(1868–1953). American experimental physicist who confirmed Einstein’s law of the photoelectric effect and recruited him to be a visiting scholar at Caltech.
H
ERMANN
M
INKOWSKI
(1864–1909). Taught Einstein math at the Zurich Polytechnic, referred to him as a “lazy dog,” and devised a mathematical formulation of special relativity in terms of four-dimensional spacetime.
G
EORG
F
RIEDRICH
N
ICOLAI
,
born Lewinstein (1874–1964). Physician, pacifist, charismatic adventurer, and seducer. A friend and doctor of Elsa Einstein and probable lover of her daughter Ilse, he wrote a pacifist tract with Einstein in 1915.
A
BRAHAM
P
AIS
(1918–2000). Dutch-born theoretical physicist who became a colleague of Einstein in Princeton and wrote a scientific biography of him.
M
AX
P
LANCK
(1858–1947). Prussian theoretical physicist who was an early patron of Einstein and helped recruit him to Berlin. His conservative instincts, both in life and in physics, made him a contrast to Einstein, but they remained warm and loyal colleagues until the Nazis took power.
E
RWIN
S
CHRODINGER
(1887–1961). Austrian theoretical physicist who was a pioneer of quantum mechanics but joined Einstein in expressing discomfort with the uncertainties and probabilities at its core.
M
AURICE
S
OLOVINE
(1875–1958). Romanian philosophy student in Bern who founded the “Olympia Academy” with Einstein and Habicht. Became Einstein’s French publisher and lifelong correspondent.
L
EO
S
ZILARD
(1898–1964). Hungarian-born physicist, charming and eccentric, who met Einstein in Berlin and patented a refrigerator with him. Conceived the nuclear chain reaction and cowrote the 1939 letter Einstein sent to President Franklin Roosevelt urging attention to the possibility of an atomic bomb.
C
HAIM
W
EIZMANN
(1874–1952). Russian-born chemist who emigrated to England and became president of the World Zionist Organization. In 1921, he brought Einstein to America for the first time, using him as the draw for a fund-raising tour. Was first president of Israel, a post offered upon his death to Einstein.
T
HE
W
INTELER FAMILY
.
Einstein boarded with them while he was a student in Aarau, Switzerland. Jost Winteler was his history and
