Abstract
Albert Einstein’s friendship with Oxford’s professor of experimental philosophy Frederick Lindemann resulted in three annual visits that he made to the university, beginning in 1931. The visits, each of about a month, helped to promote Lindemann’s ambitions for Oxford physics, then struggling for recognition in what was still predominantly an arts university. Einstein, in return, settled comfortably into college life in Christ Church, where he was housed, and was left free to pursue his mathematical and other interests. Among his activities, the three Rhodes Lectures (on recent developments in physics) that he delivered in 1931 and his Herbert Spencer and Deneke Lectures of 1933 were public highlights. But the personal friendships he established within Christ Church and in Oxford’s musical circles also mattered to him. When the menacing turn of events in Nazi Germany led Einstein to seek a new life at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton in October 1933, Lindemann was instrumental in maintaining Christ Church’s invitation for him to return to Oxford for short annual stays through to 1936. In the event, Einstein never returned, and the funding allocated for his visits was used (at his request) to assist academic refugees, a number of whom left an enduring mark on science in Oxford.
This essay presents a first ordering of material from an ongoing study of Einstein’s time in Oxford, and it is informed by the main archival sources used in the larger study. Although I do not systematically cite these sources here, I wish to acknowledge my debt for access to archives in the keeping of: Judith Curthoys, archivist of Christ Church, Oxford; the Warden of Rhodes House and Secretary to the Rhodes Trustees; and the Librarian of Nuffield College, Oxford (responsible for the papers of Frederick Lindemann, Lord Cherwell). I am also grateful to Keith Moore, librarian of the Royal Society for drawing my attention to the accompanying portrait sketch of Einstein and arranging for it to be reproduced. On the portrait, which was recently presented to the Royal Society by Professors Deborah and Brian Charlesworth, see McManus (2014).
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Lindemann’s comment is cited in Clark (1971, 144–5). For biographical information about Einstein, I draw not only on Clark’s Einstein but also on other biographical sources, notably Isaacson (2007, Chaps. 16 and 18). On the theme of this essay, I owe much to discussions with Dr Paul W. Kent, Dr Lee’s Reader in Chemistry at Christ Church from 1956 to 1972 and author of “Einstein at Oxford”, in Biller (2005, 5–11).
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Lindemann’s determination to secure Einstein as a Rhodes Memorial Lecturer emerges strongly from correspondence in the file “Rhodes Memorial Lectures 1929–1969”, in the papers of the Rhodes Trustees at Rhodes House, Oxford.
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Quoted in Eisinger (2011, 124). On Einstein’s impressions of Oxford, his travel diaries are revealing. The diaries are in the Einstein papers, now in the Albert Einstein Centre of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, with copies and transcriptions held by the Einstein Papers project at the California Institute of Technology. I am grateful to Professor Diana Kormos-Buchwald, director of the project at Caltech, for allowing me to see relevant extracts from the diaries. I have also drawn on Eisinger’s Einstein on the road, especially Chaps. 6 and 8, which treat Einstein’s visits to Oxford, with passages from the diaries translated into English.
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The texts of the three lectures have not survived. Short reports appeared in Nature, 127 (16 May 1931), 765; 127 (23 May 1931), 790; and 127 (30 May 1931), 826–7. And typed summaries, annotated in pencil (probably by Lindemann), are in the Cherwell Papers, Nuffield College, Oxford. The titles as given in Nature do not entirely match those given in the announcements of the lectures in the Oxford University gazette.
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Museum of the History of Science, Oxford, inventory number 44,725; an image of the blackboard, with a commentary, is in the museum’s collection database. A photograph of the blackboard and a note on its content are also in Kent (2005, 7).
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Eisinger (2011, 130).
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The Herbert Spencer lecture was published as On the method of theoretical physics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1933), after translation from Einstein’s German by his friends Gilbert Ryle, Denys Page, and Claude Hurst, all students of Christ Church. It is conveniently reproduced in Biller (2005, 12–19). The title of the Deneke lecture was “Einiges zur Atomistik”; see Oxford University gazette, 63 (1932–1933), 588 (8 June 1933).
- 11.
A film of Einstein speaking is available on You Tube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBage5Ff57E, accessed 17 June 2014.
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Einstein to Lindemann, 21 November 1933, D57/26, Cherwell Papers, Nuffield College, Oxford.
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Einstein to the Dean of Christ Church, 9 May 1934, DP xx.c.1, Christ Church Archives.
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Schrödinger’s difficulties in Oxford are discussed in Hoch and Yoxen (1987, 593–616).
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On Simon’s troubles in Germany and his move to Oxford, see McRae (2014, Chaps. 3 and 4).
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Gavroglu (1995, Chap. 3) is a rich source on Heinz’s unhappiness, which paralleled that of his brother.
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Fox, R. (2015). Lindemann and Einstein: The Oxford Connexion. In: Arabatzis, T., Renn, J., Simões, A. (eds) Relocating the History of Science. Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, vol 312. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14553-2_3
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