Table of Contents
Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1905, a “miraculous” year for Albert Einstein? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Two important witnesses: Mileva Marić and Michele Besso . . . . . . . . . . 3
Letters to Mileva . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Correspondence with Michele Besso . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Michele’s unsuccessful plea for a history of the genesis of Albert’s ideas . 7
Editorial plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . 10
1. The Italian political and industrial context of the 19th Century 15
The Einsteins in Milan and Pavia: settlements and relationships . . . . . . 16
The short adventure of Einstein, Garrone & Cie (1894-1896) . . . . 16
Famous homes and political connections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Historical context: Napoleonic and Risorgimento influences . . . . . . . . . . 19
The Cisalpine Republic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 19
The insurrection of 1848 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 21
The Risorgimento and the birth of a modern state . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
The creation and role of the Lombard Institute . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
The newindustrial and economic framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Unificationand railways . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
The electrical industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . 26
Insurance and the fate of workers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
The academic world and its links to the industrial sector . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Some examples of the creation of polytechnics (Turin, Milan, Rome) . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
The Italian Electrotechnical Association . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Hoepli and the development of Italy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2. The company of Jakob and Hermann Einstein in the international electrotechnical context – exhibitions and reviews. . . . . . .. 35
Paris 1881,the first International Electricity Exhibition . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
The birth of a major exhibition devoted to electricity and its applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Electric lighting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 39
Electric dynamos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41
Rail transport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . 42
Medical and educational applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
The first international congress of electricians . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Munich 1882 and the Einsteins’ involvement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Vienna 1883 and electric meters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46
Turin 1884 and the development of alternating current . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Frankfurt 1891, three-phase current and the Einsteins’ participation . . . 50
Electrotechnical magazines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
3. Michele Besso and his family’s role in Italian industrialisation . 55
Michele Besso (1873-1955), Albert’s long-standing friend . . . . . . . . . . . 56
A brilliant young man . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Constant links with Albert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
An endearing personality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 58
Albert and Michele meet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
The paternal branch of the Besso family . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 63
Giuseppe Besso (1839-1901), Michele’s father, humanist . . . . . . . . 63
Beniamino Besso (1840-1907), railway engineer and scientific author . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Marco Besso (1843-1920), the influential Chairman of General Insurance .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Davide Besso (1845-1906), mathematician and teacher . . . . . . . . . 68
The maternal branch of the Cantoni family . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .70
Vittorio Cantoni (1857-1930), civil Polytechnic engineer . . . . . . . 71
Giuseppe Jung (1845-1926), professor of graphic statics at the Milan Polytechnic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
4. Albert’s environment in Pavia and preparations for ETH . . . . 75
Albert’s attempt to be admitted to ETH in October 1895, at the age of sixteen without a school-leaving certificate . . 76
The plan tobe admitted to ETH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
The letter to Galileo Ferraris . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Intervention with Herzog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
The scientific memoir of 1895 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . 79
The circumstances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 79
The subject: the state of the ether in a magnetic field . . . . . . . . . . 80
What are the sources for the dissertation? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
The Einsteins’ links with the University of Pavia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .83
Their partner Lorenzo Garrone and the mathematician Giulio Vivanti . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Their partner Angelo Cerri, the oretical geodesy assistant . . . . . . . 84
Jakob Einstein, Otto Neustätter and the medical academics in Munich and Pavia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Links with physicists at the University? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Social relations in Pavia: Ernestina Marangoni and her uncle Carlo, a physicist. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .89
Ernestina Marangoni. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Carlo Marangoni, a renowned physicist and teacher . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Carlo Marangoni: a direct influence on the young Albert? . . . . . . . 92
5. Albert’s scientific environment in Milan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
The library of the Lombard Institute (1899-1901). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Michele’s work on wireless telegraphy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .99
The discovery of electromagnetic waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Giuseppe Jung’s library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .101
A thesis by Michele in 1900-1901? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
An example of following up on scientific questions: thermo electricity . . . 103
Albert’s professional worries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . 106
Links with his father’s new company business . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Looking fora position as a university assistant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Scientific protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . 109
Albert’s lasting link with Giuseppe Jung through his personal library . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
The professor of chemistry at the Polytechnic Institute . . . . . . . . . 110
The Ansbacher family and the musical environment in Milan . . . . 111
6. Three Albert’s scientific questionings (1898-1901) in connection with his later 1905 work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
There current problem of the relative motion of matter and ether (1898-1901) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Reading Ernst Mach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . 113
An attemptto demonstrate the relative motion of matter with respect to the ether . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Kyoto 1922 memories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
The abandoned thes is on molecular forces (October 1900-December 1901) 118
Capillary phenomena and molecular forces in liquids . . . . . . . . . . 118
Extending the subject of the thesis to molecular forces in gases . . . 121
Max Reinganum’s article in the Lorentz Jubilee volume . . . . . . . . 122
Abandoning the thesis in February 1902 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
Questions about the nature of light and light quanta from 1901? . . . . . . 125
A final word . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Index of names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Selected bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . 141
