Did Einstein Say "Great, Great Freedom Existed in America"?

[Pengwuino]

"I came to America because of the great, great freedom which I heard existed in this country. I made a mistake in selecting America as a land of freedom, a mistake I cannot repair in the balance of my life."

I wonder because with all the anti-American people I've known, i have yet to hear this one come up.

 

[Mk]

lol, no way! Besides, Einstein would be greatful for pretty much anywhere else than Nazi Germany, him from a Jewish family
.

 

[Pengwuino]

If that's the case, where did it come from? Seems to show up a few times on the internetamabob.

 

[Chi Meson]

Yeah, that's odd. Because we all know that no one will ever make things up and post it on the net as a fact! (I can't find the "ironic sarcasm" smiley).

I've read several books on Al over the past two decades; this statement is unknown to me. It runs counter to his general sentiment regarding this country that is conveyed through MANY more first-hand sources. He evidently didn't like the town of Princeton too much, and he certainly thought that the classes he was required to teach were wasting his time, but it is clear that he enjoyed himself for most of his duration in the US. It is also highly probable that there was no other country in which he would have done better at that point in history. (referring specifically to during and immediately after WWII).

 

[Evo]

I've read a lot about Einstein and read collections of his letters and have never seen this. I say it's bogus.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

I googled it and found it cited in so many places that I cannot believe is it bogus. However, I can't find any context or the exact source, so I can't make out exactly what he meant. I had read a letter he wrote complaining that members of higher society in Princeton exercised less freedom than their counterparts in Europe. Perhaps he felt that way about America in general.

The citations indicate that he said it in 1947, so the comparison to Nazi Germany is not relavent. Also, in 1947 he was 8 years away from his death. It seems that if he really felt cramped here, he could have left.

 

[eNathan]

I can't imagine Einstine, having come from nazi germany, would bring his new found country of fredem (America) to that level. America is not perfect, even he knew that, but to say we are not free is perposturous. And to say it was a mistake is to say that Einstine did not appretiate his fredem to conduct his theoretical work without the interuption of government or fear of government. What I am saying is that Esintine may have never made a "Thoery of relativity" if he had not moved to America.

 

[cronxeh]

I can't imagine Einstine, having come from nazi germany, would bring his new found country of fredem (America) to that level. America is not perfect, even he knew that, but to say we are not free is perposturous. And to say it was a mistake is to say that Einstine did not appretiate his fredem to conduct his theoretical work without the interuption of government or fear of government. What I am saying is that Esintine may have never made a "Thoery of relativity" if he had not moved to America.

reaaaaaalllyy?


in 1905 Einstein lived in Bern, Switzerland (he worked there at a patent office from February 1902 till October 1909). He published his Special Theory of relativity in 1905.

He published General Relativity in 1916.

He moved to Princeton, NJ, USA in 1933

 

[eNathan]

reaaaaaalllyy?


in 1905 Einstein lived in Bern, Switzerland (he worked there at a patent office from February 1902 till October 1909). He published his Special Theory of relativity in 1905.

He published General Relativity in 1916.

He moved to Princeton, NJ, USA in 1933

So your saying he developed his theory in Bern?

 

[Chi Meson]

reaaaaaalllyy?

OOOH! (sucks through teeth) I cringed when I read that! Go easy on the guy, eh cronxeh? I'm sure he meant well.

 

[cronxeh]

So your saying he developed his theory in Bern?

Exactamundo

 

[Chi Meson]

So your saying he developed his theory in Bern?

Um. Yes. Have you noticed the celebration that this year is the celebration of Einstein's publication of: the Photelectric Effect, Brownian Motion, and Special Relativity. All completed while he was a patent clerk in, (da da-da-daa) BERN! General Relativity was pretty much fleshed out by, what was it 1913?

 

[cronxeh]

"I came to America because of the great, great freedom which I heard existed in this country. I made a mistake in selecting America as a land of freedom, a mistake I cannot repair in the balance of my life."

