It's all relative: Previously unpublished and rare recordings of Einstein
14 March 2005 :: Posted by Catriona Finlayson
A rare recording of the celebrated fund-raising dinner at the Savoy Hotel in 1930, at which Bernard Shaw famously described Albert Einstein as a 'maker of universes', is the centrepiece of a new CD published by the British Library today, Einstein's birthday. It also contains what is believed to be the first commercial release of Albert Einstein explaining his Special Theory of Relativity, the formula e=mc 2.
To celebrate 'Einstein year', one hundred years since the great scientist's theory of relativity and fifty years since his death, the British Library is releasing 'Albert Einstein - Historic Recordings 1930-1947', in which Einstein talks about his life and work, the Jewish people and the world of science.
The seven tracks feature several recordings that have not been commercially published before, including a short newsreel from Einstein's historic appearance at a massed rally at the Royal Albert Hall, London, in 1933 and a radio broadcast from 1945, in which Einstein discusses the responsibilities of the scientists who worked on the development of the atomic bomb.
Einstein continued his work in theoretical physics until his death in 1955 but he never achieved the same level of recognition after his early work. As his creative ability dried up, he became an international celebrity in a fashion that no scientist has ever done before or since. In the popular imagination, he was quite simply the 'Brainiest Man Ever'.
The second and third tracks of the CD feature Bernard Shaw and Einstein speaking at a fund -raising dinner on behalf of Jewish charities at the Savoy Hotel, London, in 1930. The survival of this live 35-minute recording, almost in its entirety, is itself a rare event, given its date so early in the history of radio.
Shaw's speech in praise of Einstein is renowned as one of the finest 20th-century examples of a public eulogy. This recording reveals that what Shaw actually said is different from printed sources. One of the most famous quotes is : "There are great men who are great men amongst small men, but there are also great men who are great amongst great men, and that is the sort of great man whom you have amongst you here tonight. Napoleon and other great men of his type, they were makers of empire, but there is an order of men who get beyond that. They are not makers of empires, but they are makers of universes. And when they have made those universes, their hands are unstained by the blood of any human being on earth. They are very rare. I go back 2500 years and how many of them can I count in that period? I can count them on the fingers of my two hands: Pythagoras, Ptolemy, Aristotle, Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Einstein."
Despite claiming to dislike his celebrity status, Einstein did nothing to discourage it, as this collection of recordings attests. He used it to promote causes that were most important to him: pacifism, internationalism, and solidarity with the Jewish race. He was a man of contradictions: an internationalist who supported the Jewish national identity and Zionism, and a pacifist who favoured fighting the Second World War and the development of nuclear weapons.
Richard Fairman, Service Development Officer at the British Library Sound Archive and compiler of the CD, said: "There are very few recordings of scientists from the first half of the 20 th century and we are fortunate that Einstein's celebrity resulted in him speaking in public so often. A hundred years after his great discoveries, and 50 years after his death, Einstein the man and marvel comes to life again."
For further information please contact Catriona Finlayson at the British Library Press Office, telephone +44 (0)20 7412 7114, email catriona.finlayson@bl.uk.
Notes for editors
Richard Fairman is available for interview via an ISDN line.
- Price £9.95 inc VAT. ISBN 0-7123-0521 1. Published by the British Library and on sale through the British Library Bookshop, through UK bookshops, or online at: http://www.bl.uk/services/publications/onlineshop.html
- The British Library Sound Archive is one of the largest in the world. It holds over a million discs, 200,000 tapes, and many other sound and video recordings. The collections come from all over the world and cover the entire range of recorded sound from music, drama and literature, to oral history and wildlife sounds. They range from cylinders made in the late 19th century to the latest CD, DVD and minidisc recordings. The archive holds copies of commercial recordings issued in the United Kingdom, together with selected commercial recordings from overseas, radio broadcasts and many privately-made recordings. It also offers public access to a wide range of specialist publications, books, magazines and journals covering every aspect of recorded sound.