Bulletin of the American Physical Society
2005 APS March Meeting
Monday–Friday, March 21–25, 2005; Los Angeles, CA
Session V4: Albert Einstein and Social Responsibility |
Hide Abstracts |
Sponsoring Units: FPS Chair: Barbara Levi Consulting Editor, Physics Room: LACC 515A |
Thursday, March 24, 2005 11:15AM - 11:51AM |
V4.00001: Einstein on Race and Racism Invited Speaker: More than one hundred biographies and monographs of Einstein have been published, yet not one mentions the name Paul Robeson, let alone Einstein's friendship with him, or the name W. E. B. Du Bois, let alone Einstein's support for him. Nor is there any discussion of the many Civil Rights campaigns Einstein actively supported. Finally -- or firstly -- nowhere in the ocean of Einsteinia -- anthologies, biographies, articles, calendars, posters, tee-shirts -- will one find even an islet of information about Einstein's visits and ties to the people in Princeton's African American community. One explanation for this historical amnesia is that Einstein's biographers and others who shape public memories, felt that some of his ``controversial'' friends like, Robeson, and activities, like co-chairing the American Crusade to End Lynching, might somehow tarnish Einstein as an American icon. That icon, sanctified by \textit{Time} magazine when it dubbed Einstein ``person of the century,'' is a myth, albeit a marvelous myth. In fact, as myths go, Einstein's is hard to beat: The world's most brilliant scientist is also a kindly, lovably bumbling, grandfather figure: Professor Genius combined with Dr. Feelgood! Opinion-molders may have concluded that such an appealing icon would help the public feel better about science or about America. Politics, after all, is ugly, making teeth grind and fists clench, so why splash politics over Einstein's icon? Yet it is not so much the motive for the omission, but the consequence that should concern us: Americans and the millions of Einstein fans around this increasingly tribalized world are left unaware that he was an outspoken, passionate, committed anti-racist. If racism in America depends for its survival in large part on the smothering of anti-racist voices, especially when those voices come from popular and widely respected individuals -- like Albert Einstein -- then this presentation aspires to play a small role in a grand un-smothering. [Preview Abstract] |
Thursday, March 24, 2005 11:51AM - 12:27PM |
V4.00002: Was Einstein Really a Pacifist? Einstein's Independent, Forward-Thinking, Flexible, and Self-Defined Pacifism Invited Speaker: Perhaps motivated by an admiration for Einstein and a desire to identify with him, combined with a majority world-view in opposition to pacifism, skeptics may often question whether Einstein was really a pacifist. They might point to the fact that his dramatic contributions to the field of physics at the beginning of the twentieth century made nuclear weapons possible, as well as his 1939 letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt urging him to develop such weapons before the Nazis would, as examples of at least an inconsistent stance on pacifism across time on Einstein's part. However, as this paper will show, Einstein's pacifism began early in his life, was a deep-seated conviction that he expressed repeatedly across the years, and was an independent pacifism that flowed from his own responses to events around him and contained some original and impressively forward-thinking elements. Moreover, in calling himself a pacifist, as Einstein did, he defined pacifism in his own terms, not according to the standards of others, and this self-defined pacifism included the flexibility to designate the Nazis as a special case that had to be opposed through the use of military violence, in his view. As early as during his childhood, Einstein already disliked competitive games, because of the necessity of winners and losers, and disliked military discipline. In his late thirties, living in Germany during the First World War with a prestigious academic position in Berlin, yet retaining his identity as a Swiss citizen, Einstein joined a small group of four intellectuals who signed the pacifist ``Appeal to the Europeans'' in response to the militarist ``Manifesto to the Civilized World'' signed by 93 German intellectuals. In private, throughout that War, Einstein repeatedly expressed his disgust and sense of alienation at the ``war-enthusiasm'' sentiment of the majority. In the aftermath of the War, Einstein was involved in a German private commission to investigate German war crimes and the publication that it produced, and throughout the Weimar period of 1918 to 1933 Einstein continued to take public and private stances as a pacifist. As did many pacifists, Einstein also linked his advocacy for peace with a concern for social justice, which included opposition to antisemitism and advocacy for Zionism, and in 1929, after violent clashes between Jews and Arabs in Palestine, in which hundreds died on both sides, Einstein made some impressively forward-thinking statements about Jewish-Arab conciliation, and even published in an Arab newspaper his own proposal to set up a joint Jewish-Arab council for purposes of conflict resolution. But Einstein's pacifism was not forever obliterated by the Nazi era and the Holocaust, despite his well-known encouragement to Roosevelt to develop the bomb. In the United States, where he lived from 1933 on, in the first ten years after World War II, also the last decade of his life, Einstein inspired American pacifists with his strong stances against war and nuclear weapons. [Preview Abstract] |
Thursday, March 24, 2005 12:27PM - 1:03PM |
V4.00003: The Genius as National Icon: Albert Einstein's Involvement in the Zionist Movement Invited Speaker: This talk will focus on Albert Einstein's involvement with the Zionist movement in the interwar years in Germany, Europe, Palestine, and the U.S. More specifically, it will focus on some of the major aspects of Einstein's involvement in Zionism during this period: his induction into the Zionist movement; the interaction between Einstein's emerging fame and his involvement with the Zionist movement; the political, cultural, and ideological influences on his views on Zionism; his views on major Zionist issues and on Zionism's role within the German-Jewish community; the major Zionist projects he took an active role in; his intensive involvement in planning for and establishing the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and his positions in the discussions and controversies regarding the University's character and development; his main actions on behalf of Zionism (e.g., his trips to the U.S., Palestine, etc.); and the various symbolic and ideological roles he fulfilled for the Zionist movement. [Preview Abstract] |
Thursday, March 24, 2005 1:03PM - 1:39PM |
V4.00004: Einstein, Ethics and the Atomic Bomb Invited Speaker: Einstein voiced his ethical views against war as well as fascism via venues and alliances with a variety of organizations still debated today. In 1939, he signed a letter to President Roosevelt (drafted by younger colleagues Szilard, Wigner and others) warning the U.S.government about the danger of Nazi Germany gaining control of uranium in the Belgian-controlled Congo in order to develop atomic weapons, based on the discovery of fission by Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner. In 1945, he became a member of the Princeton-based ``Emergency Committee for Atomic Scientists'' organized by Bethe, Condon, Bacher, Urey, Szilard and Weisskopf. Rare Einstein slides will illustrate Dr.Rife's presentation on Albert Einstein's philosophic and ethical convictions about peace, and public stance against war (1914-1950). [Preview Abstract] |
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