IRVING M.

KLOTZ
Science Progress (1933-)
Vol. 81, No. 2 (1998), pp. 173-191

Science Progress (1998), 81 (2), 173-191

"The keys to heaven also open

the gates of hell": relativity and
E=mc2
IRVING M. KLOTZ

It is rarely realized, particularly by non-scientists, tha.t E = mc2, the

theoretical foundation of the atomic bomb, is a peripheral result of rela-
tivity theory. ~ central focus of Einstein was on questions of time and
space that have occupied philosophers and physicists for millennia. Once
fundamental relativistic insights were established, E = m& existed auto-
matically, whether or not we knew it or wanted it. There is no way one can
select out and suppress specific categories of knowledge deemed potentially
dangerous and keep only those areas regarded as felicitous. This tenet is
aptly expressed in an ancient Buddhist aphorism: "The keys to heaven also
open the gates of hell. "

Introduction
A persistent theme throughout human history has been ''knowledge
is dangerous." This maxim appears in ancient Hebrew writings. in
the story of Adam and Eve eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge
[Genesis, 3, 1-24 (4004 BC)]; in consequence they, and their descen-
dants, were doomed to lives of toil and pain followed by death. In
Greek mythology. Prometheus stole fire from the gods to provide its
benefits to mankind; for this deed he was eternally chained to a rock
where an eagle daily devoured his liver (which had been regenerated
each night). In the Christian era, the concept of forbidden know ledge

Irving M. Klotz recelvsd his undergraduate and PhD degrees from the
University d Chicago. At prestJl'lt, fie is Morrison Professor of
Chemistry and Bioch8rni$1ty, Emeritus, at NorlhW8Stsm ~,
EV8m'l0rt IH;oo;s 60208-3 113, USA In add1ion to long-#(m inf919StS
In so/'tlent 8tf6ds on p,oleln structu~ and behtwlor, KJoa has
dtwoted subsfantja/ efforls to investigations of Rgana-receptor
imenlctions and ltnJCtuf8 and funcfiorl of f)l'OtlH'IS. CurrMtJy he is
aJso r,yrng to understand some of the ~ ofscience Mlflfl
the humanities, He Is a llltJrnbet'of the Natlona Academy .of Sciences
(USA) and a F-ellow of the AmMcan Academy of Arts and Sciences.

[73
is a recurrent thesis. For example, in the 17th century John Milton
wrote, in Paradise Lost, .. Know to know no more . ., Disconcerted
by the new scientific knowledge generated in the 16th and 17th
centuries. John Donne expressed his frustration in the lines, .. Tis all
in peeces, all cohaerence gone; All just supply and all Relation."
n the 20th century, the enormous expansion of scientific knowl-
edge has engendered new problems as well as widespread benefits.
Many humanists have reacted with rage. Vaclav Havel has written.
"[Science] has ki1led God and takes his place on the vacant throne'".
Others have formulated their distress more cogently. In regard to the
atomic bomb, Professor Jules Isaac, a respected French historian,
asked Einstein, shortly after the Second World War, why he did not
have the foresight in 1905 to recognize the devastating technical
implications of his mass-energy equation when he first formulated
his theory of relativity, and, furthermore, why he did not take steps to
avert the potential catastrophe",
What this French humanist failed to realize is that Einstein, like
other scientists, but on a much more cosmic scale, had discovered
something fundamental about the nature of the universe. As Jong as
man is a thinking. curious being) new knowledge and insights will be
created. As Aristotle says in his Metaphysics, "AH men by nature
'desire to know." There is no way one can filter out and bury certain
categories of knowledge and retain others. And even if one could,
there is no way of telling what wil1 subsequently arise out of a pion-
eering course of thinking or research. As Einstein said, "Once the
theory [of special relativity] existed, the conclusion [E = mc2] also
exisred'", If there are technological consequences, we want felicitous
ones, but almost always disastrous potentialities are a]so possible. This
is illustrated so well by the theory of relativity and the atomic bomb.

The concepts of time and space

As is now widely known, Einstein's 1905 paper on special relari v-
ity3-5 in essence asked questions about what we mean by space and
time. For millennia philosophers had been pondering these issues. In
physics, it was almost universally accepted6 that the meaning of
these concepts had been established by Isaac Newton who wrote:

Absolute space, in its own nature and without regard to any-

thing external, always remains similar and immovable."

