitism, always latent, flared; Hitler's Nazis denounced Einstein Relativity as Q "Jew science," EQ 5-leading anti-Einstein scientist-opponent was Lenard Philip (1862-1947), Nobel Prize in Physics winner in1905, later Nazi party member.
53Americium is a radioactive metallic element produced by bombardment of plutonium with high energy neutrons. Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary. Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 1986, p. 78.
Tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen with atoms of three times the mass of ordinary light hydrogen atoms. Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary. Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 1986, p. 1264.
53Fox& Keck, pp. 9-14 (ltr to FDR). Einstein in Princeton, N.J., first heard in late 1938 from Danish phyicist Niels Bohr (1885-1962) that German scientists were successful in splitting the uranium atom, capable of unimaginable destruction. This information was confirmed to Einstein in mid July 1939 while on vacation in long Island, NY, by visiting Jewish physicist Leo Szilard who had also fled Nazism into the t he U.S. Szilard and another phsicst drafted and prevailed on Einstein to sign a letter to Pres FDR, August 2, 1939, warning him of t he danger The letter and attending reports on it languished in U.S. bureaucratic files until Pearl Harbor when, U.S. authorities, urged by British intelligence, who knew of the danger from Misner’s nephew ???, created the secret Manhattan Project leading to the U.S. atom bombs dropped on Japan that ended WW II. Also use Overbye reference
53Omitted for lack of speaking time: 1-Einstein's 1921 first U.S. visit raising funds for a new Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which still benefits from owning his papers and copyright use of his name. 2-His 1931 U.S. visit when, in Hollywood, cheered as a rock star, with Charlie Chaplin (1889--=1917) at the opening of City Lights film, when Albert asked what the cheering meant, Chaplin replied: they cheer me because they all understand me; they cheer you because no one understands you. 3-Einstein was on Time magazine's cover 5 times, the last on Dec. 31, 1999, when he was named "Person of the 20th Century." 5
4-2005 saw world wide celebrations on 50 years after Einstein's death (1955) and 100 years after his 1905 Year of Miracles. 5-In 2007-08 film rights were purchased for Walter Isaacson, etc.

on Time magazine’s cover five times, the last on Dec. 31, 1999, as “Man of the Century.”
CUT?Put in Footnote?? B: Albert's 1905 and 1915 relativity theories stimulated modern cosmology, the study of the universe's past, present and future. Little was known to exist beyond our Milky Way galaxy in 1915. Using bigger, better telescopes astronomers soon discovered thousands, later millions more galaxies. Viewing this expansion like a backward movie, they saw the universe earlier as smaller, ever smaller, and to have originally erupted from a singular exploding atom. The hiss from this original Big Bang (named in early 1930s) , estimated to have occurred some 13.7 billion years ago, was heard as a hiss by radio astronomers Arno Penzias (1933-) and Robert W. Wilson (1936-) in 1965 (refThey won the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physics for this discovery). Supporting the Big Bang and its 1965-heard hiss were photos taken in Sept. 2006 by COBE’s leading scientists, John Mather (b. 1946) and George F. Smoot (b. 1945) (ref/ who also won the Nobel Prize in Physics for documenting this Big Bang evidence.9
Internet Sources
1-"Albert Einstein, 1879-1955." Library of Congress, 10 pp.: https://search.loc.gov:8765/query.html?col=loc&qt=Alfred+Einstein&qp=url%3A%2Frr%2F+url%3A%2Fcfbook%2Furl%3A%2Fpoetry%2F+url%3A%2Ffolklife%2F&submit.x=13&submit.y=13
2-"Albert Einstein, 1879-1955." 39 clips of film stock footage libraries:
3-World Year of Physics 2005: Einstein in the 21st Century: https://physics2005.org/international.html Lists world country conferences featuring physics and Einstein.
4-Albert Einstein Quotes on God, Religion, and Science: https://atheism.about.com/od/einsteingodreligion/tp/EinsteinGodReligionScience.htm
5-Albert Einstein Quotes on God, Relgion, and Ethics (28,400 entries): https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=Albert+Einstein%2C+God%2C+Religion%2C+Ethics&btnG=Google+Search
"How Albert Einstein (1879-1955) Changed the Way We See the Universe,” by Franklin and Betty J. Parker, bfparker@frontiernet.net, review of Walter Isaacson’s Einstein, His Life and Universe, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2007, and related sources, given 21 Apr. '08, Uplands Retirement Village. Pleasant Hill, TN.

