The Man Who Stalked Einstein (11 page)

As it turned out, Einstein would provide some of the fodder for Lenard’s further
attacks on his character. Two years earlier, in 1918, Einstein had suffered liver
disease, manifested as gallstones and jaundice. A general deterioration of his health
kept him bedridden for several months. Among his many visitors during his recovery
was the well-known author and satirist, Alexander Moszkowski. Moszkowski convinced
Einstein to collaborate with him in writing a book explaining his theory of relativity
in simple language for a lay audience. Moszkowski was completing the finishing touches
on
Conversations with Einstein
at the same time as Lenard and his minions were unleashing their barrage of criticism
over Einstein’s self-promotion in the lay press.

At the insistent urging of his friends—among them, physicist Max Born and his playwright
wife, Hedwig—Einstein considered the repercussions of his collaboration in publishing
the book. The Borns worried that the widespread popular exposure the book might receive
would give credence to Einstein’s critics’ claims that he much too often tooted his
own horn. As the Borns were Jewish, they may also have worried on their own behalf
that publication of the Moszkowski book might further arouse already rampant anti-Jewish
sentiments.

In October 1920, Hedi Born wrote to Einstein,

You must withdraw the permission given to Moszkowski to publish the book Conversations
with Einstein, and to be precise, immediately and by registered mail. Nor should it
be allowed to appear abroad either. . . . That man doesn’t have the slightest inkling
about the essence of your character. . . . If he understood, or even had a glimmer
of respect and love for you, he would neither have written this book nor wrung this
permission out of your good nature. [If you allow this book to be published], you
will be quoted everywhere, your own jokes will be smirkingly flung back at you . .
. couplets will be written, an entirely new, awful smear campaign will be let loose,
not just in Germany, no, everywhere, and your revulsion of it will choke you. . .
. If I did not know you, I would definitely believe it was vanity. For everyone, except
for about four or five of your friends, this book would constitute your moral death
sentence.

Persuaded that publication of
Conversations with Einstein
might be injurious at a time when seeking public adulation was considered a personal
failing, Einstein withdrew his permission. Initially, Moszkowski agreed to halt publication,
but the publisher overruled him. Money had been invested. It was too late to stop
what was already well under way. With the publisher’s permission, Moszkowski and Einstein
settled on cosmetic changes in an effort to distance Einstein from the book’s contents.
The book was published with a new, more neutral title,
Einstein the Seeker
, and a foreword stating that Einstein had not read its contents. In addition, Moszkowski
and the publisher deleted much of the material directly attributed to Einstein.

Einstein wrote the Borns a letter minimizing what he believed would be the consequences
of the 1921 publication of
Einstein the Seeker
:

The whole business is a matter of indifference to me, along with the clamor and opinion
of all persons. . . . By the way, M. [Moszkowski] really is preferable to me than
Lenard and Wien. For the latter cause problems for the love of making a stink, and
the former only in order to earn money (which really is more reasonable and better).
I shall live through all that awaits me like an uninvolved spectator.

In Heidelberg, Lenard reflected upon the recent events. He would be neither “uninvolved”
nor a “spectator.” The Moszkowski affair was further proof of the Working Society’s
accusations. There was no doubting the Jew’s complicity. Nearly a year had passed
since Einstein had publicly insulted him. He had not forgotten. Einstein remained
unrepentant. Sitting in his office at the University of Heidelberg, Lenard pondered
his next moves. In time, he would know what to do. After all, he had dealt with a
similar situation before.

Long before the attack on Einstein at the Berlin Philharmonic and the debate at Bad
Nauheim, Lenard had focused his rancor on Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen, the discoverer
of X-rays. The conflict between the two men was based on many of the same elements
as Lenard’s feud with Einstein, and it occurred for many of the same reasons. In Roentgen’s
case, his serendipitous instant of discovery earned him a lifetime of Lenard’s envy.

Lenard had begun working with cathode ray tubes by 1893, when he joined the Karlsruhe
laboratory of the famous German physicist, Heinrich Hertz. “Cathode rays are a phenomenon
which occurs when electricity is discharged in a rarefied gas,” Lenard explained.