"Absolute, true and mathematical time, of itself and by its own

nature, flows uniformly on, without regard to anything external

l 74 Irving M. Klotz
 ... the flow of absolute time cannot be changed. Duration ... i
always the same, whether motions be swift or slow or nu 11."

However, near the end of the 19th century, some 20 years before
Einstein, the scientist-philosopher Ernst Mach6 pointed out that
these definitions reflected .. idle metaphysical conception]s]."
What did Mach mean with that phrase?
Let us first analyse a concept closer to one of our senses - tempera.
ture - to which the same phrase could also be applied. The origin of
this idealization was undoubtedly physiological. based on the sen-
sations of heat and cold. Such an approach necessarily is very crude
but sufficed for most cultures. In time human beings observed that the
heat effects experienced physiologically also produced changes in the
measurable properties of matter. Originally, the most obvious of such
measurable changes was in the volume of a liquid or gas. From such
observations it became possible to define temperature operationally
and, ultimately, co sever its dependence upon physiological sensations.
Early versions of a thermometer were constructed with alcohol or
mercury as the liquid. If the thermometer is small and is inserted into
a large body, A, which we recognize by our crude physiological sen-
ors as unchanging in temperature, the smalJ thermometer soon
reaches a steady volume (or height) reading. We now say the ther-
mometer is in equilibrium with its surroundings. Furthermore, if we
insert the thermometer into a second Jarge body, B. and find that the
volume reading at equilibrium is the same as that seen with A, we
observe that when A and Bare brought into contact with each other,
there is no change in the condition of either. We then say A and B are
at the same temperature. Proceeding further, we even set up a tem-
perature scale, for example, by inserting the thermometer first in
ice-water and then in a water-steam system at a specified pressure,
to fix the spread of readings on the scale, and thereby to assign a
number to a specific temperature. With widespread use of a thermo-
meter, we begin to reify "temperature" so that it becomes an attribute
inherent in everything.
or the non-scientific public such a reified concept of temperature
is in accord with common experiences. One is confronted with no
paradoxes. Most people would be surprised to learn that a mercury
thermometer may give a reading different from that of an alcohol
thermometer. (Which one is ''right"?) It is unlikely that a non-scien-
tist would cover the bulb of one thermometer with lustrous silver
paint and of another (as klentical in construction as possible) with
dull black paint; but if he or she then compared the readings of the
temperature of outside air on a beautiful sunny day, the numbers

"The keys 10 heaven a/$0 open the gates of hell:" relativity and E = mc2 175
would be different. (Which one is "right''") There are various ways
of measuring the temperature in a very turbulent fluid and the
answers obtained may be different (which one is "right'Y), but this is
not a problem that a non-specialist worries about. Few people have
asked how one might use a thermometer to measure the temperature
of a single molecule (or even a group of a few molecules) or of the
empty space between stars.
Critical analyses of these situations soon make it evident that the
same word, temperature, is used for very different types of measure-
ments. Nevertheless, in common experiences, we are unaware of
these ambiguities. or we simply lose sight of them. We feel "intuit-
ively" that there is a particular, independent thermal intensity inher-
ent in everything and that the technical devices used to measure it are
wholly peripheral. irrelevant. So we hypostatize temperature. make
it into a separate and distinct entity.
In a similar manner, but much more unconsciously and over a
much longer interval of evolutionary time, we have hypostarized
time, so that it is deeply engrained in all of our thinking. In contrast
to temperature, taste, sight, hearing, there 1s no bodily organ to
which one can assign the "sense" of time.
So what is "time"? Let us examine Ernst Mach's expositions:

When we say a thing A changes with the time, we mean simply

that the conditions that determine a thing A are correlated with
the conditions that determine another thing B. The vibrations of
a pendulum take place in time when its excursion correlates wlth
the position of the Earth. Since, however, in the observation of
the pendulum, we are not under the necessity of taking into
account its dependence on the position of the Earth, but may
compare it with any other thing (the conditions of which of
course also correlate with the position of the earth}: the illusory
notion easily arises that all the things with which we compare it
are unessential. Nay, we may, in attending to the motion of a
pendulum, neglect entirely other external things, and find that
for every position of it our thoughts and sensations are different.
Time, accordingly, appears to be some particular and indepen-
dent thing. on the progress of which the position of the pendu-
lum depends, while the things that we resort to for comparison
and choose at random appear to play a wholly collateral part.
But we must not forget that alJ things in the world are connected
with one another and depend on one another, and that we our-
selves and all our thoughts are also a pan of nature. It is utterly
beyond our power to measure the changes of things by time.

176 Irving M. Klotz

 Quite the contrary. time is an abstraction, at which we arrive
by means of the changes of things; made because we are not
restricted to any one definite measure, a1l being interconnected.
A motion is termed uniform in which equal increments of space
described correspond to equal increments of space described by
some motion with which we form a comparison, as the rotation
of the earth. A motion may, with respect to another motion, be
uniform. But the question whether a motion is in itself uniform,
s senseless. With just as litrle justice, also, may we speak of an
"absolute time" - of a time independent of change. This
absolute time can be measured by comparison with no motion;
it has therefore neither a practical nor a scientific va]ue; and no
one is justified in saying that he knows aught about it. It is an
idle metaphysical conception.

Einstein's epiphaneal insights

instein made a gigantic leap forward in our insights into the mean-
ing of "time" by ex.tending Mach s viewpoint, first to an analysis of a
concrete, explicit question: what do we mean by simultaneity in time?
1f two events (e.g. two nuclear bomb explosions) occur at the
same position in space, then the meaning of simultaneity is dear; for
each event, the reading on a clock at that position is the same. If three
observers are stationed at the same position, each using an individual
clock (identical with the others}, and one observer says that the two
flashes of light were simultaneous, the other two will agree on the
basis of their own independent observations.
Astonishing1y there would be no such agreement if the two light
flashes occur at two different places far from each other, and the three
observers are on individual, very tong space platforms moving with
different, very high {bur uniform) velocities with respect to each other.
Let us visualize this thought experiment with the diagram in
Figure L We can (arbitrarily but conveniently) identify A with our-
selves. Platform B is moving toward the left with a uniform high
velocity v (relative to A); platform C is moving toward the right with
a uniform high velocity v (relative to A}. AIJ three platforms extend
very far to the left and to the right. A nuclear bomb (not tied to any
of the platforms) is placed far out in space to the left of A and a
second bomb is set in space to the right. Each bomb has a trigger that
can be activated by a clock at that site. At some time the clock at
each of the bombs activates the respective triggers and initiates an
explosion. Suppose A observes that light from the left explosion
reaches his eyes at the identical instant 10 (according to the reading

"The keys to heaven also op(!11 the gate., of hell: .. relativity and E"' mcl l 77
 VTi
-- IA
1,tt:~ .
I
.' '. '. rlQht
,
}C
......... v
Fig. I. Three coordinate frames in space (platforms A, Band C,
respectively) with a WJijorm (high) velocity with respect to each other.
Two events in space, for example nuclear explosions, are observed
independently on each coordinate frame.

on the clock at A) as does light from the right; he (or she) wi11
conclude that the two explosions occurred simultaneously. Suppose
that at the time t0, the observers on B and C are exactly in line with
A, but of course moving rapidly in the directions indicated. From the
same explosions, light from the left will reach observer B's eyes
before they reach A's. since Bis moving very rapidly to the left of A.
In contrast light from the right explosion will not have reached B
when it has reached A. So B will conclude that the left explosion
occurred earlier than the right one. Observer C, in contrast, will con-
clude that the right explosion occurred earlier. for since C is moving
rapidly to the right of A, light from that explosion reaches his or her
eyes before it reaches A's. Thus what is simultaneous for observer A
is not simultaneous for B or for C, and the latter two arrive at dra-
matically opposite conclusions as to which explosion occurred first.
These conclusions, when first encountered are unacceptable; pro-
foundly offensive. They are resisted obstinately. Our "intuitive"
notion is that simultaneity of distant events has an "absolute" character
that cannot depend on the coordinate frame (or platform) for 'lime
ftows uniformly on without regard to anything. If two events are
0

simultaneous in one frame of reference, we feel intuitively that they

should also be simultaneous in another frame of reference. This
common sense notion was the foundation of all thinking in the
science of mechanics from ancient times to Einsteia's.
The light emitted by each explosion event travels in space indepen-
dent of the platforms. No single platfonn is special. 'Ihle we singled out
A on which to place ourselves for this thought experiment, but that was
a purely arbitrary choice; there is nothing unique about platform A.
Suppose we had decided to occupy platform B during the same
experiment. We would have concluded that the explosions were not
simultaneous but that the one on the left occurred earlier than that on
the right. How would we understand A's claim that the explosions
appeared simultaneous to him? Very simply. With respect to our
reference frame B, A is moving to the right (in Figure 1) at high

