Translated from french by Grok
To George

The author of the biography doesn’t just give us a quick sketch of the mindset that prevailed before Einstein’s work—he literally plunges us into that world where the organicist view, and later the mechanistic view after Newton, were omnipresent and domineering. In my opinion, this is the only approach that truly allows modern people to understand Einstein’s contribution.

What’s amusing is that this method, rather than making Einstein’s work seem natural by explaining it, paradoxically proves the singularity of this man’s genius—he was unique in so many ways, and therefore solitary.

The third chapter provides a clear and enjoyable explanation of the famous year 1905: it presents the fundamental ideas that an employee at the patent office used to create the special theory of relativity, the theory of Brownian motion, and of course the photon concept.

Then came the obtaining of an official position and the acquisition of administrative duties, which had an effect on Einstein that would amuse many a researcher familiar with such “joys.” More seriously, the racist atmosphere he encountered in Prague is revealing of the “sentiment” that would soon shake the European world—it was Kafkaesque.

On the scientific level, the most remarkable fact of this Prague period is that it was the mathematician Georg Pick—who later died in a Nazi extermination camp—to whom Einstein had entrusted his problems for generalizing the theory of relativity, who suggested using the absolute differential calculus of Ricci and Levi-Civita. At the time, Einstein found the suggestion too difficult. He only used it properly, with the help of M. Grossmann, several years later!

The hardships Einstein endured in Berlin starting from the outbreak of the First World War are described with precision: his refusal to sign the Manifesto of the Ninety-Three German intellectuals, his refusal to serve the war effort, his humanitarian dismay. It was probably his disgust at the stupidity of men whipped up by militarism that drove him to devote himself even more passionately to building a theory of gravitation.

Philipp Frank astutely shows that general relativity is not the daughter of Newton’s queen theory but rather the revolution that shatters an absolute empire. It has absolutely nothing to do with that old, crude view of reality: gravitation is an epiphenomenon of the geometry of space-time—in a single word, since considering space independently of time is incoherent—four-dimensional space-time. It rests on two propositions:
– “The laws of the field establish how the masses present generate the curvature of space.”
– “The laws of motion, both for material particles and for light rays, establish how geodesics can be found in a space of known curvature.”

The author meticulously analyzes the experimental confirmations as well as the public’s reaction to this highly original theory.

He then examines Einstein’s role in the Zionist movement fighting against the rise of German nationalism sparked by the 1918 defeat. Further on, the reader will be surprised to discover the political mess created by Einstein’s opponents once he became a public figure, mainly because he loudly proclaimed his desperate pacifism. Since he was universally known for his scientific work, especially relativity, his detractors tried every possible means to discredit his work—they even attempted to claim that the famous formula E=mc² wasn’t his, presenting it as the “Hasenöhrl principle,” even though that only represents a special case! What they actually achieved, contrary to their expectations, was that everyone wanted to know the “Einstein case,” resulting in a flood of invitations from countries all over the world.

Yet that was nothing compared to the horrors the Nazis would commit once they took power. I urge readers to carefully read the pages dealing with this period, because everyone needs to know about all the injustices committed—especially in the realm of science—but the word “injustice” is an understatement; they were genuine crimes against humanity.

Of course, General Relativity itself suffered from this new current—of thought would be too noble a term—full of ignominy. It was labeled “Jewish physics” by the Nazis, “bourgeois propaganda” by the Soviets, and “materialistic” by religious groups!

It’s striking to see how dramatically the paradisiacal atmosphere of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton contrasts with the infernal climate of Nazi Germany. True, that institute would make many a researcher dream—oh, how aware they are of material contingencies. From the moment he secured that position, Einstein did everything in his power to help scientists victimized by Hitler’s policies.

On the purely scientific front, it was during this period that he conceived the famous Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox, an extremely subtle critique of orthodox quantum mechanics. And in collaboration with Infeld, he wrote the equally famous (though in a different domain) popular science book *The Evolution of Physics*. Frank sheds light here too on the birth of these works.

Later, the author of this extraordinary biography reveals that this man of genius—and who could possibly be surprised?—also played a role in the greatest conceptual revolution in human history: the creation of the atomic bomb, since he wrote to President Roosevelt, an act that led to the launch of the famous “Manhattan Project.”

The final chapter, written by A. George because Philipp Frank’s death prevented him from doing so, covers the last years of Einstein’s life—without doubt the period least known to the general public. His painful and moving efforts to establish world peace are exemplary for every human being. Likewise, his critical essays on quantum mechanics deserve to be known by every scientist.

Socrates would have been proud of him!

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