HERR PROFESSOR EINSTEIN 185Tuesday mornings from seven to eight to an audience of three friends, including
Besso. His second and last course was given in the winter semester of 1908-9.
Each Wednesday evening from six to seven he lectured to four listeners. His sister
Maja would occasionally drop in. After two years at the University of Berlin, she
was now attending the University of Bern. It was there that on December 21,
1908, the next main academic event in the Einstein family took place. On that day
Maja received her PhD magna cum laude on a thesis in Romance languages
[Elb].
The topic of Einstein's second course, the theory of radiation, was also the sub-
ject of his Habilitationsschrift: 'Consequences for the Constitution of Radiation of
the Energy Distribution Law of Blackbody Radiation' [F3]. This paper was never
published nor was its manuscript ever found. Its content may well have been
incorporated in the reports 'On the Current Status of the Radiation Problem,'
published early in 1909 [E2], and "On the Development of Our Views Concern-
ing the Nature and Constitution of Radiation,' which followed later that same
year [E3]. These two papers are not just survey articles. They contain highly
important new physics. Forty years later, Pauli said of the second report that it
'can be considered as one of the landmarks in the development of theoretical phys-
ics' [PI]. In Chapter 21 I shall come back in detail to these two papers. Suffice it
to say here that they are Einstein's most important contributions in the period
from 1908 to 1911.
The first of these two papers was completed in Bern, the second one in Zurich.
Meanwhile Einstein had obtained his first faculty post, associate professor of the-
oretical physics at the University of Zurich. It was a newly created position. There
had been no professor of theoretical or mathematical physics since Clausius had
left the university in 1867 [Rl]. The proposal to the faculty written by Alfred
Kleiner clearly shows Einstein's rapidly growing renown: 'Today Einstein ranks
among the most important theoretical physicists and has been recognized rather
generally as such since his work on the relativity principle... uncommonly sharp
conception and pursuit of ideas... clarity and precision of style.. ..' [SI].
Einstein must have been aware of this appreciation. Perhaps, also, he may have
sensed some of the following sentiments expressed in a part of the final faculty
report*: 'These expressions of our colleague Kleiner, based on several years of
personal contact, were all the more valuable for the committee as well as for the
faculty as a whole since Herr Dr Einstein is an Israelite and since precisely to the
Israelites among scholars are ascribed (in numerous cases not entirely without
cause) all kinds of unpleasant peculiarities of character, such as intrusiveness,
impudence, and a shopkeeper's mentality** in the perception of their academic
position. It should be said, however, that also among the Israelites there exist men
who do not exhibit a trace of these disagreeable qualities and that it is not proper,
*It is, of course, highly improbable that Einstein ever saw this report.
**'... Zudringlichkeit, Unverschamtheit, Kramerhaftigkeit.. .'