l 78 /n.,ing M. Klotz
 .elocity v. Consequently light from the right explosion reaches him
(or her) before it reaches us on B and light from the left explosion
reaches him after it reaches us on B. These differences, from our
viewpoint on B, are just enough to lead A to believe that the explo-
sions were simultaneous.
Thus the time order assigned to two distant events depends on the
reference frame that is used for observing the events. that is, for
recording the specific readings of docks at the specified positions.
Strange and repulsive as this concept appears, we must recognize
that it is perfectly logical. Our .. intuitive" concept of time, which
"flows uniformly on without regard to anything external" serves us
very we1 I in a]] ordinary experiences. that is, at velocities that are
extremely smal I compared to that of light. Phenomena at very high
velocities are far outside our range of common human experience,
and may contradict "common sense." In approaching such novel,
unfamiliar regions of observation, we must be prepared (as a famou
modem writer, Saul Bellow, has said) to "release ourselves from the
bottles into which we have been processed."
Recognizing that the concept of simultaneity or absolute lime i'
untenable, let us turn our attention to a measurement of the ve]ocity
of light using different reference frames, such as platform A and
p1atform B. respectively (Figure I). For this purpose. Einstein
described carefuJJy the measuring rods and docks to be used to
obtain the distance llxA traversed by a light beam in a time interval
lltA measured on "our" reference frame. platform A. The velocity of
light, c, is then the distance traveled divided by the time interval.
ax Al lltA He then described the measurement of the distance traversed
At-8 by the same light beam as measured along the second reference
frame, platform B (moving with high uniform velocity relative to A),
and the time interval A18 measured by clocks on platform B. Again
the velocity of light, c. can be written, this time as ax8/llt8. Though,
experiments 1ike those described in the preceding analysis of "sirnu l-
raneity" for two different reference frames demonstrate that ~!A and
~t8 are not equal nor are ll.x"A and tlx8 So what are the relation
between the time interva1s and between the distances?
Einstein found that he could solve this problem ff he built on two
postulates or principles>":

( l) light is always propagated in empty space with a definite

velocity c: regardless of the reference frame considered:
(2) the laws governing changes in physical systems are indepen-
dent of the reference frames in which they are measured, so
1ong as their relative motion is uniform.

"71u1 keys lo heaven also open the gate lf hell:" relativit and E = me- 179
Th e first principle states that the velocity of light is invariant,
absolute, not dependent on the coordinate system; the second principle
says that the Jaws of physics are invariant, absolute, independent of
the reference frame or p1atform for measurement. It may be shock-
ing, but the consequence of the-se abso1ute principles is that distances
ax, and time intervals, llt, are different in different reference
frames. Nevertheless, ~A
u/A
= c and ~8 = c. Furthermore, if platform
ut8
A is considered al .. rest" and p1atform B is moving at high velocity
with respect to p1atforrn A, then 8..x 8 turns out to be shorter than LUA,
i.e. )engths are contracted on the reference frame moving at high
velocity, and 6.18 turns out to be smaller than il.tAi i:e. docks are
slowed down in the reference frame moving at high velocity with
respect to .. us" on the .. resting" frame A. Thus was bom the concept
of the "relativity" of space and time.
It must be emphasized that the relativity of space and time is
anchored in the absoluteness of the two foundation principles of
instein 's theory. In fact the name .. relativity theory" was spawned
in 1906 (essentially casually) by Max Planck in a review of the elec-
trodynamics of moving bodies in which he compared three different
theories, and coined abbreviated names to label them57,s.
Einstein himself, at least in his e-arly days, preferred the name
"invariance theory"? which emphasizes the foundation of his new
theory; the invariance of the velocity of light, the invariance of the
laws of physics. Even in 1909. Einstein referred to the "so-called
relativity theory." Other distinguished physicists a1so much pre
ferred "invariant theory". As late as 1948 the theoretical physicist
Arnold Sommerfeld wrote "the name of relativity theory was an
unfortunate choice; the relativity of space and time is not the essen-
tial thing, which is the independence of laws of nature from the
viewpoint of the observer" (see ref. 5).
In fact the term "principle of relativity" (not "theory") was used
by Einstein>, and independently by Poincare", to refer to a funda-
menta1 law of classical Galilean-Newtonian mechanics. ln Einstein's
words,

