einstein

“Lights All Askew”
CHAPTER TWELVE
FAME 1919
With Charlie Chaplin and Elsa at the Hollywood premiere of City Lights, January 1931
Einstein’s theory of relativity burst into the consciousness of a world that was weary of war and yearning for a triumph of human transcendence.
Almost a year to the day after the end of the brutal fighting, here was an announcement that the theory of a German Jew had been proven correct by
an English Quaker. “Scientists belonging to two warring nations had collaborated again!” exulted the physicist Leopold Infeld. “It seemed the
beginning of a new era.” 1
The Times of London carried stories on November 7 about the defeated Germans being summoned to Paris to face treaty demands from the
British and French. But it also carried the following triple-decked headline:
REVOLUTION IN SCIENCE
New Theory of the Universe
NEWTONIAN IDEAS OVERTHROWN
“The scientific concept of the fabric of the Universe must be changed,” the paper proclaimed. Einstein’s newly confirmed theory will “require a new
philosophy of the universe, a philosophy that will sweep away nearly all that has hitherto been accepted.” 2
The New York Times caught up with the story two days later. 3 Not having a science correspondent in London, the paper assigned the story to its
golf expert, Henry Crouch, who at first decided to skip the Royal Society announcement, then changed his mind, but then couldn’t get in. So he
telephoned Eddington to get a summary and, somewhat baffled, asked him to repeat it in simpler words. 4
Perhaps due to Eddington’s enthusiasm in the retelling, or due to Crouch’s enthusiasm in the reporting, Eddington’s appraisal of Einstein’s
theory was enhanced to read “one of the greatest—perhaps the greatest—of achievements in the history of human thought.” 5 But given the frenzy
about to ensue, the headline was rather restrained:
The following day, the New York Times apparently decided that it had been too restrained. So it followed up with an even more excited story, its
six-deck headline a classic from the days when newspapers knew how to write classic headlines: