Sold – Einstein Characterizes a Life in Science As the Enviable Life

Albert Einstein liked coming to Leiden, the Dutch city particularly known for its venerable university. He first visited there in February 1911 to give a lecture because he was keen to meet Hendrik Antoon Lorentz, a father figure whose work he valued highly and who admired Einstein in return. Einstein and his wife Mileva stayed with Lorentz during that week. Back again at his professorship in Prague, Einstein wrote to say how much he had enjoyed the hospitality and the scientific discussions. The next year, Vienna-born theoretical physicist Paul Ehrenfest succeeded  Lorentz as professor of theoretical physics at the university; he would soon become one of Einstein’s closest friends. Einstein himself made a change, leaving the University of Prague for Zurich. The Viennese physicist Philipp Frank became his successor in Prague. During World War I, Einstein visited Leiden again. On that visit, Lorentz sat Einstein down at his own desk, gave him his best chair and a cigar, and questioned him about the bending of light. There was a give and take, ending with, as Ronald Clark’s biography of Einstein states, “both men with beaming eyes skimming over the shining riches of the new theory.”   

Convinced by Einstein’s Dutch friends of the opportunity to make scientific history, in 1919 Arthur Stanley Eddington, who was “immensely interested” in Einstein’s new ideas, led the expedition that observed the deflection of starlight passing by the Sun during the solar eclipse in May, thus confirming an important prediction of general relativity. Einstein learned of the happy news from Lorentz in September. With the official announcement of the Eddington expedition’s result on November  6, 1919, Einstein become a superstar. The next month, he was offered a visiting professorship at Leiden that would involve being in Leiden for three or four weeks a year. That appealed to Einstein; he described it as a “comet-like existence.” Einstein accepted the offer and announced that his inaugural lecture – at Lorentz’s request – would be about “space and the theory of relativity.” This, his soon-to-be-famous Leiden lecture, contained his renowned statement:?“We may say that according to the general theory of relativity space is endowed with physical qualities…”. It was originally scheduled to be delivered on May 5, 1920, and Einstein in fact went to Leiden in May, but the speech was not given until October due to administrative delays. His May visit did allow him to spend much time with his colleagues, to his great pleasure. When he left, he gave Ehrenfest the page proofs of his new paper, “Propagation of Sound in Partly Dissociated Gases.” He was filled with philosophical feelings about science as a way of life and the colleagueship it fostered.   

The Bunsen Society for Physical Chemistry, founded in 1902, was the first organization to cultivate this rising aspect of science. It was named in honor of the famous physicist/chemist Robert Wilhelm Bunsen, and had branches in Germany and Vienna. Fritz Haber was a German chemist who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918 for synthesizing ammonia, important for fertilizers and explosives. Haber and Einstein developed a close personal relationship and there was also a scientific interaction between the two. According to a Berlin legend, Haber called upon Einstein “to do for chemistry what he did for physics.” After all, Einstein’s first paper and his thesis dealt with molecules. Haber was actively involved in the Bunsen Society. Philipp Frank, who later became Einstein’s biographer, apparently was interested in membership.

Autograph Letter Signed, in German, Leiden, Saturday, May 15, 1920, to Haber in Berlin, crystalizing into words his feelings about science and its impact on his life. And with science, he links the wonderful trappings that go with it. “While you were at the Bunsen Society, we accepted Frank’s petition. I immediately wrote to the board of trustees with the urgent request for rapid approval. But the stubbornness of this institution makes me fear that it may still be a while. You might want to stoke around a bit with a poker. This is an enviable life. Science, comfort and cordiality. I spent all of yesterday with Lorentz, a wonderful person…“ On the verso, Einstein gives his return address as c/o Ehrenfest.   

To Einstein, the chance to learn, which was a thing he treasured, was valuable and enviable. He is known for having stated, “Never regard study as a duty, but as the enviable opportunity to learn…” In this letter, he expands on this feeling and characterizes science that way. It is his only such characterization of science as a way of life that we can find.   

1920 saw Einstein finally considered for a Noble Prize in Physics, one he was awarded the following year. It was also an important year for Einstein in another respect. His book, “The Theory of Relativity,” was published in English for the first time. And in the English-speaking world lay his future.