PURPOSE AND PLAN 7of them argued. I recall no details but remember distinctly my first impressions:
they liked and respected each other. With a fair amount of passion, they were
talking past each other. And, as had been the case with my first discussions with
Bohr, I did not understand what Einstein was talking about.
Not long thereafter, I encountered Einstein in front of the Institute and told
him that I had not followed his argument with Bohr and asked if I could come to
his office some time for further enlightenment. He invited me to walk home with
him. So began a series of discussions that continued until shortly before his death.*
I would visit with him in his office or accompany him (often together with Kurt
Godel) on his lunchtime walk home. Less often I would visit him there. In all, I
saw him about once every few weeks. We always spoke in German, the language
best suited to grasp both the nuances of what he had in mind and the flavor of his
personality. Only once did he visit my apartment. The occasion was a meeting of
the Institute faculty for the purpose of drafting a statement of our position in the
1954 Oppenheimer affair.
Einstein's company was comfortable and comforting to those who knew him.
Of course, he well knew that he was a legendary figure in the eyes of the world.
He accepted this as a fact of life. There was nothing in his personality to promote
his mythical stature; nor did he relish it. Privately he would express annoyance if
he felt that his position was being misused. I recall the case of Professor X, who
had been quoted by the newspapers as having found solutions to Einstein's gen-
eralized equations of gravitation. Einstein said to me, 'Der Mann ist ein Narr,'
the man is a fool, and added that, in his opinion, X could calculate but could not
think. X had visited Einstein to discuss this work, and Einstein, always courteous,
had said to him that his, X's, results would be important if true. Einstein was
chagrined to have been quoted in the papers without this last provision. He said
that he would keep silent on the matter but would not receive X again. According
to Einstein, the whole thing started because X, in his enthusiasm, had repeated
Einstein's opinion to some colleagues who saw the value of it as publicity for their
university.
To those physicists who could follow his scientific thought and who knew him
personally, the legendary aspect was never in the foreground— yet it was never
wholly absent. I remember an occasion in 1947 when I was giving a talk at the
Institute about the newly discovered ir and /u mesons. Einstein walked in just after
I had begun. I remember being speechless for the brief moment necessary to over-
come a sense of the unreal. I recall a similar moment during a symposium** held
- My stay at the Institute had lost much of its attraction because Pauli was no longer there. As I was
contemplating returning to Europe, Robert Oppenheimer informed me that he had been approached
for the directorship of the Institute. He asked me to join him in building up physics there. I accepted.
A year later, I was appointed to a five-year membership and in 1950 to a professorship at the Insti-
tute, where I remained until 1963.
**The speakers were J. R. Oppenheimer, I. I. Rabi, E. P. Wigner, H. P. Robertson, S. M. Clem-
ence, and H. Weyl.