EINSTEIN FOR THE 21ST CENTURY HIS LEGACY IN SCIENCE, ART, AND MODERN CULTURE Peter L. Galison, Gerald Holton, and Silvan S. Schweber, EditorsCCopyrighe © 2008 by Princeton Univesity Press Published by rineton University Pets 41 William Street, Pincxon, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University ress 6 Oxford Stet, Wootsoek, Oxfordshire OX20 TW lege in scence ar and modern nd Sivan 5. Schieber, tor Qcis.ESE446 2008, ssoom—ée22 2007034859 ‘th Library Ctalogng-in-Publication Data is valle This beck has been compose end Tejon ed popens pressprinceton. Prine in te United State of Avericn 135790 e642 CONTENTS SOLITUDE AND WORLD ‘Who Was Einsti Gerald Halon 2 radive beyond the Personal 25 te Dasion [A Shore History of Eins 3 Einstein's Jewish entity 27 Hanach Gfennd 4 inand God 35A ROMANCE OF MANY DIMENSIONS Linda Dalrymple Henderson A century arrex Enssrzm's anus mirabilis of 1905, much research remaine be done on the inpactof Einstein and Relativity Theory on 20th-century se 8 whole, For the ecientist whom Time magazine éelared the Century” in December 1999 and whose effec. th. “Cubism attempted to incorporate Einstein’ i dimension to gain ‘realism of conception” Courtenay asserts, con ding, “how mach modern art was aided by Einstsin’s ess is an open ques rn that it wae sided is not.” As recently es 2004, Mary Acton’s Lea ‘at Modern Art declared, “ewo yeats before Picasso les d’Azignon, Einstein hed published his Theory the theory was rely three-dimensional way because ofthe existence ofthe fourth dimen ‘Such vague associations of Cubism and Relativity usually on ferences to the “fourth dimension” in Cal 's Space, Time TSH and were given their fullest exposition in the te 1940s For both Gi jeasso's Cubism to Finsten was a means to validate new forms of artistic argue for their grounding tn cultare at large® Havingobserved this development firsthand, prominent aet historian Meyer Schapiro reacted strongly to these daims, and ot the Jerusalem Einstein Centennial Symposium in 1979, he delivered what Gerald Holton his described a “an ex- tensive and devastating critiqa of the frequently proposed relation between modem ps modern spec target was the purported Cubiem-Rel kU fortunately, hearer ered the lie an ey fo she 1382 pbosion ofthe conference proceedings, and thus his arguments reached a larger audi- tence only in 2000, withthe posthumous publication of his book The Linity of Pleasso’ Art Inthe meantime, ooher scholarship on this subject had begun to appear, including my 1983 book The Fourth Dimension anti Non Geometry in Modern Art. That text pointed up the absence of accessible Hiter~ tute on Relativity Theory in France in the pre-World War Tera and estab- ished, onthe contrary, the Cubist’ focus on the spatial “Fourth Dimension” that had been the subject of intense popula interest in the early decades of the centary.? Instead ofthe fourth dimension as time in the f ‘onginaum Minkowski hed formulated in 1908 for Relativity Theory, Cubist painters and theorists were stimilated by the notion of esuprasensible foucth dimension of space 1 fold a reality true than that of visual velopment of t-dimen- uel sional space- swidely in EA. Abbot's 1884 Sua tale about refusing to sneely a seat ional space.A massive amount of popular weting. essay contest on the question, “Wht isthe received from all over the world Beginning with the Cubists in pre-World War I Pacis, artis adem movement engaged the spatial fourth dimension in one way of three decades ofthe century. 1 both Picasso's Portrait ables 1903 render tuansparent multiple facets create an ant biguous space thet cannot be read a three dimensional (Fig. 8.2). jects as chink thera, not a 1520 them,” Picasso declared, ané—slong with his engagement with the art of Cézanne and African sculpture (es well as the sci cence discussed below)—contemporary interest in a highe! encouraged his increasingly conceptual appro theorists All inger drew die ideas on tactile and motor sensations in his 1902 La Science Phypothase in Troore 31 Pablo Pees Porat, sf ambi Vella 199-10 Whereas Schapiro had argued correc (Cubism Relativity myth his