einstein

For days the New York Times, with a bygone touch of merry populism, played up the complexity of the theory as an affront to common sense.
“This news is distinctly shocking, and apprehensions for confidence even in the multiplication table will arise,” it editorialized on November 11. The
idea that “space has limits” was most assuredly silly, the paper decided. “It just doesn’t, by definition, and that’s the end of it—for common folk,
however it may be for higher mathematicians.” It returned to the theme five days later: “Scientists who proclaim that space comes to an end
somewhere are under some obligation to tell us what lies beyond it.”
Finally, a week after its first story, the paper decided that some words of calm, more amused than bemused, might be useful. “British scientists
seem to have been seized with something like an intellectual panic when they heard of photographic verification of the Einstein theory,” the paper
pointed out, “but they are slowly recovering as they realize that the sun still rises—apparently—in the east and will continue to do so for some time
to come.” 6
An intrepid correspondent for the newspaper in Berlin was able to get an interview with Einstein in his apartment on December 2, and in the
process launched one of the apocryphal tales about relativity. After describing Einstein’s top-floor study, the reporter asserted, “It was from this lofty
library that he observed years ago a man dropping from a neighboring roof—luckily on a pile of soft rubbish—and escaping almost without injury.
The man told Dr. Einstein that in falling he experienced no sensation commonly considered as the effect of gravity.” That was how, the article said,
Einstein developed a “sublimation or supplement” of Newton’s law of gravity. As one of the stacked headlines of the article put it, “Inspired as
Newton Was, But by the Fall of a Man from a Roof Instead of the Fall of an Apple.” 7
This was, in fact, as the newspaper would say, “a pile of soft rubbish.” Einstein had done his thought experiment while working in the Bern patent
office in 1907, not in Berlin, and it had not involved a person actually falling. “The newspaper drivel about me is pathetic,” he wrote Zangger when
the article came out. But he understood, and accepted, how journalism worked. “This kind of exaggeration meets a certain need among the
public.” 8
There was, indeed, an astonishing public craving to understand relativity. Why? The theory seemed somewhat baffling, yes, but also very enticing
in its mystery. Warped space? The bending of light rays? Time and space not absolute? The theory had the wondrous mix of Huh? and Wow! that
can capture the public imagination.
This was lampooned in a Rea Irvin cartoon in the New Yorker, which showed a baffled janitor, fur-clad matron, doorman, kids, and others
scratching their heads with wild surmise as they wandered down the street. The caption was a quote from Einstein: “People slowly accustomed
themselves to the idea that the physical states of space itself were the final physical reality.” As Einstein put it to Grossmann, “Now every coachman
and waiter argues about whether or not relativity theory is correct.” 9
Einstein’s friends found themselves besieged whenever they lectured on it. Leopold Infeld, who later worked with Einstein, was then a young
schoolteacher in a small Polish town. “At the time, I did what hundreds of others did all over the world,” he recalled. “I gave a public lecture on the
theory of relativity, and the crowd that lined up on a cold winter night was so great that it could not be accommodated in the largest hall in town.” 10
The same thing happened to Eddington when he spoke at Trinity College, Cambridge. Hundreds jammed the hall, and hundreds more were
turned away. In his attempt to make the subject comprehensible, Eddington said that if he was traveling at nearly the speed of light he would be only
three feet tall. That made newspaper headlines. Lorentz likewise gave a speech to an overflow audience. He compared the earth to a moving
vehicle as a way to illustrate some examples of relativity. 11
Soon many of the greatest physicists and thinkers began writing their own books explaining the theory, including Eddington, von Laue,
Freundlich, Lorentz, Planck, Born, Pauli, and even the philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell. In all, more than six hundred books and
articles on relativity were published in the first six years after the eclipse observations.
Einstein himself had the opportunity to explain it in his own words in The Times of London, which commissioned him to write an article called
“What Is the Theory of Relativity?” 12 The result was actually quite comprehensible. His own popular book on the subject, Relativity: The Special
and General Theory, had first appeared in German in 1916. Now, in the wake of the eclipse observation, Einstein published it in English as well.
Filled with many thought experiments that could be easily visualized, it became a best seller, with updated editions appearing over the ensuing
years.
The Publicity Paradox
Einstein had just the right ingredients to be transformed into a star. Reporters, knowing that the public was yearning for a refreshing international