x l I N T R O D U C T I O N T O V O L U M E 1 2
presumed confirmation by Eddington’s team. He also hinted that Soldner’s work
had been unfairly conflated with relativity theory, in hopes of further tainting its au-
thor’s achievement (Doc. 308). Einstein seems not to have been much disturbed by
these new charges, but appreciated a retort to these assertions published by David
Hilbert and Max Born in the Frankfurter Zeitung (Doc. 345).
Yet these incipient allegations of plagiarism were to persist long into the future.
After the falling-out in 1920 between Einstein and the Borns over media publicity
and over Moszkowski’s
biography,[37]
late January and early February 1921
brought a reconciliation with Max Born (Docs. 37 and 47), who even proposed to
shepherd into publication an edition of Einstein’s collected works (Doc. 338). To-
ward the end of the year, Hedwig Born, too, extended the “peace pipe” with a post-
card written on behalf of the Borns’ newborn son, Gustav (Doc. 286), which
Einstein accepted (Doc. 345).
Some arguments over relativity theory surfaced in the United States as well.
Wesley Wait of Newburgh, N.Y., claimed that he had thought of its central ideas
before
Einstein.[38]
Others aired charges of exaggerated publicity or lack of empir-
ical evidence, or objected to the abolishment of the
ether.[39]
Charles Francis Brush,
an inventor from Cleveland, demonstrated before the American Philosophical
Society in Philadelphia a pendulum experiment that purported to exhibit a differ-
ence in gravity’s pull on equal masses of zinc and bismuth. Reportedly, this alleged
refutation of the principle of equivalence drew vigorous applause and received na-
tionwide press coverage. Most articles also mentioned that Arthur Gordon Webster,
former president of the American Physical Society and member of the National
Academy of Sciences, had been “flabbergasted” by the
results.[40]
Ubiquitous and tenacious among Einstein’s critics in the U.S. was Arvid Reuter-
dahl, dean of the engineering and architecture school of the College of St. Thomas
in St. Paul, Minnesota. On 9 April, he challenged Einstein to a polemic on relativ-
ity, eager to prove that the theory was
“bunk.”[41]
He also claimed that Einstein had
plagiarized work written by an author under the pen name
“Kinertia.”[42]
Two days
later, when asked about the allegations, Einstein replied to a New York newspaper
that he had come to the United States to promote the cause of the Hebrew Univer-
sity, and that he was not interested in engaging in “newspaper discussions with
persons who doubt or misunderstand my theories or question my integrity.” He had
heard neither of “Kinertia,” nor of
Reuterdahl.[43]
The latter nevertheless persisted
and soon thereafter published a comparison of Kinertia’s and Einstein’s texts in
Henry Ford’s Dearborn
Independent.[44]
By the end of 1921, Reuterdahl had
founded the “Academy of Nations,” an umbrella organization meant to unite anti-
relativists around the world. Some European anti-relativists soon joined, among
them Ernst Gehrcke, who became chairman of the society’s German
chapter.[45]