archived as http://www.stealthskater.com/Documents/Einstein_01.doc
read more of physics history at http://www.stealthskater.com/PX.htm#Dratch
note: because important web-sites are frequently "here today but gone tomorrow", the following was archived from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2311eins.html on February 4, 2004 . This is NOT an attempt to divert readers from the aforementioned web-site. Indeed, the reader should only read this back-up copy if it cannot be found at the original author's site.
Einstein Revealed: Einstein's Wife
Annoouncer: Tonight, on NOVA, his name is synonymous with genius. Albert Einstein illuminated the most fundamental scientific truths of his time and became an international celebrity. But what of the private man behind the public hero? Newly discovered letters shed light on his bold thought experiments and forbidden loves. A two hour NOVA special: "Einstein Revealed".
Albert Einstein {actor ANDREW SACHS}: I was 16 when the image first came to me. What would it be like to ride a beam of light? At 16, I had no idea. But the question stayed with me for the next 10 years. Simple questions are always the hardest. But if I have one gift, it is that I am as stubborn as a mule.
Narrator (F. Murray Abraham): Albert Einstein once said that he spent his whole life trying to understand the nature of light. More than any other scientist, he succeeded. In 1932, Einstein was 53 and at the height of his fame. But there was another private Einstein whose thoughts and feelings have only recently come into view.
Albert Einstein: My Dear Dolly -- How was I able to live alone before I met you? Without you, I lack self-confidence, passion for work, enjoyment of life. In short, without you, my life is no life.
Narrator: This is the Einstein that we know: the wise old man, the other-worldly genius. But new revelations from his papers, notebooks, and love-letters have finally illuminated the younger man whose discoveries about light, space, and time have transformed our view of the Universe.
Albert Einstein was born in 1879 in the south German market town of Ulm, the first child of upwardly mobile Jewish parents. German Jews had just received the right to own land, access to higher education, and the chance to engage in a wide range of careers. Albert and his sister Maja enjoyed a comfortable childhood. Pauline Einstein was cultivated and ambitious with a touch of the ruthlessness that her son Albert would later exhibit. She encouraged her husband Hermann -- a featherbed merchant -- to pursue new business opportunities, while he gave the young Albert his first taste of the wonders of Science.
Albert Einstein: I must have been 4-or-5 when my father showed me a compass. You see, the needle always points in one way no matter how I turn the compass. When I saw this for the first time, the fact that it behaved in such a fixed way changed my understanding of the World. Until then, I thought that one thing had to touch another to make it move. But at that moment, I realized that something deeply hidden had to lie behind things.
Narrator: That mysterious 'something' was called electromagnetism. Its discovery as a fundamental force of Nature was the greatest breakthrough of 19th Century physics. Within decades, it produced a technological revolution. Throughout Germany, the change from gas lighting to electricity was in full swing. Hermann Einstein set his sights on this booming new market, so he moved his family to Munich to manage a factory that manufactured dynamos. Albert grew up surrounded by electricity -- both its machinery and its mystery.
Jurgen Renn: He was surrounded by people who would love to explain how things worked to him. He had uncles. There were visitors coming to the family who would introduce him also into the knowledge connected with the technology. So he got a very early introduction in what would become the key topics of his later science. Electromagnetism was the family business. And electromagnetism became the central topic of Einstein's later research.
Narrator: As a boy of 10, Einstein plunged voraciously into a program of self-education. He read Euclid, taught himself geometry, and immersed himself in every popular book on Science he could find. Albert never minded studies. It was school that he hated. He detested the regimentation characteristic of German education and of so much of German society. By the time he reached high school, he dreaded the inevitable sequel: conscription into the German army. In 1894, his family moved to Italy, leaving Albert alone in Munich to complete the school year. Overwhelmed by competition in Germany, Hermann Einstein had shifted his factory to Pavia. Lonely and isolated, Albert lasted less than a term on his own.
Albert Einstein: I hated my school in Munich -- the rigid discipline, the worship of authority, the schoolmasters strutting around like officers whipping the troops into shape. I searched for a way out until finally it came to me. The next time the teacher scolded me, I went to my family doctor and obtained a certificate. It seems that I was suffering from "nervous exhaustion" and needed to leave immediately!
Narrator: He escaped Munich, bound for Italy.
Robert Schulmann: He probably didn't even announce that he was coming. So I can see him turning up on the doorstep of his parents in Pavia and saying, "Well look, I made a go of it in Germany. But don't worry about it, I'm not going to become a bum. I have a plan and here's what I'm going to do." The degree of independence for someone at the age of 15 is really astonishing.
Narrator: Einstein's plan was to forego high school and take the entrance exam to the Swiss Polytechnic, one of Europe's top technical universities. While waiting for his results, he enjoyed an extended break in Pavia. One of his sister's friends reported that he spent his time walking and cycling constantly -- often daydreaming, always thoughtful. And free of the demands of school, Albert could learn about electricity first-hand in his father's factory.
Robert Schulmann: I think the fact that Einstein could "get his hands dirty" in the factory is an important thing that's often overlooked. He had in his father and uncle's factory in Pavia a wonderful laboratory -- if you will, a "playground". We see the Einstein who is the great theoretician who only needs his pencil and paper. But working the dynamos certainly had a fascination for him and was an important element, I think, also in the way Einstein did his science which is to visualize how things work.
Narrator: But Albert was still a drop-out with no high school diploma and no nationality. He had renounced German citizenship to avoid military service. So when he failed the arts portion of the Swiss University exam, Albert gave in to his father's demands that he complete high school in the Swiss town of Aarau. It seemed a setback. But as it turned out, it was here that Einstein first experienced what it might mean to be a scientist.
