Microplastics Sommelier: einstein sent this to curie in 1911 when she was being harassed by tabloids. it contains everything you’d want in such a letter: (1) your haters are trash (2) you’re a baller, a true queen (3) i have determined the statistical law of motion of the diatomic molecule in planck’s radiation field 🧪⚛️

einstein sent this to curie in 1911 when she was being harassed by tabloids. it contains everything you’d want in such a letter: (1) your haters are trash (2) you’re a baller, a true queen (3) i have determined the statistical law of motion of the diatomic molecule in planck’s radiation field 🧪⚛️

Trying to decide the best part. “Leave it to the reptiles… “ is something I need to pocket for future meetings. But that whole PS about calculating the motion of diatomic molecules as an Oh, by-the-way kind of add-on is too funny.

and by a "comic witticism" that he doesn't think will pan out.

He applied the method of Lulz et al.

And the Bofa-Deez Principle.

It came to me in a dream

I want to know the comic witticism! Not that I’d understand it, but …

That was absolutely a hook he included hoping she'd write back to ask what the witticism was!

Makes sense to me!

"Fuck these people ignore them, you are amazing, also here's this cool thing I did"

Imagine being so respected by one of the most influential scientists of all time that he includes a sneak peek of his next discovery as a footnote in a letter to you.

I mean, Curie isn't exactly lacking in the influential-scientist department herself.

That is true!

Imagine being so respected by one of the most influential scientists of all time that she'll read and keep the dumbass fan letter you wrote to her.

Not that it matters but "highly esteemed" is the most normal possible way of opening a letter like this in German at that time. "Sehr geehrte" is a phrase that every German speaker knows, the way we know "sincerely yours" without exactly knowing why we know it.

It seems it was "Hoch geehrte."

I read the P.S. as "I have determined the statistical law of motion [etc.] based on classical mechanics, but in 1911 we're already starting to understand that classical mechanics don't apply at the atomic scale, so it's probably wrong anyway, lol."

To throw some extra context here, the tabloids were flipping out because the widowed Marie was in a relationship with the married but separated Langevin (who had been Pierre Curie's grad student) and the tabloids were calling her a foreign Jewish homewrecker. Classic tabloid shit.

Perrin, another French physicist, was at the Solvay Conference, one of the most consequential physics conferences in history, in Brussels with E, C, and L. L and P were working on statistical physics models that verified E's Brownian motion work, which confirmed the atomic theory of matter.

Solvay Conference - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org

*I should say had been, Perrin's experiment was in 1909 and Langevin's stochastic differential equation work had been published in 1908.

Great and all, but you still notice he calls her Mrs. Curie, not Dr. Curie.

in fairness, this is probably a stylistic difference from another academic culture/era (i don’t know enough to say either way but these conventions have changed a fair bit over time)

An interesting point. If they wrote often and had some friendly intimacy, it would be more likely that he would drop the "Frau Doktor" formalities. One would have to see how he wrote his letters to his male colleagues with which he was similarly friendly.

In general, it's more acceptable in German to skip academic titles. Unlike in English, they don't replace your Anrede (Herr or Frau) but make up separate Titel. I think it would be unusual to address a personal letter to a friend "Frau Doktor" - like writing "Dear [X] PhD" in English

This phrase "more acceptable." It would be perceived as a great affectation for any American academic/non-medical doctor to insist on being or expect to be called "Dr. Smith." Contrariwise the German speaker *does* expect it. So it seems to me the Germans are less likely to "skip" this.

Of course, once you've heard it three times from the same person it falls away.

well now I wonder what language this was written in

I found it in German. Hold on.....

Good question. Maybe French. She spoke at least Polish and French. And since Albert Einstein lived in Switzerland, I guess that his French was okay.

As a native German speaker, Einstein probably disliked speaking French. I feel much the same for Curie, but less certain. As you say, the French have some sway in Poland going back.... Her(Anglicized) first name is basically French. And yet I feel that most Poles can speak German.

I forgot that she was a naturalized French citizen. I'm not sure what that means but it's got to mean something!

"As a native German speaker". "Sir" this is an issue for a very particular flavor of Germans.

FWIW he addressed President Roosevelt as "Sir" rather than Mr. President. (Although it was drafted by Leo Szilard and just signed by Einstein.) www.osti.gov/opennet/manh...

Manhattan Project: Einstein's Letter to Rooseveltwww.osti.gov

And Freud was Mr. Freud, not Dr. Freud. www.preining.info/blog/2017/10...

Einstein and Freud's letters on "Why War?" - 85th anniversary | There and back againwww.preining.info 85 years ago, on 30 July 1932, Albert Einstein send a letter to Sigmund Freud discussing the question: Why War? Freud answered to this letter in early September 1932. To commemorate the 85 year annive...

Hmmm, maybe a dis? This has been fascinating learning about the different forms of address.

Well there's no known reason for a diss at this time and the letter was prompted by legit concern that the US government had no idea of the risk. He later wrote a pretty respectful letter to Mrs. Roosevelt asking her to intercede to protect Jewish refugees. slate.com/human-intere...

Einstein's 1941 Letter to Eleanor Roosevelt, Begging Asylum for Jewish Refugeesslate.com The Vault is Slate's history blog. Like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter @slatevault, and find us on Tumblr. Find out more about what this space is...

okay the bestest part of this whole discourse is the images of all the original letters. History me is geeking out.

This is a personal letter, not a professional one, would be very weird to address someone you know personally to ask them if they are OK as Dr… (at least I have never done that to my colleagues known personally).

he doesn't include his own title, either, ending with just "A. Einstein"

then why the Mrs and not "Marie" or something. It just seems to be dismissive of her title. As a woman, I see this too often.

he says they are only aquaintances in the letter. in that era, using her first name would be an improper level of familiarity for aquaintances. calling her "mrs." is correct here, as this is personal correspondence, not professional. it's not a diss, he's being correctly respectful for the time.

In their context, "Marie" would have been unthinkably presumptuous and rude. Forms of address and salutation are extremely high-context areas of etiquette. Their rules for conveying the intended level of intimacy, formality, and respect were not remotely the same as ours

Maybe, but reading the content of the letter doesn’t give those vibes. It could be a language thing, the first time I went to UK (I’m Spanish) I found surprising (and kind of funny) that some forms asked me how to address me (Mr, Dr, Sir…) in Spain I would never use Dr for myself in documents.

Which great, you get to decide how you want to be called. But the problem that tends to come up (and may not be the case here) is that women will indicate "dr." and still get called Mrs. But Einstein seems to use the personal for everyone so probably not the case here.

Yeah, seems like in his letters to Sigmund Freud he also address him as Mr Freud.

At that period “Marie” would definitely be rude unless they were very intimate friends (which they clearly aren’t, as he’s using formal pronouns).

I'm a dude and I speak to one of my lady friends using the respectful plural form sometimes. Granted, she's not a doctor, but if she were, I wouldn't address her as such because it seems irrelevant between friends, somehow. You do have a point, but it seems to be a case of friendship over formality.

Which is why the "Mrs" still bothers me. Could be a German convention that friends drop the title. But to me its just respectful. One person mentioned he used Mr. for a man, so I guess that was just Einstein. So it makes it a bit better and not so much he is dismissing the title she earned.

It isn’t an Einstein thing, it’s a “social conventions for formality in salutations” thing. We’ve lost a lot of those nuances, and English doesn’t even have the formal/informal you that many European languages have. But this form of address was the appropriate and respectful way to open this letter.

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