If an electric current is led through a glass tube containing rarefied gas, certain
radiation phenomena appear both in the gas and around the metal wires, or poles, through
which the current is carried. These phenomena change in form and nature if the gas
is rarefied even further . . . rays are emitted from the negative pole, called the
“cathode,” which are invisible to the naked eye but which can be observed through
certain peculiar effects.

By 1894, when he was completing his scientific apprenticeship, Lenard had achieved
a great deal, including improving upon the design of early cathode ray tubes developed
by Hittorf and Crookes. Lenard’s innovation was to employ a thin plate of aluminum
over an opening at the cathode end of the tube. This modification allowed Lenard to
prove the existence of cathode rays outside the confines of the tube. The opening
also made it easier than with earlier models to observe the properties of the rays.
The self-named “Lenard tube” and Lenard’s investigations brought considerable recognition
to the young scientist; after having served in a series of temporary positions for
nearly a decade, he was offered a professorship at Breslau in 1894. The next year,
he moved to Aachen; during his tenure there, events conspired to embitter Lenard over
a major missed opportunity.

On the night of November 8, 1895, while others slept soundly in the university town
of Wuerzburg, Germany, Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen made a revolutionary discovery. Working
in the laboratory below his living quarters, Roentgen set up his tube and prepared
to continue a series of experiments on the properties of cathode rays. Roentgen was
working that evening in Wuerzburg not because he was particularly industrious—although
his subsequent actions show that he was—but because the outcomes of his investigations
were best seen in total darkness. To maximize his chances of a successful evening
of experimentation, Roentgen tightly drew heavy drapes over the windows and locked
his laboratory door against the intrusion of unsuspecting visitors. He wrapped the
cathode ray tube in heavy, black-painted cardboard so that the light originating from
within the tube itself would not hinder his observations. Once all was prepared, Roentgen
shut off the lights and allowed his eyes to accommodate to the darkness.

When Roentgen powered up the tube that evening, he was surprised to see a faint glimmer
of light coming from an object leaning against a nearby wall. He confirmed the source
of the glow: a piece of cardboard on which he had painted barium platinocyanide, a
substance known to fluoresce when exposed to cathode rays. Given the popularity at
the time of experimenting with vacuum tubes, it is highly likely that others, including
Lenard, observed a similar effect during their investigations; but if they did, they
must have either ignored it or erroneously attributed what they had seen to cathode
rays. They committed the cardinal sin of science: they paid more attention to what
they expected to see than what they actually saw. It was Roentgen who recognized the
significance of his observation. The glowing plate was several feet away from the
cathode ray tube. This was farther than cathode rays were known to travel. Dismissing
cathode rays as the agent causing the fluorescence, Roentgen correctly deduced that
he was witnessing a previously unreported phenomenon. What Roentgen experienced was
the convergence of serendipity and a mind open to new possibilities, arriving at what
we might today call an “aha moment.”

Roentgen must have considered immediately reporting his observations. However, if
he had, he would have risked Lenard and other scientists making the connection and
carrying out the critical experiments that would secure Roentgen’s place in scientific
history. Instead, in Roentgen’s own words, “I didn’t think, I investigated.” He did
so alone, staving off the very human urge to tell someone —anyone—about what he quickly
recognized was a discovery of far-reaching importance. “I had spoken to no one about
my work,” he later wrote. “To my wife [Anna Bertha, whom he called “Bertha”], I merely
mentioned that I was working on something about which people would say when they found
out about it, ‘Roentgen has surely gone crazy.’”

Soon, though, Bertha knew something was up. Several nights after his initial observation,
Roentgen asked her to come to his laboratory, perhaps the first time he had ever made
such an unusual request. From that first night of discovery, he’d begun to study the
properties of the new rays. Perhaps his most amazing observation, which he now wished
to further investigate, was that when he waved his hand between the tube and the barium
platinocyanide–coated placard, he could see a ghostly image of what appeared to be
the bones of his fingers and wrist.

