Re: Langevin's paradox again

Am Samstag000013, 13.07.2024 um 09:30 schrieb Thomas Heger:
...

After university he went to Bern and worked in the patent office there.
 But state officials (called 'Beamte' in German) needed to be born citizens (at least in Germany) in those days.
 

The word 'Amt' is the critical point here!
Usualy the German 'Patentamt' is translated to 'patent office'.
But this would blur the distiction between private and state owned offices.
'Amt' means 'office', but has a certain important difference to the English word 'office'.
The German 'Amt' necessarily means 'state owned' and is more related to the English 'agency'.
The word 'Amt' is now the root of 'Beamter'.
Beamter can be decomposed to 'be made a member of the staff of an Amt'.
In such a position you get a certain status, which is usually very desirable, like lifelong emploiment and generous pensions.
Such a status was usually granted only to born citizens in the German speaking world, because you need to represent the state as Beamter and had to swear a certain oath.
Now the Germann word 'Patentamt' (patent office') contains the phrase 'Amt', hence only 'Beamte' were allowed to work there.
And since only born citizens were allowed as 'Beamter' (state officials), Einstein needed to be born in Swizzerland.
(today this is a little different, but in the early 20th century, the state was still very authoritarian and had certain ideas about how to recruit the state's employees)
Iow: his CV was a most likely faked.
And if something was wrong, all other parts are also questionable, too, especially his name and being jewish.
The last sounds strange, but Einstein actually declined the presidency of Israel, which was offered to him.
A good reason to do that would have been, if he wasn't a Jew.
TH