Einstein and the Bomb

- -

The first atomic bomb heralded the dawn of a troubling new era.

In a single stroke, the Japanese city of Hiroshima and some 70,000 men,

women, and children were annihilated.

In the years since, that momentous event has come under increasing scrutiny.

Was the bomb a price worth paying for pea--

The physicists who participated in forging the most formidable

and dangerous weapon of all time

are harassed by an equal feeling of responsibility,

not to say guilt.

Dr. Albert Einstein, one of the world's greatest scientists.

A scientific giant who sometimes generated political controversy,

as well as brilliant equations.

Called the father of the atomic age,

Einstein's great contribution to human knowledge

was his theory of relativity.

The key to the atom secrets was first given to the world when the genius,

Albert Einstein, defined the relation between all matter and energy.

E is equal to MC squared.

Had I known

that the Germans would not succeed in producing an atomic bomb,

I would not have taken part in opening that Pandora's box.

Hail to victory!

Order! Motion under the ten-minute rule,

bill to promote and extend opportunities of citizenship for Jews

resident outside the British Empire.

- Commander Locker-Lampson. - Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am not personally a Jew,

but I hope that I do not require to be a Jew

to hate tyranny anywhere in the world.

Germany has selected the cream of her culture

and suppressed it.

She has even turned upon her most glorious citizen.

Einstein.

The road hog and racketeer of Europe have plundered his place.

They've even taken away his violin.

Today, Einstein is without a home.

He had to write his name in a visitor's book in England.

And when he came to write his address, he put...

"Without any."

Here we are, Professor.

Welcome to Roughton Heath.

Isn't it wonderful?

Let's get you settled in, eh?

I know it's rudimentary for a man of your importance

but, under your current circumstances...

I believe that a simple and unassuming life

is best for body and mind.

Couldn't agree more.

What I like best is a tent on a heath,

plain viands, a glass of beer,

and the sweet communion of... friends.

For you.

To replace the one the Hun stole from you.

I'll let you unpack in peace.

The present state of affairs in Germany

is a state of psychic distemper in the masses.

Hitler picked up human flotsam on the streets and in the taverns

and organized them around himself.

The worst outcrop of herd life,

the military system, which I abhor.

German fascism has been particularly violent

in its attack upon my Jewish brothers.

BE CAREFUL. JEWS.

I AM THE BIGGEST PIG IN TOWN

Our friends in Germany need not do anything to protect me.

In fact, such action would needlessly endanger them.

I cannot tell you yet, whether I shall make England my home.

How is he?

As you'd imagine.

Poor fellow's lost everything, his home, his money.

And now, I hear the Nazis have placed a price of 20,000 marks on his head.

I really had no idea that my head was worth all that.

I assure you, Professor.

You're perfectly safe from the long arm of fascism here.

Uh, may I introduce Barbara Goodall.

Hello, Professor.

And Margery Howard.

Hello, Professor.

Delighted.

These ladies are your bodyguards.

If any unauthorized person comes near, believe me, Professor...

They will most certainly get a charge or two of buckshot.

Sorry, Professor, I know you're not one for bearing arms,

but really we can't be too careful.

Hope you understand?

Marvelous.

Keep a close eye out, ladies. I'm relying on you both.

A precious possession in this world, however,

is one’s own people

and we want to lead

and fight for these people.

And never flag, never tire, never despair.

As long as I have any choice in the matter...

...I shall live only in a country where civil liberty,

tolerance, and equality of all citizens before the law prevail.

These conditions do not exist in Germany at the present time.

This breeding ground of disease will soon pose a grave danger

for the rest of the world.

We have one aim,

and we will follow it fanatically and ruthlessly to the grave.

Hail to victory!

To stay in Germany

would have been impossible for me as a pacifist.

I'm not only a pacifist, but a militant pacifist.

I am willing to fight for peace.

My great friend has invited me here.

I can live quietly, working out my mathematical problems.

All I want is peace,

and could I have found a more peaceful retreat

than here in England?

No one will know where I am.

Indeed not!

Shall we get some pictures?

The Observer diary, 17th September 1933.

England is not a very good place to hide in.

Dr. Einstein, who has come here to escape Nazi persecution,

finds his wooden hut photographed in the papers

with full indications of locality,

and Cromer Council considers the question of presenting an address.

Germany, I suppose, is presumed to be looking the other way.

When did you start thinking about time and space and all those things, Professor?

Ah!

As a child of four or five,

my father showed me a compass.

This experience made a deep and lasting impression on me.

That this needle behaved in such a determined way.

Something deeply hidden had to be behind things.

When I was four or five,

I couldn't tie my own shoelaces.

The most beautiful thing we can experience

is the mysterious.

I can still remember my first childish experiments in thinking

that had a direct bearing on the theory of relativity.

What if one were to run after a ray of light?

If one were to run fast enough,

would it no longer move at all?

Of course, such a thing is impossible.

- Your teachers must have loved you. -

"You'll never amount to anything, Einstein."

"You're an extremely clever boy, but you have one great fault."

"You'll never let yourself be told anything."

"Your mere presence spoils the respect in the class for me."

The teachers had the characters of drill sergeants.

Mistrust of every kind of authority grew.

An attitude that has never again left me.

- -

It is only men who are free,

who create the inventions and intellectual works,

which make life worthwhile.

Out yonder there was this huge world,

which stands before us like a great, eternal riddle.

I became convinced that nature could be understood

as a relatively simple mathematical structure.

A storm broke loose in my mind.

Einstein's great theory of relativity.

Two towers flash signals at the same time

to a balloonist and to a man on the ground.

The observer on the ground says the signals were given from both towers

at the same time.

Light rays from both towers are the same length.

But the motion of the balloonist means one signal takes more time to reach him

and he insists that one tower signaled before the other.

My solution actually had to do with the concept of time.

Two observers moving at different speeds

experience time at different rates.

Time cannot be absolutely defined.

Time is relative. It stretches and shrinks.

Or, in our Earth language, an hour for us

may be a century on another planet,

and vice versa.

There is no audible ticktock everywhere in the world.