treatment of "science” inthis period clea Einstein and Relat ity led him to argue against any sort of arvscience connection in the early 20th century. Infact, Picasso and his fellow Cubise Georges Braque—es well 85 virtually all artists before the later 1910s-—actoally sere esponding t ce tain ideas in physic. However it was the exhilarating discoveries ofthe 1890s redefining the matter and space (e and not Relativity Theory cades of the new cent continuity and interpenetrati In addition, the ethor of space and its del of ud been embraced by the general pubic and ries in the wake ofthe 191 ofthe curvature of light by the mass Picasso's Vellard porealt gives cpion of space as suffused with ether and matter as transparent andRicuns&2 "Posputive cavalo he Ssteen Fundamental Cetshotion fan komtetaneéoid” rom Joy a ‘ena mesa ate nce Pi 909 xr Robert Kennedy few Knowledge: "How wwe oursehies are matter and how much ether ig, im there days, a very smoot question“? snd, asa ‘on four-dimensional geometry and space in his White Box or sued by the Cordier lished facsimiles of others of his notes in two eazie cary’ end was made 1912 manuscript on Special Rel “the book of the century,” the manu fourth dimension—a prowess menifested in his extensive notes for his nine-foot-tall work on glass, The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even of 1915-23 (Fig, 83}to, were a deluxe arie’s book.” rom the 218 centary we ions rep- marketed 9 can now observe the waxing and waning of the two competing tr resented by these individuals and objects: the spatial fourth dimension en- gaged by Ducharnp and others in the exely 20th century versus Einstein and = From its earlese days the populr fourth variety of nongsomenrc associations—from m and infniy to scence fiction usages—that made it attract of ertists Binsteinian Relativity, by contrast. represented « much more specif= scientific or mae source which was alo less immediately sug- imagination of artists, Nonetheless, good many artists rand we can be had quickly higher consciousness toa wide renge gestive tothe vis took up the challenge of addressing Einstein and/or Rel Bin here to trace the hape of those responses during the 20th century and ‘even propose an inital typology of eeaciona to them. Tie vavie f fects, in part, the changing atitades coward and understanding of the course of the century. With Einstein sta is period, any exam ure, architecture, and science for mach af his impact necessarily ranges beyond painting si experimental film to include the broader feld of visual representaions— cartoons popular photographic mages, book and magazine covers and specific scientific es forthe at world’s “omance of is theories for December 14, 1919 (Fig, that yeas, declaring, “anew whose researches, signifying a com- are on a gar with the insights ofa {great in world history: Albert Einstei plete revolution in our concepts of rat Copernicus, a Kepler, and a Newton.” ‘As might be expected, he ist widespread alte response to Einstein and his ideas occurred in his home city of Berlin, which during the early 19206 be the Last Weimar Beer Belly Cultural Epocl 1919-20 (Fig. 85), In her commentary on posewar Welmar culture, Héch places Einstein jn the upper loft quadrant with other signs of revolution-—Literal and figurative—in opposition to the German military and Kaiser Willelm and in league with the Dadaits at lower right technique of photomantage shouts Dadh's critique of values held scredin art as Einstein's Relativity Theory had undercat the abrolusee ian scence. No knowledge of the new physics was necessary for 06 ng cove, Deer 11918. Hlel’smessage—the face of Einstein sufficed for her purpose, a it would for numberof ast designers, and cartoonists lacer inthe cen Predating Héch’s exposure to Einstein, the first major a Einstein Tower (Fig. 86), built in 1920-21, but designed between 1917 and. 17about conducting exper conceived t as Kathleen James has Frou 83 Meir Hor Firat Anders ates Roa eek © ARS Noraforward as if ts internal energies and formal distortions wore those of mus cles of the human body. “Mendelsohn’s organic vision of Relativity Theory