The impossibility of experimentally demonstrating the

absolute motion of the Earth appears to be a general law of
nature; it is reasonab]e to assume the existence of this Jaw,
which we shall call the postulate of relativity [italics in original]
and to assume that it is universally valid.
The laws of physica] phenomena must be the same for a sta-
tionary observer as for an observer carried along in a uniform

180 Irving M. Klotz

 motion of translation; so that we have not and can not have any
means of discerning whether or not we are carried along in such
a motion.
The following considerations are based on the principle of
relativity [italics added] ... The laws by which the states of
physical systems undergo changes are independent of whether
these changes of state arc referred to one or the other of two
coordinate systems moving relari vely to each other in uniform
translational motion.

h is ironic that theologians have always been comfortable with

ewtonian mechanics, wherein God could act as the celestial and
terrestrial mechanic. True, it had been recognized since Galileo that
mechanics did not allow one to assign absolute velocities to system
in uniform translational motion. However, the term "principle of
relativity" was not used to describe this fundamental law and hence
the word "relativity," with its metaphorical baggage, did not enter
general discourse until the tum into the 20th century.
How different might have been some of the philosophical and
theological responses to Einstein's theory had it retained "invari-
ance" in its name!", As a statement of an "invariance" principle
embedded in the universe, it would not have generated Cardinal
O'Connell's comment in the I 920's that "[the theory of relativity]
produc[ed] universal doubt about God and His Creation" and
.. cloaked the ghastly apparition of atheism." Perhaps Einstein would
even have been invited into the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in
1936 together with Planck, Debye, Rutherford, Schrodinger and
Millikan instead of having to wait until 1979, 25 years after his
death 11

The genesis of the mass-energy equation

But what can all these subtleties have to do with= mc2 and nuclear
bombs? To the rest of the people on Earth, including a]] physicists, in
the first few years of the 20th century, the answer was: nothing. But
a~ Einstein demonstrated, the principles of special relativity have
enormous heuristic power, the potential to generate remarkable new
discoveries. Relativity theory demands that certain previously-unsus-
pected, new phenomena must exist. To repeat Einstein's insight,
"once the theory [of relativity] existed, the conclusion [ = mc1]
existed" whether we recognized it immediately or only much later,
For example, let us consider another thought experiment'? that
can be conveniently visualized in a drawing (Figure 2) that expands

"The keys to heaven also open the gates of hell:" relativity and E = me? l 81
 v~e _7_.-
~, . I - x.
-~-

'R'
R

-Z.a.
A ==
Fig. 2. Thought experiment suggested by Einstein as a conceptual
construe/ to derive E = mc2 See text for detailed description.

a part of Figure 1. Again A and B are two platforms moving with

uniform velocity v with respect to each other. In between them is a
body Q floating freely in space, at rest as observed from platform A.
On each platform we set up a two-coordinate framework to specify
the position of Q. as shown in Figure 2.
Let me now consider what happens if two identical packets of radia-
tion R and R' move in toward Q along a line perpendicular 10 the ZA
axis. and are absorbed by Q. We can analyse this process first from the
viewpoint of platform A and then from that of platform B. Throughout,
we shall keep in mind the postulate of relativity that all the laws of
physics are identical for each space ship. In particular, the law of con-
servation of momentum is valid in every set of coordinate axes.
With respect to the axes XA-ZA, Q is at rest before the radiation is
absorbed. It has been realized since the advent of Maxwell's electro-
magnetic theory that radiation of energy E carries a momentum eqoal
to E/c, where c is the velocity of light. If we assign to each packet of
radiationt Rand'[(, an energy of E and hence a momentum of ()Elc,
then the absorption of radiation by Q may be visualized as follows:
K = Etc
J,

R
1
= Etc. XA
ZA __.

l82 Irving M. Klotz

Since each packet of radiation hits Q perpendicularly to the axis ZA
but in opposite directions, clearly the body Q will remain at rest with
respect to the XA-ZA axes.
ow let us look at the same process from the viewpoint of plat-
form B. With reference to this platform everything on platform A is
moving along the Z8 axis, in a negative direction (as represented in
Figure 2) with a ve]ocity v.

Ze------- J

f\
= E/c
a

L - VC

:--- Q---t
\!