When Bertha arrived, her husband seated her beside a table. Without explanation,
he affixed his wife’s hand to a photographic plate. He then exposed her to what we
now know to be an unconscionable fifteen minutes of unshielded irradiation. The resultant
image—the first human radiograph—has become iconic. Clearly visible are the bones
of Bertha’s hand, her wedding band encircling her marital finger. When her husband
showed her the photograph, she is said to have uttered the words, “I have seen my
death.”

Working alone and in continuing secrecy, Roentgen elicited much of what we know today
about X-rays. His initial, December 28, 1895, publication, “On a New Kind of Rays,”
was a remarkable reflection of the man himself, modest and reserved to the point of
reticence. Without verbal embroidery, Roentgen let his readers decide for themselves
the worth of his discovery. Some of the principle properties the publication detailed
were that X-rays:

• Are invisible to the naked eye;
  

• Neither reflect nor refract in the manner of visible light;
  

• Are unresponsive to magnetic fields;
  

• Are absorbed in direct relationship to the density and thickness of the objects they
  encounter.
  

Roentgen’s report on the new rays was soon republished in English in
Nature
,
Science
, and
Scientific American
, but by then the word was out. On New Year’s Day 1896, Roentgen mailed ninety copies
of his article to well-known scientists and colleagues throughout Europe. In twelve
of the missives, sent to those whom he felt would be the most supportive, he included
a packet of nine photographs. Among them was the image of Bertha’s hand.

One of the recipients, Franz-Serafin Exner, had been a university classmate of Roentgen
in Zurich and was now a professor of experimental physics in Vienna. Exner showed
the photographs to a friend whose father was Ernst Lecher, the publisher of
Die Presse
, Vienna’s leading daily newspaper. Lecher knew a good story when he saw one. Realizing
that he had a scoop, he literally stopped the presses, made room on the front page,
and published the story of Roentgen’s findings the very next day under the headline
“A Sensational Discovery.” With remarkable prescience, Lecher predicted, “If we let
our imaginations run freely . . . this could be of immeasurable help for the diagnosis
of countless diseases.”

Viennese correspondents for other newspapers trumpeted the news to their home publications
around the world. The press expanded upon Lecher’s prediction. London’s
Daily Chronicle
waxed, “A sensational discovery, which, if the reports are confirmed, is likely to
be attended by imperial consequences for physical and medical science.”
The Standard
assured its readers, “There is no hoax or humbug in this matter.” Despite Roentgen’s
preference for the term “X-rays,” to imply their mysterious nature, the press dubbed
the emanations “Roentgen rays.” As later happened with Eddington’s verification of
Einstein’s prediction about the bending of light, the public embraced both the discovery
and the discoverer, seemingly overnight.

The initial response of the scientific community was tepid. However, skepticism vanished
quickly following the events of January 23, 1896. That evening, the Physical and Medical
Society of Wuerzburg held a symposium on the new rays in the main lecture hall of
the University of Wuerzburg’s Institute for Physics. At the conclusion of a comprehensive
presentation of his observations, Roentgen called forward a well-known anatomist named
Geheimrat Albert von Kolliker. As he had with his wife Bertha, Roentgen imaged the
scientist’s hand. Imagine the amazement of those attending the evening’s events. They
had not simply heard about the new rays but witnessed a most dramatic exhibition of
their potential. On the platinocyanide plate, the image of von Kolliker’s hand is
crisp and sharp. It appears broad and squat in comparison with Bertha’s. His fourth
digit bears not one ring, as with Bertha’s hand, but two. Von Kolliker called for
three cheers from the crowd and, to unanimous acclaim, immediately suggested that
the new rays be named for their discoverer.

There followed an outpouring of professional admiration. The University of Wuerzburg
conferred on Roentgen its most exalted honor, naming him rector of the university.
The students held a celebratory torchlight parade, insisting the notoriously shy professor
regale them with a speech. He received various national medals and opportunities to
lecture around the world. In 1901, Roentgen was awarded the first Nobel Prize for
physics. His discovery spawned the entirely new field of medical imaging, or diagnostic
radiology, with all of its subsequent developments—ultrasonography, computed tomography,
magnetic resonance imaging, and nuclear medicine—traceable to that single instant
of recognition in 1895.