In celebration of Albert Einstein's "miraculous
year" of 1905, this year, 2005, is deservedly
recognized as the World Year of Physics and also as
the International Year of Physics. This year also
deserves recognition as the 50th anniversary of the
First Geneva Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic
Energy—a conference that marked the public debut
of global concern about our energy future, the public
unveiling of the fusion energy program, and a thaw
in Soviet−American relations. Conferences like
it, which concern themselves with global energy problems
and serve as meeting grounds for political adversaries,
are particularly valuable. May they continue to flourish.
Einstein writes in response to vicious attacks on
Curie in the French right-wing press. The attacks
began in the fall of 1910, when she offered herself
as a candidate for the single vacant seat for a physicist
in the French Academy of Sciences. The hostile press
stressed her foreign birth, her liberal politics,
her sex, and her romantic connection with the married
physicist Paul Langevin. Curie had been a widow since
her husband Pierre was run over and killed in 1906
by a horse-drawn wagon. The Curies had shared the
1903 Nobel Prize in Physics. A month before this letter,
it was announced that Marie would receive a second
Nobel prize, this time in chemistry.
Prague, 23 November 1911
Esteemed Mrs. Curie,
Don’t laugh at me for writing to you without
having anything sensible to say. But I’m so
furious at the vile [niederträchige] way
in which the rabble [Pöbel] at present
dares to treat you that I absolutely must give vent
to this feeling. I am, however, convinced that you
despise this rabble, equally when it’s feigning
adoration or when it’s using you to slake its
thirst for the sensational! I must tell you how much
I’ve come to admire your spirit [Geist],
your creativity, and your honesty. I consider myself
lucky to have made your personal acquaintance in Brussels.
Anyone other than those reptiles is certainly happy,
now as before, that we have eminent people like you,
and also Langevin, among us—real people [wirkliche
Menschen] with whom one feels privileged to be
in contact. If the rabble continues to occupy itself
with you, then simply don’t read that swill.
Rather leave it to the reptile for whom it’s
been fabricated.
With most friendly regards to you, Langevin, and
[Jean] Perrin,
Yours very truly,
A. Einstein
P.S. I’ve determined the statistical law of
[rotational] motion for a diatomic molecule in Planck’s
radiation field by means of a merry joke [lustigen
Witz], of course on the assumption that the structure’s
motion obeys the laws of ordinary mechanics. But I
have little hope that this law is valid in reality.2
References
1. The Collected Papers of Albert
Einstein, vol. 8, R. Schulmann et al., eds., Princeton
U. Press (1998) p. 7.
2. For details see Einstein’s letter
written the same day to H. A. Lorentz, in The Collected
Papers of Albert Einstein, vol. 5, English trans.,
A. Beck, Princeton U. Press (1995), p. 227.
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