Abstract
1923 was the year Einstein was in Sweden to give his Nobel lecture. Little has been written about this episode, and there is some confusion as to certain details.
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Abraham Pais, Subtle is the Lord. The Science and Life of Albert Einstein (Oxford: University Press, 1982), p. 504 ff.
A similar point is made by Paul Forman, “Scientific Internationalism and the Weimar Republic: The Ideology and its Manipulation in Germany after World War I’, ISIS 64 (1973), pp. 151–180.
The last word in the title was later dropped; see, e.g., the 23rd edition ( Braunschweig/Weisbaden: Friedr. Vieweg & Sohn, 1988 ).
Albert Einstein, Den speciella och den allmänna relativitetsteorin (Göteborg: Daidalos, 1989), with an Introduction by Aant Elzinga.
The Svedberg, Arbetets dekadens. Naturvetenskapliga essäer (Stockholm: Hugo Gebers Förlag, 1915).
J. Arvid Hedvall, Göteborg i Centrum (Göteborg: Rundqvists tryckerie, 1970), p. 57; this book also contains the picture of Einstein on the podium of the Concert Hall in the Liseberg Amusement Park, delivering his Nobel lecture. The same picture is reproduced in Carl-Olow Stawström, `Relative Acceptance. The Introduction and Reception of Einstein’s Theories in Sweden 1905–1965’, in Svante Lindqvist (ed.), Center on the Periphery. Historical Aspects of 20th-Century Swedish Physics ( Canton MA: Science History Publications, 1993 ), p. 298.
Mrs. Astrid Petzäl, a daughter of Dr. Gustaf Ekman is thanked for letting me consult a number of letters in her possession, including one by Albert Einstein to Mrs. Ekman.
Einstein’s initials are still there inscribed in a pane of a glass in a window of one of the buildings.
Kungl. Vetenskaps-och vitterhetssamhället, KVVS.
Hedvall, Göteborg i Centrum.
Cited after Pais, Subtle is the Lord,p. 509.
Carl-Olow Stawström, `Synpunkter pa hur svenska fysiker och filosofer uppfattat Einsteins relativitetsteorier’, Stockholm Papers in History and Philosophy of Technology, no. 2018 (Stockholm: Royal Institute of Technology Library, 1986), p. 19. Some of the same territory is covered in Carl-Olov Stawström, `Relative Acceptance’, pp. 293–305; see also Carl-Olov Stawström, Idéhistoriska synpunkter pea innehället i vissa skriftliga arbeten av Carl Wilhelm Oseen’, Stockholm Papers in History and Philosophy of Technology, no. 2019 ( Stockholm: Royal Institute of Technology Library, 1986 ).
Elisabeth Crawford and Robert Marc Friedman, `The Prizes in Physics and Chemistry in the Context of Swedish Science: a working paper’, in C. G. Bernhard, E. Crawford and P. Sörbom (eds.), Science, Technology and Society in the Time of Alfred Nobel ( Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1982 ), p. 323. The Prizes in Physics and Chemistry, p. 323.
Cited after G. Küppers, N. Ulitzka & P. Weingart `Decisions about the Significance of Science’, in C. G. Bernhard, E.
Crawford and P. Sörbom (eds.), Science, Technology and Society in the Time of Alfred Nobel ( Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1982 ), p. 349.
Cited after Pais, Subtle is the Lord,p. 503. In accordance with a divorce settlement some years before, the proceeds of the Nobel prize were turned over to Einstein’s ex-wife, his former fellow physics graduate student and companion in Zürich, Mileva Maríc. She bore him two sons in their marriage, and one daughter, in secret, before their marriage. The daughter was put up for adoption via Mileva’s parents in Serbia. There has been some dispute amongst scholars about the extent of Mileva Marie’s role in special relativity theory; some even claim that her name appeared on the famous 1905 paper together with Albert Einstein’s.
See further Michael White and John Gribbin, Einstein. A Life of Science (London: Simon and Schuster, 1993), p. 125; and also Roger Highfield and Paul Carter, The Private Lives of Albert Einstein (London: Faber and Faber, 1993), pp. 108–117. “ See note 36 in Crawford and Friedman, `The Prizes in Physics and Chemistry’, p. 330, and note 36.
Stawström, Stockholm Papers no. 2018, p. 12.