1/i
C
a
~ R = le

The directions of motion, on the X8-Ze coordinate frame, of the radi-

ation packets R and R' are shown by the adjacent arrows, which
make an angle a with respect to XB. As the insert diagram shows, for
small angles, a = vie to a good approximation. We know from our
preceding analysis in terms of the coordinate system XA-ZA on plat-
form A that when the two packets of radiation R and R1 are absorbed
by the body Q, its velocity with respect to A (in this case, zero)
remains unchanged. Consequently, in terms of the coordinate system
X8-Z0, the velocity, now v, of the body Q must also remain
unchanged after absorption of radiation R and R'.
Now we introduce explicitly the postulate of special relativity
applied to momentum: the law of conservation of momentum is
valid for each platform, A or B. Specifically, with respect to platform
B, we write an expression for the momentum before the absorption
of the radiation and then another for the momenwm after absorption,
and then set the two equal to each other. Since the motion of Q is par-
allel to the Z8 axis we need to consider the component to momentum
of R, and of R', along that axis only. For the sum of Rand R' plus the
body Q of mass M, it turns out that the

"The keys to heaven also open the gates of hel]:" relativity and E = mc2 183
 momentum before absorption = 2[ ( ~ !) ;J + Mv
where vie has been inserted in place of the angle a. After the absorp-
tion of the radiation packets,

. b
J(
massn.fter velocity after)
momentum after absorption = ( b.
a sorpnon a sorpuon

But the velocity v for the body Q as seen on platform B must remain
unchanged, for platform B continues to move at the same velocity v
relative co platform A, unperturbed by the absorption of radiation
packets by the body Qin free space. Hence if the law of conservation
of momentum is valid

Ev
Mv + - = (mass after absorption of radiation) X v
c2

Since E. v, and c2 are positive numbers, we are forced to conclude

that the mass after absorption of the radiation, which we shall label
M\ is greater than that before absorption. Specifically,

E
M+ - =M'
c2

or
E = (/::,M)c2

i.e. the change in mass is directly proportional to the energy absorbed.

If we select appropriate units for M and E, we can omit the .:l and
obtain the familiar form of the mass-energy equivalence equation

E=mc2

This astonishing conclusion arose "automatically" from Einstein's

analysis of what space and time must mean if they are to be logically
consistent with the basic postulate of the theory of special relativity
that the laws of physics must be invariant. No additional ad hoc
assumptions were needed.
Radioactivity was discovered in the last decade of the 19th
century. At the time that he was led to the equation for mass and
energy, Einstein was aware that radioactive materials, such as

184 Irving M. Klotz

uranium or radium, emit large amounts of energy over long period
without exhibiting any change in experimentally measurab]e mass.
He recognized, therefore, that radioactivity probably was one mani-
festation of the relation 6. = (fl.M)c2., for c2 is such a very large number
(9 X 1016 in meters and seconds) that an undetectably minuscule loss
of mass AM when multiplied by c2 would give a number for llE that
couJd be very large.
In essence, then, what Einstein had achieved was to explain one of
the properties of nature. the enormous energies released in radio-
activity, a phenomenon that exists whether we like it or not. In this
case, the understanding came from a clear exposition of the invari-
ance principles and their consequences, specifically what we need to
do to measure time and distance properly so that values in accord
with experience can be obtained at high velocities. Intelleciual prob-
ings of the nature of time and space have occupied the attentions of
philosophers for millennia and have been viewed as searches for
..the keys to heaven."

Society's reaction to discovery of mass-energy

If the awesome destructive potential of E = mc2 was so obvious in
1905, why did no one sound the alarm? As a matter of fact, for at
least 30 years after Einstein's first paper on the subject, the possibil-
ity of controlled release of nuclear energy was considered fantasy 10
In 1928, the American Nobel laureate Robert Millikan (then also
president of California Institute of Technology) was quoted in the
international edition of the Herald Tribune as saying to the
Chemists' Club in New York,

There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom. TI1e
glib supposition of utilizing atomic energy when our coal has run
out is a completely unscientific Utopian dream, a childish bug-a-
boo.

In the 1930s the pre-eminent nuclear physicist of the time, Rutherford,

aid to the British Association for the Advancement of Science,

[to] those who look for sources of power in atomic transfor-

mations - such expectations are the merest moonshine.

At about the same time, an interview with Einstein by a reporter for

the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette was summarized by the headline
"Atomic Energy Hope is Spiked by Einstein."

