Einstein's Genius Club (34 page)

10.
See, for instance, Michio Kaku's
Einstein's Cosmos
(New York: W. W. Norton, 2004), 230–33.

11.
Charles P. Enz,
No Time to Be Brief: A Scientific Biography of Wolfgang Pauli
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 389.

T
HIS IS NOT THE BOOK
Burton Feldman would have written. He died in early 2003, just after finishing a first draft. That, along with extensive notes, is what he left us. His wife and my dear friend, Peggy, believed with all her heart that the book should be published. She was too ill to take on the task of completing it, and so she turned to me. Nothing would have given her more joy than to have seen this book in print.

I first met Burton and Peggy as a young teenager. They became my lifelong friends. For a time, Burton was also my teacher at the University of Denver. I have fond memories of Burton in the classroom. Never have I met so natural a teacher—undidactic, passionate, humorous, sometimes contentious, and always able to listen. His brilliance never excluded, never belittled, never competed. On the contrary, it was impossible to feel anything but intelligent and worthy when in Burton's presence. With this book I feel blessed, as if Burton had given me yet another gift, one through which I could imagine the two of us in conversation again.

No one knew better than Burton how profoundly any piece of writing changes through the arduous and essential process of
revision. The book's central premises and core research are his alone. Only Burton, a polymath with an abiding faith in history, could have imagined so much from the scantily recorded, unrecoverable conversations of four men whom chance and World War II delivered to the insular town of Princeton. I have conjectured and completed where it seemed necessary. For any errors or omissions, I am entirely responsible.

The list of acknowledgments must be incomplete. Certainly, Burton consulted with colleagues and resources unknown to me. I have tried to include within the bibliography every possible source referenced in the research notes, as well as those I have used in completing the book. Burton would have wished to thank the staff of Penrose Library at the University of Denver. Robert Richardson, Nancy Hightower, Helene Orr, Maria “Mimi” Katzenback, Gerald Chapman, Tug Yourgrau, and David Markson were friends and colleagues to whom Burton turned for inspiration and critical acumen. Burton's sister, Eleanor Feldman Werlin, was a source of love and support. Dr. Maureen Onat and Mary Ann Coats cared for Peggy and became part of Burton's extended family in the last years of his life. Esther Oliveri carefully prepared the initial bibliography from Burton's library. Tad Spencer did much early editing and assembling of material. Elizabeth Richardson and Tad were there for Burton and Peggy and have also been there for me. I am grateful to them both.

I am indebted to friends and colleagues who have been generous with moral support and with advice in matters scientific and editorial, especially Ellen Katz, John Fitzgerald, Diane Marks, Paulette Toth, Zulema Seligsohn, and Thea Stone. Family, friends, and colleagues at New York Institute of Technology bore my frequent inattentiveness with grace and patience. I owe much to the library staff of NYIT for their 24/7 reference portal and to the New York Public Library for use of the Wertheim Study. Darcy Falken-hagen was a stalwart believer at an early, critical stage. James Jayo's
steady hand helped shepherd the book through production. Above all, I thank Richard Seaver for his thoughtful editing, generosity, and guidance. His affection for Burton and Peggy has sustained this project in ways beyond measure.

