At the end of September they proclaimed their message. It was in the affirmative, and this Yes out of far-distant transcendental regions called forth a resounding echo in the world of everyday life. Genuinely and truly the seconds of arc had come out, correct to the decimal point. These points representing ciphers, as it were, had chanted of the harmony of the spheres in their Pythagorean tongue. The transmission of this message seemed to be accompanied by the echoing words of Goethe's "Ariel":
"With a crash the Light draws near!
Pealing rays and trumpet-blazes,—
Eye is blinded, ear amazes."
Never before had anything like this happened. A wave of amazement swept over the continents. Thousands of people who had never in their lives troubled about vibrations of light and gravitation were seized by this wave and carried on high, immersed in the wish for knowledge although incapable of grasping it. This much all understood, that from the quiet study of a scholar an illuminating gospel for exploring the universe had been irradiated.
During that time no name was quoted so often as that of this man. Everything sank away in face of this universal theme which had taken possession of humanity. The converse of educated people circled about this pole, could not escape from it, continually reverted to the same theme when pressed aside by necessity or accident. Newspapers entered on a chase for contributors who could furnish them with short or long, technical or non-technical, notices about Einstein's theory. In all nooks and corners social evenings of instruction sprang up, and wandering universities appeared with errant professors that led people out the three-dimensional misery of daily life into the more hospitable Elysian fields of four-dimensionality. Women lost sight of domestic worries and discussed co-ordinate systems, the principle of simultaneity, and negatively-charged electrons. All contemporary questions had gained a fixed centre from which threads could be spun to each. Relativity had become the sovereign password. In spite of some grotesque results that followed on this state of affairs it could not fail to be recognized that we were watching symptoms of mental hunger not less imperative in its demands than bodily hunger, and it was no longer to be appeased by the former books by writers on popular science and by misguided idealists.
And whilst leaders of the people, statesmen, and ministers made vain efforts to steer in the fog, to arrive at results serviceable to the nation, the multitude found what was expedient for it, what was uplifting, what sounded like the distant hammering of reconstruction. Here was a man who had stretched his hands towards the stars; to forget earthly pains one had but to immerse oneself in his doctrine. It was the first time for ages that a chord vibrated through the world invoking all eyes towards something which, like music or religion, lay outside political or material interests.
The mere thought that a living Copernicus was moving in our midst elevated our feelings. Whoever paid him homage had a sensation of soaring above Space and Time, and this homage was a happy augury in an epoch so bare of brightness as the present.
* * * * * * * *
As already remarked, there was no lack of rare fruits among the newspaper articles, and a chronicler would doubtless have been able to make an attractive album of them. I brought Einstein several foreign papers with large illustrations which must certainly have cost the authors and publishers much effort and money. Among others there were full-page beautifully coloured pictures intended to give the reader an idea of the paths pursued by the rays from the stars during the total eclipse of the sun. These afforded Einstein much amusement, namely, e contrario, for from the physical point of view these pages contained utter nonsense. They showed the exact opposite of the actual course of the rays inasmuch as the author of the diagrams had turned the convex side of the deflected ray towards the sun. He had not even a vague idea of the character of the deflection, for his rays proceeded in a straight line through the universe until they reached the sun, where they underwent a sudden change of direction reminiscent of a stork's legs. The din of journalistic homage was not unmixed with scattered voices of dissent, even of hostility. Einstein combated these not only without anger but with a certain satisfaction. For indeed the series of unbroken ovations became discomfiting, and his feelings took up arms against what seemed to be developing into a star-artist cult. It was like a breath of fresh air when some column of a chance newspaper was devoted to a polemic against his theory, no matter how unfounded or unreasoned it may have been, merely because a dissonant tone broke the unceasing chorus of praise. On one occasion he even said of a shrill disputant, "The man is quite right!" And these words were uttered in the most natural manner possible. One must know him personally if one is to understand these excesses of toleration. So did Socrates defend his opponents.
In our conversation we returned to the original question, and I asked whether there was no means of making the deflection of the ray intelligible to an average person.
Einstein replied: "In a very superficial manner this is certainly possible." And with a few strokes on the paper, which I shall here try to describe in words, he gave his explanation in terms something like the following: