Word: einstein
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Nevertheless, Einstein's triumph was tempered by his continued struggles with Hans Albert. The boy told a family friend that he wanted to spend the entire Christmas vacation hiking with his father, but he wrote a chilly letter to his father indicating the opposite: Dear Papa, I will come over New Year's, i.e., from the 31st to 2nd. I don't want to stay longer because Christmas is nicest at home. Besides, I got skis and would like to learn how to use them with my colleagues. The ski equipment costs about 70 francs, and Mama bought them...
There was also the question of paying for the skis. Einstein was not pleased. He replied that he would send Hans Albert a gift in cash, "but I do think that a luxury gift costing 70 francs does not match our modest circumstances," he wrote, underlining the phrase...
Thus it was that 1915, the capstone year for his theory of relativity, ended with mixed emotions for Einstein. As he put it in a letter to Zangger: Dear friend Zangger, Just now I received the enclosed letter from my Albert, which upset me very much. After this, it's better if I don't take the long trip at all rather than experience new bitter disappointments. The boy's soul is being systematically poisoned to make sure that he doesn't trust me. Under these conditions, by attempting any approaches I harm the boy indirectly. Come, dear old friend...
...discovery or to refute the matter, if only so very superficially; just one of them [Hilbert] acknowledges it, insofar as he is seeking to partake in it, with great fanfare, after I had initiated him, with much effort, into the gist of the theory ... Heartfelt greetings, yours, Einstein So Einstein spent Christmas Day in his Berlin apartment. That morning, he took out of his satchel some of the drawings that Hans Albert had sent him and wrote the boy a postcard saying how much they pleased him. He would come for Easter, he promised. To Einstein's delight...
Things would eventually improve. When the final version of Hilbert's paper came out, he was both clear and generous in insisting that credit for the theory of relativity belonged to Einstein. They were soon visiting each other's homes once again. "There has been a certain ill-feeling between us, the cause of which I do not want to analyze," Einstein wrote. "I have struggled against the feeling of bitterness attached to it, with complete success. I think of you again with unmixed geniality and ask you to try to do the same with me. It is a shame...