Einstein in sunny Southern California

L.A. THEN AND NOW
Einstein's Days in the Sun, Among the Hollywood Stars

By Cecilia Rasmussen, Times Staff Writer


He was perhaps the greatest thinker of the 20th century, but like many L.A.
newcomers, he relaxed in the California sun, hobnobbed with Hollywood
celebrities and watched the Rose Parade. He even helped children with their
homework.

Seldom has a scientist won such public acclaim as Albert Einstein when he
wintered in Pasadena in 1931, 1932 and 1933. An amateur violinist, he played
one on one with the conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Local artists
painted his portrait, sculpted him in bronze, and turned him into a puppet
figure. Master violin maker Frank J. Callier carved a bow and special case with
Einstein's name inlaid in the wood.


But the FBI was watching too. He was one of four German scientists to sign an
antiwar petition during World War I, and he joined the Zionist movement, which
called for Jews to regain their biblical homeland in Palestine.

Excerpts from his FBI file — which eventually filled 1,500 pages — will be
on exhibit at the Skirball Cultural Center beginning Tuesday, along with his
love letters, manuscripts, diary and high school report card. (He earned top
marks in algebra, geometry and physics and lower ones in French and geography.)


The exhibit includes a science lesson simulating a black hole and an
interactive computer screen that allows visitors to delve into Einstein's life.
A video traces his birth in Germany in 1879, his lifelong battle with dyslexia,
his Nobel Prize and his stands against segregation, anti-Semitism, McCarthyism
and nuclear armament — a type of weapon that his own theories helped to make
possible.

The exhibit, which runs through May 2005, coincides with the centennial of
Einstein's "miracle year," when he published his theories — one of which is
expressed by E=mc2.

Einstein was a Swiss patent official when he first published the theories.
Fourteen years later, in 1919, English astronomer Sir Arthur Eddington
announced to the Royal Society that observations made during a solar eclipse
supported Einstein's 1905 theory of relativity. Overnight, Einstein became
famous, and in 1921 he received the Nobel Prize in physics.

He was teaching at the University of Berlin in 1930 when Arthur H. Fleming, a
lumber baron and president of Caltech's board of trustees, came to woo him to
the university.

Einstein agreed to visit for the winter on the condition that it remain secret,
at least initially.

Fleming complied, tapping high-ranking government officials and friends to make
travel arrangements. He even snagged financier J.P. Morgan's yacht. But
Einstein decided he didn't want such a fuss and made his own arrangements —
unintentionally alerting the world.

After a 30-day voyage aboard the passenger ship Belgenland, he arrived in San
Diego on New Year's Eve 1930. He strolled into the dining room for breakfast
that morning wearing only pajamas. When he disembarked — fully dressed — he
was mobbed by reporters and photographers.

Thousands cheered Einstein and his second wife, his cousin Elsa, as the U.S.
Navy band played Christmas carols. Although Einstein spoke English, he spoke
German in San Diego as Elsa translated. Then Fleming drove them to Pasadena.

The next morning, a police escort with sirens blaring whisked the Einsteins to
a bank building on Colorado Boulevard, where they watched the Rose Parade from
a second-floor suite.

Einstein wanted to live on campus, but his wife wanted a house with a garden.
So the Einsteins settled into a bungalow on South Oakland Avenue.

An amateur violinist, Einstein often played with small groups at his home,
including Los Angeles Philharmonic conductor Artur Rodzinski. Neighborhood
children knew his name and his most famous formula, E=mc2, though probably
neither they nor their parents understood the equation linking energy and
matter.

During their first three-month California stay, the Einsteins were guests of
Charlie Chaplin at the premiere of his film "City Lights" at the Los Angeles
Theater on Broadway. Afterward, they attended a dinner party at Chaplin's
Beverly Hills home, where Einstein was the luminary even among Hollywood
celebrities.

"Here in Pasadena, it is like Paradise," he wrote to friends in Germany in
1931. "Always sunshine and clear air, gardens with palms and pepper trees and
friendly people…. Scientifically it is very interesting, and my colleagues
are wonderful to me."

The same winter, Einstein joined a busload of scientists on a visit to the Mt.
Wilson Observatory, where he refined and confirmed his theory of relativity.

Like many visitors with intellectual curiosity, he visited the Huntington
Library in San Marino. He also made his way to the Montecito home of scientist
Ludwig Kast, where he was most comfortable being treated as a tourist, not a
celebrity.

In Palm Springs, he relaxed at the winter estate of famous New York attorney
and human rights advocate Samuel Untermeyer. He also visited the date ranch of
razor blade magnate King Gillette, bringing back a crate of dates — and a
revelation.

"I discovered that date trees, the female, or negative, flourished under
coddling and care, but in adverse conditions the male, or positive trees,
succeeded best," he said in a 1933 interview.

During Einstein's three winters in Pasadena, students witnessed the
shaggy-haired genius wheeling around Caltech on a bicycle, sailing paper
airplanes from a balcony and at least once heatedly arguing with stern-faced
Caltech president and Nobel physics laureate Robert A. Millikan on the steps of
Throop Hall. (The subject of their argument remains a mystery. It could have
been physics or even Einstein's politics, which Millikan wanted kept low-key.)

Schoolchildren were known to knock on the door of Einstein's home to ask for
help with homework. He had difficulty turning down anyone. Hollywood High
sophomore Johanna Mankiewicz, daughter of screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz, wrote
to ask for an answer to a geometry problem. Einstein replied with a solution
and a drawing.

But he most enjoyed his rare solitude, when he indulged himself with a good
pipe, his violin, his favorite moth-eaten sweater and sneakers without socks.

During his last winter in California, Einstein was nearly hit by a car as he
walked to campus. At his wife's insistence, the couple moved into a suite at
Caltech's Athenaeum. The posh private faculty club, a kind of pub for Nobel
laureates, had been built three years earlier to attract and nurture these
geniuses.

Einstein's suite, No. 20, is marked with a distinctive door — mahogany
instead of white like the rest. Einstein's sponsor, Fleming, had built it as an
apartment for himself.

Einstein was lecturing at Caltech when the Nazis came to power in Germany in
1933. He realized he needed a safe haven to conduct his work, and offers came
pouring in.

Caltech's president, Millikan, agreed to hire him, but reportedly offered a
paltry amount.

While Einstein was thinking over several offers, Princeton University asked
what salary he wanted. Einstein reportedly said $3,000 per year. His wife
stepped in and renegotiated it to $15,000.

Millikan pleaded with him to stay, to no avail. Einstein moved to Princeton in
1933, where he stayed until he died in 1955.

Sometimes Einstein seemed to lose sight of the respect he had inspired. Late in
life, he described himself in a letter to a friend as "a lonely old fellow …
a kind of patriarchal figure who is known chiefly because he does not wear
socks."

Today, schoolchildren are more familiar with his formulas than his footwear.

copyright 2004 Los Angeles Times