I wonder because with all the anti-American people I've known, i have yet to hear this one come up.

This quote might be true

Einstein wasnt a big fan of the United States - and he had no reason to be one.

 

[Burnsys]

This quote might be true

Einstein wasnt a big fan of the United States - and he had no reason to be one.

maybe he said that when he found his idea was used to kill 100.000 civilians... (just guessing)

 

[Chi Meson]

maybe he said that when he found his idea was used to kill 100.000 civilians... (just guessing)

That would dampen MY spirits somewhat.

 

[SpaceTiger]

He evidently didn't like the town of Princeton too much

Many of us Americans share that sentiment.

 

[Bladibla]

Many of us Americans share that sentiment.

So why don't you like it?

 

[zoobyshoe]

maybe he said that when he found his idea was used to kill 100.000 civilians... (just guessing)

Einstein got the ball rolling on the bomb. Some physicists approached him and said they had reason to believe that the Nazis had put two and two together and were working on one. They needed Einstein's juice as the most famous scientist in the world to get this info to Roosevelt. Einstein wrote him a letter, which Roosevelt recieved, which eventually lead to the Los Alamos project.

A German physicist I saw interviewed on one WWII program or another said that, yes, the idea of a nuclear weapon was spoken about quietly among physicists occasionally in Germany, but no one would have dared to mention it to the Nazis because they would have been ordered to come up with a working bomb and given a deadline to do it. No one wanted to risk working on something like that without knowing if they could meet the deadline, or if it were actually possible.

There is an interesting anecdote about Einstein (while still in Europe), which is that he was once approached by a young polish student who proclaimed he wanted to use Einsteins ideas to make a bomb from radioactive minerals. Einstein dismissed him saying it was not a practical possibility.

 

[SpaceTiger]

So why don't you like it?

For starters, everyone is rich and uptight, so despite a liberal backbone, actual tolerance is not particularly high. To top things off, the town-folk hate the university (it takes much of their land and does little for business), so I don't get treated well by local law enforcement.

 

[Bladibla]

For starters, everyone is rich and uptight, so despite a liberal backbone, actual tolerance is not particularly high. To top things off, the town-folk hate the university (it takes much of their land and does little for business), so I don't get treated well by local law enforcement.

I hope you didn't misunderstand my 'smilies' as to annoy you. I apologize if i did give you that impression.

I never thought townsfolk of princeton would be so full of hatred against the university.

 

[kaos]

maybe he said that when he found his idea was used to kill 100.000 civilians... (just guessing)

If u are referring tp the atom bomb, einstein didnt really object.In fact he wrote a letter to the president recommending that the US try to develop the idea. This is because he didn't want the nazis to get it first.He also felt that it would make war so abhorent that it wouldn't happen in the future"so much for that idea..."

 

[Bladibla]

If u are referring tp the atom bomb, einstein didnt really object.In fact he wrote a letter to the president recommending that the US try to develop the idea. This is because he didn't want the nazis to get it first.He also felt that it would make war so abhorent that it wouldn't happen in the future"so much for that idea..."

..And i believe he wrote another letter regretting his decision of sending the previous letter (with convining from Szilard).

 

[Pengwuino]

If u are referring tp the atom bomb, einstein didnt really object.In fact he wrote a letter to the president recommending that the US try to develop the idea. This is because he didn't want the nazis to get it first.He also felt that it would make war so abhorent that it wouldn't happen in the future"so much for that idea..."

He told FDR to make the bomb because he was told that the Germans were making the bomb and knew they would use it at a moments notice. He wanted us to have it incase Germany used it so we could retaliate and only as a retaliatory weapon. Once Germany fell and we were nearing completion on the bomb, I think that's when he wrote hte letter saying he wished the project would not continue seeing as how Germany had been defeated.

But thankfully it was used and Japan surrendered and the 2 million US and japanese lives expected to be lost during the planned invasion weren't lost and Japan grew into what it is today instead of the Soviet Union coming in and setting up a eastern version of the divided germany. 300,000 dead in exchange for a few million dead and a most likely devastating occupation.

