What do we know about Einstein’s final years?


In 1949, seventy-year-old Einstein’s health was slowly failing. Following the death of his wife Elsa in 1936, his stepdaughter Margot ran the household. She also maintained Einstein’s privacy, which he cherished. Einstein’s sister Maja had been living with him. He would read to her every night after she suffered a stroke.



Einstein’s first wife Mileva died in 1948. Their son Hans Albert Einstein became an engineer and a professor of hydraulics at the University of California in Berkeley. Their other son Eduard did not fare as well. He had been ill for many years as a young man and was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Eduard was hospitalized and remained institutionalized for the rest of his life.



Albert Einstein passed away on 18th April, 1955, a month after his seventy-sixth birthday. The cause of death was an aortic aneurysm- the abnormal swelling of a major artery-that burst.



His body was cremated and the ashes were scattered in a secret location.



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Why was Einstein’s visit to Lincoln University, Pennsylvania not reported by mainstream media?



Albert Einstein travelled to Lincoln University in Pennsylvania in 1946 to accept an honorary degree. This was the first college in America to grant college degrees to Blacks. Einstein usually turned down requests to speak at universities but he delivered an impressive speech at Lincoln. In this speech he described racism as a disease of white people.



The mainstream press that usually reported Einstein’s speeches and activities virtually ignored his visit to Lincoln. Only the black press extensively covered the event. Many of his biographies or archives also don’t mention this incident.



Einstein was a friend and supporter of the African-American actor and singer Paul Robeson who was blacklisted for his civil rights activities. Einstein also publicly encouraged the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) and its founder, W. E. B. Du Bois. In 1951, the American government made a case against 83-year-old Du Bois, accusing him of being a “foreign agent.”



Einstein offered to appear as a character witness during the trial. The judge dropped the case afraid this could lead to unfavorable publicity. Einstein published an essay titled The Negro Question in Pageant magazine in January 1946. In this essay he called racism America’s “worst disease.”



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How did Albert Einstein support the civil rights movement?



 



In the last two decades of his life, Einstein became an advocate of many causes outside of physics. He had been an anti-war activist but upon moving to the U.S. and accepting U.S. citizenship, he also opposed American racism. He saw that the society was strictly divided based on colour and race. There were separate schools and movie theatres for blacks and whites. In 1946, the United States saw a wave of anti-black violence.



African-American veterans of World War II were attacked and killed. Einstein spoke out against these atrocities. However, there is little public record of his efforts as major news outlets often ignored his speeches and writings on civil rights.




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What was the Jewish homeland envisioned by Einstein?


A Jewish homeland in the Middle East was a spiritual and cultural centre in Einstein’s vision rather than a political state. He wanted this place to offer an excellent education system. In 1921, Einstein did a tour of the United States with Chaim Weizmann (head of the World Zionist Organization) to raise money for a new university in Jerusalem. Chaim Weizmann later became the first president of Israel.



Their efforts paid off and the Hebrew University opened its doors in April 1925. To commemorate the occasion, he wrote the “The Mission of Our University.” Einstein was a member of the Board of Governors of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In his will of 1950, he left the literary rights to his writings to the University. Many of his original documents are currently held in the Albert Einstein Archives there.



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What was Einstein’s view on anti-Semitism and Zionism?




Anti-Semitism or the hatred towards Jews was prominent in Nazi Germany. Being a Jewish physicist, Einstein was an easy target. People demeaned his relativity theories as radical Jewish ideas, calling it “Jewish physics”. Jews were calling for a nation of their own at this time in Europe. Their campaign for a Jewish homeland was called Zionism. The name was derived from Zion, the mount on which the temple in Jerusalem once stood.



Einstein had personally experienced anti-Semitism while in Germany and had also seen the horrors of the Holocaust. As a result, he became closely associated with the Jewish community. He extended his full support to the Zionist movement. Commenting on the discrimination faced by Jews around the world, he said “there are no German Jews, there are no Russian Jews, there are no American Jews…There are in fact only Jews.”



Those who opposed Einstein argued that he was not a real Jew since he did not practice his religion. Even though he did not follow Jewish religious practices, he felt deeply connected to his fellow Jews. As Einstein put it, if a snail sheds its shell, it’s still a snail. He had lost only the external trappings of religion. At his core, he remained a Jew.



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What happened after President Roosevelt received Einstein’s letter?


Roosevelt’s economic advisor Alexander Sachs delivered the Einstein- Leo Szilard letter to the President on 11 October 1939. Sachs also stressed the importance of the letter he was delivering. Roosevelt reacted immediately and set in motion the top-secret Manhattan Project to develop an atom bomb.



On 6 August 1945, the first U.S. atomic bomb struck the city of Hiroshima, Japan killing over 1,40,000 people. Three days later, on 9 August, a second bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki killing 70,000 people. Japan surrendered within a few days, marking the end of the Second World War.



Einstein was very upset when the bombs were actually dropped. This was not quite what he had in mind when he sent that letter. On hearing that the atom bomb had been used in Japan, Einstein said “Woe is me.” He later told American chemist and activist Linus Pauling that if he had known the Germans would not succeed in developing an atomic bomb, he would have done nothing for the bomb. Einstein later issued a collective warning for the world on atom bombs.



