Albert Einstein
What Nikola Tesla had to say about Einstein...... This is the only Tesla's poem preserved in the original English writings. It was written to a friend, penned in a 1934. source Zeljko Saric, the author of the biography under the provisional title "Nikola Tesla – The Genius Who Lit the World" which is one of the most complete and valuable books dealing with the life and work of the greatest Serbian scientist. (the English translation is still to come).
FRAGMENTS OF OLYMPIAN GOSSIP While listening on my cosmic phone I caught words from the Olympus blown. A newcomer was shown around; That much I could guess, aided by sound. „There's Archimedes with his lever Still busy on problems as ever. Says: matter and force are transmutable And wrong the laws you thought immutable.“ „Below, on Earth, they work at full blast And news are coming in thick and fast. The latest tells of a cosmic gun. To be pelted is very poor fun. We are wary with so much at stake, Those beggars are a pest-no mistake.“ „Too bad, Sir Isaac, they dimmed your renown And turned your great science upside down. Now a long haired crank, Einstein by name, Puts on your high teaching all the blame. Says: matter and force are transmutable And wrong the laws you thought immutable.“ „I am much too ignorant, my son, For grasping schemes so finely spun. My followers are of stronger mind And I am content to stay behind, Perhaps I failed, but I did my best, These masters of mine may do the rest. Come, Kelvin, I have finished my cup. When is your friend Tesla coming up.“ „Oh, quoth Kelvin, he is always late, It would be useless to remonstrate.“ Then silence-shuffle of soft slippered feet- I knock and-the bedlam of the street.5
A Hundred Authors Against Einstein
A collection of various criticisms can be found in the book Hundert Autoren gegen Einstein (A Hundred Authors Against Einstein), published in 1931. It contains very short texts from 28 authors, and excerpts from the publications of another 19 authors. The rest consists of a list that also includes people who only for some time were opposed to relativity. Besides philosophic objections (mostly based on Kantianism), also some alleged elementary failures of the theory were included, however, as some commented[citation needed], those failures were due to the authors' misunderstanding of relativity. For example, Hans Reichenbach described the book as an "accumulation of naive errors", and as "unintentionally funny". Albert von Brunn interpreted the book as a backward step to the 16th and 17th century, and Einstein is reported to have said, in response to the book, that, if he were wrong, one author alone would have been sufficient to refute him:[3]
If I were wrong, then one would have been enough![4]
According to Goenner, the contributions to the book are a mixture of mathematical–physical incompetence, hubris, and the feelings of the critics of being suppressed by contemporary physicists advocating for the new theory. The compilation of the authors show, Goenner continues, that this was not a reaction within the physics community—only one physicist (Karl Strehl) and three mathematicians (Jean-Marie Le Roux, Emanuel Lasker and Hjalmar Mellin) were present—but an inadequate reaction of the academic educated citizenship, which didn't know what to do with relativity. As regards the average age of the authors: 57% were substantially older than Einstein, one third was around the same age, and only two persons were substantially younger.[A 57] Two authors (Reuterdahl, von Mitis) were antisemitic and four others were possibly connected to the Nazi movement. On the other hand, no antisemitic expression can be found in the book, and it also included contributions of some authors of Jewish ancestry (Salomo Friedländer, Ludwig Goldschmidt, Hans Israel, Emanuel Lasker, Oskar Kraus, Menyhért Palágyi).[A 57][A 58][C 34]