"The keys to heaven also open the gates of hell: .. relativity and E = me? l85
 The alarms that were actually sounded were of a very different
character. As early as 1920, an organization called German
Scientists for the Preservation of Pure Scholarship, whose most
eminent member was (Nobelist) Philipp Lenard, began to stage pub-
he meetings and attacks on Einstein and relativity, Their tenor can be
discerned from one of Lenard's sober reflections 13:

[Relativity is] a Jewish fraud, which one could have suspected

from the first with more racial knowledge than was then dis-
seminated, since its originator, Einstein, was a Jew. My dis-
appointment was all the greater since a quite predominant num-
ber of the representatives of physics more or less conformed to
the schemings of the Jews .... The most important example of
the dangerous influence of Jewish circles on the study of nature
has been provided by Herr Einstein with his mathematically
botched-up theories consisting of some ancient ideas and a
few arbitrary additions. This theory now gradually falls to
pieces.

Young Werner Heisenberg attended one of these public meetings m

1922, and in his later reminiscences!" remarks,

The lecture theater was a large hall with doors on all sides. As I
was about to enter, a young man - I learned later that he was an
assistant or pupil of a well-known professor of physics in a
South German university- pressed a red handbill into my hand,
warning me against Einstein and relativity. The whole theory
was said to be nothing but wild speculation, blown up by the
press and entirely alien to the German spirit ... I made the sad
discovery that men of weak or pathological character can inject
their twisted political passions even into scientific life.

A few years later in a conversation with Niels Bohr, Heisenberg

was describing the Youth Movement, which he had joined during the
counterrevolutionary actions in Munich shortly after the First World
WarJJ-14 In his judgment

I quite understand why people abroad might ]ook upon our

Youth Movement as too romantic and idealistic, and why they
are afraid it might be diverted into wrong political channels.
But 1 have no fears on that score.

Bohr was not so sanguine. As he said

186 Irving M. Klotz

 I'm glad to see that you're so optimistic. But now and then our
papers tell us about more ominous, anti-Semitic, trends in
Germany. obviously fostered by demagogues.

Attacks by anti-Semitic groups of German scientists continued for

many years. In 1931, a book appeared entitled One Hundred Authors
Against Einstein in which an array of German savants expressed
criticisms similar to Lenard's. Late in that decade and during the
Second World War. reputable German physicists became very con-
cerned about the dire threat to theoretical physics from the suppres-
sion of relativity theory. After a long conference with the supporter
of "Nordic physics" they all reached the following ..compromise
statement:"

One must reflect the imposition of the relativity theory of

physics on to a world philosophy of relativism, as has been
attempted by the Jewish propaganda pre.,., .. ,

Even in recent times, privately-published books appear periodically

with titles such as Relativity is Dead (by Ono Luther) and Einstein
Widerlegt (Einstein Refuted, by Gotthard Barth), but since the end of
the Second World War, such publications have usually been shelved
with products of the lunatic fringe in science.
Occasionally a very reputable physicist also has made valiant
efforts to persuade his colleagues that the theory of relativity i
wrong. Foremost among these was Herbert Dingle who strove to
convince his peers that relativity should be repudiated. As late a:
1972, he continued to publish his "questions" and objections".
Although several authoritative relativity physicists demonstrated the
flaws in his arguments16 the majority of experts avoided confronta-
tions with him. Dingle belittled the reasoned responses and inter-
preted the silence of the majority as a conspiracy, a symptom of the
decadence of science in this century. The loss of "intellectual
integrity," he asserted, was a great danger to mankind, and in his
articulate, "exasperatingly charming way" he appealed to some of
the literare public16 As Lord Kelvin said of one of his contempor-
aries a century earlier (see ref. 17),

hough a clever counsel may, by force of mother-wit

and common sense, aided hy his very peculiar intellectual
training, readily carry a jury with him ... the high court of
educated scientific opinion will (never} be satisfied by (such]
pleadings.

"The keys IO heaven also open the Mates of hell: " relativity and E = rnc/ J 87
 Political journals, normally very alert to potential dangers to
society, co a large extent tended to be sarcastic about Einstein 's
concepts!". In the J 920's. The Nation concluded that

[the theory of relativity is] in the same category with the annual
ea serpent ... the messages from Mars ... Certain troubled spirits,
hearing the law of gravitation called in question, do not feel
ure that the earth may at any moment slip its Newtonian moor-
ings and go ranging off out of gravitation into the ether-which
we now hear does not exist.

In the Soviet Union, where at least since Lenin, Mach's ideas

were anathema, Communist intellectuals were ambiguous about
Einstein'". Lenin", like his successor an expert in many fields, had
proclaimed that

Mach's philosophy is to science what Judas' kiss was to Christ.