soon t be replaced ‘until French Sur fm in the 1990s and 19408 would the organic again became a prefers _goage for Reltivity-oriented et. Alchough in the 1940s the Surrealist’ focus ‘would be on imaginative renderings of the space-time continu, ‘cussed below Salvedor Dali's 1981 The Persistence of Memory (see in Einstein and Special Rel Ihe compares che paraneic" lation of measures” In The Persistence of Memory, Dat inspced by a plate of ‘melting cheese, gives vieuel form to the temporal and spatial distortions i ‘Spocal Relativity, producing, a5 he later described it, “the sof, extravagant, and solitary parancic-critical Camembert of time and space:”* ‘Given the variety ofthese three intial images, iti useful to categorize such responses in order to begin co characterize the ways in which 20th- proaches this essay will cuggest* That sign of Relativity, however, has been | rater than the primacy artistic responce to Einstein that emerged in the early sion of dime and motion into ar, which stands as third type of response was by far the most prevalent among artists throughout the 20th cencury. [No other German artist enjoyed Mendelsoha’s front-row seat on developing Relativity physice during the 1910s. After 1919, however, Einstein’ presence ‘mn Berlin and popular fascination ‘garde innovation hi eclipse Indeed the two major Russian artists who milieu, Naum Cabo and El Licsitcky, had both spent time studying in Gor- ‘many: Gabo pursued medicing science, and art history in Munich and Lissitky studied architectural engineeting in Darmstade before earning a diploma as “engineer/architec in Moscow Gabo later recalled frst heasing of Relativity tion (Standing Wave) (Tate Gallery, London) a vertical ste base containing an electromagnet and springs that set the: tory pattern of a standing wave? When Gabo exhibited the workin Benin in 1922, he highlighted the sculpeure’s teraporal q tinued commitment tothe temporal fourth dimension: °Con- structive sculpture. is four-dimensional insofar as we are striving to bring the element of time into it." By 1922 the Berlin stadio ofthe Hungarian artist Lisslé Moholy-Nagy had become a central gathering point for avant-garde artistic discussion. In thet etic work he called a Light Prop for ax Electr.1 of the dchaxony fing solution tothe arti among othe /AG for technical assistance. The im studio granted their re- cory’s emphasis on sie. where drawings such as those in his 1924 Color CFig, 88) served as models for his designs for houses. Van Doesburg argued that arcitacrare muse break out of the tradi- tional "box and he compared the space of the hypercube of four-dimensional geomet buildings to emphasize the necessity of movement in time to viewing the new architecture. Along with Moboly-Nagy, van Doesburg was an important In works such as Transversion (Fig. 8.9), Pereira newest types of corrugate ed glass co") and then mounted these panes in front of the Yeentury of Ei Returning to 1920s Berlin, in conttast to van Dossbung’s of ime in film a the appropriste expression of R- length, breadth, eight,1924 Lissteky continued to celebrate non-Euelidean geometry’s “exph of the absoluteness of Euclidean spac,” as he had done in the 1920 ts present in many ofthe Prouns strongly stg vity’s description of the non-Eucidean curvature of the taky made this very 1 “does not correspond with the universe, where no steaight lines." Indeed, the non-Fuel ld become an increasingly important theme inthe subsequent figurations of space-time, particular among the Sursealiss, whose form language itself ‘wae already organic and curvilinea, this filth approach to Rel ing with the Surrealist in 1 1940 (and occasionally In his 1939 essay “Des tenvdances les pls récentes de la peinturesurréalist,” reprinted in Le Surréal sme et la peinture in New York in 1845, Surtesism’s founder André Breton discussed the artists Roberto Matta Echaurren, Gordon Onslow Ford, and Oscar Dominguez as specifically concerned with the "four-dimensional verse” of space-time, Of eheir works such as Mart’s 1944 The Vertigo of Ere (Fig. 8.10), Breton explained, beginning wi FiceRs 810 Listy, Prowr S07, 1920;0 