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“Einstein – Image and Impact
This PDF file contains most of the text of the Web exhibit “Einstein – Image and Impact” at . NOT included are many secondary pages reached by clicking on the illustrations, which contain some additional information and photo credits. You must also visit the Web exhibit to explore hyperlinks within the exhibit and to other exhibits, and to hear voice clips, for which the text is supplied here.
Einstein's closest friend, with whom he walked home from the Patent Office every day, was Michele Besso. Einstein thought him "the best sounding board in Europe" for scientific ideas. With other friends in Bern, all unknown to the academic world, Einstein met regularly to read and discuss books on science and philosophy. They called themselves the Olympia Academy, mocking the official bodies that dominated science. Einstein's began to attract respect with his published papers (described in the next section ), and in 1909 he was appointed associate professor at the University of Zurich. He was also invited to present his theories before the annual convention of German scientists. He met many people he had known only through their writings, such as the physicist Max Planck of Berlin. Soon Einstein was invited to the German University in Prague as full professor. Here he met a visiting Austrian physicist, Paul Ehrenfest. "Within a few hours we were true friends," Einstein recalled, "as though our dreams and aspirations were made for each other.”
The primacy of young Albert's First Paradise came to an abrupt end. As he put it early in his "Autobiographical Notes," through reading popular science books he came to doubt the stories of the Bible. Thus he passed first through what he colorfully described as a "positively fanatic indulgence in free thinking."1 But then he found new enchantments. First, at age twelve, he read a little book on Euclidean plane geometry – he called it "holy," a veritable "Wunder." Then, still as a boy, he became entranced by the contemplation of that huge external, extra-personal world of science, which presented itself to him "like a great, eternal riddle." To that study one could devote oneself, finding thereby "inner freedom and security." He believed that choosing the "road to this Paradise," although quite antithetical to the first one and less alluring, did prove itself trustworthy. Indeed, by age sixteen, he had his father declare him to the authorities as "without confession," and for the rest of his life he tried to dissociate himself from organized religious activities and associations, inventing his own form of religiousness, just as he was creating his own physics
Einstein's closest friend, with whom he walked home from the Patent Office every day, was Michele Besso. Einstein thought him "the best sounding board in Europe" for scientific ideas. With other friends in Bern, all unknown to the academic world, Einstein met regularly to read and discuss books on science and philosophy. They called themselves the Olympia Academy, mocking the official bodies that dominated science. Einstein's began to attract respect with his published papers (described in the next section ), and in 1909 he was appointed associate professor at the University of Zurich. He was also invited to present his theories before the annual convention of German scientists. He met many people he had known only through their writings, such as the physicist Max Planck of Berlin. Soon Einstein was invited to the German University in Prague as full professor. Here he met a visiting Austrian physicist, Paul Ehrenfest. "Within a few hours we were true friends," Einstein recalled, "as though our dreams and aspirations were made for each other.”
The primacy of young Albert's First Paradise came to an abrupt end. As he put it early in his "Autobiographical Notes," through reading popular science books he came to doubt the stories of the Bible. Thus he passed first through what he colorfully described as a "positively fanatic indulgence in free thinking."1 But then he found new enchantments. First, at age twelve, he read a little book on Euclidean plane geometry – he called it "holy," a veritable "Wunder." Then, still as a boy, he became entranced by the contemplation of that huge external, extra-personal world of science, which presented itself to him "like a great, eternal riddle." To that study one could devote oneself, finding thereby "inner freedom and security." He believed that choosing the "road to this Paradise," although quite antithetical to the first one and less alluring, did prove itself trustworthy. Indeed, by age sixteen, he had his father declare him to the authorities as "without confession," and for the rest of his life he tried to dissociate himself from organized religious activities and associations, inventing his own form of religiousness, just as he was creating his own physics
63 pages, Unknown Binding
About the author
Gerald Holton
58 books16 followersGerald James Holton (1922-) is Mallinckrodt prof. of physics and prof. of the hist. of science at Harvard University
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