The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1933-03-14
BY EVELYN SEELEY
Times STAFF Writer

Sor but his black tie is careless.
His gray hair, aWry as usual,
stands out about his head like a
tangled halo. He puffs away gen.
thy at his beloved pipe.
His bright brown eyes have a
strange, distant quality, as if he
had looked long into the I'M
fashionable serenity of space and
inward to the recesses Of his own
mind
AS he sits reading, one can see
only the fantastic aura of his hair
and rising haze of tobacco
smoke
Here in the clustered dignity of
the Athenaeum, the faculty club
of the California Institute of
Technology, few persons intrude
to mar his moods.
Professors and research scholars
approach him as they would an
older beloved fellow student. They
are careful to have something
definitely in mind to discuss with
him-sOmething sure to stir his
interest, because while his mood
is often merry and expansive it
is seldom trivial
If outsiders come up to greet
him as he walks in the court he
sometimes is amiable, sometimes
annoyed, but always nonplussed
at their interest in him.
Why should the public be con-
cerned about Einstein? He never
has been able to understand. 1t
all seems very ironic to him, who
asks nothing from the public but
to be let alone to live apart from
it and think his own thoughts.
"THEY think am 20
Il schmaaaart!" he says, raising
his eyebrows, winking one eye
with an air of mock wisdom Then
he throws back his bushy head
and laughs heartily.
First, he challenged their imag-
nations with a theory beyond
their comprehension, set their
minds going along abstract intel
lectual paths on which all but a
dozen or so of them are incapable
to travel.
Then he warmed their hearts by
his mellow, lovable personality.
1t is more than three yespSSince
America came to know Einstein
first, although he had visited the
United States once ten years be-
fore that.
The three-year interval is not
distinct to Einstein. It seems to
him as nothing in the infinite con-
cept of time and space in which
he mentally moved, with only a
pencil or a piece of chalk to steer
his courSe-an insignificant lapse
Of time in scientific concept in
which a whole lifetime is only an
incident.
During the last six years a revo-
luton has taken place in physics
greater, physicists say, than any
intellectual revolution in the his
tory of man. Einstein'S contribu-
lions gave this revolution impetus.
The revolution carries on: other
heroes of science rise to stand be-
side Einstein in leadership, and
Einstein notes its progress with
his Stubby pencil.
What Einstein actually has ac-
compliShed in science during these
recent years would require a
lengthy and abstract analysis.
In any case he himself never
has measured it; scientists do not
compute progress in terms of time
or in the dimensions of success or
failure. Failure is progress in a
process where ninety-nine times
wrong out of 100 is a good aver
age.
HAVING laid down the fun
Il L damental principles of gravi-
tation, he now is concerned with
the magnetic field of the earth,
seeking. to deduce the fundamen-
tails of electro magnetism
He believes that this problem is
basic and significant, and all it's
explanations heretofore obviously
wrong. He sits in the sunshine on
his balcony at the Athenaeum,
looks out over the tree tops and
ponders these things.
He is tremendously concerned
over DR.. Robert A. Millikan's
coSmic rays He worries with DR..
Richard c. Tolman over his theory
of the expanding universe Cthe
famous red shift" theory which
conceives space as a whole en-
larging and other astral bodies
tipping off away from us at an in
credible rate of speed.
He seems at the moment most
interested in mathematical prob
lens.
Having polished up his theory of
relatively, EinStein'S next step is
vastly important. Although he
works on wide field of astro-
physical problems of others, on his
own problem he must work alone.
He may make a great strike at any
moment.
Even scientists, therefore, walk
in his presence with a certain
reverence, an expectant hush, for
at any moment his words may
touch upon discovery that is mo-
mentols.
Because EinStGin works with less
drive than formerly some say he
is slowing up with middle age.
Those closest TO him do not be-
lieve this They say that he is
quieter mentally in his approach
to problems.
THOSE who believe that Elm
4 stein has passed his peak OF
productivity are also influenced by
the fact that he publishes less and
less But he has no need to pub
lish any more with his ideas
passed around so thoroughly by
word Of mouth.
The little cracks he makes at
seminars, the pat phrases he ex-
presses on walks with his col