Schedule Mar 14, 2012
Worshipped Today, Scorned Tomorrow...: Albert Einstein and the Perils of Public Engagement
Diana Kormos Buchwald, Caltech

Sponsored by Friends of KITP

Drawing largely upon Einstein's unpublished correspondence, the lecture will focus on the vagaries of Einstein's personal and public life after his rise to international fame. Following the 1919 British solar eclipse expedition, which propelled him into the wider European and international arena, Einstein became involved in numerous social and humanitarian initiatives, while simultaneously engaging in the popularization of relativity. How Einstein navigated intense scientific work and at times hostile political waters is reflected in many of his now forgotten writings.

Diana Kormos Buchwald is Professor of History at the California Institute of Technology. Initially trained as an X-ray crystallographer of bio-organic compounds, she completed a PhD in the history of modern science at Harvard University, and went on to publish a scientific biography of the Nobel Prize winning German physical chemist Walther Nernst. Since 2000 she has served as General Editor & Director of the Einstein Papers Project at Caltech, which publishes The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, one of the most ambitious publishing ventures ever undertaken in the documentation of the history of science.

Introduction by David Gross

Images appearing in the video are Courtesy of the Einstein Archives Online and are copyrighted; see Einstein Papers Project, and terms of use.

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