For a long time now the letter shown in the photo has been widely circulated on social networks. It is a letter that was allegedly sent to Albert Einstein from the University of Bern on June 6, 1907. In it, the Dean writes to the greatest physicist of the 20th century, who at the time is his young colleague who has only recently published several papers in the prestigious journal, Annalen der Physik. The Dean, insensitive to creativity, rejects Einstein’s application for doctorate, stating that Einstein’s conclusions about the nature of light, space and time are somewhat radical. “Overall, we find your assumption to be more artistic than actual Physics,” a Dr Wilhelm Heinrich writes.
The letter, however, is a blatant fabrication. Its anonymous author has succeeded in his plan to disseminate it throughout social networks, thus turning it into a global phenomenon and sending the message that even the most successful ideas may initially be rejected as being too radical. Misled by the stereotype of a young genius who has to fight the fossilized system, people readily believed the letter was authentic, despite the fact that the prominently featuring stamp with Einstein’s image on it suggested this was a mere prank.
The letter joined an unfathomable arsenal of fake Einstein memorabilia, montage photos, hotels at which he had never stayed, and sayings of the author of the theory of relativity he had never uttered. Interestingly, most of the fabrications have not been created for selfish reasons, but quite the opposite – to highlight the greatness of Einstein’s work, creativity and intelligence. The same is true of this letter.
The letter prompted the University of Bern, Switzerland, to conduct a small-scale investigation. Namely, the thing that immediately raises suspicions of the letter’s authenticity is English, the language in which it was written, as it is nearly impossible to imagine that in 1907 a Bern dean would write to his fellow citizens in any other language but German. Even though it is signed and even smeared with ink, the letter was typewritten. However, nearly all the correspondence from the time kept in the University and cantonal archives was handwritten.
At one stage in his career, Einstein was indeed a lecturer at Bern. However, the date of the letter was cunningly selected – two years after he had published his five seminal papers in the abovementioned journal and one year before he was hired in that capacity. Still, the date is at odds with the fact that at that time physics was not yet separated from philosophy. And, to top it all, the signed Dr. Heinrich, if such ever existed and lived in Bern, was never a dean at the University.
It turns out that the letter actually contains another twist. In his attempt to find the alleged dean, the University archivist Niklaus Bütikofer made a chance discovery taht the fake letter refers to real events. Namely, in 1907 Einstein did apply for the position of lecturer at the University of Bern and was initially rejected.
The minutes from a meeting of the education council, kept in the cantonal archives, demonstrate that professors were very much in favor of offering the position to the new star of German physics, but failed to reach an agreement because Einstein had not formally submitted his habilitation thesis. So they had to reject him. For this reason, Dean Gustav Tobler sent him a handwritten request on Oct. 28 to fulfill the formal requirements, which Einstein did the following year and took up the position of a University lecturer in February 1908.
(S.B.)