Albert Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics on this day in 1922. The glory he accumulated during his career appalled him.
Einstein is a mental Hercules, according to those who know his work. He has performed prodigious labors. By all the theories of physiognomy, he should be a granite-visaged Norse god of the Hindenburg type, instead of looking like a poet or musician. On theoretical grounds, he should have an iron will, instead of being pliant, docile, compromising. The explanation seems to be that Einstein, unlike most men of achievement, has never had to coerce or harden himself.
For a time he refused to play the violin for charity because of his modest estimate of his own ability, and because he thought it unfair to professionals; under pressure, however, he gave many recitals. He declined a de-luxe cabin on a trip to America because of his scruples against luxury, but accepted when informed that he was hurting the feelings of the steamship line.
This easy yielding to pressure would lead another man to cheapen himself, but Einstein is saved by his aesthetic sense and his unworldliness. He could not do anything sordid. He doesn’t want anything; there is nothing about the man for temptation to work on. When he received the Nobel Prize in 1921, he gave it to charity. When a magazine offered him an amazing sum for an article, he rejected it contemptuously. “What?” he exclaimed.
Einstein’s amiable infirmity of purpose was illustrated on his trip to America on the Belgenland, in 1930. The liner stopped five days in New York Harbor on the way to the Pacific Coast. Before leaving Germany, the scientist had announced that he would give no interviews, pose for no pictures, make no speeches, and pay no visits, but would remain aboard the ship. He was chivied into doing just the opposite of what he had planned.
While Einstein may have suffered to some extent under press cross-examinations, he has a miscellaneous journalistic inquisitiveness of his own and is an expert in baiting others with who and which. During an illness in 1928, he was attended in Germany by a world-famous New York physician. The physician memorized one hundred and fifty funny stories and told them to his celebrated patient. It was supposed that he did this to keep Einstein cheerful. “Not at all,” said the physician.
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