Quantum_ Einstein, Bohr and the Great Debate About the Nature of Reality - Manjit Kumar [23]
None of Albert's friends could understand why he was attracted to Mileva Maric. A Hungarian Serb, she was four years older and a bout of childhood tuberculosis had left her with a slight limp. During the first year they sat through the five compulsory maths courses and mechanics – the single physics course offered. Although he had devoured his little sacred book of geometry in Munich, Einstein was no longer interested in mathematics for its own sake. Hermann Minkowski, his maths professor at the Poly, recalled that Einstein had been a 'lazy dog'. It was not apathy but a failure to grasp, as Einstein later confessed, 'that the approach to a more profound knowledge of the basic principles of physics is tied up with the most intricate mathematical methods'.22 It was something he learnt the hard way in the years of research that followed. He regretted not having tried harder to get 'a sound mathematical education'.23
Fortunately, Marcel Grossmann, one of the other three besides Einstein and Mileva enrolled on the course, was a better mathematician and more studious than either of them. It would be to Grossmann that Einstein later turned for help as he struggled with the mathematics needed to formulate the general theory of relativity. The two quickly became friends as they talked 'about anything that might interest young people whose eyes were open'.24 Only a year older, Grossmann must have been an astute judge of character, for he was so impressed by his classmate that he took him home to meet his parents. 'This Einstein,' he told them, 'will one day be a very great man.'25
It was only by using Grossmann's excellent set of notes that he passed the intermediate exams in October 1898. In old age, Einstein could barely bring himself to contemplate what might have happened without Grossmann's help after he began skipping lectures. It had all been so different at the beginning of Heinrich Weber's physics course, when Einstein looked 'forward from one of his lectures to the next'.26 Weber, who was in his mid-fifties, could make physics come alive for his students, and Einstein conceded that he lectured on thermodynamics with 'great mastery'. But he became disenchanted because Weber did not teach Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism or any of the latest developments. Soon Einstein's independent streak and contemptuous manner began to alienate his professors. 'You're a smart boy', Weber told him. 'But you have one great fault: you do not let yourself be told anything.'27
When the final exams took place in July 1900 he came fourth out of five. Einstein felt coerced by the exams, and they had such a deterring effect upon him that afterwards he found 'the consideration of any scientific problems distasteful to me for an entire year'.28 Mileva was last, and the only one to fail. It was a bitter blow for the couple who were now affectionately calling each other 'Johonzel' (Johnny) and 'Doxerl' (Dollie). Another soon followed.
A future as a schoolteacher no longer appealed to Einstein. Four years in Zurich had given rise to a new ambition. He wanted to be a physicist. The chances of getting a full-time job at a university were slim even for the best students. The first step was an assistant's position with one of the professors at the Poly. None wanted him and Einstein began searching further afield. 'Soon I will have honoured all physicists from the North Sea to the Southern tip of Italy with my offer!' he wrote to Mileva in April 1901 while visiting his parents.29
One of those honoured was Wilhelm Ostwald, a chemist at the Leipzig University. Einstein wrote to him twice; both letters went unanswered. It must have been distressing