Einstein: Beyond the Myth
Science, politics, and exile: What Einstein’s Caltech years reveal about the choices scientists face today.
Albert Einstein, then professor in Berlin, spent three academic terms as a visiting scientist at Caltech during the years 1931 and 1933, the only US university at which he ever held an appointment (albeit a temporary one). His scientific links to Pasadena reached back to 1913, when he inquired of George Ellery Hale whether the bending of light in the vicinity of the Sun could be observed during daytime. During his visits, Einstein engaged in numerous scientific conversations and collaborations with colleagues. Among the various important topics, most prominent was a newly emerging cosmology founded on Edwin Hubble’s observational evidence for an expanding universe.
Einstein also moved through Southern California’s civic life: he gave numerous public talks on international cooperation and pacifism, met with local leaders and students, as well as members of the Pasadena and Greater Los Angeles Black and Jewish communities. He played music with Charlie Chaplin and visited the desert. But beneath the glowing media coverage of a hectic professional and social schedule ran a more somber through-line often missed in popular accounts: as the international economic and financial situation worsened, and as Germany’s democracy foundered, Einstein was contemplating an escape that became inevitable during his last visit. He became a refugee.
Diana Kormos-Buchwald has directed the Einstein Papers Project for 25 years, overseeing the publication of ten volumes of the ongoing work on The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein in both German and English editions. Her recent publications, the two-volume Essential Einstein (Princeton, 2025) and Free Creations of the Human Mind (Oxford, 2025), distill decades of archival work into accessible form. They also challenge a century of accumulated mythology: the Einstein-Bohr “debate” that was largely constructed after the fact, and the popular image of Einstein as a genius disconnected from politics, money, and daily life.
Patt Morrison, longtime Los Angeles Times prize-winning columnist and author, will discuss with Buchwald what the primary sources reveal about Einstein’s years in Pasadena, how he navigated science and politics as Europe darkened, and what his example — as a scientist who took public positions on pacifism, internationalism, and civil rights at real personal cost — might offer a moment when those questions have returned with force.
Register by Friday, April 10.
For questions, please contact Kat Hantman at info@alumni.caltech.edu or 626-395-6592.
Diana L. Kormos-Buchwald
Robert M. Abbey Professor of History; Director and General Editor, The Einstein Papers Project
Diana Kormos Buchwald is a historian whose interests span science, politics, and culture between 1895 and 1945. Her research concerns the development of scientific ideas, experiments, instruments, and technologies. She analyzes the textual representation of science, and controversies involving science, religion, and authority. As the director and general editor of the Einstein Papers Project since 2000, her work has focused on Albert Einstein’s life and work. Kormos Buchwald is also the co-editor of The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, leading the project, spearheading fundraising efforts, and overseeing the English language translation. She has been a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, the Internationales Forschungszentrum Kulturwissenschaften in Vienna, the University of Amsterdam, the Boerhaave Museum in Leiden, and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin. She is an elected member of the American Philosophical Society, and a fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Patt Morrison
LA Times columnist, author
Patt Morrison is a writer and columnist for the Los Angeles Times, where she has covered Los Angeles and national politics for more than five decades. As a member of two Times reporting teams, she shares in two Pulitzer Prizes. Her work in public television and radio—including the PBS program Life & Times, which she created and co-hosted—has won six Emmys and a dozen Golden Mike awards. Morrison is the author of Rio LA, Tales from the Los Angeles River and Don’t Stop the Presses! Truth, Justice, and the American Newspaper, both bestsellers. In 2023, the Society of Professional Journalists’ Greater Los Angeles chapter honored her with its Distinguished Journalist Award.