Authors: Walter Isaacson
Einstein (137 page)
14
. Einstein to Louis de Broglie, Feb. 8, 1954, AEA 8-311.
15
. Einstein 1916, final appendix to the 1954 ed., 178.
16
. Bertrand Russell to Einstein, Feb. 11, 1955, AEA 33-199; Einstein to Bertrand Russell, Feb. 16, 1955, AEA 33-200.
17
. Einstein to Niels Bohr, Mar. 2, 1955, AEA 33-204.
18
. Bertrand Russell, “Manifesto by Scientists for Abolition of War,” sent to Einstein on Apr. 5, 1955, AEA 33-209, and issued publicly July 9, 1955.
19
. Einstein to Farmingdale Elementary School, Mar. 26, 1955, AEA 59-632; Alice Calaprice, ed.,
Dear Professor Einstein
(New York: Prometheus, 2002), 219.
20
. Einstein to Vero and Bice Besso, Mar. 21, 1955, AEA 7-245.
21
. Eric Rogers, “The Equivalence Principle Demonstrated,” in French, 131; I. Bernard Cohen,“An Interview with Einstein,”
Scientific American
(July 1955).
22
. Whitrow, 90; Einstein to Bertrand Russell, Apr. 11, 1955, AEA 33-212.
23
. Einstein to Zvi Lurie, Jan. 5, 1955, AEA 60-388; Abba Eban,
An Autobiography
(New York: Random House, 1977), 191; Nathan and Norden, 640.
24
. Helen Dukas, “Einstein’s Last Days,” AEA 39-71; Calaprice, 369; Pais 1982, 477.
25
. Helen Dukas, “Einstein’s Last Days,” AEA 39-71; Helen Dukas to Abraham Pais, Apr. 30, 1955, in Pais 1982, 477.
26
. Michelmore, 261.
27
. Nathan and Norden, 640.
28
. Einstein, final calculations, AEA 3-12. The final page can be viewed at www.alberteinstein.info/db/ViewImage.do?DocumentID=34430&Page=12.
EPILOGUE: EINSTEIN’S BRAIN AND EINSTEIN’S MIND
1
. Michelmore, 262. Einstein’s will, which was witnessed by the logician Kurt Gödel, among others, gave Helen Dukas $20,000, most of his personal belongings and books, and the income from his royalties until she died, which she did in 1982. Hans Albert received only $10,000; he died while a visiting lecturer in Woods Hole, Mass., in 1973, survived by a son and daughter. Einstein’s other son, Eduard, received $15,000 to assure his continued care at the Zurich asylum, where he died in 1965. His stepdaughter Margot got $20,000 and the Mercer Street house, which was actually already in her name, and she died there in 1986. Dukas and Otto Nathan were made literary executors, and they guarded his reputation and papers so zealously that biographers and the editors of his collected papers would for years be stymied when they attempted to print anything verging on the merely personal.
2
. “Einstein the Revolutionist,”
New York Times
, Apr. 19, 1955;
Time
, May 2,
1955. The lead story in the extra edition of
The Daily Princetonian
was written by R. W. “Johnny” Apple, a future
Times
correspondent.
3
. The weird tale has produced two fascinating books: Carolyn Abraham’s
Possessing Genius
, a comprehensive account of the odyssey of Einstein’s brain, and Michael Paterniti’s
Driving Mr. Albert
, a delightful narrative of a ride across America with Einstein’s brain in the trunk of a rented Buick. There have also been some memorable articles, including Steven Levy’s “My Search for Einstein’s Brain,”
New Jersey Monthly
, August 1978; Gina Maranto’s “The Bizarre Fate of Einstein’s Brain,”
Discover
, May 1985; Scott McCartney, “The Hidden Secrets of Einstein’s Brain Are Still a Mystery,”
Wall Street Journal
, May 5, 1994. In addition, Einstein’s ophthalmologist Henry Abrams happened to wander into the autopsy room, and he ended up taking with him his former patient’s eyeballs, which he subsequently kept in a New Jersey safe deposit box.
4
. Abraham, 22. Abraham interviewed the grown girl in 2000.
5
. “Son Asked Study of Einstein’s Brain,”
New York Times
, Apr. 20, 1955; Abraham, 75. Harvey had indicated that he was going to send the brain to Montefiore Medical Center in New York to oversee the studies. But as doctors there waited in anticipation, he changed his mind and decided to keep it to himself. The dispute made headlines. “Doctors Row over Brain of Dr. Einstein,” reported the
Chicago Daily Tribune
. Abraham, 83, citing
Chicago Daily Tribune
, Apr. 20, 1955.
6
. Levy 1978. See also www.echonyc.com/~steven/einstein.html.
7
. See Abraham, 214–230, for an account of this issue.
8
. Bill Toland, “Doctor Kept Einstein’s Brain in Jar 43 Years: Seven Years Ago, He Got ‘Tired of the Responsibility,’ ”
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
, Apr. 17, 2005.
9
. Marian Diamond, “On the Brain of a Scientist,”
Experimental Neurology
88 (1985); www.newhorizons.org/neuro/diamond_einstein.htm.
