Einstein, the searcher

by Alexander Moszkowski

Perhaps poets of the future will busy themselves with this universe; not lyrical poets, but descendants of Hesiod, Lucretius, or Rückert. They will express in verse that Einstein's world offers a source of consolation to tormented spirits which have sickened of Kant's antinomies. For in this still almost immeasurable world the fateful conception "infinite" has been made bearable for the first time. In a certain way it relieves us from what is quite inconceivable, yet into which we are usually driven, and forms a bridge between the thesis "finite" and the antithesis infinite. We are brought to a common stream, in which both conceptions peacefully flow together. There was no mention of this in our talk, and I had good reason for being cautious about following out the theme along these lines. I must not allow any doubts to arise on this point: Einstein, himself, clings with unerring logic to the strict mathematically defined conception of infinity, and allows no compromise with the non-infinite.

When I, on some previous occasion, sought to lead him on to a compromise, involving a transition-boundary, it availed me nothing that I quoted Helmholtz to support the possibility of such an operation: my effort came to an abrupt end.

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In pursuing these considerations about the universe, we arrived at things which, in ordinary language, are usually called "occult." In connexion with this, these remarks ensued: "I am, of course, far from trying to trace out a connexion between the four-dimensionality that you establish, Professor, and the four-dimensionality of certain spiritistic pseudo-philosophers, yet it suggests itself to me that in such occult circles efforts will be made to derive advantage from the fact that the same word is used in both cases. This is more than a conjecture, indeed, for there are no misgivings among the ignorant, and so we actually find the name Einstein quoted in connexion with mediumistic experiments that are flavoured with four-dimensionality."

"It will not be expected of me," said Einstein, "to enter into discussion with ignoramuses and misinterpreted. Discarding them, then, let us confine ourselves to a brief consideration of the conception 'occult,' as this has played a part in serious science. The chief example of this in history is gravitation. Huyghens and Leibniz refused to accept gravitation, for, so they said, according to Newton's view, it is an action at a distance and hence belongs to the realm of the occult. Like everything occult, it contradicts the causal order in Nature. We must not regard Huyghens' and Leibniz's contradiction as being due to lack of perspicacity; rather, they objected on grounds which, as investigators, they had every right to uphold. For, as far as our everyday experience is concerned, every mutual influence of things in Nature occurs only by direct contact, as by pressure or impact, or by chemical action, as when a flame is lit. The fact that sound and light apparently form exceptions is not usually felt as a contradiction to the postulate of contact. The case of a magnet appears much more striking because its effect asserts itself as a direct manifestation of force. I must mention that when I, as a child, made my first acquaintance with a compass—and this was before I had ever seen a magnet—it created a sensation in me, which I consider to have been a dominant factor in my life up to the very present. There is, indeed, a fundamental difference between pressure and impact on the one hand, and what we hear and see on the other, even in everyday experience. In the case of light and sound, something must be 'happening' continually, if the effect is to occur and continue...."

"Yet another difference seems to enter here," I interposed. "Is it possible to give a full explanation of gravitation by using only the conceptions pressure and impact? Perhaps 'pressure at a distance' would not have seemed to contemporaries of Newton as unintelligible as a 'tension or pull at a distance.' It seems to me that it is particularly difficult to imagine a pull or an attraction towards a distant object."

Einstein does not consider this difference considerable, and regards it as possible to overcome it even in a manner which can be directly pictured. "If the force is exerted by a corpuscular transmission," he explained, "we may imagine a 'force-shadow' into which the bombarding corpuscles cannot penetrate. Thus if an obstacle, which produces such a shadow, becomes interposed between a body A and a body B, then there will be a lesser pressure on the side of B facing A, and hence B will experience a greater corpuscular pressure on the other side, with the result that B will be forced in the direction of A, and the observer would gain the impression of a pull from B to A. Nowadays, when the theory of 'fields of force' dominates our physical views, we need trouble just as little about using corpuscular pressures and impacts as about the vortices which Descartes once considered as the ultimate causes of the motions of the heavenly bodies. The efforts of certain reformers to reintroduce these vortices and whirlpools as explanations must be regarded as futile."

"Nevertheless," I answered, "it seems admissible to say that, ultimately, there is always an occult element in every physical explanation, an absolutely final and elementary something which we recognize as a principle, without concealing from ourselves that we have reached the limit of explanation, and our knowledge avails no further. This brings me to another question the discussion of which, as I clearly perceive, leads us on to dangerous ground."

EINSTEIN: Don't hesitate to say what is troubling you. I cannot yet see what you are aiming at.

M.: I am referring to certain phenomena which are also called "occult"—with the object of discrediting them. They may at times degenerate to hocus-pocus and fall into the category of dubious arts. It seems to me, however, that scientists have not always drawn the line with sufficient care, and that they have been disposed to reject as humbug, without examination, everything inexplicable that dares to present itself in the form of open display.