Commemorative Plaque to Albert Einstein on Oldtown Square in Prague

„14 March 1999“; 1879–1955 

A commemorative bronze plaque with a relief of the physicist`s head and a Czech-English inscription on the house No. 551, Staroměstské náměstí 17, was unveiled on the 120th anniversary of the birth of Albert Einstein (1879, Ulm – 1955, Princeton), Nobel Prize recipient. It commemorates Einstein`s stay in Prague from 1911 to 1912 at the German University, as well as his meetings with friends and playing the violin in Berta Fanta`s salon. 

 

On the house at the Unicorn also called at the Stone Lamb in Old Town Square is one of three Prague memorial plaques dedicated to Albert Einstein, who worked at the German University of Prague in 1911 and 1912 at the then Institute for Theoretical Physics. Here the meetings of the philosophical club “Fantakreis” were regularly held in the private salon of the Fanta family. A number of important personalities from the Jewish intellectual society of the time met here, such as Franz Kafka, Max Brod, Rudolf Steiner, philosopher Christian von Ehrenfels or professor of mathematics Georg Pick. The famous evenings at Berta Fanta`s, née Sohr (1865-1918) were devoted to music and art. During his stay in Prague, Einstein also came here and play the violin, usually accompanied by the pianist Otýlia Nagel or the writer Max Brod. His stay in Prague was primarily an important working period for Einstein: he received his first ever full professorship there and published a paper on gravitational lenses, a phenomenon based on the bending of light in a gravitational field. 

The commemorative plaque was unveiled on the 120th anniversary of the scientist`s birth, on 14 March 1999, when a celebratory seminar was also held at Charles University. The idea of the plaque was initiated by historians Alena Šolcová (Czech Technical University) and Michal Křížek (Institute of Mathematics of the Czech Academy of Sciences), and with the financial contribution of the Franz Kafka Foundation. The author of the artwork is sculptor Zdeněk Kolářský. On the lower part of the bronze memorial plaque are the names of the institutions that contributed to the preparation and production of the plaque: the Union of Czech Mathematicians and Physicists and the Municipality of Prague. A small emblem of the City of Prague is between them. 

Einstein looks towards the Oldtown Astronomical Clock and the artistic concept of the indentations, linear symbols and the well-known equation on the right side of the scientist`s profile is meant to represent the first reflections on the general theory of relativity, the bending of a light beam near the sun in a sketched curve above the Charles Bridge, which Einstein walked on his way to Clementinum for lectures. The bridge symbolises the connection between creative imagination and the foundation of scientific knowledge. 

The photochemical unit einstein, the chemical element einsteinium, and the planet 2001 Einstein were named in honour of the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics recipient (the explanation of the photoelectric effect). Prague also welcomed Einstein a second time in 1921.

 

References

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