Einstein (36 page)

He also responded to an advertisement for a “teacher of mathematics and descriptive geometry” at a high school in Zurich, noting in his application “that I would be ready to teach physics as well.” He ended up deciding to enclose all of the papers he had written thus far, including the special theory of relativity. There were twenty-one applicants. Einstein did not even make the list of three finalists.
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So Einstein finally overcame his pride and decided to write a thesis in order to become a
privatdozent
at Bern. As he explained to the patron there who had supported him, “The conversation I had with you in the city library, as well as the advice of several friends, has induced
me to change my decision for the second time and to try my luck with a
habilitation
at the University of Bern after all.”
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The paper he submitted, an extension of his revolutionary work on light quanta, was promptly accepted, and at the end of February 1908, he was made a
privatdozent.
He had finally scaled the walls, or at least the outer wall, of academe. But his post neither paid enough nor was important enough for him to give up his job at the patent office. His lectures at the University of Bern thus became simply one more thing for him to do.

His topic for the summer of 1908 was the theory of heat, held on Tuesday and Saturday at 7 a.m., and he initially attracted only three attendees: Michele Besso and two other colleagues who worked at the postal building. In the winter session he switched to the theory of radiation, and his three coworkers were joined by an actual student named Max Stern. By the summer of 1909, Stern was the only attendee, and Einstein canceled his lecturing. He had, in the meantime, begun to adopt his professorial look: both his hair and clothing became a victim of nature’s tendency toward randomness.
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Alfred Kleiner, the University of Zurich physics professor who helped Einstein get his doctorate, had encouraged him to pursue the
privatdozent
position.
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He also had waged a long effort, which succeeded in 1908, to convince the Zurich authorities to increase the university’s stature by creating a new position in theoretical physics. It was not a full professorship; instead, it was an associate professorship under Kleiner.

It was the obvious post for Einstein, but there was one obstacle. Kleiner had another candidate in mind: his assistant Friedrich Adler, a pale and passionate political activist who had become friends with Einstein when they were both at the Polytechnic. Adler, whose father was the leader of the Social Democratic Party in Austria, was more disposed to political philosophy than theoretical physics. So he went to see Kleiner one morning in June 1908, and the two of them concluded that Adler was not right for the job and Einstein was.

In a letter to his father, Adler recounted the conversation and said that Einstein “had no understanding how to relate to people” and had been “treated by the professors at the Polytechnic with outright contempt.”
But Adler said he deserved the job because of his genius and was likely to get it. “They have a bad conscience over how they treated him earlier. The scandal is being felt not only here but in Germany that such a man would have to sit in the patent office.”
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Adler made sure that the Zurich authorities, and for that matter everyone else, knew that he was officially stepping aside for his friend. “If it is possible to get a man like Einstein for our university, it would be absurd to appoint me,” he wrote. That resolved the political issue for the councilor in charge of education, who was a partisan Social Democrat. “Ernst would have liked Adler, since he was a fellow party member,” Einstein explained to Michele Besso. “But Adler’s statements about himself and me made it impossible.”
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So, at the end of June 1908, Kleiner traveled from Zurich to Bern to audit one of Einstein’s
privatdozent
lectures and, as Einstein put it, “size up the beast.” Alas, it was not a great show. “I really did not lecture divinely,” Einstein lamented to a friend, “partly because I was not well prepared, partly because being investigated got on my nerves a bit.” Kleiner sat listening with a wrinkled brow, and after the lecture he informed Einstein that his teaching style was not good enough to qualify him for the professorship. Einstein calmly claimed that he considered the job “quite unnecessary.”
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Kleiner went back to Zurich and reported that Einstein “holds monologues” and was “a long way from being a teacher.” That seemed to end his chances. As Adler informed his powerful father, “The situation has therefore changed, and the Einstein business is closed.” Einstein pretended to be sanguine. “The business with the professorship fell through, but that’s all right with me,” he wrote a friend. “There are enough teachers even without me.”
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In fact Einstein was upset, and he became even more so when he heard that Kleiner’s criticism of his teaching skills was being widely circulated, even in Germany. So he wrote to Kleiner, angrily reproaching him “for spreading unfavorable rumors about me.” He was already finding it difficult to get a proper academic job, and Kleiner’s assessment would make it impossible.

There was some validity to Kleiner’s criticism. Einstein was never an inspired teacher, and his lectures tended to be regarded as disorganized
until his celebrity ensured that every stumble he made was transformed into a charming anecdote. Nevertheless, Kleiner relented. He said that he would be pleased to help him get the Zurich job if he could only show “some teaching ability.”

