EPP Editors' Reflections on CPAE Vol. 17: Daniel Kennefick
Documentary editing is a meticulous process. Thorough research and skillful attention to detail are expected standards among practitioners in the field. One thing people outside of the field may not consider is that editors work to avoid injecting their present day understanding of historical events into their annotation of documents. Separating one's knowledge of events as they later unfolded from factual details of the historical record requires rigor and balance. Editorial work and editorializing are distinct and separate things. Einstein Papers Projects editors engage in the former, working to contextualize facts without the interference of hindsight. Project historians and researchers spend years sorting, analyzing and researching the materials that go into our volumes. Understanding this makes it especially interesting to find out what our editors think of the documents they edit, beyond the confines of the documentary editing process. Here, EPP Science Editor, Daniel Kennefick writes about Myron Mathisson's first letter to Einstein and their subsequent correspondence and interactions. The letter Kennefick refers to will appear as Document 153 in the forthcoming Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, Volume 17.
The Hebrew Scholar and the American Fellowship
Letter from Myron Mathisson 18 December 1929
Myron Mathisson wrote to Albert Einstein out of the blue as a fully formed and autodidact expert on general relativity (GR). With his elegant French and erudite letters full of biblical, classical and literary allusions, the young man impressed Einstein even though initially the older man had no idea how far this young tyro had already progressed into his research on the problem of motion in GR. Yet Mathisson had no doctorate, no position and no collaborators. He was completely alone in the world, making a precarious living as an intellectual handyman, giving Hebrew lessons. In spite of this he introduces himself in his first letter by boldly declaring the superiority of his own work to that of Einstein's in his most recent paper on the subject. Einstein, recognizing Mathisson's abilities, set about securing for him his doctorate and attempting to obtain for him a prestigious Rockefeller fellowship to study with him in Berlin. However, antisemitism in his native Poland and a stubborn refusal by the Rockefeller foundation, to make an exception for someone forced to work outside of the academic establishment, meant that Einstein and Mathisson were never destined to work together. Today Mathisson's reputation has been elevated by a series of modern admirers amongst working relativists, but in his own lifetime he never enjoyed any success, or even security, dying tragically young in the early days of the second world war. His letters, and Einstein's replies, are a monument to a remarkable young man, and to the generous spirit of his would-be celebrity benefactor.