Einstein’s Life in the United States Research - Later Life
When did he move to the United States?
Einstein was a German until 1933 when he renounced his citizenship for political reasons and emigrated to America to take the position of Professor of Theoretical Physics at Princeton*. He became a United States citizen in 1940 and retired from his post in 1945.
What where his political differences that led him to drop his German citizenship?
Albert Einstein was very outspoken politically and was an avid pacifist. He was also a Jew in Germany at the time when the Holocaust was only a few years away. For this reason, he was more or less forced out of his native Germany. He emigrated to the United States because he had been offered various positions there, during his travel from 1930-1931.
-> It was fortunate that Einstein moved because he was accused of treason by the Nazi party in 1933. The party's power was so absolute that at one point Einstein's name couldn't be mentioned, even in academic circles. His books were part of the many Nazi’s ritual book-burnings. One German magazine included him in a list of enemies of the German regime with the phrase, "not yet hanged", offering a $5,000 bounty on his head
What position did he have at the the University of Princeton?
In 1933, Einstein took on a position at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. Here he started working on a unified field theory ( -> a template that unifies a set of laws in physics). He also attempted to refute the accepted interpretation of quantum physics. Both projects were unsuccessful. He was affiliated with the Institute for Advanced Study up until his death in 1955.
How was he received in the United States?
He mentioned he was welcomed with much respect, in an essay he wrote for the New York Herald Tribune. "I must fulfill my promise to say something of my impressions of this country. This is not entirely easy for me, for it is not easy to assume the viewpoint of the objective observer in a country in which one is received with as much love and exaggerated respect as I was in the country.”
This was also obvious during his first travel to the US in 1930-1931. The Columbia University had built him a statue, calling him the ruling monarch of the mind. He had high celebrity value, having praise from Hollywood executives and actors such as Carl Laemmle, head of Universal Studios and Charlie Chaplin.
What was Einstein’s relation to Atomic energy, during the second world war?
Other European scientists also left regions threatened by Germany and immigrated to the states, with there being concern over Nazi strategies to create an atomic weapon. In 1939, Einstein and fellow physicist Leo Szilard wrote to President Franklin D. Roosevelt to tell him him of the possibility of a Nazi bomb and to galvanize the United States to create its own nuclear weapons. To warn that Hitler would be more than willing to resort to such a weapon.
What was his position in the war?
It is has been speculated that the letter he signed off on was the key stimulus for US to enter the race of creating an atomic bomb. Einstein used his relations to the Belgian Royal Family to get personal envoy into the president. After this, US government decided to initiate The Manhattan Project (research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons, with support of Canada and UK). Supporting the United states getting involved with Nuclear weapons went against his Pacifist principles. Linus Pauling, "I made one great mistake in my life—when I signed the letter to President Roosevelt recommending that atom bombs be made; but there was some justification—the danger that the Germans would make them …”
Was Einstein part of the creating of Nuclear bombs?
Though Einstein would not take direct part in its implementation due to his pacifist and socialist affiliations. Einstein was also the recipient of much scrutiny and major distrust from FBI director J. Edgar Hoover.
Did Einstein become an Official American Citizen?
In 1935 Einstein was granted permanent residency in his adopted country in 1939.
What were some achievements that led during his time in the United States?
He founded the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists, After learning of the 1945 bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, Einstein became a major player in efforts to curtail usage of the a-bomb.And in an essay for The Atlantic Monthly in 1947, Einstein explained that he was working with the United Nations to maintain nuclear weapons as a deterrent to conflict.
In 1950, Einstein became a member National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, seeing the parallels between the treatment of Jews in Germany and African Americans in the United States. He corresponded with scholar/activist W.E.B. Du Bois as well as performing artist Paul Robeson and campaigned for civil rights, calling racism a "disease" in a 1946 Lincoln University speech.
In 1946 he was offered an Honorary degree by lincoln university for his work for Civil Rights.
A resident of Princeton recalls that Einstein had once paid the college tuition for a black student.
He became increasingly isolated from the rest of the physics community, whose eyes were set on quantum theory. He was still very focused on general relativity, possibilities of time travel, and the possibilities of black holes in the universe.
He saw himself a loner during the last period of his life. He withdrew from spotlight, staying locally active in the science community of Princeton.
On 17 April 1955, Albert Einstein experienced internal bleeding caused by the rupture of an abdominal aortic aneurysm, which had previously been reinforced surgically by Rudolph Nissen in 1948. Einstein refused surgery, saying: "I want to go when I want. It is tasteless to prolong life artificially. I have done my share, it is time to go. I will do it elegantly.” Died the next morning in the Princeton Hospital.
What happened after his death?
During the autopsy, Thomas Stoltz Harvey removed Einstein's brain, reportedly without the permission of his family, for preservation and future study by doctors of neuroscience.
The late life of Einstein gave a new greater perspective on being part of a minority, outsider, and feeling repressed by his environment. His life in America was indirectly enforced by the nazi regime, and when moved, he had a new kind of empathy for the same sorts of exclusion that people of different races and genders feel. He was a big part of the Civil Rights movement, and was part of the committee for the United Nations to ensure the refusal of Nuclear Bomb usage. His biggest regret of this time, he noted in an interview, was inciting the US to develop nuclear weapons. This goes against his pacifist views, which denies violence being a way to enforce personal views. His own weapon of choice was reason.
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