So are we all rather agreed on the idea that Einstein most likely didnt say that quote?

 

[SpaceTiger]

I hope you didn't misunderstand my 'smilies' as to annoy you. I apologize if i did give you that impression.

No, not at all.

I never thought townsfolk of princeton would be so full of hatred against the university.

Well, I'm sure I exaggerate a bit.

 

[cronxeh]

He told FDR to make the bomb because he was told that the Germans were making the bomb and knew they would use it at a moments notice. He wanted us to have it incase Germany used it so we could retaliate and only as a retaliatory weapon. Once Germany fell and we were nearing completion on the bomb, I think that's when he wrote hte letter saying he wished the project would not continue seeing as how Germany had been defeated.

But thankfully it was used and Japan surrendered and the 2 million US and japanese lives expected to be lost during the planned invasion weren't lost and Japan grew into what it is today instead of the Soviet Union coming in and setting up a eastern version of the divided germany. 300,000 dead in exchange for a few million dead and a most likely devastating occupation.

So are we all rather agreed on the idea that Einstein most likely didnt say that quote?

I don't see your logic here

Einstein was for an international peace - it didnt matter if you killed 'less' people - you still killed people.

 

[Pengwuino]

No I am not saying he advocated for it, he was very against its use but noted that if Germany used it, the allies would be justified in retaliating with the same weapon against Germany.

I don't want to get into this argument, far more interested in that quote of his.

 

[stoned]

maybe he said that when he found his idea was used to kill 100.000 civilians... (just guessing)

Exactly ! , when he realized that americans killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people with nuclear bombs who would not say that??

 

[selfAdjoint]

Exactly ! , when he realized that americans killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people with nuclear bombs who would not say that??

Umm, one of the soldiers who were gathered for the invasion of the Japanese home islands?

 

[Pengwuino]

no stop stop, quote lol. I am still not sure if there's a consensus as to whether that quote is fake or not or completely out of ocntext or modified or what.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I have also read that Einstein said that Physics Forums rock! I think I saw it on Integral's T Shirt.

I am with the nay crowd. I collect quotes for fun and have read many from E but never saw the one mentioned here.

 

[Huckleberry]

I think it would be best to consider this one quote in context with all of Einstein's quotes. If he didn't say it then it doesn't matter. If he did say it and it doesn't mesh well with most of his beliefs then maybe he didn't have a good cup of coffee that morning. Maybe he found a bug in his oatmeal. Did Einstein have control over what quotes of his people chose to print?

 

[Pengwuino]

Why would he? The press is the press even back then.

 

[Evo]

If you notice the sites that use the quote, none are associated with Einstein, none seem to have scientific or literary credentials. It's amazing what I have seen propagated through the internet that is bogus, but so widespread it appears legitimate.

 

[Huckleberry]

Why would he? The press is the press even back then.

Well it would be nice if someone came up to him and said "Do you believe these things you said so that we can print them for the general public?"
My point is that even if he said it he might not have really meant it. Maybe he was just frustrated at the time he said that and next week, or next year he felt differently. It's just one quote. It is not the sum of the man's existence.

 

[stoned]

Umm, one of the soldiers who were gathered for the invasion of the Japanese home islands?

Main excuse in droping two nukes on Japan was fear of loss of American soldiers, but Japan was already defeated, just like Iraq collapsed in the last gulf war but Bush/Blair and Co, scared us of imminent chemical and biological attack.Same story.
There simply is NOT, NEVER will be excuse in droping atomic bombs on civilian population. why Americans did not droped those bombs on some big Japanese Military base on the outskirts of Tokyo ??

Btw . everyone considers Einstein to be almost some holy man, angel almost esspecially in USA who never could say anything un-PC. but he was just a man who had his great day in his life.