Robert Marc Friedman, `The Nobel Prizes and the Invigoration of Swedish Science: Some Considerations’, in Tore Frängsmyr (ed.), Solomon’s House Revisited. The Organization and Institution of Science ( Canton MA: Science History Publications, 1990 ), p. 199.
The Prizes in Physics and Chemistry’, p. 322.
Bernhard, Crawford and Sörbom (eds.), Science, Technology and Society,p. 358.
Decisions about the Significance of Science’, p. 345.
Decisions about the Significance of Science’, p. 345.
Quoted in `Decisions about the Significance of Science’, p. 345.
Estimations based on lists in John Tuneld, Akademiska avhandlingar vid Sveriges universitet och högskolor 1910/11–1939/40 ( Lund: Ohissons boktrykerie, 1945 ).
For a similar case where Oseen was also involved, using the renommé of the Nobel prize to advance Swedish science policy interests, see `The Nobel Prizes and the Invigoration of Swedish Science’, pp. 198–201; this was in connection with Manne Siegbahn’s prize in 1925, reserved from 1924.
Stawström, Stockholm Papers no. 2018, p. 21; cf. also Klaus Hentschel, `The rise of antisemitic arguments against Einstein’s theories of relativity in Germany since 1920’, paper at the XVIIIth Congress of History of Science, Hamburg-Munich 1–9 Aug. 1989.
Elisabeth Crawford, Nationalism and Internationalism in Science, 1880–1939 (Cambridge: University Press, 1992), pp. 67–68; also Elisabeth Crawford, `The Benefits of Nobel Prizes’, in Tore Frängsmyr (ed.), Science in Sweden. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences 1937–1989 (Canton MA: Science History Publications, 1989).
Cited after Kjell Jonsson, `Naturvetenskap, världsâskädning och metafysiskt patos i mellankrigstidens Sverige’, Lychnos (1992), p. 128; see also Kjell Jonsson, `Physics as Culture. Science and Weltanschauung in Inter-War Sweden’, in Svante Lindqvist (ed.), Center on the Periphery,pp. 3–23.
Georg Henrik von Wright, Vetenskap och förnuftet ( Stockholm: MänPocket, 1988 ), p. 92.
Svante Nordin, Fran Hägerström till Hedenius. Den moderna Svenska filosofin ( Lund: Doxa, 1984 ).
Kjell Jonsson, Vid vetandets gräns (Lund: Arkiv avhandlingsserie 26, 1987), p. 179 and corresponding note on p. 216.
Nordin, Fran Hägerström till Hedenius,pp. 76–77.
Naturvetenskap, världsâskäadning’, p. 129.
Jonsson, Vid vetandets gräns p. 176.
Quoted in Stawström, Stockholm Papers no. 2018, p. 25.
Stawström, Stockholm Papers no. 2018, p. 25.
Stawström, Stockholm Papers no. 2018, p. 26.
Stawström, Stockholm Papers no. 2018, p. 27; see also Suzanne Gieser, `Philosophy and Modern Physics in Sweden. C.W. Oseen, Oskar Klein, and the Intellectual Traditions of Uppsala and Lund, 1920–1940’, in Svante Lindqvist (ed.), Center on the Periphery,pp. 24–41, which examines, among other, the debates between physicists and philosophers during the period indicated.
Quoted after Stawström, Stockholm Papers no. 2018, p. 29.
See Stawström, Stockholm Papers no. 2018, p. 31; the final publication was Martin Fries (ed.), Axel Hägerströms Filosofi och Vetenskap (Stockholm: Ehlins, 1957), with commentary by Fries.
Quoted after Stawström, Stockholm Papers no. 2018, p. 31.
Stawström, Stockholm Papers no. 2018, p. 29.
Stawström, Stockholm Papers no. 2018, pp. 29–30.
Stawström, Stockholm Papers no. 2018, p. 30.
Stawström, Stockholm Papers no. 2018, p. 30.
Stawström, Stockholm Papers no. 2018, p. 30.
It is interesting to note that Cassirer also wrote a book on Hägerström’ philosophy, but his critical remarks in it deal only with value nihilism, not with Hägerström’s views on relativity theory. E. Cassirer, Alex Hägerström (Göteborg: Högskolan, 1939); see also D. Gawronsky, Ernst Cassirer: his life and his work. In The Philosophy of Ernst Cassirer (Evanston Ill.: 1949). Malte Jacobsson’s account of Cassirer’s arrival and sojourn in Göteborg can be found in M. Jacobsson, Minnesbilder (Stockholm: 1964).