Betty: Frank, Walter Isaacson, author of Einstein, His Life and Universe, Simon & Schuster, 2007 best seller, is a journalist.1 He was Time magazine’s editor when his staff chose Einstein as the most important person of the 20th century. 2 He now heads the Aspen Institute, Washington, D.C., a leadership think tank.3

Frank: The new Einstein mania spurt includes, besides Isaacson's biography, German science writer Jürgen Neffe's highly regarded Einstein: A Biography, Farrar Straus Giroux, English version, 2007, plus film rights to Isaacson's book, with Isaacson as film consultant, plus news of other forthcoming Einstein films. Einstein is a household name as a scientific genius, yet so little known. Our pleasant task is to share who Einstein was, and how and why he changed the way we see the universe.4

B: About Albert's family: his father Hermann Einstein (1847-1902), at age 29, in Bavaria, Germany, married Pauline née Koch (K-o-c-h, 1858-1920), age 18, in 1876. Both were non-observing Jews.. Pauline, a prosperous grain dealer’s daughter, was cultured, well read, a pianist and music lover. Hermann, whom she dominated, was a salesman in a relative's featherbed factory; generous, thoughtful, a devoted husband and father who finally failed in business.

F: Albert Einstein was born March 14, 1879, in Ulm (U-l-m), near Stuttgart, Germany; born into a world and universe whose clockwork orderliness Isaac Newton's (1642-1727) laws of motion and gravity explained some 200 years earlier (1685). Newton’s laws, then being questioned by Michael Faraday's (1791-1867) electromagnetism and by James Clerk Maxwell's (1831-1879) unitary view of electromagnetism and light, Albert Einstein would soon change forever .

B: Albert grew up in family involved in electromagnetism, generators, motors, electricity. His uncle, engineer-inventor Jakob Einstein (1850-1912), was electrifying southern German towns as Thomas Edison (1847-1931) did in New York City.5 Pauline encouraged Hermann’s partnership with Jakob backed by her family's loan. Just after Albert’s birth, the Einsteins moved (1880) from Ulm to Munich for better business opportunity.

F: Albert’s big head at birth made Pauline fear he was abnormal until reassured by her physician.6 Also a late talker, Albert later told a biographer, Q "My parents were worried because I started to talk comparatively late, and they consulted a doctor…."7EQ He was 2 when his only sibling sister was born, Marie, called “Maja” (M-a-j-a) Einstein (1881-1951). She later described him as quiet and introspective.8

B: When Albert was age 4 and ill, his father gave him a compass to play with. Albert later wrote: Q “When I saw…[its needle always point north, no matter how I turned it], the fact that it behaved in such a fixed way changed my understanding of the world. Until then, I thought that one thing had to touch another to make it move…. I realized that something deeply hidden had to lie behind things” 9 EQ [an early hint of his lifelong search for unity in nature].

F: Albert's schooling: he was kept at home until age 7, taught the 3 Rs by a tutor, and was enrolled in a nearby Catholic primary school, ages 7 to 9, 1885-88. He did well academically, received Catholic religious instruction in school plus state-required private Jewish instruction from a relative at home.

B: Taken as a little boy to watch a Prussian military parade, he cried out in horror: Q"I don't want to be [regimented like]…those poor people" EQ10 He disliked school discipline and rote learning, especially in secondary school at Munich's Luitpold Gymnasium (L-u-i-t-p-o-l-d), 6 years, ages 9 to 15, 1888-94.

F: Good in science and math, less interested in other subjects, he irritated some of his teachers by questioning their knowledge. His home room teacher, asked about Albert's potential, said disparagingly: Q “Nothing will ever come of him." EQ Told by that home room teacher that he was not welcome in class, Albert said he had done nothing wrong. His teacher said: Q "Yes, …but you sit there in the back row and smile and your mere presence here spoils the respect of the class for me."11 EQ. Albert later called his primary teachers sergeants, his gymnasium teachers lieutenants.

