306 THE LATER JOURNEYOn October 22, Carl Stumpf, a psychologist and fellow member of the Prussian
Academy, wrote to Einstein, 'I feel compelled to send you most cordial congratu-
lations on the occasion of the grandiose new success of your gravitation theory.
With all our hearts, we share the elation which must fill you and are proud of the
fact that, after the military-political collapse, German science has been able to
score such a victory. ..' [S4].* On November 3 Einstein replied, 'On my return
from Holland I find your congratulations.... I recently learned in Leiden that
the confirmation found by Eddington is also a complete one quantitatively' [E36].
A few days after the joint meeting of November 6, Lorentz sent another telegram
to Einstein, confirming the news [L4]. On November 7, 1919, the Einstein legend
began.16c. The Birth of the Legend
'Armistice and treaty terms/Germans summoned to Paris/Devastated France/
Reconstruction progress/War crimes against Serbia.' These are among the head-
lines on page 11 of the London Times of November 7, 1919. Turning to page 12,
one finds that column 1 is headed by 'The glorious dead/King's call to his people/
Armistice day observance/Two minutes pause from work' and column 6 by 'Rev-
olution in science/New theory of the universe/Newtonian ideas overthrown.'
Halfway down the column, there is the laconic subheading 'Space warped.' In this
London Times issue, we find the first report to a world worn by war of the hap-
penings at the meetings of the joint societies the day before. The next day, the
same paper published a further article on the same subject headlined 'The revo-
lution in science/Einstein v. Newton/Views of eminent physicists,' in which we
read, 'The subject was a lively topic of conversation in the House of Commons
yesterday, and Sir Joseph Larmor, F.R.S., M.P. for Cambridge University, ...
said he had been besieged by inquiries as to whether Newton had been cast down
and Cambridge "done in."' (Hundreds of people were unable to get near the room
when Eddington lectured in Cambridge on the new results [E37].) The news was
picked up immediately by the Dutch press [N3a, Al]. Daily papers invited emi-
nent physicists to comment. In his lucid way, Lorentz explained general relativity
to the readers of the Niewe Rotterdamsche Courant of November 19, remarking
that 'I cannot refrain from expressing my surprise that according to the report in
the [London] Times there should be so much complaint about the difficulty of
understanding the new theory. It is evident that Einstein's little book "About the
Special and General Theory of Relativity in Plain Terms" did not find its way
into England during wartime.'** On November 23 an article by Max Born enti-
*I thank A. Hermann for informing me that in October the Berlin papers were already carrying
early reports. An article by Alexander Moszkowski entitled 'Die Sonne bracht' es an den Tag' in
the Berliner Tageblatt of October 8, 1919, must presumably have been based on information from
Einstein himself.
**This article appeared later in translation in The New York Times [N4].