 

[Pengwuino]

Quick answer stoned: From what I remember, the military's buildings and tokyo city's buildings were pretty much at the same place i believe so you would have just nuked Tokyo instead. Also, weather was a factor. Also, it had to be an almost guaranteed run (you have 1 nuke per mission, 1 chance, lucky fighter or a few AAA guns hitting their mark meant a billion dollars falling 20,000 feet out of the sky). There were about 11 targets designated and one was tokyo (which was actually going to be the third target). Japan was also not defeated. If they were defeated, they would have surrendered immediately after the first nuke and even immediately after the 2nd. There is also a huge amount of evidence saying hte japanese were going to "fight to the death". Surrender for teh Japanese was like... it was like disobeying God himself. They also had a sizeable and scarily modern airforce hidden in their mountain ranges. Many of the airplanes were jet-powered but thankfully, most were not completed. Also, you are getting too deep into the attitute that dropping an a-bomb is some sort of unholy act. Also, they were not simply civilian targets. Along with that, civilian targets had been fair game in the European theatre. The firebombing of Dresden is a regretable example of that (which actually was worse in some peoples eyes then the a-bombs... imagine having your city slowely burn to the ground vs. being vaporized in 1/2 a second).

Long answer: that's off topic, let's talk about Einstein.

What i don't understand, and what one of my professors was curious about, is to why scientists are held in such a super high regard when it comes to non-science matters. He noted that "whenever someone asks me about politics, they always assume that since I am a physicist, my word is the absolute truth when in fact, i probably know much less about other subjects such as politics then your average person. I don't know why people do it".

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

It is true that Einstein, the person, had some influence in the creation of the atomic bomb. However, his theory of relativity with the famous equation E = mc^2 is no more applicable to the atomic bomb than it is to dynamite, or the snap of your fingers. The theory behind the atomic bomb is particle physics, an area that Einstein avoided. Otto Hahn discovered the fission of Uranium 235 in 1939, in Germany.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

is no more applicable to the atomic bomb than it is to dynamite, or the snap of your fingers.

Okay, we can say that the heat released in a chemical reaction is ultimately due to a mass change, but the snap of your fingers?

 

[Gokul43201]

"I came to America because of the great, great freedom which I heard existed in this country. I made a mistake in selecting America as a land of freedom, a mistake I cannot repair in the balance of my life."

I wonder because with all the anti-American people I've known, i have yet to hear this one come up.

I read this somewhere, a while ago, and filed it away under "rumor". I also recall that source saying something about this statement being in response to repeated badgering by the FBI (or something along those lines).

 

[selfAdjoint]

Main excuse in droping two nukes on Japan was fear of loss of American soldiers, but Japan was already defeated, just like Iraq collapsed in the last gulf war but Bush/Blair and Co, scared us of imminent chemical and biological attack.Same story.
There simply is NOT, NEVER will be excuse in droping atomic bombs on civilian population. why Americans did not droped those bombs on some big Japanese Military base on the outskirts of Tokyo ??

Btw . everyone considers Einstein to be almost some holy man, angel almost esspecially in USA who never could say anything un-PC. but he was just a man who had his great day in his life.

If you think "Japan was already defeated" you just haven't studied the situation back then. If we had had to do an invasion, the toll of Japanese casualties would almost certainly have been greater than the 200,000 max who were killed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki together.

For that matter we were already using firestorms on Tokyo and killing more people that way than died in the two nuclear explosions. What the A-bomb brought was not a new level of horror, but a new efficiency.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

Okay, we can say that the heat released in a chemical reaction is ultimately due to a mass change, but the snap of your fingers?

Yes. The relationship between mass and energy is universal. That's why I always snap my fingers just before I weigh myself.

 

[Pengwuino]

Ah efficiency... started with the repeating-crossbow, hopefully apex'ed with a flash of light and mushroom cloud that drops everyones stomach . Why is E=mc^2 associated so much with the atomic bomb? Isnt it really just a drop in the bucket of the information needed to figure out that the atomic bomb is insanely powerful?

