Science and the State

The solar eclipses of 1914 and 1919 are good examples of this theme. The 1914 eclipse was best seen from Russia and the 1919 eclipse, from Brazil and Guinea. The eclipses were important, because they offered experimental physicists the opportunity to test certain empirical predictions of Einstein's theory. German scientists journeyed to Russia and were immediately imprisoned by the Soviets for the entire duration of World War I. Since that war ended in November 1918, two British expeditions set out in early 1919, one team to Brazil and one to Guinea. Of all the photographs taken, one showed the needed information.

This biography includes many other incidents showing the influence of the state. In 1911, while he was at the University of Prague, Einstein registered as a Jew, because the Emperor Franz Joseph had decreed that all faculty belong to a state-recognized religion. In 1914, 92 German academics and intellectuals signed the Kaiser's justification...