EINSTEIN'S COLLABORATORS 497without awareness of numerous earlier contributions to this subject by others
[E72]. A second paper dealt with asymmetric connections (see Chapter 17) [E73].
In 1948 Straus received his PhD at Columbia University. He is now professor of
mathematics at UCLA.- John Kemeny. b. 1926, Budapest. Assistant to Einstein 1948-9. Kemeny
wrote to me, 'When Straus left for the West Coast [in 1948], Einstein was search-
ing for a new assistant. I was introduced to him by mutual friends.... He was at
that time in the final stages of publishing unified field theory. He had narrowed
down the search to about three alternative versions of the theory and was trying
to choose amongst them. The year's work resulted in choosing one of the versions,
which he did publish the following year. After he had settled on a particular the-
ory, the next problem clearly was to try to solve the partial differential equations.
That is about as far from my specialty in mathematics as you can get! Therefore
I strongly recommended to Einstein that he not reappoint me but that he get a
specialist' [K6].*
In 1949 Kemeny obtained his PhD in mathematics at Princeton University,
where he was appointed assistant professor of philosophy in 1951. Since 1970 he
has been president of Dartmouth College. - Robert Harry Kraichnan. b. 1928, Philadelphia. PhD in 1949 at MIT
with H. Feschbach. Assistant to Einstein in 1949-50. At present, an independent
consultant. - Bruria Kaufman, b. 1928, New York City. PhD in 1947 at Columbia
University. Assistant to J. von Neumann at The Institute for Advanced Study,
1947-8. Assistant to Einstein from 1950 until Einstein's death in April 1955. (In
March 1955, Einstein had recommended an extension of her assistantship to
June, 1956 [E74].)
Kaufman was Einstein's last collaborator. She and Einstein wrote two joint
papers, both dealing with asymmetric connections [E75, E76]. The last collabo-
rative effort in Einstein's life was completed in January 1955. After Einstein's
death, Kaufman and Kurt Go'del put in order the scientific papers in Einstein's
office, Room 115 in Fuld Hall. At the Bern conference, later in 1955, Kaufman
gave the final progress report on Einstein's unified field theory program [K8].
Bruria now lives in Kibbutz Mishmar ha'Emek.
References
Bl. C. Burstin, letter to A. Einstein, April 20, 1933.
Cl. N. Chinitz, letter to A. Einstein, March 29, 1953.
Dl. A. Duschek and W. Mayer, Lehrbuch der Differentialgeometrie (2 vols.). Teubner,
Leipzig, 1930.*For other recollections of Kemeny, see [K7].