Einstein, the FBI and his wife

Some time ago, I wrote a blog on the Quantum Diaries about a “theme-night” on Albert Einstein (in French - here the German version) shown by Arte, the public French-German TV-station, which certainly doesn’t have the biggest audience, but very often an interesting program. The nice thing about such “theme-nights” is to get a pretty brought picture about a subject, so herebelow a slightly revised version of my blog entry:

The Arte night on Einstein had four films on the program: “The Einstein File” – focused on the time after 1933 when Einstein emigrated to the US, “Einstein’s wife” a portrait of the relation between Einstein and his first wife Mileva Maric, “Albert Einstein Superstar” an essay on the myth and the media image of Einstein, and finally something on relativity – I didn’t watch this one - it was shown latest bayond mid-night! To learn more about the physics, read Jochen Weller's blog

The first film, "Die Akte Einstein" (Juergen Ast, Korade Ege - Germany 2004) painted the picture of Einstein, the humanist, the genius who cares about peace in the world, freedom of thinking and expression and about abolishing racial discrimination. Upon his arrival in the US, escaping the Nazis in Germany, the FBI opens a file on Einstein. Naturally there is verification on counter-espionage, but more over, Einstein remains suspect even after the war and he is frequently under observation, the FBI even wiretapping his house. In the US, Einstein, famous, popular, uses his influence to help other Jewish intellectuals to escape from Europe during the war and he writes this letter to the American president to urge for the construction of an atomic bomb. However his European origin, his internationalism and his left-wing positions, make him unsuitable to be part of the Manhattan project. In this filem, you encounter Einstein the wise, the elder - his political positions may sound naïve today, but they are what well meaning scientist would propose to solve the problems of humanity, maybe not considering enough human nature (yet I think it is still worthwhile to think into this direction) – in opposition to the US-government, stumbling from war into cold-war with all the accompanying paranoia.

The second film, "Einstein's wife" (Nicola Woolmington - Australia 2003) was about the young Einstein in Switzerland, Zurich and Bern, where he met Mileva Maric, the only female physics student in his year. The discussion about the contribution of Mileva to the early work on relativity has been passionate some years ago. I did not dig very deeply into the subject (the film being from 2003, I don’t know if there has been any further work on this question since). The relationship between Einstein and Mileva was shown as very symbiotic, like two unconventional souls that found each other and exploded in their passion for physics and their mutual attraction. But the common work on science being clearly a central part of it. One of the disputed statements in the film is the question if Einstein’s articles from 1905 were originally cosigned with Mileva, but removed for the publication. I would not be astonished and I can easily imagine the dynamics, that can lead to such a removal being even perceived as plausible to all the participants: Mileva didn’t had her PhD – partially also thanks to Albert - both Mileva and Albert became pretty lousy students, not paying too much attention to the lectures but rather following up on the latest theories and newest subjects. Both of them were essentialy failing the exam, yet the examiners let Einstein pass, arguing that one of the family getting a degree was enough. The way their relationship degraded once Albert got famous is remarkable, and the life of Mileva overall rather sad  and despite Einstein giving her the money from the Nobel prize later. Einstein takes a chair in physics in Berlin, and does everything to get rid of Mileva, her going back to Switzerland with their two sons. The younger one, Ted becoming schizophrenic, the older, Hans Albert became professor in Berkeley. The destiny of their daughter born before the marriage is uncertain. Mileva died lonely in a sanatorium, a couple of month after a nervous breakdown, which was provoked after being physicaly attack during a violent scicophrenic crisis by their son.

In the third film “Albert Einstein Superstar” (Peter Scholl - Germany 2004) the statement was made, that it is neither Einstein’s brain, nor his measurable intelligence by itself that allowed him to formulate the theory of relativity, but that also an environment is needed for creativity and genius to become alive and fruitful and to sustain the motivation to make an  such an enormous effort as to conceive a new, revolutionary theory. The early stages of the relationship between Einstein and Mileva certainly created an environment in which the creativity and the intelligence could grow and was mutually enhanced. Personally I don’t think Einstein looses anything from his genius by recognizing Mileva’s contribution, it makes him more human – wisdom, maybe even kindness, needs mistakes and failures to grow.

A funny note: during his lifetime Einstein refused that his image is used for advertisements, today he is one of the only 2 scientists (Freud is the other) being marketed by some big-shot lawyer in Hollywood doing the world-wide business on dead stars. If I remember correctly: the benefit is something like 10 million$ on the account of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem holding Einstein’s Personal Achieves.