Ernst Cassirer, Einstein’s Theory of Relativity,publ. 1923, and again in 1953 together with Substance and Function (London: Dover Publ., 1953); the quote is from the latter edition, p. 349.
Hâakan Törnebohm, A Logical Analysis of the Theory of Relativity (Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell, 1952); Hakan Törnebohm, Concepts and Principles in the space-time theory within Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity (Göteborg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis, 1963 ); Hâakan Törnebohm, A Paradigm Shift in Theories of Gravitation ( Gothenburg: Scandinavian University Books, 1977 ).
For a review of some of these struggles in philosophy, see Svante Nordin, Frdn Hägerström till Hedenius.
Cf. Sven-Eric Liedman, `In search of Isis: general education in Germany and Sweden’ in Sheldon Rothblatt and Björn Wittrock (eds.), The European and American University since 1800. Historical and sociological essays (Cambridge: University Press, 1993), pp. 74–106; also Aant Elzinga, `Universities, research and the transformation of the State in Sweden’, in the same volume, Rothblatt and Wittrock (eds.), pp. 191–233.
This was in 1920, and Oseen was the Chairman; see Stawström, `Relative Acceptance’, p. 300.
Quoted after Jonsson, Naturvetenskap, världsâaskadning’, p. 129.
Quoted in Stawström, Stockholm Papers no. 2018, p. 15.
Stawström, Stockholm Papers no. 2018, p. 15.
Quoted in Jonsson, `Naturvetenskap, världsaskadning’, pp. 129–130 (my translation); also in Jonsson, `Physics as Culture’, p. 12.
Georg Brandes, Kulturbillider. Studier og Strejftog (Kopenhavn: Hage & Clausens Forlag, 1932), p. 155; I am grateful to Bertil Nolin of the Literature Department at the University of Göteborg for drawing my attention to Brandes’ references to Einstein and the general theory of relativity.
Pais, Subtle is the Lord,p. 317.
Kenji Sugimoto, Albert Einstein. Die Kommentierte Bilddokumentationen ( München: Verlag Moos & Partner, 1987 ), p. 93.
See Conny Mithander, `Implications of Technology. The Debate in Context’, in Catharina Landström (ed.), Intellectuals Reading Technology. Proceedings from the Nordic Symposium `Technology-Ideology-Culture’, S.t.i.c. report no. 4 (Göteborg: Theory of Science Department, 1991), pp. 3–25. For an interesting critique of Spengler’s views see Otto Neurath, “Anti-Spengler”, in Rudolf Haller and Heiner Rutte (eds.), Otto Neurath Gesammelte philosophische and methodologische Schriften Band 1 (Wien: Verlag HölderPichler-Tempsky, 1981), pp. 139–196.
See Crawford, Nationalism and Internationalism in Science,also Forman, `Scientific Internationalism and the Weimar Physicists’. In what follows I largely rely on these two authors.
Scientific Internationalism and the Weimar Physicists’, pp. 153–156.
Scientific Internationalism and the Weimar Physicists’, p. 163.
Quoted after, ‘Scientific Internationalism and the Weimar Physicists’, p. 164.
Crawford, Nationalism and Internationalism in Science,pp. 64–71.
Crawford, Nationalism and Internationalism in Science,p. 70.
Scientific Internationalism and the Weimar Physicists’, pp. 177–179.
Daniel J. Kevles, “Into Hostile Political Camps: The Reorganization of International Science in World War I”, ISIS 62 (1973), pp. 151–180; for a discussion of Einstein’s response to the “appeal of the 93”, signing a pacifist counter appeal initiated by the physiology professor at Berlin University, Georg Nicolai, see White and Gribbin, Einstein. A Life of Science,pp. 119–120.
Crawford, Nationalism and Internationalism in Science,pp. 67–68.
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Elzinga, A. (1995). Einstein in the Land of Nobel: An Episode in the Interplay of Science, Politics, Epistemology and Popular Culture. In: Gavroglu, K., Stachel, J., Wartofsky, M.W. (eds) Physics, Philosophy, and the Scientific Community. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 163. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2658-0_5
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