0 ans Karts Sane Siang Spent ‘Though, in thee forays into the realm of since, the accuracy of their pro ‘oancements remain largely unconfirmed, the imporant thing is thatthe all ‘share the same deep yearning to tenscend the tise weal the schicved an unprecedented degree of ambiguous spatial shifting through his use ‘aoe 8 result of Fist’ introduction into physic ofthe space-tine con noo fra suggestive preantation ofthe four-dimensional universe y evident inthe wore of Maia hndscapes with sever horizons) snd Onslow Ford® of is 1924 essay Are] and Pongeometry, however, Lissstzky hd rejected the possibility of effectively figuring space-ime in painsing, declaring that “the malt-dimensional spaces existing mathematically cannot bbe conceived cannot be represented, and indeed cannot be materialized.” Not- ing tha “space and time are different in kind,” he concluded that “time nagh sharing Del's organte form lenguoge, Matta and his young league which Dali’s watches deform ‘amorphous space with no definite horizon or clear spatial Painting to incorporate time and motion directly into exhibition spaces, young Surrealiss also embraced non-Eueidean geometry wholehes such as his Prout Roowa of 1923 and subsequent designs Here Lissitzky set both for in Einstein and Relativity Theory a Jastc sign ofthe overthrow of trad axioms)" By the later 1950s and 1960s, in fact, “space- uzzword to suggest curved space-time its popularity the Space Age, science fiction films, and the popularization of Black holes in the 198063 mounted on wal, creating 2 new ki preference for physical space versie mathem 1Garage Lights of 1932 (Eig. 8.12), whole concepe of ad come to New York during World War and were producing such paintings there had been another round of publicity sbout Einstein and Relativity i the United States. His intial impact in 1919 and the easly 1920s had preduced exe including seventy-seven st angular value of hie drawing The an Lights re opposed to aseiatve value” structure underlying works such as LanDavis continued in his daybook, "The pie pace and the passage of time. Indeed Relativity Theory—ae in smyth was emerging i # 5's Space, Tame and Arc wes to Einstein, Davis represents a sixth category, ts whe have 1 Davis was reading sah New Yr, BED.f blackboard covered with equations®” Those equations could be di E=me? (or a near approximation, as in the Sidney Hire same metonymical sign aonampany the E 2003, fa the Einstein Sgure’s packaging the sient distored. oF inear grids impossibly numbered clock, the phrase “space-time” and cu “This was the Einstein to whorn Robe ‘composer Philip Glass on the 1976 som responded in his cllabor era Ei the Beach by photographs of Einstein nother image with resonance for And drawing upon the primary Moholy-Nagy course 5 of architecture ta be important cles [ad in school ”?” ‘Through Moh absorbed Moholy-Nagy’s pro- when kinetic art emerged fll Blown mont and was regul the Galerie Denise René in of the spail fourth dimension wa jerween the myth of a Cub ty connection and kinetic an’ dorsinance asthe recognized expression 23 seer menecrenemnsinieerenennnmrenianhehpskeefosihhtreresieecof space-time, Relativity must have seeined used up as @ relevant source for artists, Robert Smithson against « fourth dimension ed and Kinet Ieonography of Desolation.” However, 5 there was discus newly recov subject of David Bourdon’ January 1966 Art Neweartie etl "E-=MC23 Go," tite the reac the dominance of space-time dizcouree atm Di Severo, who saw himself in che tradition of enginoer-atsts 3 Constructivist, was the group member ena ‘Suvero well beyond the popular evocations of space ‘of gravity and other forces inthe to explore the physics e-scale constructed sculptures (often with moving components) that he has eantinued to fabricate to the preset dy” mtropy and the New Monuments" Tn his June 1966 Artforum essay 1 velerrod to Park Place as 2 and philosophy azsocated with the spatial fourth dimen ad discovered in books by P.D. Ouspensky and Claude Bragdan he found ina Sen Francisco artist's book sale in 1957." Forakis shared (Organon (fst published in 1911) 8 Smithson also found