Part 1 - The Institute Libraries - Institute for Advanced Study

and fqortant. He declined to accept Einstein's offer to give him the
modest sum needed. Then, in his blackest moment, Infeld hit upon a simple
plan which, if Dr. Einstein uould agree, would save the day. He suggested
-- -
rrftfng, under the Professorrts supelvisian and vith his caaperation,a pop-
ular account of the evolution of physics which would be published in both
their names. To his delight, the Professor agreed, and during the long
hot smmes of 1937 the younger ran slaved over the work, consulting the
master on occasions,. and incidentrlly overcoming his deficiencies in us-
ing English. Finally ttie book was published, yielding much more in his
share than the $600 on which he had mzde out somehow during the previous
academf c year. 102
bthematicians and mtherratlal physicists seemed not inclined
to forget or forgive that Einstein had achieved his uork in physics by
thinking in physics rather than through mathematics. Thus Veblen, writ-
ing in 1923 to Simon Flexner, (See IV, note 7) opined that though the
great physicist used mathanatfcs as a "tooLm he probably could not have
discwered the genersl theory cf relativity without the 2 . four-
dimensional geometry earlier worked out at Guttingen. Dr. Birkhoff sug-
gested that Einstelnws general theory "made natural the surmise that all
physics might be looked at as a kind of extended gcometxy... do3 i)~.
Frank qwtes David Rilbert of GBttingen in two passages which indicate
recognition of this.
Every boy fn tIte streets of our mathemtfcal GUttingen under-
stands more about four-dirensional geometry than Einstein,
Yet, despite that, Einstein did the work, and not the mathe-
mattclans.
And again, speaking this time t o mathemeticians: