Einstein- Husband, Lover and Father

evilsheep writes "A large collection of correspondence shedding light on Einstein's personal life and perspectives was made public today by The Albert Einstein Archives at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Spanning almost 3500 pages, the correspondence encompasses letters to and from his first and second wives and children between the years 1912- 1955.This newly released batch of letters fill in details to create a 'higher resolution' image of Einstein beyond what was previously known of his personal life. The collection has been in the Einstein Archives at the Hebrew University for many years, but was not made public in accordance with the will of Einstein's stepdaughter, Margot, who specified that they not be revealed until 20 years after her death. Margot died in July 1986. Einstein wrote almost daily letters to his second wife Elsa and to her daughter Margot whilst away from home about delivering and listening to boring lectures, playing music with friends, or trying to stop smoking."

Biographies

[Anonymous Coward]

One hopes that the discovery of new correspondence will result in some more up-to-date biographies. My favourite, Albrecht Folsing's Albert Einstein: A Biography [amazon.com] is only 13 years old, but recent archival findings suggest a need for an update, and these letters reinforce the need all the more.

Personally, I'd like a biography that focuses more on Einstein's role in the Cold War. Was he really a moonbat like some conservatives now accuse?

misleading

[preppypoof]

the summary seems to paint the picture that einstein was both a great physicist and a great person...but FTA:

Particular attention is dedicated to Einstein's relationship with his son, Eduard. Einstein found his son's schizophrenia difficult to accept, and on more than one occasion expresses the idea that it would have been better off if Eduard had not been born.

Einstein's wife

[generic-man]

http://extempore.livejournal.com/136440.html?threa d=2964216#t2964216 [livejournal.com]

In one letter, written in 1914, less than two years before Einstein revolutionized science with the publication of his theory of relativity, he tried to impose extraordinary conditions of marriage on his first wife, Mileva. He told her:

1) You will expect no affection from me and you will not reproach me for this;

2) You must answer me at once when I speak to you;

3) You must leave my bedroom or study at once without protesting when I ask you to go;

4) You will promise not to denigrate me in the eyes of my children, either by word or by deed.
---
In another letter, he wrote: "I treat my wife as an employee whom I cannot fire. I have my own bedroom and avoid being alone with her."

It's in a journal, so it's probably true. I wonder if this is actually provable with dead-tree sources (the article the poster cites is not on the web).

CNN's Article

[fdiskne1]

CNN also has an article on the release of the letters:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/07/10/israel.e instein.reut/index.html [cnn.com]

Looks like he wasn't a true geek! He had six girlfriends in addition to his wife.

Re:Wow!

[megaditto]

A different perspective on Einstein being human:

Many thousands of scanned pages (PDF) from the FBI at http://foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/einstein.htm [fbi.gov]

Synopsis:

An investigation was conducted by the FBI regarding the famous physicist because of his affiliation with the Communist Party. Einstein was a member, sponsor, or affiliated with thirty-four communist fronts between 1937 and 1954. He also served as honorary chairman for three communist organizations.

Also note in part 1b the Army claims LASERs cannot be built ;-)

Re:Einstein's wife

[MustardMan]

Wow, a blog that quotes "news articles" from a year, and doesn't even tell you what publication those articles are in. I'm convinced. I'd love to see a REAL source for these quotes - because if they are true, that dude was a right bastard.

Re:stopping smoking

[Rude Turnip]

A little known factoid about Albert Einstein's smoking habit was that he would walk down Nassau Street (the main drag in Princeton, no pun intended) looking for cigarette butts to smoke. This was when wifey cut off his supply of cigs.

Re:Einstine = believer of God

[richdun]

For those not simply trolling, another who thinks religion and science and well connected is Gerald Schroeder, who wrote an excellent couple of books on the subject. My favorite is The Science of God [amazon.com]. Schroeder is an Israeli physicist (MIT educated if memory serves), and Genesis scholar.

His main assertions are that neither top scientists nor top theologians often understand the other, and that much of the debate stems from dogged stubornness in current beliefs - think of how the Catholic Church once thought it heresy to teach the heliocentric instead of the geocentric universe, when today we know that it's really all just a matter of perspective, but that centering the universe on Earth or the Sun is not such a great idea. He really knows his science (leaves you behind very quickly if you don't grasp relativity and cosmology well, but kindly gives you a warning before diving into the particulars) and Genesis, and tries not to take a stand on one explanation or another - simply says the two aren't incompatible, especially if you acknowledge that the point of both is to seek the truth (or Truth, your choice).

Because if his first wife was co-author of the...

[CyberLord Seven]

...1905 papers we should give her credit in the history of physics. Her name should be as well known as his.

I personally don't care about his personal life, but I am intrigued by the idea that Marie Curie may not have been the only phenomenal woman of her generation. That women of the last century did NOT have access to a potentially phenomenal role model disturbs me.

I don't care how much pussy he got or where it came from, but my image of him is hurt IF it is true that his first wife helped him and generations of young women were deprived of a role model.

Re:Always misleading... Now overly simplistic.

[LWATCDR]

From your link
"The Americans anticipated losing many soldiers in the planned invasion of Japan, although the actual number of expected fatalities and wounded is subject to some debate and depends on the persistence and reliability of Japanese resistance and whether the Americans would have invaded only Kyushu in November 1945 or if a follow up landing near Tokyo, projected for March of 1946, would have been needed. Years after the war, Secretary of State James Byrnes claimed that 500,000 American lives would have been lost--and that number has since been repeated authoritatively, but in the summer of 1945, U.S. military planners projected 20,000-110,000 combat deaths from the initial November 1945 invasion, with about three to four times that number wounded. (Total U.S. combat deaths on all fronts in World War II in nearly four years of war were 292,000.) However, these estimates were done using intelligence that grossly underestimated Japanese strength being gathered for the battle of Kyushu in numbers of soldiers and kamikazes, by factors of at least three. Many military advisors held that a worst-case scenario could involve up to 1,000,000 American casualties.

The atomic bomb hastened the end of the Second World War in Asia liberating hundreds of thousands of Western citizens, including about 200,000 Dutch and 400,000 Indonesians ("Romushas") from Japanese concentration camps. Moreover, Japanese troops had committed atrocities against millions of civilians (such as the infamous Nanking Massacre), and the early end to the war prevented further bloodshed.

Supporters also point to an order given by the Japanese War Ministry on August 1, 1944. The order dealt with the disposal and execution of all Allied POWs, numbering over 100,000, if an invasion of the Japanese mainland took place.[30] It is also likely that, considering Japan's previous treatment of POWs, were the Allies to wait out Japan and starve it, the Japanese would have killed all Allied POWs and Chinese prisoners.

In response to the argument that the large-scale killing of civilians was immoral and a war crime, supporters of the bombings have argued that the Japanese government waged total war, ordering many civilians (including women and children) to work in factories and military offices and to fight against any invading force. Father John A. Siemes, professor of modern philosophy at Tokyo's Catholic University, and an eyewitness to the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima wrote:
"

Einstein actually did almost no work on the Atomic Bomb project. Had he not wrote the letter it may have been dropped six months later but it would have been developed. Are the deaths of over 200,000 people tragic? Yes. Is the choice between 200,000 plus deaths and possible over a million deaths anything but terrible? Had Japan not attacked China, had Japan not attacked Pearl Harbor, or had Japan surrendered when it was clear the war was lost then those deaths would have been avoided.
The simple truth is that the decision to develop and to drop the Atomic bomb was made by human beings. Roosevelt and Truman are regarded as two of the greatest leaders of their time. They where also known for being extremely humane men.
Didn't the government of Japan have the responsibility to protect it's citizens? Shouldn't they have made decisions that would been in the best interest of their population? In the end all the death of Japanese citizens where the responsibility of the Japanese government.

I guess it is easy to feel superior to the men that decided to drop the Atomic bombs than to try to understand why it happened.
So I take it that you would have chosen to over one million dead from Japan, China, Korea, UK, US, and Indonesia over dropping the Atomic Bombs? I wonder how the million plus people that would have died then would feel about you?

History is only simple if you don't think about.

Re:Offtopic. Tesla's Birthday!

[Anonymous Coward]

I was in Serbia recently, and their 100 Dinar notes have one of Teslas formula imprinted right on them! I was impressed - finally something useful rather than a dumb picture, on currency.

Re:misleading

[Lord Ender]

It's more than human. It's rational.

I only have the resources to raise a finite number of children well. I intend to screen all the fetuses of my potential future wife for some of the more serious genetic diseases. I won't bring one into this world if it is going to have a miserable or unproductive life.

If we had inifinite resources, it would be different. But since we don't, it is actually MORE moral to raise 3 healthy children than to raise 2 healthy children and 1 miserable, diseased child who will die young.

I decide which conditions are worth inducing miscarriage by imagining if I would commit suicide if such a condition is afflicted on me.

Einstein seems to have had similar ideas, but not enough information (genetic testing) to act on them.

Cool true story about Einstein...and my dad

[notaprguy]

My father played Viola as a chile and into college. When he was in college he was introduced to Einstein and ended up getting together with him and some others several times over to play music. Einstein was a violin player and apparently enjoyed getting together with friends and young people to play music. My father, who is no 76, was in his early 20's. He said they never talked about physics or math but that they did talk a lot about music, some politics and some religion. He said Einstein was very fun...good sense of humor...somewhat of a joker...but also very intense and somewhat competitive about music if someone made a mistake.