Katherine Williams

absolute idealism, 68

Adler, Friedrich, 30

aging, scientific discovery and, ix–x, 7–16, 193–195

alchemy, 7

analytic philosophy, xii, 71, 118

“Annus mirabilis” papers, 31–33

antimatter, 117

anti-Semitism, 99, 108–109, 118, 121, 170, 212

“Appeal to Europeans, An” (Nicolai), 38, 39, 52

“Appeal to the Cultured World” (Fulda), 38

Aristotle, 128, 135

arts, 11–12

Atom and Archetype
(Pauli and Jung), 109

atomic bomb, x, 16–17, 171

effect of, on science, 188–190

Germany's quest for, 165–167, 171–174

Los Alamos project, xv, 16–17, 174–180, 183–185, 188, 189

atomic structure, 32–33, 135–138

Autobiography
(Russell), 60–61, 76

Bach, Johann Sebastian, 11

Barnes, Albert, 78

Beck, Otto, 38

Beethoven, Ludwig van, 11

Ben-Gurion, David, 46

Bergmann, Gustav, 87

Berlin, 36–37, 42–43, 50, 165–167

Bertram, Franca, 110

Besso, Michele, 24–25, 30, 150–151

beta-decay, xvii, 106–107

Bethe, Hans, 95, 98, 185

Black, Dora, 64–65, 65–66

black-body radiation, xvii, 132–134

Bohr, Niels, xiv, 13–16, 93, 97, 100–106, 128, 137–139, 167

Copenhagen interpretation and, xvii, 14, 101–104, 139–143, 147

Einstein and, 145–146

Heisenberg and, 4

Los Alamos project, 175–180

during World War II, 174–175

Born, Max, xiv, 10, 49, 95, 100–101, 103, 128, 145–146, 155, 157, 196

Born's probability interpretation, xvii

Bose-Einstein statistics, xvii, 143

bosons, xvii, xx

Boyle, Robert, 130

Brahe, Tycho, 34–35

Braque, Georges, 11

bright-line spectra, xvii

Brod, Max, 34–35, 42

Broglie, Louis de, xiv, 135, 139

Brownian motion, xvii, 32

Carnap, Rudolf, 122, 123

Cartan, Elie, 152

Chandrasekhar, S., 11, 12

Chevalier, Haakon, 184

Churchill, Winston, 180

classical physics, 125–127, 132, 140–141, 149–150

Cold War, 186

complementarity, 142–143, 164–165

Compton, Arthur, 142

Conrad, Joseph, 56

conservation of energy, 106–107

Copenhagen interpretation, xvii, 101–104, 139–143, 147

cosmological constant, 117

Crawshay-Williams, Rupert, 57, 61

Curie, Marie, 55–56, 129

Dalton, John, 136

DeKooning, Willem, 11

Deppner, Kate, 108

Descartes, Rene, 125–126, 128

Diebner, Kurt, 171

Dirac, Paul, xiv, 103, 117, 196

discontinuity, 138–139n, 156, 160, 164

doctoral dissertation, 32–33

double-slit experiment, xviii, 141–142

doubt, 126

dream analysis, 109–110

dualism, xx, 109–110, 141–143, 152

Dukas, Helen, 5

E=mc
²
, 31

Eaton, Cyrus, 51

Eddington, Arthur Stanley, 41, 45, 127–128

Ehrenfest, Paul, 10, 145, 181, 197

Einstein, Albert, ix, 3

age of, for scientific contributions, 9

aging genius of, 7, 9–11, 130, 193–195

atom bomb project and, 16

biographical sketch, xi–xii

Bohr and, 145–146

career of, 33, 36–37, 48

early years, 25–31

fame of, 4–5, 18, 43, 99

FBI file of, 17, 187–188

friendship between Pauli and, 19

general theory of relativity, xii, 13–14, 41, 45, 53, 97–98, 117, 127–131, 150–155

