"Albert Einstein. The world as I see it (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

given by a teacher in the Gymnasium at Munich, to obtain admission to the
Polytechnic Academy at Zurich. A year passed in the study of necessary
subjects which he had neglected for mathematics, but once admitted, the
young Einstein became absorbed in the pursuit of science and philosophy and
made astonishing progress. After five distinguished years at the Polytechnic
he hoped to step into the post of assistant professor, but found that the
kindly words of the professors who had stimulated the hope did not
materialize.

Then followed a weary search for work, two brief interludes of
teaching, and a stable appointment as examiner at the Confederate Patent
Office at Berrie. Humdrum as the work was, it had the double advantage of
providing a competence and of leaving his mind free for the mathematical
speculations which were then taking shape in the theory of relativity. In
1905 his first monograph on the theory was published in a Swiss scientific
journal, the Annalen der Physik. Zurich awoke to the fact that it possessed
a genius in the form of a patent office clerk, promoted him to be a lecturer
at the University and four years later-in 1909-installed him as Professor.

His next appointment was (in 1911) at the University of Prague, where
he remained for eighteen months. Following a brief return to Zurich, he
went, early in 1914, to Berlin as a professor in the Prussian Academy of
Sciences and director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Theoretical
Physics. The period of the Great War was a trying time for Einstein, who
could not conceal his ardent pacifism, but he found what solace he could in
his studies. Later events brought him into the open and into many parts of
the world, as an exponent not only of pacifism but also of world-disarmament
and the cause of Jewry. To a man of such views, as passionately held as they
were by Einstein, Germany under the Nazis was patently impossible. In 1933
Einstein made his famous declaration: "As long as I have any choice, I will
stay only in a country where political liberty, toleration, and equality of
all citizens before the law are the rule." For a time he was a homeless
exile; after offers had come to him from Spain and France and Britain, he
settled in Princeton as Professor of Mathematical and Theoretical Physics,
happy in his work, rejoicing in a free environment, but haunted always by
the tragedy of war and oppression.

The World As I See It, in its original form, includes essays by
Einstein on relativity and cognate subjects. For reasons indicated above,
these have been omitted in the present edition; the object of this reprint
is simply to reveal to the general reader the human side of one of the most
dominating figures of our day.

I


The World As I See It

The Meaning of Life