Iris von braun biography of albert einstein

On December 21, 1919, Hendrik Antoon Lorentz offered Albert Einstein a special position: He was asked if he would like to join the University of Leiden as a bijzonder hoogleraar or, in Lorentz’s words, as a “let’s say ‘special professor.’” The Leiden University Fund (LUF), a private fund supported by donations from alumni and students, would endow the chair, and Einstein would be expected to travel to Leiden only once or twice a year; to hold classes or seminars would be appreciated, but not required.1

Einstein liked Lorentz’s proposal very much, as he informed his close friend Paul Ehrenfest, who would be his colleague in Leiden. Ehrenfest, in turn, was as “excited as a child” about the “Einstein present” that the Leiden professors were preparing for themselves. Einstein soon started thinking about his inaugural lecture: It would have to be a lecture on the ether, since Lorentz had asked him to discuss publicly his latest views on its existence. In kind consideration of Lorentz’s ideas, but also as a reflection of his latest reassessment of the Mach principle, Einstein now found that all along, instead of claiming the nonexist

•