einstein

NOTES
Einstein’s letters and writings through 1920 have been published in The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein series, and they are identified by the
dates used in those volumes. Unpublished material that is in the Albert Einstein Archives (AEA) is identified using the folder (reel)-document
numbering format of the archives. For some of the material, especially that previously unpublished, I have used translations made for me by James
Hoppes and Natasha Hoffmeyer.
EPIGRAPH
1. Einstein to Eduard Einstein, Feb. 5, 1930. Eduard was suffering from deepening mental illness at the time. The exact quote is: “Beim
Menschen ist es wie beim Velo. Nur wenn er faehrt, kann er bequem die Balance halten.” A more literal translation is: “It is the same with
people as it is with riding a bike. Only when moving can one comfortably maintain one’s balance.” Courtesy of Barbara Wolff, Einstein
archives, Hebrew University, Jerusalem.
CHAPTER ONE: THE LIGHT-BEAM RIDER
1. Einstein to Conrad Habicht, May 18 or 25, 1905.
2. These ideas are drawn from essays I wrote in Time, Dec. 31, 1999, and Discover, Sept. 2004.
3. Dudley Herschbach, “Einstein as a Student,” Mar. 2005, unpublished paper provided to the author. Herschbach says, “Efforts to improve
science education and literacy face a root problem: science and mathematics are regarded not as part of the general culture, but rather as
the province of priest-like experts. Einstein is seen as a towering icon, the exemplar par excellence of lonely genius. That fosters an utterly
distorted view of science.”
4. Frank 1957, xiv; Bernstein 1996b, 18.
5. Vivienne Anderson to Einstein, Apr. 27, 1953, AEA 60-714; Einstein to Vivienne Anderson, May 12, 1953, AEA 60-716.
6. Viereck, 377. See also Thomas Friedman, “Learning to Keep Learning,”New York Times, Dec. 13, 2006.
7. Einstein to Mileva Mari , Dec. 12, 1901; Hoffmann and Dukas, 24. Hoff-mann was Einstein’s friend in the late 1930s in Princeton. He notes,
“His early suspicion of authority, which never wholly left him, was to prove of decisive importance.”
8. Einstein message for Ben Scheman dinner, Mar. 1952, AEA 28-931.
CHAPTER TWO: CHILDHOOD
1. Einstein to Sybille Blinoff, May 21, 1954, AEA 59-261; Ernst Straus, “Reminiscences,” in Holton and Elkana, 419; Vallentin, 17; Maja
Einstein, lviii.
2. See, for example, Thomas Sowell, The Einstein Syndrome: Bright Children Who Talk Late (New York: Basic Books, 2002).
3. Nobel laureate James Franck quoting Einstein in Seelig 1956b, 72.
4. Vallentin, 17; Einstein to psychologist Max Wertheimer, in Wertheimer, 214.
5. Einstein to Hans Muehsam, Mar. 4,1953, AEA 60-604. Also: “I think we can dispense with this question of heritage,” Einstein is quoted in
Seelig 1956a, 11. See also Michelmore, 22.
6. Maja Einstein, xvi; Seelig 1956a, 10.
7. www.alemannia-judaica.de/synagoge_buchau.htm.
8. Einstein to Carl Seelig, Mar. 11, 1952, AEA 39-13; Highfield and Carter, 9.
9. Maja Einstein, xv; Highfield and Carter, 9; Pais 1982, 36.
10. Birth certificate, CPAE 1: 1; Fantova, Dec. 5, 1953.
11. Pais 1982, 36–37.
12. Maja Einstein, xviii. Maria was sometimes used as a stand-in for the name Miriam in Jewish families.
13. Frank 1947, 8.
14. Maja Einstein, xviii–xix; Fölsing, 12; Pais 1982, 37.
15. Some researchers view such a pattern as possibly being a mild manifestation of autism or Asperger’s syndrome. Simon Baron-Cohen, the
director of the Autism Research Center at Cambridge University, is among those who suggest that Einstein might have exhibited
characteristics of autism. He writes that autism is associated with a “particularly intense drive to systemize and an unusually low drive to
empathize.” He also notes that this pattern “explains the ‘islets of ability’ that people with autism display in subjects like math or music or
drawing—all skills that benefit from systemizing.” See Simon Baron-Cohen, “The Male Condition,”New York Times , Aug. 8, 2005; Simon
Baron-Cohen, The Essential Difference (New York: Perseus, 2003), 167; Norm Ledgin, Asperger’s and Self-Esteem: Insight and Hope
through Famous Role Models (Arlington,TX: Future Horizons, 2002), chapter 7; Hazel Muir, “Einstein and Newton Showed Signs of
Autism,”New Scientist , Apr. 30, 2003; Thomas Marlin, “Albert Einstein and LD,”Journal of Learning Disabilities , Mar. 1, 2000, 149. A
Google search of Einstein + Asperger’s results in 146,000 pages. I do not find such a long-distance diagnosis to be convincing. Even as
a teenager, Einstein made close friends, had passionate relationships, enjoyed collegial discussions, communicated well verbally, and
could empathize with friends and humanity in general.
16. Einstein 1949b, 9; Seelig 1956a, 11; Hoffmann 1972, 9; Pais 1982, 37; Vallentin, 21; Reiser, 25; Holton 1973, 359; author’s interview with
Shulamith Oppenheim, Apr. 22, 2005.
17. Overbye, 8; Shulamith Oppenheim, Rescuing Albert’s Compass (New York: Crocodile, 2003).
18. Holton 1973, 358.
19. Fölsing, 26; Einstein to Philipp Frank, draft, 1940, CPAE 1, p. lxiii.