Haters Gonna Hate – Albert Einstein’s 1911 Advice To Marie Curie Still Rings True Today

How does the saying go? “Haters gonna hate”? As true today as it was when it was written… in 1911. By Albert Einstein. In a letter to Marie Curie. No, really. Not in as many words, of course, but the sentiment rings true.

By way of Vox, we came across a letter from Albert Einstein to Marie Curie, dated November 23, 1911. The letter is one of a trove of Einstein’s letters that was put online last week thanks to the Digital Einstein project, a collaborative effort between the Princeton University Press and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Einstein bequeathed his copyright to the Hebrew University, and the two institutions have been poring over the 80,000 documents he left behind since 1986.

Some of the documents in the Digital Einstein project have already been published, including 13 volumes of papers published by the Einstein Papers Project, which hopes to publish another 17 volumes. The sheer volume of his collected papers shows that Einstein was nothing if not prolific, and his letter to Marie Curie shows that Einstein could be quite biting when he wanted to.

Einstein wrote to Curie following the January 1911 rejection of her bid for a seat in the French Academy of Sciences. The fact that Curie was both a woman and an atheist is thought to have weighed against her, and there were also rumors that she was Jewish. On top of that, news emerged that Curie was having an affair with Paul Langevin, another physicist. Decorum at the time held that Curie, a widow, was besmirching the name of her former husband, Pierre Curie. Needless to say, the rumor mill was churning about Curie, and all of that chatter likely held her back from a seat in the Academy of Sciences.

Einstein, though, was having none of that, as evidenced by his brief but caustic letter to Curie.

Or, in other words: haters gonna hate.

Einstein himself was no stranger to affairs, evidenced by the fact that other letters revealed extramarital dalliances. In 2006, letters came to light showing that Einstein had at least six girlfriends even while married to his first wife, Mileva Maric. Einstein divorced Maric in 1919, whereafter he married his cousin, Elsa. Einstein cheated on Elsa, though, with his secretary, Betty Neumann.

Einstein tended to reference his paramours only by their first initials, but his letters make reference to Estella, Ethel, and a “Russian spy lover,” Margarita.

“It is true that M. followed me (to England),” Einstein wrote in one 1931 letter, “and her chasing after me is getting out of control. Out of all the dames, I am in fact only attached to Mrs. L., who is absolutely harmless and decent.”

If any criticisms similar to those that dogged Curie ever befell Einstein, he doesn’t appear to have let it get to him too much. The letters name only a few of Einstein’s girlfriends, but observers suspect that he had a number more.

[Lead image via The Unbounded Spirit]