Blog Ekkehard Friebe

By Ian McCausland
Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, M5S 3G4

Keywords: Einstein—relativity—history of science

Abstract
Albert Einstein’s scientific career is studied, with the purpose of trying to explain why he became such a universally famous and revered person.

Various events of the past century are considered, and their effects on his scientific and personal reputation. Some of the events studied are: the publication of the special and general theories of relativity, the 1919 solar eclipse and the famous meeting at which the results of the eclipse observations were announced, and Einstein’s visit to the United States in 1921. After his death, many biographies of Einstein were written, both before and after the availability of further information that became available about his personal life after the deaths of Helen Dukas and Otto Nathan; some of these are discussed, including the strange story of what happened to Einstein’s brain after his death.

Celebrations of the centenary of his birth, the centenary of the theory of special relativity, and the centenary of the solar eclipse are also discussed. In spite of all the information that is available, the reasons for Einstein’s great and enduring fame remain mysterious.

Introduction
Why is Albert Einstein so famous? Many writers have wondered why he is one of the most celebrated people who ever lived, and the answer is certainly not obvious. For example, Finch (1970) expressed the following opinion about the problems that future historians may have in trying to explain the Einstein phenomenon:

They may find themselves wondering how it happened that an abstract scientist, whose work could be understood only by a handful of people, should nevertheless have become an idol of millions so that his name and face were known all over the globe.

The history of twentieth-century physics was dominated by Albert Einstein. In the more than thirty years since Finch wrote the above words, Einstein’s prestige has increased and is still increasing, especially as we approach the hundredth anniversary of his ‘‘miraculous year’’ 1905, in which he published five important papers. The activities for the celebration of the anniversary have already begun, starting with a major Einstein Exhibition that opened in The American Museum of Natural History in New York in November 2002, and which is to move to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in time for the hundredth anniversary in 2005.

Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol. 17, No. 4, pp. 715–732, 2003 0892-3310/03 715

The Special Theory of Relativity
One of the papers that Einstein published in 1905 presented what is now known as the Special Theory of Relativity. The immediate impact of this theory, at the time it was published, is difficult to judge from the viewpoint of the present time, but the theory certainly became more prominent as a result of the subsequent rise of the General Theory. As pointed out by Fölsing (1997, pp.

201–203), the eminent scientist Max Planck was largely responsible for the acceptance for publication of Einstein’s first paper on special relativity, and he was also ‘‘the most important figure in establishing relativity theory after 1905.’’

Even so, the theory seems to have been less renowned outside Europe, judging by the following assessment that appeared in an editorial article in Scientific American (Anonymous, 1921):

The Special Theory, promulgated fifteen years ago, received its fair share of attention from mathematicians all over the world, and is doubtless as well known and as fully appreciated here as elsewhere. But it has never been elevated to a position of any great importance in mathematical theory, simply because of itself, in the absence of its extension to the general case, it deserves little importance. It is merely an interesting bit of abstract speculation.

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