10
. Sandra Witelson et al., “The Exceptional Brain of Albert Einstein,”
Lancet
, June 19, 1999; Lawrence K. Altman, “Key to Intellect May Lie in Folds of Einstein’s Brain,”
New York Times
, June 18, 1999; www.fhs.mcmaster.ca/psychiatryneuroscience/faculty/witelson; Steven Pinker, “His Brain Measured Up,”
New York Times
, June 24, 1999.
11
. Einstein to Carl Seelig, Mar. 11, 1952, AEA 39-013. See also Bucky, 29: “I am not more gifted than anybody else. I am just more curious than the average person, and I will not give up on a problem until I have found the proper solution.”
12
. Seelig 1956a, 70.
13
. Born 1978, 202.
14
. Einstein to William Miller, quoted in
Life
magazine, May 2, 1955, in Calaprice, 261.
15
. Hans Tanner, quoted in Seelig 1956a, 103.
16
. André Maurois,
Illusions
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1968), 35, courtesy of Eric Motley. Perse was the pseudonym of Marie René Auguste Alexis Léger, who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1960.
17
. Newton’s
Principia
, book 3; Einstein, “On the Method of Theoretical
Physics,” the Herbert Spencer lecture, Oxford, June 10, 1933, in Einstein 1954, 274.
18
. Clark, 649.
19
. Lee Smolin, “Einstein’s Lonely Path,”
Discover
(Sept. 2004).
20
. Einstein’s foreword to Galileo Galilei,
Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), xv.
21
. Einstein, “Freedom and Science,” in Ruth Anshen, ed.,
Freedom, Its Meaning
(New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1940), 92, reprinted in part in Einstein 1954, 31.
22
. Einstein to Phyllis Wright, Jan. 24, 1936, AEA 52-337.
23
. Einstein to Herbert S. Goldstein, Apr. 25, 1929, AEA 33-272. For a discussion of Maimonides and divine providence in Jewish thought, see Marvin Fox,
Interpreting Maimonides
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 229–250.
INDEX24
. Banesh Hoffmann, in Harry Woolf, ed.,
Some Strangeness in the Proportion
(Saddle River, N.J.: Addison-Wesley, 1980), 476.
Page numbers in
italics
refer to illustrations.
Abrams, Henry,
640
n
acceleration,
108
,
145
–49,
155
,
181
–82,
188
–92,
199
,
201
–2,
223
,
319
–20,
511
,
548
,
607
n
“action at a distance,”
319
–20,
330
,
346
–47,
448
–53,
454
,
458
Adler, Friedrich,
38
–39,
150
–51,
156
,
158
–59,
163
,
240
AEG,
302
Agriculture Department, U.S.,
443
–44
Albert I, King of Belgium,
415
–16,
432
Albert I, Prince of Monaco,
296
Aleckovic, Mira,
87
algebra,
17
All Quiet on the Western Front,
372
American Association for the Advancement of Science,
136
“American Creed, The,”
530
–31
American Friends Service Committee,
445
,
624
n
ammonia,
206
AM radio signals,
111
Analysis of the Sensations
(Mach),
81
analytic propositions,
82
–83
Anderson, Marian,
445
Annalen derPhysik,
57
,
58
,
70
,
94
,
102
,
127
,
138
,
140
,
190
–91,
220
Antigone
(Sophocles),
81
anti-Semitism,
3
,
15
,
30
,
43
,
61
,
142
,
149
,
152
,
163
–64,
177
,
183
,
207
,
269
–71,
281
–308,
311
–12,
315
,
359
,
403
–10,
427
,
428
–30,
443
,
444
–45,
469
,
475
,
505
,
517
,
524
,
567
n
,
601
n
“Appeal to the Cultured World” (“Manifesto of the 93”) (1914),
206
–7,
244
Aristarchus,
518
Aristotle,
5
arms control,
487
–95,
498
,
500
–501
Army, U.S.,
478
Arrhenius, Svante,
310
,
311
,
312
,
314
Aspect, Alain,
458
Associated Press,
355
Association of Manhattan Project Scientists,
491
astrology,
384
astronomy,
5
,
191
,
202
–5,
218
,
253
,
254
–62,
267
,
269
,
275
–76,
311
,
316
,
317
,
353
–56
atomic bomb,
5
,
272
,
382
,
415
,
469
–76,
480
–86,
489
–90,
497
–98,
500
,
509
,
525
,
n
–32
n
Atomic Energy Commission (AEC),
531
–32
“Atomic War or Peace” (Einstein),
489
–90,
497
–98
atomic weight,
57
atoms:
existence of,
2
,
43
,
56
,
57
,
70
,
93
,
94
,
95
,
101
,
103
,
104
,
140
,
164
,
169
,
255
splitting of (nuclear fission),
469
–72
subatomic particles of,
316
,
322
–33,
334
,
345
,
352
,
353
,
454
,
459
–60,
463
–64,
512
,
538
,
625
n
,
627
n
Attempt at a Theory of Electrical and Optical Phenomena in Moving Bodies
(Lorentz),
116
–17
Austro-Hungarian Empire,
163
–64
autism,
566
n
Avogadro, Amedeo,
101
–2
Aydelotte, Frank,
480
–81