she commented, "to show that it takes a sound skull to be the sister of an intellectual." When she described the high school Greek teacher who complained that nothing would ever become of her brother, she added: "And in fact Albert Einstein never did attain a professorship of Greek grammar."
To crank it all forward, there need to be driving tensions, and these Einstein had aplenty. There was the failure of being in his mid-twenties, isolated from other serious scientists, when university friends were already making careers for themselves. There was also thunderous guilt from seeing the difficulties his father was having in his own business career. Einstein had grown up with his father fairly prosperous in the electrical contracting business in Munich, but when Einstein was a teenager, possibly because key contracts stopped being given to Jewish firms, his father had moved the family to Italy to set up again. In the move, and in a series of near-successes that never quite made it, his father was exhausted in paying back loans to a brother-in-law, the constantly nagging Uncle Rudolf "The Rich" (as Einstein mockingly called him). It wrecked his father's health; yet through it all the family had insisted on finding the money to pay for Einstein to study. ("He is oppressed by the thought that he is a burden on us, people of modest means," as his father had remarked in the 1901 letter.) There was a huge obligation for Einstein to show he had been worth it after that.
Eventually a few other physicists did begin to pay attention to Einstein, sometimes visiting Bern to talk over the equation and other results. It was just what Einstein and Besso had hoped for, but it also meant that they started being pulled apart. For Einstein was gradually going beyond the ideas his best friend could follow. Although Besso was bright, he'd chosen a life in industry. ("I prodded him very much to become a [university teacher], but I doubt . . . he'll do it. He simply doesn't want to.") Besso couldn't follow the next level.
Besso adored his younger friend, and had gone out of his way to help him back when Einstein was still a student. He even tried, hard, in their evenings sharing Gruyere and sausages and tea, to keep up with the further ideas Einstein was seeing now. Einstein himself was kind about the growing distance from his friends. He never declared to Besso that he was no longer interested in him. They continued country walks, stops for a drink, musical evenings, and practical jokes with the others. But it's a bit like two old school friends breaking off once both have started moving separate ways at university, or in their first jobs afterward. Each one would really like things not to be like that, but everything they care about now is pulling them apart. They can talk about the old days when they're together, but the enthusiasm is forced, even though neither of them wants to admit it.
A similar distancing happened with Einstein's wife, Mileva. She'd been a physics student with him, and very bright. Men in the sciences rarely marry fellow specialists— how many are there?—and Einstein was almost smug to his college friends about how lucky he'd been. His first letters to her had started neutrally:
Zurich, Wednesday [16 February 1898]
I have to tell you what material we covered. . . .
Hurwitz lectured on differential equations (exclusive of partial ones), also on Fourier series. . . .
But the relationship developed, as extracts from a series of letters written in August and September 1900 show:
Once again a few lazy and dull days flitted past my sleepy eyes, you know, such days on which one gets up late because one cannot think of anything proper to do, then goes out until the room has been made up. . . . Then one hangs around and looks halfheartedly forward to the meal. . . .
However things turn out, we are getting the most delightful life in the world. Beautiful work, and together. . . .
Be cheerful, dear sweetheart. Kissing you
To crank it all forward, there need to be driving tensions, and these Einstein had aplenty. There was the failure of being in his mid-twenties, isolated from other serious scientists, when university friends were already making careers for themselves. There was also thunderous guilt from seeing the difficulties his father was having in his own business career. Einstein had grown up with his father fairly prosperous in the electrical contracting business in Munich, but when Einstein was a teenager, possibly because key contracts stopped being given to Jewish firms, his father had moved the family to Italy to set up again. In the move, and in a series of near-successes that never quite made it, his father was exhausted in paying back loans to a brother-in-law, the constantly nagging Uncle Rudolf "The Rich" (as Einstein mockingly called him). It wrecked his father's health; yet through it all the family had insisted on finding the money to pay for Einstein to study. ("He is oppressed by the thought that he is a burden on us, people of modest means," as his father had remarked in the 1901 letter.) There was a huge obligation for Einstein to show he had been worth it after that.
Eventually a few other physicists did begin to pay attention to Einstein, sometimes visiting Bern to talk over the equation and other results. It was just what Einstein and Besso had hoped for, but it also meant that they started being pulled apart. For Einstein was gradually going beyond the ideas his best friend could follow. Although Besso was bright, he'd chosen a life in industry. ("I prodded him very much to become a [university teacher], but I doubt . . . he'll do it. He simply doesn't want to.") Besso couldn't follow the next level.
Besso adored his younger friend, and had gone out of his way to help him back when Einstein was still a student. He even tried, hard, in their evenings sharing Gruyere and sausages and tea, to keep up with the further ideas Einstein was seeing now. Einstein himself was kind about the growing distance from his friends. He never declared to Besso that he was no longer interested in him. They continued country walks, stops for a drink, musical evenings, and practical jokes with the others. But it's a bit like two old school friends breaking off once both have started moving separate ways at university, or in their first jobs afterward. Each one would really like things not to be like that, but everything they care about now is pulling them apart. They can talk about the old days when they're together, but the enthusiasm is forced, even though neither of them wants to admit it.
A similar distancing happened with Einstein's wife, Mileva. She'd been a physics student with him, and very bright. Men in the sciences rarely marry fellow specialists— how many are there?—and Einstein was almost smug to his college friends about how lucky he'd been. His first letters to her had started neutrally:
Zurich, Wednesday [16 February 1898]
I have to tell you what material we covered. . . .
Hurwitz lectured on differential equations (exclusive of partial ones), also on Fourier series. . . .
But the relationship developed, as extracts from a series of letters written in August and September 1900 show:
Once again a few lazy and dull days flitted past my sleepy eyes, you know, such days on which one gets up late because one cannot think of anything proper to do, then goes out until the room has been made up. . . . Then one hangs around and looks halfheartedly forward to the meal. . . .
However things turn out, we are getting the most delightful life in the world. Beautiful work, and together. . . .
Be cheerful, dear sweetheart. Kissing you
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