Einstein on the Run: How Britain Saved the World’s Greatest Scientist

by Andrew Robinson

The first account of the role Britain played in Einstein's life—first by inspiring his teenage passion for physics, then by providing refuge from the Nazis

In autumn 1933, Albert Einstein found himself living alone in an isolated holiday hut in rural England. There, he toiled peacefully at mathematics while occasionally stepping out for walks or to play his violin. But how had Einstein come to abandon his Berlin home and go ‘"on the run"?

In this lively account, Andrew Robinson tells the story of the world’s greatest scientist and Britain for the first time, showing why Britain was the perfect refuge for Einstein from rumored assassination by Nazi agents. Young Einstein’s passion for British physics, epitomized by Newton, had sparked his scientific development around 1900. British astronomers had confirmed his general theory of relativity, making him internationally famous in 1919. Welcomed by the British people, who helped him campaign against Nazi anti-Semitism, he even intended to become a British citizen. So why did Einstein then leave Britain, never to return to Europe?

Genres: Biography, History, Nonfiction, Science, Physics

376 pages, Hardcover

Published October 8, 2019

About the author

(William) Andrew Coulthard Robinson is a British author and former newspaper editor.

Andrew Robinson was educated at the Dragon School, Eton College where he was a King's Scholar, University College, Oxford where he read Chemistry and finally the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. He is the son of Neville Robinson, an Oxford physicist.

Robinson first visited India in 1975 and has been a devotee of the country's culture ever since, in particular the Bengali poet and philosopher Rabindranath Tagore and the Bengali film director Satyajit Ray. He has authored many books and articles. Until 2006, he was the Literary Editor of the Times Higher Education Supplement<?em>. He has also been a Visiting Fellow at Wolfson College, Cambridge.

He is based in London and is now a full-time writer.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads data base.

Reviews

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

Albert Einstein was born in Germany, educated in Switzerland, and eventually settled in America. It was Britain, however, that made Einstein into a world famous scientist, according to author Andrew Robinson.


Author Andrew Robinson

Robinson writes that Einstein's physics theories were inspired by English mathematician Sir Isaac Newton, and England gave Einstein sanctuary from the Nazis in 1933. Britain also hosted numerous visits from Einstein, during which the physicist gave lectures and met with fellow scientists.

In 1921, for example, Einstein made his first visit to England with his second wife Elsa.


Albert Einstein and his second wife Elsa

At the University of Manchester - then the home of physicists Ernest Rutherford and Neils Bohr - Einstein accepted an Honorary Doctorate in Science and gave a lecture on relativity for an audience of about one thousand, including staff, students, and others.


University of Manchester

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Ernest Rutherford


Neils Bohr

Robinson briefly outlines Einstein's two groundbreaking theories - the Theory of Relativity and Quantum Theory - both of which may be rather obscure to the average reader. Robinson notes that Einstein had a gift for making himself understood, but even he "couldn't transform relativity into more than a tantalizing concept for the non-mathematically minded." In a nutshell:



Spacetime is the concept that the three-dimensional geometry of the universe (the location of things on an xyz-axis) and the time dimension (when events occur) are not separate things. They form a single unit.

In very simple terms, the theory of general relativity says:

- The presence of matter in the universe alters the geometry of spacetime - that is, it curves spacetime.

- Gravity is a manifestation of the curvature of spacetime.

- Objects that 'fall' because of gravity are following straight line paths in a curved spacetime.



Gravity is illustrated in the diagram above. The grid is spacetime, the sphere is matter (let's say the Earth).....and gravity diverts the trajectory of the object (let's say the moon).

Besieged by the press and public to explain relativity, Einstein told his secretary to give casual inquirers the following lighthearted explanation: "An hour sitting with a pretty girl on a park bench passes like a minute, but a minute sitting on a hot stove seems like an hour."

Einstein's other great achievement is his contribution to Quantum Theory. The physicist is considered one of the founders of this theory because he proposed that electromagnetic radiation ejects electrons from a material. In a nutshell:

Particles of light called photons (or quanta) collide with electrons on a surface and eject them.





Robinson also details additional aspects of Einstein's work, including Einstein's differences of opinion with other physicists (especially about quantum mechanics), and Einstein's calculation of a cosmological constant that he later rejected.

Besides outlining Einstein's scientific achievements, Robinson describes how Einstein, a Jew, was impacted by Nazism in Germany. The acceptance of Einstein and his theories in England contrasted with the physicist's denunciation in Germany, where there was a 'vociferous anti-relativity movement' among scientists, philosophers, and the public. In fact an anti-Semitic book called 'One Hundred Authors Against Einstein' (Hundert Autoren Gegen Einstein) was published in 1931.



Einstein was deeply loyal to German science, but wasn't sympathetic to Germany itself. He said (in German), "The state to which I belong as a citizen does not play the slightest role in my emotional life. I regard a person's relations with the state as a business matter, rather like one's relations with a life assurance company."

Unlike many Germans at the time, Einstein was a pacifist and hated war. Among other anti-war statements, Einstein said, "I feel only contempt for those who can take pleasure marching in rank and file to the strains of a band. Surely such men were given their great brain by mistake. The spinal cord would have amply sufficed. This shameful stain on civilization should be wiped out as soon as possible. Heroism on command, senseless violence and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism, how passionately I despise them. How vile and contemptible war seems to me. I would rather be torn limb from limb than take part is such an ugly business."

This didn't endear the scientist to the German government.

As Einstein became increasingly unpopular in Germany, he spent more time in England. The scientist visited The University of Oxford three times as a Rhodes lecturer in the early 1930s.


Albert Einstein at The University of Oxford


Albert Einstein lecturing at The University of Oxford

In Oxford Einstein was warmly welcomed by British physicist Frederick Lindermann, who wrote, “Combined with his attractive personality, [Einstein’s] kindness and sympathy have endeared him to all of us and I have hopes that his period as Rhodes lecturer may initiate more permanent connections with this university which can only prove fertile and advantageous in every respect.”


Frederick Lindermann

On top of his other interests, Einstein strongly supported Jewish causes and lobbied Britain to provide positions for Jewish scientists expelled from Germany - which England did in many instances. In 1933 Einstein opened a speech at Royal Albert Hall in London with the following remarks: "Through your well organized work of relief you have done a great service, not only to innocent scholars who have been persecuted, but also to humanity and science. You have shown that you and the British people have remained faithful to the traditions of tolerance and justice which for centuries you have upheld with pride."


Albert Einstein speaking at Royal Albert Hall

In early 1933, shortly after Hitler seized power, Einstein left Germany for the last time. The Nazis confiscated his home and possessions - including his violin - and Einstein became homeless. British politician Oliver Locker-Lampson offered Einstein the use of his London house, explaining that "it consisted of a hallway, dining room, living room and lounge, two or three bedrooms, three bedrooms for employees, and well-equipped kitchen facilities. Moreover, both running costs and servants would be included in the offer."


British politician Oliver Locker-Lampson

Later, in August 1933 - when Einstein was staying in Belgium - the Nazis wrongly accused the physicist of being responsible for the defamatory (in their eyes) publication 'The Brown Book of the Hitler Terror and the Burning of the Reichstag.'



Germany put a price on Einstein's head, and Locker-Lampson came to the rescue once again. The politician arranged to 'hide' Einstein away in his holiday hut in rural Norfolk, where Einstein stayed for a short time. Robinson writes, "Not only did Locker-Lampson serve Einstein and England well, he also served himself and his public image well."

An odd mixture of secrecy and publicity surrounded Einstein's stay in Locker-Lampson's cottage. On the one hand, Locker-Lampson arranged for a private guard of his friends with guns to guard Einstein zealously.


Albert Einstein and Oliver Locker-Lampson

On the other hand, a reporter interviewed Einstein, and published an article with a photograph of Einstein at the hut. The author notes, "Any Nazi agent worth his salt could have worked out where Einstein was hidden", but presumably "Germany was looking the other way."

As a personal observation I have to say, "What were those Nazis thinking?!", trying to assassinate one of the greatest scientists of all time.

In any case Einstein survived his visit to Norfolk, and in October 1933 the scientist and his wife Elsa left for the United States. There Einstein had a position at Princeton University's "Institute for Advanced Study", where he spent the rest of his life.


Albert Einstein at Princeton University

The book has myriad details about Einstein's life and work, and is clearly the result of in depth research by the author. Some of the explanations of scientific theories were rather rough going, but I enjoyed the book and acquired new insight into Einstein the scientist and humanitarian.

You can follow my reviews at https://reviewsbybarbsaffer.blogspot....

[Sid Nuncius · Rating 4 out of 5]

I quite enjoyed Einstein On The Run, but it wasn’t really what I expected. It does shed interesting light on a little-known aspect of Einstein’s escape from the Nazis, but this forms a relatively minor part of the book, which makes the subtitle a little misleading.

The story of Einstein’s stay in Britain and the analysis of why he chose to go to the USA are very good aspect of the book. I have read quite a lot about Einstein but I didn’t know anything about any of this. Andrew Robinson has done a great deal of research and presents it well, so these parts of the book were very rewarding. However, there is an awful lot of other material in the book, a good deal of which is much more familiar. The book opens with a fairly lengthy outline of Einstein’s early life and work, for example, which is quite well done, but not really what I wanted to read the book for. The same can be said of quite a lot of the rest of the book which, while readable enough, didn’t add much to what I’d already read about several times before in other biographies and analyses of Einstein’s work. (Abaham Pais’s biography, Subtle Is The Lord sprang to mind rather often.)

I think a recommendation depends on what you’re looking for. If you want a decent, brief account of Einstein’s life and beliefs with an emphasis on hie time in Britain and how it affected him, this should do you well. For a book devoted to that time and its consequences, I found this just slightly disappointing.

(My thanks to Yale University Press for an ARC via NetGalley.)

[Susan Rothenberg · Rating 3 out of 5]

A difficult book to read, because much of it is about his scientific work, whose details I found impossible to understand. Yet, once I decided to skim those pages, his escape from Germany to first Belgium, then Great Britain and then finally the United States was very interesting. It was clear what a gifted scientist he was and how different the world would be if he hadn’t been so committed to his work - particularly regarding the atomic bomb.

[Annie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Originally published on my blog Nonstop Reader.

Einstein on the Run is a period focused biography about Einstein and how the British government interceded on his behalf and shielded him for a short period in 1933 in a remote part of England as well as his near-lifetime collaboration and friendship with other scientists and philosophers living in the UK. Released 8th Oct 2019 by Yale University Press, it's 376 pages and available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats.

There have been so many biographies of Einstein and his life is so well documented that I didn't expect this biography to bring much more to the table than previous offerings. I was wrong. This is a meticulously detailed and respectfully rendered biography from which I gleaned quite a lot of new information. There are so many new (to me) photographs, excerpts from letters and interviews, contemporaneous comments from the media and colleagues that combined to give this biography a richness and accessibility showing him more as a human being and less as the iconic remote titan of physics which he also was.

The author, Andrew Robinson, is an experienced biographer and science writer (with several previous biographies including at least one other Einstein bio). The book definitely could've been very dry and academic, indeed the constraints of rigidity and proof inherent in biography writing might well trend toward the dry and factual recitation of dates and statistics, but the narrative here is warm and human, and engaging. The book has extensive footnotes, annotations, and references, but they don't overshadow the text. The book also includes an extensive bibliography and cross-referenced index for further reading.

Five stars. I really enjoyed this one. This would be a superlative selection for fans of science, Einstein, biography, 20th century cultural icons, etc.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

[Kenneth Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Einstein on the Run gives a good review of Einstein's work in relativity (Special and General) and his disagreements with Bohr's version of quantum mechanics. The rest of the book gives a summary of his life and dwells in great detail about his relationship with the British especially during the 1920 and 1930's. I listened to the audio book version read by Anthony Robinson who did an outstanding job of reading the book. I usually annually brush up on my understanding of Special and General Relativity. This book did a good job but I will be going back to "The Perfect Theory" by Pedro G. Ferreira which is the best book I know of explaining Relativity Theory and the changes since Einstein death

[Theediscerning · Rating 3 out of 5]

The layman in me wanted this to be – not for any patriotic reasons, mind, just out of curiosity – a look at how Britain got to inspire, inflect on and give harbour to Einstein. All of that is here, but this is much more of a general biography. I know it's what he was most known for, but here we get much more of the theories than I wanted from this, even when it's not the man's beloved English inspirations that helped him out but instead the initial Mach, Hertz, Planck et al. This fully tries to show Einstein's workings – always a bit tricky, for we are told the man got his first major papers out with zero regard for providing a bibliography of prior research – as they didn't need anybody else's prior research. He later became very woolly, too, about how he managed to do the work he had done.

En route too to a full examination of Einstein's love or otherwise of Britishness and his time here, we also get more than I would have assumed about his interactions with the Zionists building their own nation in between the World Wars. Don't get me wrong, this is all tied into the story – his pro-Zionist fundraising led to antagonism being multiplied in Germany, which of course sent him into Britannia's arms, even if only for a month or so here and there, but I felt this a little too completist and forensically academic in contrast to the book I thought I was getting. Still, before this can be claimed to be more about me than the book, it is still very readable – no wodges of notes interrupting the flow, for everything is in the core text – and succinctly full of great detail, such as the days when a full technical paper was displayed for the passing public in Selfridges' store windows, or how 1939 saw Princeton freshers vote Hitler above Einstein (by some considerable margin) as 'greatest living person', while Einstein was working as their very neighbour.

In all, I never objected to the contents here, but coming to this as Mister Average Browser I felt it a little too heavily on the academic side. A true classic non-fiction will make me think any spurious, trivial or serious minutia of history is worth a whole book on – these pages kind of proved that there was not a full, populist title to be had on this subject. Still, three and a half stars, with more deemed the verdict from the point of view of someone more able to engage so intimately with science history.

[Peggy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this book. I especially liked the first half. Granted, I am a science geek, but did like the review of relativity, special relativity, and quantum mechanics. I do think this area of the book could be tough if you don't have some inkling of the science involved. The rest of the book was largely more historical and biographical. Some of the parts in England seemed a bit tedious, college politics and all that, but overall, I do think the book is worth reading. McCarythyism smacks of some of today's political climate, where freedom of speech is second to political ideaology. So history does run in cycles. Einstein was an interesting character, and worth knowing more about. Thumbs up!

[Stacy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received an ARC of this book through NetGalley in exchange for my unbiased opinion.

Einstein on the Run tells of Einstein's time spent in England in the 1920s and 1930s, as well as the influence English scientists had on Einstein's work. In addition, the book goes into some detail about Einstein's scientific revolutionary theories.

I enjoyed the book, although a lot more of it took place outside of England than I had expected. This book made me relate to Einstein as a person more than I had expected to. This book is best for people who love both physics and history or have a desire to learn about both.

[Mandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this interesting and very readable biography of Einstein, the author focuses on the time the scientist spent in England after his flight from Nazi Germany and the effect this may have had on his work. Einstein certainly found a safe haven here, but ultimately left Britain for the US and never returned to Europe. I found the personal aspects of Einstein's life really interesting but the author's valiant attempts to explicate the science defeated me. It appears that even when put in apparently simple terms physics will always escape me. Nevertheless, I did enjoy the book and appreciated finding out more about this iconic scientist.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read an ARC copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

I do not have a strong background in physics and found myself having to stop frequently to ask my science teacher partner to explain key concepts. This would then break up the flow and I'd have to reread sections.

When the author focused on people and politics, areas I do have a strong background in, the book was informative and aroused my curiosity.

Overall, a solid read but if you don't have a physics background be prepared to find answers.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

I came to this book because it was mentioned in a book by Ali Smith, when two characters try to find the beach in Norfolk that Albert Einstein frequented in the 1930s. As well as telling how he fled mainland Europe to escape Nazism, it also gives a good overview of Einstein's life and work. Shocking to hear the tone of pro-Hitler Daily Mail editorials of the time, which sadly haven't changed so much with the passing of the years.

[Trick Wiley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Received this through Net Galley and to say the least I have read a lot of books about his life,his wife,the second wife,his children,his works but this out a whole new spin on Einstein and his time he was in England. This is a very well researched book and the background information that his works for to lead him into what resulted in the rest of his life!

[Janie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Did not finish. This reading was a victim of the Covid shut-down and the world off-kilter.

[Astrid Galactic · Rating 4 out of 5]

Einstein On The Run was an enjoyable and enlightening book for anyone who might like to know about the life of Albert Einstein. A man who is highly regarded today but dealt with many rejections and personal difficulties while also having to step very carefully during a time of intense political turmoil.

We know that Einstein was a man of great genius in the world of Science and Math, but what we learn from this book is that he was also a man of strong convictions. He would not compromise his beliefs to gain fame, money nor even safety. This was during the Nazi occupation of parts of Europe which had him fleeing his homeland yet he refused to follow his Jewish roots to Israel because of how it would cause him to go against the core of his beliefs.

Though today we regard Einstein as being at the top of Scientific intellect, that full respect didn't really come to him until many years later. There were those in his field who did not agree with his theories or just didn't understand yet how much of an impact they would have in time. Some of the book talks about his theory of light, relativity and the unified field theory but it was not in any way overly done. In fact, while reading this book, I finally understood much of the basis of what we now know of Einstein's work. It was explained in a way that was very easy to understand. With that said, this book is still much more of a biography of sorts rather than any sort of Science book. Of course, with Einstein, the two tend to go hand in hand to at least some degree.

A good book that I would recommend to anyone interested in one of the greatest minds of Science.

Thanks to NetGalley for a copy of the eBook for a fair and honest review.