31O THE LATER JOURNEYlines: 'A new physics based on Einstein/Sir Oliver Lodge says it will prevail, and
mathematicians will have a terrible time.' November 26: An editorial entitled 'Bad
times for the learned.' November 29: A news item headlined 'Can't understand
Einstein' reports that 'the London Times ... confesses that it cannot follow the
details. .. .' December 7: An editorial, 'Assaulting the absolute,' states that 'the
raising of blasphemous voices against time and space threw some [astronomers]
into a state of terror where they seemed to feel, for some days at least, that the
foundations of all human thought had been undermined.' One cannot fail to notice
that some of these statements were made with tongue in cheek. Yet they convey a
sense of mystery accompanying the replacement of old wisdom by new order.
Transitions such as these can induce fear. When interviewed by the Times on
relativity theory, Charles Poor, professor of celestial mechanics at Columbia Uni-
versity, said, 'For some years past, the entire world has been in a state of unrest,
mental as well as physical. It may well be that the physical aspects of the unrest,
the war, the strikes, the Bolshevist uprisings, are in reality the visible objects of
some underlying deep mental disturbance, worldwide in character. ... This same
spirit of unrest has invaded science... ' [N6].
It would be a misunderstanding of the Einstein phenomenon to attribute these
various reactions to a brief and intense shock of the new. The insistence on mys-
tery never waned. One reads in the Times ten years later, 'It is a rare exposition
of Relativity that does not find it necessary to warn the reader that here and here
and here he had better not try to understand' [N7].
The worldwide character of the legend is well illustrated by reports to the For-
eign Office from German diplomats stationed in countries visited by Einstein [Kl].
Oslo, June 1920: '[Einstein's] lectures were uncommonly well received by the
public and the press.' Copenhagen, June 1920: 'In recent days, papers of all opin-
ions have emphasized in long articles and interviews the significance of Professor
Einstein, "the most famous physicist of the present." ' Paris, April 1922: ' ... a
sensation which the intellectual snobism of the capital did not want to pass up.'
Tokyo, January 1923: 'When Einstein arrived at the station there were such large
crowds that the police was unable to cope with the perilous crush ... at the chry-
santhemum festival it was neither the empress nor the prince regent nor the
imperial princes who held reception; everything turned around Einstein.' Madrid,
March 1923: 'Great enthusiasm everywhere ... every day the papers devoted col-
umns to his comings and goings.. ..' Rio de Janeiro, May 1925: ' ... numerous
detailed articles in the Brazilian press. ... ' Montevideo, June 1925: 'He was the
talk of the town and a news topic a whole week long... .' On April 25, 1921,
Einstein was received by President Harding on the occasion of his first visit to the
United States. An eyewitness described the mood of the public when Einstein gave
a lecture in a large concert hall in Vienna that same year. People were 'in a
curious state of excitement in which it no longer matters what one understands
but only that one is in the immediate neighborhood of a place where miracles
happen' [F3].