i6
'The Suddenly Famous
Doctor Einstein'
16a, Illness; Remarriage; Death of Mother
Part IV of this book began with an account of Einstein's arrival in Berlin, his
separation from Mileva, his reactions to the First World War, and his earliest
activities in the political sphere. This was followed by a description of the final
phases in the creation of general relativity. In the previous chapter, Einstein's role
in the further development of this theory and its impact on later generations of
physicists were discussed. In this chapter, I turn to the impact of general relativity
on the world at large, an impact that led to the abrupt emergence of Einstein as
a charismatic figure and a focus of awe, reverence, and hatred. I also continue the
story, begun in Section 14a, of Einstein's years in Berlin. To begin with, I retur
to the days just after November 1915, when Einstein completed his work on the
foundations of general relativity.
As was mentioned before, in December 1915 Einstein wrote to his friend Besso
that he was 'zufrieden aber ziemlich kaputt,' satisfied but rather worn out [El].
He did not take a rest, however. In 1916 he wrote ten scientific papers, includin
his first major survey of general relativity, his theory of spontaneous and induced
emission, his first paper on gravitational waves, articles on the energy-momentum
conservation laws and on the Schwarzschild solution, and a new proposal for mea-
suring the Einstein-de Haas effect. He also completed his first semipopular book
on relativity. Too much exertion combined with a lack of proper care must have
been the chief cause of a period of illness that began sometime in 1917 and lasted
several years.
I do not know precisely when this period began, but in February 1917 Einstein
wrote to Ehrenfest that he would not be able to visit Holland because of a liver
ailment that had forced him to observe a severe diet and to lead a very quiet life
[E2]. That quiet life did not prevent him from writing the founding paper on
general relativistic cosmology in that same month. Lorentz expressed regret that
Einstein could not come; however, he wrote, 'After the strenuous work of recent
years, you deserve a rest' [LI]. Einstein's reply shows that his indisposition was
not a trivial matter. He mentioned that he could get proper nourishment because
of the connections that his family in Berlin maintained with relatives in southern
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