Einstein replied by suggesting that he come to Zurich to give a full-fledged (and presumably well-prepared) lecture to the physics society there, which he did in February 1909. “I was lucky,” Einstein reported soon after. “Contrary to my habit, I lectured well on that occasion.”
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When he went to call on Kleiner afterward, the professor intimated that a job offer would soon follow.

A few days after Einstein returned to Bern, Kleiner provided his official recommendation to the University of Zurich faculty. “Einstein ranks among the most important theoretical physicists and has been recognized as such since his work on the relativity principle,” he wrote. As for Einstein’s teaching skills, he said as politely as possible that they were ripe for improvement: “Dr. Einstein will prove his worth also as a teacher, because he is too intelligent and too conscientious not to be open to advice when necessary.”
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One issue was Einstein’s Jewishness. Some faculty members considered this a potential problem, but they were assured by Kleiner that Einstein did not exhibit the “unpleasant peculiarities” supposedly associated with Jews. Their conclusion is a revealing look at both the anti-Semitism of the time and the attempts to rise above it:

The expressions of our colleague Kleiner, based on several years of personal contact, were all the more valuable for the committee as well as for the faculty as a whole since Herr Dr. Einstein is an Israelite and since precisely to the Israelites among scholars are inscribed (in numerous cases not entirely without cause) all kinds of unpleasant peculiarities of character, such as intrusiveness, impudence, and a shopkeeper’s mentality in the perception of their academic position. It should be said, however, that also among the Israelites there exist men who do not exhibit a trace of these disagreeable qualities and that it is not proper, therefore, to disqualify a man only because he happens to be a Jew. Indeed, one occasionally finds people also among non-Jewish scholars who in regard to a commercial perception and utilization of their academic profession develop qualities that are usually considered as specifically Jewish. Therefore, neither the committee nor the faculty as a whole considered it compatible with its dignity to adopt anti-Semitism as a matter of policy.
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The secret faculty vote in late March 1909 was ten in favor and one abstention. Einstein was offered his first professorship, four years after he had revolutionized physics. Unfortunately, his proposed salary was less than what he was making at the patent office, so he declined. Finally, the Zurich authorities raised their offer, and Einstein accepted. “So, now I too am an official member of the guild of whores,” he exulted to a colleague.
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One person who saw a newspaper notice about Einstein’s appointment was a Basel housewife named Anna Meyer-Schmid. Ten years earlier, when she was an unmarried girl of 17, they had met during one of Einstein’s vacations with his mother at the Hotel Paradies. Most of the guests had seemed to him “philistines,” but he took a liking to Anna and even wrote a poem in her album: “What should I inscribe for you here? / I could think of many things / Including a kiss / On your tiny little mouth / If you’re angry about it / Do not start to cry / The best punishment / Is to give me one too.” He signed it, “Your rascally friend.”
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In response to a congratulatory postcard from her, Einstein replied with a polite and mildly suggestive letter. “I probably cherish the memory of the lovely weeks that I was allowed to spend near you in the Paradies more than you do,” he wrote. “So now I’ve become such a big schoolmaster that my name is even mentioned in the newspapers. But I have remained a simple fellow.” He noted that he had married his college friend Mari
, but he gave her his office address. “If you ever happen to be in Zurich and have time, look me up there; it would give me great pleasure.”
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Whether or not Einstein intended his response to hover uncertainly between innocence and suggestiveness, Anna’s eyes apparently snapped it into the latter position. She wrote a letter back, which Mari
intercepted. Her jealousy aroused, Mari
then wrote a letter to Anna’s husband claiming (wishfully more than truthfully) that Einstein was outraged by Anna’s “inappropriate letter” and brazen attempt to rekindle a relationship.

Einstein ended up having to calm matters with an apology to the husband. “I am very sorry if I have caused you distress by my careless behavior,” he wrote. “I answered the congratulatory card your wife sent
me on the occasion of my appointment too heartily and thereby re-awakened the old affection we had for each other. But this was not done with impure intentions. The behavior of your wife, for whom I have the greatest respect, was totally honorable. It was wrong of my wife—and excusable only on account of extreme jealousy—to behave—without my knowledge—the way she did.”

Although the incident itself was of no consequence, it marked a turn in Einstein’s relationship with Mari
. In his eyes, her brooding jealousy was making her darker. Decades later, still rankling at Mari
’s behavior, he wrote to Anna’s daughter asserting, with a brutal bluntness, that his wife’s jealousy had been a pathological flaw typical of a woman of such “uncommon ugliness.”
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