HOW EINSTEIN GOT THE NOBEL PRIZE 503ment of a highly responsible, rather conservative body of great prestige, the Com-
mittee. The story has neither heroes nor culprits.On November 10, 1922, a telegram was delivered to the Einstein residence in
Berlin. It read, 'Nobelpreis fur Physik ihnen zuerkannt naheres brieflich [signed]
Aurivillius.'* On that same day, a telegram with the identical text must have been
received by Bohr in Copenhagen. Also on that day, Professor Christopher Auri-
villius, secretary of the Swedish Academy of Sciences, wrote to Einstein: 'As I have
already informed you by telegram, in its meeting held yesterday the Royal Acad-
emy of Sciences decided to award you last year's [1921] Nobel prize for physics,
in consideration of your work on theoretical physics and in particular for your
discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect, but without taking into account the
value which will be accorded your relativity and gravitation theories after these
are confirmed in the future' [Al]. Bohr had been awarded the physics prize for
1922.
Einstein was not home to receive the telegram or the letter. He and Elsa were
on their way to Japan. In September, von Laue had written to him, 'According
to information I received yesterday and which is certain, events may occur in
November which might make it desirable for you to be present in Europe in
December. Consider whether you will nevertheless go to Japan' [LI]. Einstein
left anyway and would not be back in Berlin until March 1923. Recall that the
previous three years had been a hectic period in his life.** In January 1919, he
and Mileva divorced. At that time, he promised that he would give her the money
he was to receive when his Nobel prize came. In 1923 the entire 121 572 Kroner
and 54j0re (about $32 000 or SF 180 000 in 1923 money) was indeed transmitted
to her.f In June 1919, he married Elsa; in November there was the excitement
about the bending of light. In 1920 his integrity and his work came under attack
from some German quarters. In 1921 he traveled to the United States and
England. Early in 1922 he visited France. Rathenau was murdered just a few
months before Einstein set out for Japan, glad to absent himself for a while from
a potentially dangerous situation. The news of the award must have reached him
while he was en route. I do not know, however, when and where he received word.
The travel diary he kept during that journey makes no mention of this event.
On December 10, 1922, Rudolf Nadolny, the German ambassador to Sweden,
accepted the Nobel prize in Einstein's name and, in a toast offered at the banquet
held in Stockholm that evening, expressed 'the joy of my people that once again
one of them has been able to achieve something for all mankind.' To this he added*N.p. for physics awarded to you more by letter.
"See Chapter 16.
-(-Helen Dukas, private communication.