Cover: The Year of Dr. Einstein

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a test of this effect, expanded from the hypothetical elevator into a global picture by his field equations, that finally brought Einstein worldwide attention. General relativity indicated that when light from a distant star passes very close to the sun on its way to earth, it should be deflected by solar gravity, thereby shifting the star's position in the sky. The amount of shift, Einstein calculated, should be 1.75 seconds of arc—a small variation, but one discernible by astronomers of the day. But how could astronomers photograph a star nearly in line with the sun when it would certainly be obscured by sunlight? Answer: during a total eclipse. On May 29, 1919, during an eclipse expedition to the island of Principe off the West African coast, the British astronomer Arthur Eddington found deflections in starlight that almost matched Einstein's prediction. Later, when Einstein was asked what he would have concluded if no bending had been detected, he replied: "Then I would have been sorry for the dear Lord—the theory is correct."

In a world still reeling from a bloody war, the thought that a single man, working only with mathematical scribblings, could reorder the universe seemed just short of miraculous. Newspapers and magazines clamored for interviews. Einstein was besieged by lecture invitations, received by presidents and kings and given tumultuous welcomes by throngs from Tokyo to Manhattan. Popular books were written to explain the mysteries of relativity. Still, the theory was difficult, its mathematics decipherable by only a tiny part of the scientific priesthood. Asked if it were true that only three people understood the subject, Eddington jokingly countered, "I'm trying to think who the third person is."

Einstein soon found himself embroiled in controversy. Some churchmen perceived his theory, which did not rely on the old Newtonian absolutes, as an attack on religion. Boston's Cardinal O'Connell charged that relativity was "cloaked in the ghastly apparition of atheism." For a rabbi who asked him frankly if he believed in God, Einstein recalled a famous Jewish apostate: "I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of all that exists, not in the God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings."

It was easy to see why Einstein aroused ire. Revolutionary in nature, his ideas about space and time collided directly with ancient prejudices and seemed to contradict everyday experience. In ad dition, there were his outspoken antinationalism and, ironically in light of his own lack of belief in formal religion, the fact that he was a Jew. But criticism abroad was muted compared with that in Germany, where Jews were being made the scapegoats for loss of the war and Einstein's pacifism was bitterly remembered. Einstein and his "Jewish physics" became the object of increasingly scurrilous denunciations. Fellow German scientists turned their backs on him—with the notable exception of a few men like Planck. Shortly after Hitler took over in 1933, Einstein, who was abroad at the time, accepted a post at the newly created Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and never returned to Germany.

Despite his public activities, Einstein managed to push ahead with his scientific work. In 1917 he completed a paper of considerable