Of Water and Cheese — Albert Einstein in Bern

Just as I wondered about the Albert Einstein Haus, its sign came into view.  Up the stairs I walked into the apartment area, where Albert Einstein once lived.  Then came a very unfriendly voice, “it’s not free!”  I then paid 6 CHF, though not without some chagrin at the unfriendliness of the lady guarding the entrance.  I would gladly pay but the sign did say that the first level of the apartment was free for visitors.

Albert Einstein was born and raised in Germany until his teen years.  He then moved to Switzerland.  This apartment in Bern was where he first developed the Relativity Theory.    He lived in this apartment from 1903-1905.[1]

When he began his academic career in Switzerland, he was looking for work that would enable him some free time to think.  He worked at the federal patent’s office in Bern when he lived in this apartment.  He married a former classmate Mileva, who would be his first wife.  The Albert Einstein Haus in Bern symbolized the happy early years of their marriage.  Mileva bore two sons.  That was the history that this house stood for.

Then came the exceptional life enabled by a genius’ scientific discovery.  At the film showing upstairs I learned that Einstein was intimately involved with the founding of Hebrew University.  Later, Israel offered the presidency to Einstein, but he turned down the offer.  One surprising thing that I learned was that the Nobel Prize for Physics was not given for the Relativity Theory.  The Nobel Prize to Einstein recognized him for his work in Theoretical Physics, and “especially for his discovery of the law of photoelectric effect.”[2]

The extraordinary times that Einstein lived in has witnessed the emergence of Einstein’s political stance against Hitler.  In 1933, he saw clearly the rise of Hitler and its implication on the fate of the Jews around the world.  A world war was clearly in view, and Einstein even went as far as petitioning the President of the United States (FDR at the time) about the possibility of developing an atomic bomb.  He feared that the Nazi’s might have succeeded in building one.[3]  Einstein returned to Belgium in 1933 from California.  When he left the United Kingdom again for the United States that same year, he has never turned back.  He left Europe for good.

When the United States dropped its atomic bombs in Japan, Einstein lamented.  He soon joined other scientists in founding the scientists’ movement against nuclear weapons.[4]

There is certainly a lot more to Einstein’s life, but I will stop here.  Suffice to learn that Bern was the birth place of the Relativity Theory.

[1] Bern.com, Einstein House.

[2] Nobelprize.org, The Nobel Prize in Physics 1921.

[3] Thomas Levenson, The Scientist and the Fascist, How Einstein Reacted to the Hitler’s Rise, June 9, 2017, The Atlantic.

[4]  Id.