EINSTEIN'S RESPONSE TO THE NEW DYNAMICS 453
In 1938 Einstein's son Hans Albert came to the United States. In 1926 he had
obtained the diploma as civil engineer at the ETH. In 1928 he married Frida
Knecht in Dortmund, where he worked for some years as a steel designer. In 1930
their son Bernhard Caesar was born, Einstein's first grandchild. In 1936, Hans
Albert obtained his PhD degree at the ETH. From 1947 to 1971 he was professor
of hydraulic engineering at the University of California in Berkeley. About his
father's influence on him, he once remarked, 'Probably the only project he ever
gave up on was me. He tried to give me advice, but he soon discovered that I was
too stubborn and that he was just wasting his time' [N3a].
Shortly after arriving in the United States, Einstein gave the Queen of Belgium
his early impressions of Princeton: 'A quaint ceremonious village of puny demi-
gods on stilts' [E24]. A year and a half later he wrote to her again: 'I have locked
myself into quite hopeless scientific problems—the more so since, as an elderly
man, I have remained estranged from the society here' [E25]. After he came to the
United States, his charisma did not wane. In January 1934 he and Elsa had stayed
with the Roosevelts at the White House and had spent a night in the Franklin
Room. There were the same odd demands on his energies and time, as, for exam-
ple, when he was asked to write a letter for a time capsule to be placed at the site
of the New York World's Fair and to be opened in the year 6369 (he did [N4]).
But Princeton, small, genteel, was not like the Berlin of the Weimar days, large,
vibrant, and perverse. Even a man with a strong inner life like Einstein had to
adjust himself to a new environment. He did, and very well. The more peaceful
new life began to grow on him. There was music in the home. He found old
friends and made new ones. He could be seen on Carnegie Lake in the small
sailboat he had bought, which had been christened Tinnefby Helen Dukas (Yid-
dish for 'cheaply made'). The name stuck. He never owned a car nor did he ever
learn to drive. There were occasional trips to New York and to other cities. There
were vacations, on the shores of Long Island or in the Adirondacks. In 1936 Ein-
stein took out his citizenship papers. On October 1, 1940, in Trenton, he, Margot,
and Helen Dukas were sworn in as United States citizens by that wonderful judge
Phillip Forman. (I cherish his memory; he inducted me, too.) On the following
November 5, the three of them waited their turn to vote in the Roosevelt-Willkie
election.
Einstein went on with his physics. What he did in those years was described in
other chapters and will be returned to in the next section. The Institute did not
yet have its own buildings when he arrived. He and other faculty members were
given space in Princeton University's 'old' Fine Hall (now the Gest Institute of
Oriental Studies). After 1939 they moved to the Institute's newly built Fuld Hall.
His only official duty was to attend faculty meetings. This he did until his retire-
ment at age 65, in 1944, and continued to do until early 1950. A number of people
came to work with him. These we shall meet in Chapter 29. He was readily
accessible to all who wanted to discuss science with him.