''Subtle is the Lord-- '': the science and the life of Albert Einstein

575 Pages·2005·31.78 MB·English

by  Abraham Pais

'Subtle is the Lord ...'
Albert Einstein in 1896.
(Einstein Archive)
'Subtle is the Lord...'
The Science and the Life of
Albert Einstein
ABRAHAM PAIS
Rockefeller University
OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
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© Oxford University Press 1982
Foreword © Roger Penrose 2005
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First published 1982
First issued as an Oxford University Press paperback, 1983
Reissued with a new foreword, 2005
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Pais, Abraham, 1918-
Subtle is the Lord—.
Bibliography: p. Includes index.
1. Einstein, Albert, 1879-1955. 2. Physicists–
Biography. 3. Physics—History. I. Title.
QC16.E5P26 530'.092'4 [B] 82-2273 AACR2
Printed in Great Britain
on acid-free paper by
Ashford Colour Press Ltd.,
Gosport, Hampshire
ISBN 0-19-280672-6
ISBN 978-0-19-280672-7
02
XII The last known picture of Einstein,
taken in March 1955, in front
of 112 Mercer Street.
(Einstein Archive, Courtesy United Press International)
To Joshua and Daniel
'Science without religion is lame, religion without science is
blind.' So Einstein once wrote to explain his personal creed: 'A
religious person is devout in the sense that he has no doubt of the
significance of those super-personal objects and goals which nei-
ther require nor are capable of rational foundation.' His was not
a life of prayer and worship. Yet he lived by a deep faith—a faith
not capable of rational foundation—that there are laws of Nature
to be discovered. His lifelong pursuit was to discover them. His
realism and his optimism are illuminated by his remark: 'Subtle
is the Lord, but malicious He is not' ('Raffiniert ist der Herrgott
aber boshaft ist er nicht.'). When asked by a colleague what he
meant by that, he replied: 'Nature hides her secret because of her
essential loftiness, but not by means of ruse' ('Die Natur verbirgt
ihr Geheimnis durch die Erhabenheit ihres Wesens, aber nicht
durch List.').
Foreword
The world of science is greatly fortunate that a theoretical physicist of the
distinction of Abraham Pais should have discovered within himself not only a
particular talent for scientific biography but also a passionate desire to convey to
us his unique perspective on the momentous developments in 20th-century
physics that he had witnessed. Himself a very significant later contributor, Pais
had been well acquainted with most of the key figures in this highly remarkable
period of scientific development, and he was able to combine his own deep
understanding of the central physical ideas with a personal knowledge of these
individuals.
Pais had worked with Niels Bohr in 1946 and later wrote a comprehensive
biography of Bohr's life and work.* Subsequently, he provided short biographies
of many other outstanding figures of the time, with whom he had been personally
acquainted, such as Paul Dirac, Wolfgang Pauli, John Von Neumann, and Eugene
Wigner.** But the book that launched Pais's biographical career was his landmark
biography of Einstein, entitled "Subtle is the Lord", the title being an English
translation of part of a quotation from Einstein (inscribed, in 1930, in marble
above the fireplace in the faculty lounge of the mathematics building in Princeton)
which in the original German reads
"Raffiniert ist der Herrgott aber boshaft ist er nicht."
Pais translates this as "Subtle is the Lord, but malicious He is not".
There have been numerous biographies of Einstein, both before and after this
one, but what distinguishes Pais's book is the detail and insight into Einstein's
scientfic contributions, with not so much emphasis on issues of a personal nature
that have little bearing on his role as a scientist. This book was surely the biography
that Einstein himself would have most valued.*** For whereas Pais does not at all
*Niels Bohr's Times: In Physics, Philosophy, and Polity (Oxford University Press, 1991).
**The Genius of Science: A Portrait Gallery of Twentieth Century Physicists (Oxford University Press,
2000). In his technical/historical book Inward Bound: Of Matter and Forces in the Physical World
(Oxford University Press, 1986), he addressed the important aspects of 20th-century physics not
covered in the current volume.
***It was clearly valued by others, as it became the winner of the 1963 American Book Award and
was selected by The New York Times Book Review as one of the best books of the year.
viii FOREWORD
neglect Einstein's personal side—and an interesting picture of Einstein the man
indeed comes through—the real strength of this work lies in its handling of the
physical ideas. As Einstein had earlier commented: "The essential of the being of
a man of my type lies precisely in what he thinks and how he thinks, not what he
does or suffers".
On the scientific side, there is, indeed, much to be said. For Einstein contributed
far more to the physics of the early 20th century than just relativity. Apart from
Max Planck, with his ground-breaking work of 1900 (on the spectrum of black-
body radiation), Einstein was the first to break away from the classical physics of
the time and to introduce the crucial quantum "wave/particle" idea—the idea that
despite light being an electromagnetic wave, it sometimes had to be treated as a
collection of particles (now called "photons"). Through this work Einstein
discovered the explanation of the photo-electric effect, this eventually winning him
a Nobel Prize. He provided (in his doctorate thesis) a novel method of determining
the sizes of molecules, at a time when their very existence was still controversial.
He was one of the first to understand the detailed nature of the tiny wiggling
"Brownian" motion of small particles in suspension and to provide a beginning
to the new statistical physics. He contributed key ideas that led to the development
of lasers. And all this is not to mention his revolutionary theories of special and
general relativity!
In describing each of these contributions, Pais first sets the stage, lucidly
describing the state of the relevant parts of physics at the time Einstein entered
the scene, often explaining in significant detail the work of Einstein's precursors.
Then we find Einstein's own fundamental contributions, introduced and discussed
in depth, the essential novelty of Einstein's viewpoint being all very clearly set out,
as is the profound influence that it had on subsequent work. This account indeed
provides a wonderful overview of the developments in physics of the early 20th
century, as there seems to be no major area of theoretical physics on which Einstein
did not have some impact. This book is not a "popular" work, in the sense of the
term that so often seems to involve distortions and oversimplifications in attempts
to explain technical concepts to the lay reader. Instead, it comes seriously to grips
with the physics involved in each major area that is treated and, where appropriate,
mathematical equations are presented without apology.
Yet this is by no means simply a cold scientific account in which personal
influences are deemed irrelevant. Pais illuminates many facets of Einstein's life,
some of which may at first seem almost paradoxical. Pais may not always provide
answers, but he expounds these issues in insightful ways. The common picture of
Einstein is as an unworldly almost saintly old man, with twinkling eyes,
moustache, wild white hair, and attired in a floppy sweater. But this was the
Einstein who spent the last twenty years of his life in Princeton on a certain
approach to a unified field theory that the majority of physicists would now judge
to be basically misconceived. How does this picture relate to that of the Einstein
of the "miraculous" year 1905, with an apparently dapper appearance, working at