more contemporary sourees on subject, including the idess of Buckminster Faller and the writings of Mart Gardner in Scieniflc American and, for Smithson, in The Ambidextrous Uni- verse of 1964, Spatial ambiguity, sion were central tothe appeal. who sought ta undercut “7 Gateway of 1966 composed of three to tip-to-tip tetrahedrons with 100-foot bases, the configurations of the sculpture sift rad viewer moves around the senlpare (Fig. 817) adm asthe build block with which (with 60-degree versus 90-degree an- 17s unpredictable motations call mind the effects -irnensional objets in rotation. As Lawrence Alloway wrote in a 1968, article on Foraks, “his work is geometric, snd double-takes rather than of stable determi ep on his sudo egement of the famous sticking out 4 geometries, including topology. Critics who interpreted i references tothe “4D” in terme of Einstein and the temporal fourth di- ‘vension alone missed a central aspect of ther artistic practice, The 1960s, however, sw a new phase of work on General Relativity by sis John Wheeler and orhers chat would recast che study of space-time in re Beometrical terme This was the Relativity physics tha excited pal «er Tony Robbin beginning inthe early 1970s, Once Robbin’ artention had been 124 to four-dimensional geometry and space he was remarkably fortunate to ended a group of eatly 20tk-centucy books onthe subject by a mathematics fessor colleague at Trenton State Collage, where he was reaching Subse- jently Robbin began a serious study of physic, auditing a eourse at NYU and King with a tutor a5 well as conversing with Wheeler on a lecture tip to the © appropriate analog, for the complexity of modern experience For example, rerein works of the late 1970s, Robbin combined rich textures of color and linear arids in different orientations to create shifting perspectives thar refuse to ‘ohere ina single viewpoint” Although Robbin's inital approach tothe spa- tial fourth dimension was intuitive, he increasingly engaged four- imensionel geometry. Inthe early 1980s, he connected with mathematician ‘Thomas Banchoff at Brown University, who wos doing pioneering work in ensional computer graphics, and he subsequently studied program- ‘ming himself. Robbin’s painting Lobofour of 1982 (Plate 3) combines & pat- tered background of Necker-reversing four- and eight-ided Ggures with alts of projections of sections of the rotating hypercube (both painted on the surface snd modeled in wite rods). In addition, th overall collapsing metric of ‘the painting is meant 1 suggest the earvature of space-time.# Robbin’s wore pioneers an cighth eategory of responses to Einstein and Relativity, which ice designated "perceptual complexity based on four-dimensional (geo- metre) space-time.” Robbin’s continued seudy of four-dimensional geometry, including its history and its relation to contemporsry developments in topology and physics, is the subject of his most recent book, Shadows of Reality: The Fourth Dimension in Cubism, Relatioity, and Medern Thought” ‘The first edition of my book The Fourth Dimension and Now-Eucldean Geometry in Modern Art appeared in 1983—just @ year before the emer- ‘gence of string theory as well ae che fed of computer graphice and related ideas of eyberepace, which would all contribute to 8 major resurgence of terest in higher dimensional space by the end of the 20ch century. Following new focus on geometry in work on Genera by Wheeler ry has made dimensionality a lively issue in physics subject of much scence writing for a lay audience’? and cosmology an ‘Along withthe gret popular aclaim Einstein received a¢ the 20th century ended, interest in the scientist and his theories has risen to new levels after 9 Jull during the 19605, 1970s, and 1980s, Reflecting that renewal, a recent se reses the 1 of form, Rotenguis’® paintings such as -Mariner—Speed of Light of 1999 (ig. 8.18) and The Stowaway Peers Out at the Speed of Light of 2000 bring this discussion full circle to the issue of ‘motion-induced contraction explored by Mendelsohn in the (ig. 8.6) According to Rosenguist, “The paintings are about my imagination 185 1 nex view, or 2 new