Gödel and, 79–81

on life's work, 12

marriages, 31, 33–34

on mathematics, 116, 117, 151–152

molecular theory, 32–33

Pauli and, 94–95, 98, 111, 198

personality of, 6, 23–25, 29–30, 35–36, 54, 56–57, 79–80

place of, in science, 191–193, 195–197

political activism of, 17, 37–47, 51–53

at Princeton, 4–6, 17–19, 23–24, 49–50

quantum physics and, ix–x, xii, 14–15, 48, 128–132, 134–135

quest for unified theory by, 11, 48, 130, 143–159

Russell and, 51–57, 159–161

scientific contributions of, 31–33, 41, 127–131, 146–147

special theory of relativity, xii, 31, 129, 153–154

during World War I, 36–41, 52

Zionism of, 42–44, 46–47

Einstein, Eduard, 45

Einstein, Elsa, 4–5, 33–34

Einstein, Hans Albert, 31

Einstein, Hermann, 25–26, 28, 31

Einstein, Jakob, 25–26, 28

Einstein, Lieserl, 31

Einstein, Maja, 5, 26

Einstein, Mileva, 33–34, 45

Einstein, Pauline, 25, 26, 34

Einstein-Russell Manifesto, 51

Eisner, Kurt, 98

electromagnetism, 32, 132–134, 149–150, 155–156

electron spin, 91, 93, 104, 105

Eliot, T. S., 40, 54

Eliot, Vivienne, 65

Ellenberg, Jordan, 9

empiricism, 15, 79, 101, 116, 138, 159–160, 181–182

Enz, Charles, 198

Euclidian geometry, 13, 27, 154

exclusion principle, xiv, xviii, 14, 92–93, 104–105

Fanta, Bertha, 34

Feigle, Herbert, 122

Fermi, Enrico, 107, 190

fermions, xvii, xx

Feynman, Richard, 142, 147

field, xviii Finch, Peter, 65

first-order logic, 118, 122

Fischer, Emil, 38

Flexner, Abraham, 18, 48

Foot, Michael, 60, 77

Forster, Wilhelm, 38

Frank, Hans, 165–167

Franzen, Torkel, 119

Frayn, Michael, xvi

Frege, Gottlob, 15, 69, 120, 121, 124

Fuchs, Klaus, 190

Fulda, Ludwig, 38

Gamow, George, 6

gas, 32

Gauss, Carl Friedrich, 9, 13

Geiger, Hans, 137

general theory of relativity, xi, xii, xviii, 13–14, 41, 45, 53, 97–98, 117, 127–131, 150–155

genius

effect of aging on, 7–16, 193–195

defining, 10

German Physics, 45, 172

German Social Democracy
(Russell), 60

ghosts, 89

Gödel, Adele, 83–84

Gödel, Kurt, ix, 3, 79–90, 198

age of, for scientific contributions, 9

aging genius of, 8, 11

beliefs of, 7, 89–90

biographical sketch, xiii–xiv

career of, 88–89

Einstein and, 79–81

incompleteness theorems, xiii–xiv, xviii, 15–16, 81, 84–85, 89, 90, 118–120, 122–125

logicism and, 122–125

mental instability of, 80, 85–88

personality of, 6

personal life, 81–84

at Princeton, 4, 18–19

Russell and, x–xi, 15–16

scientific contributions of, 81

stature of, 5

during World War II, 17, 85–88

Gödel numbering, xiv, xviii Goethe, Johann, 11

gravity, 148, 150, 154–156

Grayling, A. C., 79

Grossman, Marcel, 30

Groves, Leslie, 175–178, 183–184, 185, 189–190

Haber, Fritz, 38, 40, 43

Hahn, Hans, 122, 123

Hahn, Otto, 171

Hardy, G. H., 8

Hegel, Georg, 68

Heisenberg, Werner, x, xiv, 93, 98, 99–100, 102, 103, 105–106, 139–143, 196

age of, for scientific contributions, 9

biographical sketch, xvi

Bohr and, 4

early years, 167–169

scientific contributions of, 167, 169–170

uncertainty principle of, xvi, xx, 93, 103, 140–142, 144

work on atomic bomb, 171–174

during World War II, 165–167, 171–174

Hilbert, David, 81, 123, 124, 125

History of Western Philosophy
(Russell), 67, 78

Hitler, Adolf, 47, 48, 86, 99, 110, 170

Hooke, Robert, 130

House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), 186–187

Hubble, Edwin, 117

Human Knowledge
(Russell), 78–79, 198

Hume, David, 52–53

Huxley, Aldous, 55

idealism, 68

incompleteness theorems, xiii–xiv, xviii, 15–16, 81, 84–85, 89, 90, 118–120, 122–125

induction, xviii, 159

Institute for Advanced Studies, 3–7, 18, 48, 49–50, 85, 110–111

Interpretation of Nature and the Psyche
(Pauli and Jung), 109