einstein

Einstein said, “encases the mind like the hands of a mummy.”
They also discussed economics and social justice in light of the Great Depression. Einstein suggested that working hours be shortened so that,
at least in his understanding of economics, more people would have a chance to be employed. He also said that lengthening the school year would
help keep young people out of the workforce.
“Does not such an idea,” Rockefeller asked, “impose an unwarranted restriction upon individual freedom?” Einstein replied that the current
economic crisis justified measures like those taken during wartime. This gave Einstein the opportunity to propound his pacifist positions, which
Rockefeller politely declined to share. 44
His most memorable speech was a pacifist clarion call that he gave to the New History Society, in which he called for an “uncompromising war
resistance and refusal to do military service under any circumstances.” Then he issued what became a famous call for a brave 2 percent:
The timid might say, “What’s the use? We shall be sent to prison.” To them I would reply: Even if only 2% of those assigned to perform military
service should announce their refusal to fight ...governments would be powerless, they would not dare send such a large number of people to
jail.
The speech quickly became a manifesto for war resisters. Buttons that simply said “2%” began sprouting on the lapels of students and pacifists.*
The New York Times headlined the story on page 1 and reprinted the speech in its entirety. One German paper also headlined it, but with less
enthusiasm: “Einstein Begging for Military Service Objectors: Scientist’s Unbelievable Publicity Methods in America.” 45
On the day he left New York, Einstein revised slightly one of the statements he had made upon his arrival. Asked again about Hitler, he declared
that if the Nazis were ever able to gain control, he would consider leaving Germany. 46
Einstein’s ship headed to California through the Panama Canal. While his wife spent time at the hairdresser, Einstein dictated letters to Helen
Dukas and worked on unified field theory equations with Walther Mayer. Although he complained about the “perpetual photographing” he had to
endure from his fellow passengers, he did let one young man sketch him, and then he appended his own self-deprecating doggerel to turn it into a
collector’s item.
In Cuba, where he relished the warm weather, Einstein addressed the local Academy of Sciences. Then it was on to Panama, where a revolution
was brewing that would depose a president who, it turned out, was also a graduate of the Zurich Polytechnic. That didn’t stop officials from offering
Einstein an elaborate welcome ceremony at which he was presented a hat that “an illiterate Ecuadorian Indian worked for six months weaving.” On
Christmas day, he broadcast holiday greetings to America via the ship’s radio. 47
When his ship docked in San Diego on the last morning of 1930, dozens of newsmen clambered aboard, with two of them falling off the ladder
as they rushed their way onto the deck. Five hundred uniformed girls stood on the dock, waiting to serenade him. The gaudy arrival ceremony
lasted four hours, filled with speeches and presentations.
Were there men, he was asked, living elsewhere in the universe? “Other beings, perhaps, but not men,” he answered. Did science and religion
conflict? Not really, he said, “though it depends, of course, on your religious views.” 48
Friends who saw all the arrival hoopla on newsreels back in Germany were astonished and somewhat appalled. “I am always very amused to
see and hear you in the weekly newsreel,” wrote the sharp-penned Hedwig Born, “being presented with a floral float containing lovely sea-nymphs in
San Diego, and that sort of thing. However crazy things must look from the outside, I always have the feeling that the dear Lord knows what he’s up
to.” 49
It was on this trip, as noted in the previous chapter, that Einstein visited the Mount Wilson Observatory, was shown evidence of the expanding
universe, and renounced the cosmological constant he had added to his general relativity equations. He also paid tribute to the aging Albert
Michelson, carefully praising his famous experiments that detected no ether drift, without explicitly saying that they were a basis for his special
theory of relativity.
Einstein soaked in a variety of the delights that southern California could offer. He attended the Rose Bowl parade, was given a special
screening of All Quiet on the Western Front, and sunbathed nude in the Mojave desert while at a friend’s house for the weekend. At a Hollywood
studio, the special effects team filmed him pretending to drive a parked car, and then that evening amused him by showing how they made it seem
as if he were zipping through Los Angeles, soaring up into the clouds, flying over the Rockies, and eventually landing in the German countryside. He
even was offered some movie roles, which he politely declined.
He went sailing in the Pacific with Robert A. Millikan, Caltech’s president, who Einstein noted in his diary “plays the role of God” at the university.
Millikan was a physicist who had won the Nobel Prize in 1923 for, as the organization noted, having “verified experimentally Einstein’s all-important
photoelectric equation.” He likewise verified Einstein’s interpretation of Brownian motion. So it was understandable that, as he was building
Caltech into one of the world’s preeminent scientific institutions, he worked diligently to bring Einstein there.
Despite all they had in common, Millikan and Einstein were different enough in their personal outlooks that they were destined to have an
awkward relationship. Millikan was so conservative scientifically that he resisted Einstein’s interpretation of the photoelectric effect and his
dismissal of the ether even after they were apparently verified by his own experiments. And he was even more conservative politically. A robust and
athletic son of an Iowa preacher, he had a penchant for patriotic militarism that was as pronounced as Einstein’s aversion to it.
Moreover, Millikan was enhancing Caltech through hefty donations from like-minded conservatives. Einstein’s pacifist and socialist sentiments
unnerved many of them, and they urged Millikan to restrain him from making pronouncements on earthly rather than cosmic issues. As Major
General Amos Fried put it, they must avoid “aiding and abetting the teaching of treason to the youth of this country by being hosts to Dr. Albert
Einstein.” Millikan responded sympathetically by denouncing Einstein’s call for military resistance and declaring that “the 2% comment, if he ever
made it, is one which no experienced man could possibly have made.” 50
Millikan particularly disdained the crusading writer and union advocate Upton Sinclair, whom he called “the most dangerous man in California,”
and the actor Charlie Chaplin, who equaled Einstein in global celebrity and surpassed him in left-wing sentiments. Much to Millikan’s dismay,
Einstein promptly befriended both.
Einstein had corresponded with Sinclair about their shared commitment to social justice, and upon arriving in California was happy to accept his
invitations to a variety of dinners, parties, and meetings. He even remained polite, though amused, while attending a farcical séance at Sinclair’s
home. When Mrs. Sinclair challenged his views on science and spirituality, Elsa chided her for having such presumption. “You know, my husband
has the greatest mind in the world,” she said. Mrs. Sinclair responded, “Yes, I know, but surely he doesn’t know everything.” 51
During a tour of Universal Studios, Einstein mentioned that he had always wanted to meet Charlie Chaplin. So the studio boss called him, and he
came right over to join the Einsteins for lunch in the commissary. The result, a few days later, was one of the most memorable scenes in the new
era of celebrity: Einstein and Chaplin arriving together, dressed in black tie, with Elsa beaming, for the premiere of City Lights. As they were