look at the speed of ligh."” In Mariner—Speed of intly colored forms and their motllic reflections tvs, streth, 38 vieual form tothe effects that might bé experienced neat the In paint on canvas Rosenguist produces some ofthe most visu images ofthe “vision in motion” that Moholy-Nagy argued 6 cute Toes Rong, Maina Spt tigion nerds VAG Neneh NE was the central characteristic of the new world of Einstein and space-time. ltaphori paintings express Rosenquis’s belief in the inevitable ference between his own frame of reference at « painter nd that of his iowers and ertcs, who have not traveled the same lifelong voyage as he = rom Hch to Warhol or from Mendelsohn and Dali to Rasenquist, ind Relativity Theory have clearly been important stm ry, providing new iconography and encoura inber of antsts, arch wen formal distortion-contraction aa sign of Special the incorporation of time into ar, exploring light and iagining space-time, diagramming Relat stein and Relativity, and perceprualcomlexity based on four-dimensional ne—is by no means complete, however. Miuch work re- points where there was a ‘oncentration of activity in relation to Einstein's theories, suchas Berlin inthe 20s or Paris in the 1950s with the flowering of Kinet art. Post-World War I ‘which fr fess art historical scholanship existe in y of art and science and, specifically, ee impact of aston and Relativity Theory.Basic exploratory eesearch with an eye t. science isthe fist stage for such a reexamn investigations also need to be undertaken ags saree understanding ofthe history of early 20eh-century science Duchamp pinpointed the problem accurately when he declared in 1967 interviews, "The pbc alwaye needs a banner whether it be Ficus, Einstein, or some other ”™ ‘The sole focus on Picasso and Einstein as full formed, public icons for much ‘too long, even after the myth of a dizect connection between them was de- bbunked, has crested a distorted view of che history of medern art end science Jost ae Peas does not embody all of Cubism, Einste represent all of early 20th-eentary sience, Most inaportan ‘ognize the continucd dominance ofthe pre-Eineteinin, lt magnetic worldview" for laypeople through the 1910:—as. to the ether by both the public and LLadge inthe later 1910s and early 1920s, Nether the Michelson”) {men nor the publication of Einstein's ppersin 1905 spelled the immediate end cof ether ai o often stated Recently, Peter Galison has issued a similar call {or historians of acience to “partcuarize” Einstein and the evolution of his the- cries, 2 he recedes further and further behiad his words now “splintered into dered into slogans” ley exper beyond those decades, themselves Such outs along with such indezes asthe Reader's Guide to Pei- codialLtereture ofa the 1950, the Whole Earth Catalog, allow a historian to guuge what sonic ideas ware acesible and seen a eleva in which an arise was operating. Gavin Tarkineons excellent book a Art and Moder Physics, noted above, is sldly grounded in his and the Discourse of Science. Finally, Christina Lodder and Hammers book ori Naum Gabo is an exempler of exacting cbolarship ‘onan aris who has long been linked loosely to Relativity Theory but whose ange of zoures was, more varied” ‘Because the “fourth dimension” was at the center of the Cubiom- Relativity nyt this essay has focused primarily on Einstein's and Minkowshi's ideas on space and time. Apart from Mendelsohn focus on energy in his “dynamic the “interdependence of space and time” among the concepts of science she seeks “to render tangible and comm Denes has discussed her detailed drawings that 1990s is another figure for whom the fal range of Einstein’ science ha ulaed a highly creative imagination. Ritchie's artis grounded in his extensive reading in science and other feds, out of which he crestes complex system? sn Proposition Player. Yor responding to Einstein. Nov augmented by cluding the eleven-dimensional universes of string theory of Lisa Randal herein), as well a time travel, dark enongy, and dark mates, the “ro- of many dimensions” of artists with Einstein and Relativity Theory is ly continuing into the 21s century. a9