In the same year, he wrote an article in The Atlantic Monthly saying that the U.S. should not try to be the only nation with this technology. Other than sending that fateful letter to Franklin D. Roosevelt, Einstein personally had no role in developing the atom bomb.






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What compelled Albert Einstein to write a letter to the U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt?


Einstein was concerned about Germany’s hostile approach. Though he believed that the time of wars was over, he was wrong. In 1939 the Second World War began when Germany invaded Poland. He heard alarming rumours from other scientists in Europe that Nazi physicists had succeeded in splitting the nucleus of a uranium atom. This is a major step towards making an atomic bomb.



The peace-loving Einstein felt as if he too had a hand in this matter. This terrible weapon was a natural consequence of his own work. The splitting of the uranium atom causes a loss of its mass. This mass releases an explosion of energy. Although this confirmed his formula E=mc2, Einstein was unhappy about the turn of events. Physicists across the globe realized that Einstein’s formula could lead to the making of weapons of extraordinary power.



Soon newspapers picked up this information. In 1939, The Washington Post reported that nuclear fission could lead to weapons capable of destroying everything over five square kilometres of ground. It was then that Einstein wrote to Roosevelt. The letter for President Franklin D. Roosevelt was drafted by physicist Leo Szilard who was exiled from Hungary. In 1939 Einstein signed the letter and sent it to warn the president about Germany’s research. Cautioning Roosevelt about the atomic bombs potential to destroy, he suggested that the US should also conduct similar research.





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Was Albert Einstein a pacifist?



Einstein was a pacifist who made lifelong efforts to stop war. In October 1914, ninety-three famous German scientists, scholars, and artists signed the Fulda Manifesto or the Manifesto of the Ninety-Three to show their support of German military actions in the First World War.



Even Einstein’s friend Fritz Haber signed the Fulda Manifesto. Though he was a German citizen at the time, Einstein refused to support his country’s military actions and boldly signed a counter-manifesto. This counter manifesto called for an end to war and the formation of a united Europe. Unfortunately, it only had four signatories.



Einstein reached Berlin to accept an appointment to the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Physics in April 1914. The war had not reached Berlin at this time. Einstein strongly criticized the role of Germany in the war.



Einstein signed a public letter condemning Germany’s stand in the war. The 1920s was a period when Einstein made campaigns to end war, to do away with weapons and give importance to international peace.



His anti-war efforts continued for the rest of his life.




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How did Albert Einstein end up settling down in Princeton, New Jersey?


In 1933, Einstein received an offer for professorship from the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, New Jersey. Since he had no hopes of surviving in Germany, Einstein accepted the offer and gave up his German citizenship.



Einstein was fond of his Princeton home. His wife, Elsa, bought the home in 1935. The price of the property is not known from the deed which was recorded by the Mercer County Clerk’s Office on August 1, 1935.



Einstein’s sister Maja, his step-daughter Margot Einstein and his secretary Helen Dukas stayed with him in the house after Elsa’s death. He also requested that this house should not be turned into a museum.



However, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places and further designated a U.S. National Historic Landmark in 1976. Its ownership passed to his step-daughter Margot Einstein upon his demise. It remained with Margot who was a sculptor until her death in 1986.



During his time at the Institute for Advanced Studies, Einstein worked intensely on his unified field theory. He became a US citizen in 1940. Despite retiring in 1945, he continued his research until his death in 1955.



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How did Nazi Germany try to denigrate Einstein?


Deutsche Physik or Aryan physics activists in Germany published pamphlets and textbooks demeaning Einstein. Even Nobel Prize winners- Philipp Lenard and Johannes Stark- led campaigns to remove Einstein’s work from the German lexicon, calling it unacceptable “Jewish physics”.



Nazis even blacklisted teachers who taught Einstein’s theories. One person who experienced this was Nobel laureate Werner Heisenberg, who had debated quantum probability with Niels Bohr and Einstein.



Newspaper of the Nazi party, Volkischer Beobachter; the newspaper of the Nazi party, began a smear campaign against Einstein. Many other papers followed suit. One headline read: “Good News of Einstein! He Is Not Coming Back!” The situation had been so dire that a pamphlet even printed his photograph under a collection of enemies of Nazi Germany. Its caption was “Not Yet Hanged.”



Even after the end of the Second World War and the fall of Nazi Germany, Einstein refused to associate with Germany. He declined many German honours as he found it impossible to forgive the Germans for the Holocaust and the loss and trauma incurred by the Jewish community.



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What was the effect of Adolf Hitler’s rise in Germany on Einstein’s life?


Hitler was rising to power as the head of the Nazi Party, which was founded in 1919. The party’s goal was to attain German superiority over the supposedly “inferior” races including Jews, Slavs, and other non-German peoples. Once Hitler became the Chancellor of Germany, the persecution of Jews was set into motion. This eventually culminated in the Holocaust where over six million jews were massacred.



Prominent Jews were criticized by Nazi officials and the media. They were attacked and arrested by Nazis and their collaborators. As an opponent of Nazism and an advocate of peace, Albert Einstein was an obvious target.



The Nazis began a campaign to slander Einstein’s reputation. He was pictured as a symbol of “Jewish degeneracy” and accused him of spreading “atrocity propaganda.” The Gestapo (official secret police of Nazi Germany) repeatedly raided Einstein’s Berlin apartment in February and March 1933. He had been a teacher at the California Institute of Technology in the United States during that time. Einstein understood that his chances of survival in Nazi Germany were very dim.



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Who was Elsa Lowenthal?


Elsa Lowenthal was Einstein’s second wife whom he married in 1919. She was his second cousin, a widow with two grown daughters, Ilse and Margot. Einstein was close to his step-daughters and raised them as his own.



He never had any children with Elsa. Though this close-knit family lived in Berlin area, they also had a summer residence in Caputh in nearby Potsdam. Ilse had briefly worked as Einstein’s secretary.



Elsa acted as Einstein’s shield, keeping unwelcome visitors away from him. She was also the one who took the initiative to build their summer house in 1929. Einstein was a celebrity scientist at this time.



Elsa went with him during his many trips to give lectures and talks. The couple went to the United States together in 1921 to raise money for a Jewish homeland. Elsa supported his career, helping him to manage the nitty-gritties of everyday life. Unfortunately, 17 years into their marriage, her health declined and she fell ill. Elsa passed away in December 1936.



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Who was Albert Einstein’s first wife?


Einstein’s first wife was Mileva Maric, who was a fellow student in Zurich. They got married in January 1903. A year before that, in 1902, the couple had welcomed their first child, a daughter named Lieserl. After a year of marriage, the couple had a son, Hans Albert and then a third child, Eduard in 1910.



Their daughter remains a mysterious figure even today as almost nothing is known about Lieserl’s life. Historians only learned of her existence in 1986 when they discovered a letter between Albert and Mileva that mentioned Lieserl. After 1903, it was as if she vanished into thin air. No one has ever heard of her again. It is not known whether she was adopted, died or if something else happened to her. And it doesn’t seem likely that we will ever find out either.



Albert Einstein and Mileva Maric divorced in 1919. They had been living apart for 5 years at that point. Einstein was teaching at the University of Berlin while Mileva stayed in Zurich and took care of the children. Einstein later gave the money from his Nobel Prize to Mileva as a support.



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What are the notable uses of the General Theory of Relativity in astronomy?


In 2016, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) detected space-time ripples after two black holes collided about 1.4 billion light-years from Earth. These space-time ripples are known as gravitational waves. LIGO first detected gravitational waves in 2015; 100 years after Einstein predicted their existence. The waves are a part of Einstein’s theory of general relativity.



The matter of Mercury’s orbit has been discussed earlier. It was general relativity which showed how Mercury’s motions were affected by the curvature of space-time. It is even possible for Mercury to be cast out of our solar system due to these changes after billions of years.



Gravitational Lensing is the phenomenon by which a massive object (like a galaxy cluster or a black hole) bends light around it. When astronomers observe that region through a telescope, they can see the objects directly behind the massive object, due to the light being bent. A commonly given example for this is Einstein’s Cross, a quasar in the constellation Pegasus. The light of the quasar was bent by a galaxy nearly 400 million light-years away in such a way that the former appears four times around the galaxy.



The first ever images of a black hole were shown by the Event Horizon telescope in April 2019. The photos once again gave confirmation of several facets of general relativity. It not only showed that black holes exist, but also the existence of a circular event horizon. This is a point at which nothing, including light, can escape.



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Are laser devices inspired by Einstein’s Theory of Stimulated Emission?


You might have come across laser pointers while attending a seminar or conference, or perhaps used it to play with your cat or dog. In the sixty years since physicists demonstrated the first laboratory prototype of a laser in 1960, it has been put to use in numerous ways from barcode readers to systems for hair removal.



The technology behind laser devices is based on Einstein’s Theory of Stimulated Emission. This theory came a year after the discovery of general relativity. Einstein imagined a bunch of atoms bathed in light. He had earlier discovered that atoms sitting in their lowest energy state can absorb photons and jump to a higher energy state. Similarly, higher energy atoms can emit photons and fall back to lower energies.



After sufficient time passes, the system attains equilibrium. Based on this assumption, he developed an equation that can be used to calculate what the radiation from such a system would look like. Unfortunately, Einstein’s calculations differed from the laboratory results. It was obvious that a key piece of the whole puzzle was missing.



Einstein resolved this by guessing that photons like to march in step. This would mean that the presence of a bunch of photons going in the same direction will increase the probability of a high-energy atom emitting another photon in that direction. Einstein labelled this process stimulated emission. He was able to rectify the disparity between his calculations and the observations by including this in his equations.



A laser is a device to harness this phenomenon. It excites a bunch of atoms with light or electrical energy. The photons released as a result are channelled precisely in one direction. Lasers are used in delicate surgery or industrial processes that require precision.



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