einstein
einstein
einstein
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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.<br />
“This news is distinctly shocking, and apprehensions for confidence even in the multiplication table will arise,” it editorialized on November 11. The<br />
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,<br />
however it may be for higher mathematicians.” It returned to the theme five days later: “Scientists who proclaim that space comes to an end<br />
somewhere are under some obligation to tell us what lies beyond it.”<br />
Finally, a week after its first story, the paper decided that some words of calm, more amused than bemused, might be useful. “British scientists<br />
seem to have been seized with something like an intellectual panic when they heard of photographic verification of the Einstein theory,” the paper<br />
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<br />
to come.” 6<br />
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<br />
process launched one of the apocryphal tales about relativity. After describing Einstein’s top-floor study, the reporter asserted, “It was from this lofty<br />
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.<br />
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,<br />
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<br />
Newton Was, But by the Fall of a Man from a Roof Instead of the Fall of an Apple.” 7<br />
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<br />
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<br />
the article came out. But he understood, and accepted, how journalism worked. “This kind of exaggeration meets a certain need among the<br />
public.” 8<br />
There was, indeed, an astonishing public craving to understand relativity. Why? The theory seemed somewhat baffling, yes, but also very enticing<br />
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<br />
can capture the public imagination.<br />
This was lampooned in a Rea Irvin cartoon in the New Yorker, which showed a baffled janitor, fur-clad matron, doorman, kids, and others<br />
scratching their heads with wild surmise as they wandered down the street. The caption was a quote from Einstein: “People slowly accustomed<br />
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<br />
and waiter argues about whether or not relativity theory is correct.” 9<br />
Einstein’s friends found themselves besieged whenever they lectured on it. Leopold Infeld, who later worked with Einstein, was then a young<br />
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<br />
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<br />
The same thing happened to Eddington when he spoke at Trinity College, Cambridge. Hundreds jammed the hall, and hundreds more were<br />
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<br />
three feet tall. That made newspaper headlines. Lorentz likewise gave a speech to an overflow audience. He compared the earth to a moving<br />
vehicle as a way to illustrate some examples of relativity. 11<br />
Soon many of the greatest physicists and thinkers began writing their own books explaining the theory, including Eddington, von Laue,<br />
Freundlich, Lorentz, Planck, Born, Pauli, and even the philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell. In all, more than six hundred books and<br />
articles on relativity were published in the first six years after the eclipse observations.<br />
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<br />
“What Is the Theory of Relativity?” 12 The result was actually quite comprehensible. His own popular book on the subject, Relativity: The Special<br />
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.<br />
Filled with many thought experiments that could be easily visualized, it became a best seller, with updated editions appearing over the ensuing<br />
years.<br />
The Publicity Paradox<br />
Einstein had just the right ingredients to be transformed into a star. Reporters, knowing that the public was yearning for a refreshing international