17 - Views from a distant past

Summary

I apologize for uttering this talk in English if that is not your native tongue. Perhaps, at future conferences you will be wearing little earphones and can listen to the translation of such a speech into Hindustani, Japanese, American and other idioms — or, even better, switch to Chopin or Bach.

The first of these conferences, GR-0, took place in Berne three months after Einstein's death, thus probably not a contributing factor. The talks were in English, German, and French with Pauli's Schlusswort in German. This was once the language of relativity, Einstein's language. When asked in old age how his English was, he answered: “Immer besser, niemals gut.”

The declining knowledge of German has had the lamentable effect that among the least read authors in relativity is Saint Albert. His works are being published now and you can read the young man's love letters. Optimistically, I expect that by 2155–remember, they are still working on Euler—you might be able to enjoy reading his thoughts on gravitation. But by then the English edition is possibly no longer the appropriate medium when billions of Chinese are steeped in lerativity.

What we need, within our lifetime, is an edition of Einstein's scientific papers translated without comment. It could even be a best seller among physicists who'd shelve it in their study next to the Einstein icon. This is something we relativists owe the man who put us into business.