 

[stoned]

It is true that Einstein, the person, had some influence in the creation of the atomic bomb. However, his theory of relativity with the famous equation E = mc^2 is no more applicable to the atomic bomb than it is to dynamite, or the snap of your fingers. The theory behind the atomic bomb is particle physics, an area that Einstein avoided. Otto Hahn discovered the fission of Uranium 235 in 1939, in Germany.

Exactomundo !
you of course suspect why Einsein instead of Hahn is regarded sooo high as almost some kind of Super God.
if you don't know what I'm talking about i give you just one little clue H...

 

[russ_watters]

Ah efficiency... started with the repeating-crossbow, hopefully apex'ed with a flash of light and mushroom cloud that drops everyones stomach . Why is E=mc^2 associated so much with the atomic bomb? Isnt it really just a drop in the bucket of the information needed to figure out that the atomic bomb is insanely powerful?

It's a small part of what's needed, but it is the key to the energy released (like Bernoulli's equation to aerodynamics). Its how we came to understand that matter can be converted to energy (which is what happens in a nuclear explosion).

 

[zoobyshoe]

"I do not consider myself the father of the release of atomic energy. My part in it was quite indirect. I did not, in fact, forsee that it would be released in my time.I believed only that it was theoretically possible. It became practical through the accidental discovery of chain reaction, and this was not something I could have predicted. It was discovered by Hahn in Berlin, and he himself misinterpreted what he discovered. It was Lise Meitner who provided the correct interpretation, and escaped from Germany to place the information in the hands of Niel Bohr."

A. Einstein
Atomic War or Peace
From Atlantic Monthly, Boston, November, 1945, and November, 1947. As told to Raymond Swing.

Published in
Albert Einstein
Ideas and Opinions
Crown Publishers, N.Y. © 1982 1954

To reiterate:

"It was Lise Meitner who provided the correct interpretation, and escaped from Germany to place the information in the hands of Niel Bohr."

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

one little clue (why Einstein is highly regarded) H...

I don't get the clue.

Einstein became a celebrity in 1919 upon the publication of some photographs of the sun during an eclipse. It showed a displacement in the positions of some stars as predicted by him. He spoke of this celebrity:

Why popular fancy should seize upon me, a scientist, dealing in abstract things and happy if left alone, is a manifestation of mass psychology that is beyond me.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

It was Lise Meitner who provided the correct interpretation, and escaped from Germany to place the information in the hands of Niel Bohr.

Good point. In this same sense, Columbus didn't discover America, because he misintpreted what he had found.

Discovering fission was not enough to envision a bomb. It required the knowledge that the fission of one atom produced neutrons that could trigger more fission, the so-called chain reaction. I believe this was done by Fermi and Szilard at Columbia University in the US.

Neither Einstein, nor his theory of relativity was involved in any of this. It is improbable that he saw the bomb as an unintended consequence of his theory and therefore regretted it. Your quotation makes it clear that he didn't.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Neither Einstein, nor his theory of relativity was involved in any of this. It is improbable that he saw the bomb as an unintended consequence of his theory and therefore regretted it. Your quotation makes it clear that he didn't.

You are correct. Relativity has nothing to do with the bomb.
E=mc², from a separate 1905 paper, also doesn't give a clue as to how to release energy from matter. It only tells you how much there would be if you could release it.

And the quote does make it clear that Einstein, with good reason, felt he had made no contributions to the physics of the bomb. "I do not consider myself the father of the release of atomic energy. My part in it was quite indirect."

The "indirect" part he played was in acting as liaison between Silzard and Roosevelt. His letter to Roosevelt is reprinted in many biographies.

 

[oldunion]

It most definitely sounds like verse from Einstein. Might i remind you that Einstein wrote a very good paper on the superior qualities of socialism.

I noticed in another thread about "greatest tragedies" that people were mentioning Karl Marx's ideas...

Anyone who understands logic, is left with a nearly infinite list of apparent problems with capitalism when compared to socialism as a dominant political system, Einstein knew this...look it up.