Lecture Four of the "Quantum Revolution" Course (Spring 2024)
A scientist's scientific work is inseparable from their academic development. Climbing the academic career ladder, a scientist approaches the cherished goal of becoming a university or academic professor. The hierarchy of academic titles and degrees varies across countries. A lack of understanding of this factor is the cause of numerous errors in the biographies of eminent scientists, most notably Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr. Consider, for example, the biography of Paul Ehrenfest, a distinguished physicist and close friend of both Einstein and Bohr. He also played a major role in the development of theoretical physics in Russia.
The first seeds of theoretical physics in Russia sprouted in St. Petersburg, where the eminent physicist Paul Ehrenfest taught a scientific seminar in his home for five years, from 1907 to 1912. According to Albert Einstein, a close friend of Ehrenfest, "His greatness lay in his exceptionally well-developed ability to grasp the very essence of a theoretical concept and to strip the theory of its mathematical trappings so completely that the simple idea underlying it would emerge with complete clarity. This ability made him an incomparable teacher. For this same reason, he was invited to scientific congresses, for he always brought elegance and clarity to the discussions." Yuri Borisovich Rumer believed that "Ehrenfest was an absolutely remarkable person. It always seemed to me that he plays roughly the same role in modern physics as Belinsky did in the history of Russian literature. He was considered a critic, Einstein listened to his opinions with the utmost attention, and, moreover, he was a friend to everyone. He was greatly loved."
Ehrenfest arrived in St. Petersburg in the fall of 1907 with his wife, Tatyana Alekseyevna Afanasyeva, a mathematics instructor at the Higher Women's Courses. They met in Göttingen, where Tatyana was interning and Paul was attending university lectures. Ehrenfest came to Germany from Vienna, where he began his physics studies under the great Boltzmann. In this lecture, we will examine how Ehrenfest became a professor of theoretical physics at the University of Leiden and the circles of hell he endured along the way.
Then we will explore the development of Einstein the scientist, noting how his academic career differs from the typical one.