Translating Einstein

I recently had the enjoyable challenge of translating a short 1932 letter from Albert Einstein to an American scientific collaborator. All translation involves figuring out the context, the metaphors, the jargon of the writer, but this case was special. I was given a dim picture of a framed letter. Einstein had typed it on a manual typewriter and he had made some barely visible pencil or pen marks. So the first step was to apply Gimp's sharpening and brightness/contrast tools to get as good an image as possible. Then I ran it through Optical Character Recognition software to get an editable text that I could perfect. 

To perfect the German text before beginning the detailed translation, I first had to figure out the penciled or penned markings. There were three spots in the text in which Einstein had drawn in a mark which looked like an editor's insertion mark (an upside down letter "v") for inserting missing text. But there was no text above the insertion marks. On closer examination, two of the marks appeared to have very faint extensions beyond the insertion mark. There was also the word "Glied" and a hyphen before or after each penciled mark. One meaning of"Glied"is "element" or "member." Perhaps this mark referred to a scientific term denoted by the Greek letter lambda. Remember that manual typewriters had very limited numbers of symbols available—that would have forced Einstein to pencil in a Greek, or other language symbol. A quick internet search for "Einstein lambda" turned up a number of articles, including from NASA, on the Greek letter lambda being Einstein's symbol representing the "cosmological constant." More on that later. So now I had the entire text. See below for a redacted version:

Albert Einstein

Berlin W. den 23. April 1932

Haberlandstr. 5

Herrn Dr. ******** *******

Rochester, NY.

Lieber Herr ********!

            Natürlich erinnere ich mich unserer persönlichen Bekanntschaft. - Zu dem kosmologischen Problem und dem Λ - Glied folgende Bemerkung:

1.) Vom Standpunkt meiner neuesten Resultate in der allgemeinen Relativitätstheorie aus betrachtet, ist die Einführung des Λ - Gliedes weit natürlicher als sie ursprünglich gewesen ist. Dies geht aus einer Arbeit hervor, die gerade jetzt bei der Akademie in Druck ist.

2.) Ich habe in Pasadena diesen Winter meine Stellung zum kosmologischen Problem geändert. Es zeigt sich nämlich, dass man den bisher bekannten Tatsacheh ohne Benutzung eines Λ - Gliedes und ohne Einführung einer Raumkrümmung gerecht werden kann. Dies ist kurz niedergelegt in einer von mir zusammen mit de Sitter in der National Academy Washington publizierten Notiz. Da sich so eine Relation ergibt zwischen der Expansion und der mittleren Dichte, welche der Grössenordnung nach den Schätzungen der Astronomen entspricht, sind wir vorläufig vom Erfahrungsstandpunkte aus ausserstande, irgend etwas über die Raumkrümmung auszusagen. Dies schien eben nur möglich, solange man von der Hypothese ausgehn zu müssen meinte, dass die mittlere Dichte der Materie zeitlich konstant sei.

Es grüsst Sie freundlich

Ihr A. Einstein

So I began to go through the letter and translate it.The general idea was fairly clear,once I had an idea about the meaning of lambda; however, there was one word which gave me a problem—"Sitter,"  "zusammen mit de Sitter,"or"together with the Sitter." In German nouns are capitalized.  Going through all of my online and paper dictionaries I found a very tenuous link to a possible meaning of Sitter—"custom." "Together with (or according to) the custom." Also, "de" should never follow "mit" because "de" is not a dative article such as the proposition "mit" requires. That was really bad. That tenuous translation could not be correct. So then I looked up writings of Einstein in 1931, 1932. There it was! Einstein had published his 1932 paper with Willem de Sitter—a person, neither a concept nor a thing! So then I had it. Or did I?

Albert Einstein

Berlin W.

Haberlandstr. 5

April 23, 1932

Dr. ********

129 Seneca Parkway

Rochester, NY.

Dear Mr. ********!

          Naturally I think back to our personal acquaintance. - On the cosmological problem and the term Λ - the following remarks:

1.) From the point of view of my latest results in general relativity, the introduction of the Λ - term is far more natural than it originally was. This emerges from a work that is right now being printed at the Academy.

2.) In Pasadena this winter I changed my position on the cosmological problem. It turns out that one can do justice to the hitherto known facts without using a Λ - term and without introducing a curvature of space. This is briefly laid out in a memo I published together with [Willem] de Sitter at the National Academy in Washington. Because there is a relation between the expansion and the mean density that corresponds to the order of magnitude estimated by astronomers, we are for the time being unable, from the point of view of experience, to say anything at all about the curvature of space. This only seemed possible as long as one began with the hypothesis supposing the mean density of matter to be constant over time.

With kind regards,

Your A. Einstein

Wait a Minute—Is That Right?

So now it's all translated, but does it make sense? In point 1 Einstein says that from the point of view of his latest work in general relativity (which is just being published), the Λ - term is far more justified than it originally was. Then in point 2 he says that he has changed his position on the question of cosmology. The Λ term is not necessary. It was only needed if you assumed that the Universe was static.If you instead accept estimations from astronomers that the Universe is expanding, then the Λ - term is not necessary. In other words, there is no longer a discrepancy which must be accounted for via the concept of the cosmological constant - Λ.

Take yourself out of our current cancel culture. Try to put yourself into the mindset of a real scientist preoccupied with finding truth,not winning an argument. Real scientists are always questioning assumptions: Does it really have to be that way? Could there be another explanation? Did I miss something? Or did I inadvertently add something extra which does not belong? 

Normal people are generally content to live with rules of thumb. And we have to. We must act every day to keep society and economy going. We cannot be left in indecision.

Yet, after 90 years, we still don't really know if the Λ is, or is not necessary. The ambiguity of this letter persists. Some people believe that NASA's James Webb Space Telescope's new observations prove that the universe is not expanding. In this letter Einstein was announcing a change in his thinking which was caused by a hypothesis made by astronomers. We still don't really know if the early 20th century astronomers were generally correct or generally incorrect about an expanding Universe. But Einstein was just acknowledging the uncertainty, accepting the informed guess of astronomers, and leaving certainty for later scientists to determine. That is the method of the true scientist: hypothesize, but always realize that a better hypothesis may be just around the corner.