B: He learned more from reading textbooks on his own. Algebra Uncle Jakob taught him enthralled him. He mastered calculus by age 12. Math and science books reinforced his appreciation of orderliness in nature. He later said: Q "As a boy of 12, I was thrilled to see that it was possible to find out truth by reasoning alone, without the help of any outside experience."12 EQ

F: He took piano and violin lessons, urged by his mother; was a lifelong violinist; and saw harmony and unity in music, science, and nature.

B: Max Talmey (T-a-l-m-e-y, 1867-1941), 21, a poor Jewish medical student from Poland, invited to Thursday night Einstein meals from 1889 for a few years, shared with Albert, age 10, table talk on science, math, and philosophy.13

F: Talmey gave Albert a book series on natural science by Aaron Bernstein’s (1812-84) which described current scientific experiments. They were full of imaginative, creative what-ifs, leading Albert at 16 to ask: what if I could ride alongside a beam of light? Ref: People's Books on Natural Science.

B: Years later (1921) in New York, asked what he thought of Bernstein's books, Albert said: very good books, Q "[They] exerted a great influence on my whole development."14 EQ

F: Talmey, who influenced Albert at an impressionable age, remarked in his 1932 book about young Albert's Q "exceptional intelligence [which enabled him to discuss with me, a college graduate,] subjects far beyond the comprehension of so young a child." EQ. 15

B: Before age 10, Albert went through a religious phase. But from age 12 he doubted religious dogma. He and Max Talmey read philosopher Immanuel Kant's (1724-1804) very difficult Critique of Pure Reason. They discussed Kant’s belief that the universe can be understood by thought alone. Albert later read and agreed with philosopher Benedict Spinoza’s (1632-77) view that God works through nature's orderliness.

F: When Albert was 15, business failure led the two Einstein families to move to Italy near their northern Italy partner firm in Milan, then to nearby Pavia. Albert needed 3 more years to complete secondary school. His parents decided he should remain in Munich where an Einstein relative would look after him until he graduated.

B: Lonely, unhappy, Albert continued for six months at the Munich’s Gymnasium, which he did not like, knowing some teachers disliked him. He also dreaded German compulsory military service at age 17, two years ahead.

F: Albert asked the family physician for a letter stating that because of isolation from his family he was suffering from nervous exhaustion and needed the bracing air of northern Italy. From his math teacher he got a letter listing his high scores in math.

B: On Dec. 29, 1894, Albert, now a school dropout, took a train to Pavia, Italy, arriving unexpectedly at his parents' home. He told them why he had dropped out of school and how he planned to continue his education.

F: He would study on his own, take the entrance exam in autumn 1895 to enter the highly regarded Polytechnic College in Zurich, Switzerland,16 which did not require secondary school graduation if an applicant passed its difficult entrance examination, which he would take in autumn 1895. He also said: I want to renounce my German citizenship.

B: His parents listened, concerned. His father prudently delayed submitting renunciation of German citizenship forms until Albert in Switzerland had applied for Swiss citizenship. Released from German citizenship Jan. 1896, Albert was stateless until granted Swiss citizenship in 1901.

F: Albert helped in the family’s Pavia shop with its electric lighting equipment. He so impressed Uncle Jakob by solving electrical problems that Jakob assured everyone: Q “You will hear from him yet.” EQ

B: In spring and summer 1895 Albert hiked the Alps and Apennines from Pavia to Genoa to see his maternal Uncle Julius Koch. He visited art and other culture centers. He delighted in Italians' natural friendliness, so different from German stern discipline.

F: He read physics textbooks to help him prepare for the Zurich Polytechnic entrance exams. He would be 16 when he took the Polytechnic entrance test intended for age 18 and older. A family friend petitioned Zurich Polytechnic director Albin Herzog (1852-1909) to waive the age requirement.17

B: Albert passed the Zurich Polytechnic test in math and science but failed in literature,