Quantum_ Einstein, Bohr and the Great Debate About the Nature of Reality - Manjit Kumar [148]
When Bohr came down to breakfast he was no longer looking 'like a dog who has received a thrashing' the night before. Now it was Einstein who was stunned into silence as he listened to Bohr explain why his latest challenge, like those of three years earlier, had failed. Later there would be those who questioned Bohr's refutation because he had treated macroscopic elements such as the pointer, the scale, and the light box as if they were quantum objects and therefore subject to limitations imposed by the uncertainty principle. To handle macroscopic objects in this way ran counter to his insistence that laboratory equipment be treated classically. But Bohr had never been particularly clear about where to draw the line between the micro and macro, since in the end every classical object is nothing but a collection of atoms.
Whatever reservations some had later, Einstein accepted Bohr's counter-arguments, as did the physics community at the time. As a result he ceased his attempts to circumvent the uncertainty principle to demonstrate that quantum mechanics was logically inconsistent. Instead Einstein would henceforth focus on exposing the theory as incomplete.
In November 1930 Einstein lectured in Leiden on the light box. Afterwards a member of the audience argued that there was no conflict within quantum mechanics. 'I know, this business is free of contradictions,' replied Einstein, 'yet in my view it contains a certain unreasonableness.'10 In spite of this, in September 1931, he once again nominated Heisenberg and Schrödinger for a Nobel Prize. But after going two rounds with Bohr and his seconds at the Solvay conferences, one sentence in Einstein's letter of nomination was telling: 'In my opinion, this theory contains without doubt a piece of the ultimate truth.'11 His 'inner voice' continued to whisper that quantum mechanics was incomplete, that it was not the 'whole' truth as Bohr would have everyone believe.
At the end of the 1930 Solvay conference, Einstein travelled to London for a few days. He was the guest of honour at a fundraising dinner on 28 October for the benefit of impoverished eastern European Jews. Held at the Savoy Hotel, and hosted by Baron Rothschild, the fundraiser drew almost a thousand people. With the great and the good elegantly dressed, Einstein willingly donned white tie and tails to play his part in what he called the 'monkey comedy' if it helped open wallets.12 George Bernard Shaw was the master of ceremonies.
Although he occasionally departed from his prepared script, the 74-year-old Shaw gave a virtuoso performance that began with him complaining that he had to talk about 'Ptolemy and Aristotle, Kepler and Copernicus, Galileo and Newton, gravitation and relativity and modern astrophysics and Heavens knows what …'13 Then, with his usual wit, Shaw summarised everything in three sentences: 'Ptolemy made a universe, which lasted 1,400 years. Newton, also, made a universe, which lasted for 300 years. Einstein has made a universe, and I can't tell you how long that will last.'14 The guests laughed, none louder than Einstein. After comparing the achievements of Newton and Einstein, Shaw ended with a toast: 'I drink to the greatest of our contemporaries, Einstein!'15
It was a difficult act to follow, but Einstein was every bit as much the showman when the occasion demanded. He expressed his gratitude to Shaw for 'the unforgettable words which you have addressed to my mythical namesake who makes life so difficult for me'.16 He offered words of praise to Jews and Gentiles alike 'of noble spirit and with a strong sense of justice, who had devoted their lives to uplifting human society and liberating the individual from degrading oppression'. 'To you all I say,' knowing that he was addressing a sympathetic audience, 'that the existence and destiny of our people depends less on external factors than on us remaining faithful to the moral traditions which have enabled us to