In a separate context he pronounced,

Modem physics is in travail; it is giving birth to dialectical

materialism.

Periodically Soviet savants attacked the theory of relativity as

being in contradiction to dialectical materialism. just as some of their
colleagues attacked Mendelism-Morganism in genetics. In a Jetter to
Einstein in 1929, Max Born reported!", after being visited by a
young Soviet physicist, Y. B. Rumer,

The theory of relativity is thought to contradict the official

materialist philosophy and, as I have already been told by Joffe.
its adherents are persecuted.

The British communist Christopher Caudwell in the late 1930s, in an

analysis in his The Crisis of Physics, argued thal: since modern capital-
ism was falling apart, physics in bourgeois countries. reflecting the ide-
ology and economic structure of these countries, was also disintegrating.

There seems no doubt that Einstein's world represents the final

product of development of the bourgeois world view.

The J 952 edition of the Soviet Philosophical Dictionary describes

the theory of relativity in a similar vein.

188 Irving M. Klotz

 ... a reactionary antiscientific distortion of the truth ... [that
appeals to] mystics and obscurantists who babble about the
fourth dimension, the finiteness of the universe and similar
absurdities. Only dialectical materialism, the foundation of a
classless society, could rcso1ve the contradictions in physics.

In the same year, a member of the Soviet Academy of Science, in the

course of attacking two Russian scientists who favored relativity
theory, declared that Einstein was a "subjectivist" who had dragged
physics into the ..swamp of idealism"; only dialectical materialism
was founded on .. the objectivity of material nature ...
Ultimately, and slowly. some time after the death of Stalin, rela-
tivity theorists were resurrected, as were Mendelian geneticists. By
the middle 1960s the Russians even published a collection of
Einstein's papers.
One can always cite individuals who presumably showed much
foresight of the dangers of modern scientific discoveries years before
Einstein was even born. T. L. Peacock-? put the following words into
the mouths of two of his literary characters:

lord Curryfin: We ought to have more wisdom, as we have

clearly more science.
The Rev. Dr. Opimian: Science is one thing and wisdom i
another. Science is an edged tool with which men play like
children and cut their own fingers. If you look at the results
which science has brought in its train, you will find them to
consist a1most wholly in elements of mischief.... The day
would fail, if I should attempt to enumerate the evils which
science has inflicted on mankind. / almost think it is the destiny
of science to exterminate the human race (italics added).

Similarly, over a century ago, Jean Paul21 wrote

And who can guarantee, seeing the immense developments in

chemistry and physics, that there will not be finaJly invented an
infernal engine which similar to a mine will start and tcnninate
a battle with one shot; so that the enemy can do no better than
to deliver the second, and towards evening the entire campaign
is finished?

But their contemporaries did not listen. So Faraday, Maxwell,

Hertz, Kelvin, Mach, Helmholtz, Lorentz, etc. were not suppressed,
and they set the stage fur Einstein. Similarly in the life sciences.

"The keys to heaven also open the gates of hell;" relativity and E = mc2 189
Darwin, Mendel, Weissmann, Avery; etc. pursued their probings;
and created problems for many segments of society. One could have
avoided all of the problems these individuals contributed to by estab-
lishing (as Jastrow said22) a stable society on Earth. in which

The Scientist; the inventor, the entrepreneur - all will be

regarded as criminal elements in the stable, zero-growth
economy of the Golden Age. Ideas in literature and art also may
be a menace, because they will threaten the political equilib-
rium of the new society. These activities, too; must be vigor-
ously suppressed.

Thus science and the arts could finally be united - in prison.

References
I. Holton. G. ( 1996) Einstein, History and Other Passions. Addison-Wesley
Publishing Co., Reading, MA.
2. See Young, L.B. ( 1965) The Mystery of Matter. Oxford University Press, New
York.
3. Einstein. A. ( 1905) On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies. Annalen der
Physik: )7, 891-921. An English translation by W. Perrett and G. B. Jeffery.
was republished by Dover Publications. New York, l952, and one by A. I.
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190 Irving M. Klotz

14. Heisenberg, W. (1971) Physics and Beyond. Harper and Row, New York.
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16. Ziman, J. (1973) Science in an Eccentric Mirror. Nature, 241, 143-144.
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"The keys to heaven also or,e11 the gates of hell:" relativity and E = me? 191