Robert Schulmann: He has this great stroke of luck that he comes into an excellent school system with a new physics laboratory. So it's the combination now of some kind of orthodox training combined with the playfulness he's already exhibited and which isn't stifled in Aarau, that I think makes it such an important part of his development as a scientist and as a person.
Narrator: In the laboratory, Einstein first came to grips with the physics that laid behind the electrical devices with which he was already familiar. He hooked compass needles to batteries and wires to prove to himself the fact discovered earlier in the century that electric currents can induce magnetic fields. And that the two were both aspects of the same phenomenon called 'electromagnetism'. With a simple bar magnet, Einstein explored the patterns formed by a handful of iron filings, swept up by the lines of force created in a magnetic field. And when he was taught that light itself is an electromagnetic wave traveling through space, Einstein had found his life's work.
Albert Einstein: That was when it came to me -- that image of riding a beam of light.
Narrator: This was the first of Einstein's famous 'thought experiments'. He created these deceptively simple scenarios to explore the most complex concepts. If light were a wave, Einstein reasoned, then no matter how fast it travels, it ought to be possible to catch up to its peaks or valleys. But then, Einstein wondered, what would he see? Would the light stand still? Would time stand still? Would he ride that same peak of light forever -- a glimpse of one frozen instant? At 16, Einstein could not find the answers to his questions. He was not yet a trained scientist. But this he knew was a puzzle worth his talents. But as his year in Aarau came to an end, he had to turn his thoughts to practical concerns.
Albert Einstein: Now let me see … Oh, yes. Yes, here it is, my final exam essay. My plans for the future. At University, I plan to study mathematics and physics. I suppose I will become a high school teacher of the theoretical parts of the sciences. Here are the reasons for my individual inclination for abstract and mathematical thinking and my lack of imagination.
Narrator: For all that alleged "lack of imagination", the 17-year-old posing for his high school graduation photograph displayed an easy confidence. From Aarau, Einstein enrolled at the ETH -- the Federal Polytechnic in Zurich -- one of the leading technical institutes in Europe. Its laboratories were second to none. Einstein admitted that he could have gotten a first-class education there. But that would have required regular attendance in class. And Einstein preferred to spend his time at his favorite haunts including the Odeon Cafe, which remains largely unchanged to this day.
Albert Einstein: It's nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled useful curiosity. For this delicate plant -- aside from stimulation -- stands mainly in need of freedom.
Narrator: Einstein would stay in the cafes for hours, sipping coffee and talking with his classmates. Among them were two who would become lifelong friends: Marcel Grossman and Michele Besso. And there was a third -- the one woman in Einstein's course. She quickly caught his eye.
Albert Einstein: February, 1898. Esteemed Miss -- The desire to write to you has finally overcome the bad conscience that made me avoid exposing myself to your critical eyes.
Narrator: Her name was Mileva Maric. She had come from Hungary to the ETH -- one of the few European universities open to women.
Francoise Balibar: Being bright at school, she was taught by her teachers to go further. First she went to a boys school because of course the boys could go further than girls at that time. And then, I think she was rather lucky because some of her teachers told her that a school was opening in Zurich where girls were admitted. That was quite unusual at that time.
Narrator: At the ETH, Mileva was enrolled in the physics teaching course as was Einstein. She projected an air of independence and intelligence that he found highly appealing.
Francoise Balibar: She probably was a kind of realization of a dream for him because she was free. She had no family on her back. She had to take care of herself by herself. In a sense, she was freer than he was.
Narrator: Gradually, Albert and Mileva came to feel that they were two of a kind.
Albert Einstein: August, 1899. How closely our mental and physiological lives are linked! We both understand each other's black souls so well, not to mention drinking coffee and eating sausages.
Narrator: For Einstein, these were the important things in life: studying with Mileva, walking beside the lake, and thinking about physics … but rarely in school.
Albert Einstein: Fortunately, there were only 2 examinations which meant for the most part I could do as I pleased. Of course, it certainly helped to have a friend who attended the lectures faithfully.
Narrator: That friend was Marcel Grossman, a brilliant mathematician who gladly provided Einstein with his notes. But even with Grossman's help, Einstein did have to attend a few classes. Recent research in Einstein's papers has produced a portrait of a truly infuriating student.
Robert Schulmann: We have here his college record and you see something interesting happening by the 3rd year at the ETH. We have March, 1899. It says that a reprimand has been issued to Einstein through the administration because of a lack of a diligence. I think that that's an administrative way of saying that he was lazy in the physics practicum, in the physics lab. We also have as an indication of that a very fat one which is almost … Well, it's essentially the lowest grade he can get. To be fair, he also gets in an electro-technical lab that same year a '6'. So certainly, he has already developed that which I think is his hallmark. And that is he turns his attention and is assiduous in those areas where he wants to. And other areas, he just ignores.
Narrator-: That kind of confidence -- almost arrogance -- brought Einstein into direct conflict with the head of the physics department, Professor Heinrich Weber.
Heinrich Weber: You are a clever boy, Einstein, a clever boy. But you have a great fault. You never let yourself be told anything.
Albert Einstein: Of course, I wasn't going to be told anything by Weber. As far as I could tell, he thought that physics had stopped 70 years ago. When I came up with experiments of my own, he wouldn't hear of it. What could I do? Just sit back and hope that Weber didn't know what I thought of him?