If my theory of relativity is proven successful, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare that I am a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German and Germany will declare that I am a Jew.

Let's see if we can find it!

1929-12-04

The earliest I can find is in the archives of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency who published this snippet:

Is this likely to be true? What other evidence is there that Einstein was there and made those remarks?

1929-11-12

Flicking back a few weeks in the JTA archives is this evidence - "Sorbonne bestows degree on Einstein."

1929-11-09

There are also contemporary photos of the ceremony which are included in various press clippings.

Is there anything previous to 1929?

1922??

Alice Calaprice's Quotable Einstein has the quote but attributes it differently:

From an address to the French Philosophical Society at the Sorbonne, April 6, 1922. See also French press clipping, April 7, 1922, Einstein Archive 36-378; and Berliner Tageblatt, April 8, 1922, Einstein Archive 79-535

I wasn't able to find the French press clipping - but the German paper is available.

My German is rusty and that font is hard but I don't think it says anything similar to the above quote. I think the 1922 date is merely the confusion between two different visits to the Sorbonne - which is the same conclusion as Wikiquote editors came to

Contemporary reports

OK, so what other sources are there for the quote? The JTA says:

The local papers feature a summary of the brief address made by Prof. Albert Einstein […]

So I suppose they were just re-reporting what others had said. Let's take a look in some of those newspapers via Bibliothèque nationale de France who have an excellent archive of newspapers.

There's a rather detailed report from L'Œuvre - but that makes no mention of the anecdote.

Similarly, there are other interviews and contemporary commentary - but this remark goes unnoticed by all of them.

I read through several dozen French papers from November 1929 until early December. I couldn't find anything resembling the remark in any of them.

OK, what about the German press?

Again it is possible to search German newspapers for those specific dates - and there are plenty of contemporary reports.

Nothing about him being a Weltbürger that I could see.

Similarly, British newspapers don't make reference to the joke despite their endless coverage of him.

Google's shitty AI hallucinates the quote as appearing in The Saturday Evening Post.

While that issue does have an extensive interview with Einstein, there's nothing even vaguely similar to the sentiment about being a citizen of the world. Never trust an AI!

Is it likely?

Einstein is endlessly quotable - and had a good ear for a pithy turn of phrase. However, he was accompanied on this trip by the German Ambassador. Would it have been prudent for him to make such a politically charged joke in front of that audience?

Minced Oaths

Perhaps this is a mangled quotation? Einstein said something similar several years before the purported 1929 quote.

In Herman Bernstein's 1924 book "Celebrities of Our Time Interviews", there's the following quote:

That's much less pithy, but carries largely the same sentiment.

The original can be seen in the British Newspaper Archive of 1919

Dr. Einstein's Theory.

We publish to-day a translation of an article written for our readers by ALBERT EINSTEIN

[…] He adds that the different descriptions of him in England and Germany form an amusing example of relativity to the sentiments of the two countries. He is famous just now, and was described in our columns as a Swiss Jew, whereas in Germany he is called a German man of science. He suggests that were he suddenly to become a bête noire, the descriptions would be reversed, and he would be stigmatized here as a German man of science and in Germany as a Swiss Jew. We concede him his little jest.

However, do note that this is described as a translation. In his letter to Paul Ehrenfest on the 4th of December 1919, he says:

By the way, I myself participated in the cackling by writing a short article in the Times, in which I thanked our English colleagues, said a few things to characterize the theory, and at the end produced the following witticism: A simple application of the theory of relativity: today German newspapers are calling me a German man of science, the English, a Swiss Jew. If I come to be represented as a bete noire to the readerships, I should be a Swiss Jew for German newspapers and a German man of science for the English.'

See The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, Volume 9 The Berlin Years. I cannot find the original letter, but I assume Princeton's transcribers and translators are accurate.

Either way, that's two reputable sources which have Einstein expressing something similar. Perhaps the joke was repeated and refined by him as the years wore on? Perhaps an eager journalist took a half-remembered quote and gave it new life? Perhaps.

Where next?

Well, dear reader, that's where you come in! I've exhausted all my research prowess. If you can find a transcript of his remarks, or a report older than the JTA's of the 4th of December 1929 where Einstein talks about being a "citizen of the world", please drop a comment in the box!

Recently, I've been moving all my plugin code into my theme. This is sort-of-but-not-quite a MonoRepo.

I've also tried to move away, as far as possible, from using other people's plugins. Most of the ones I had were single-shot plugins which did one thing and needed the minimum amount of configuration. So I learned from their code and re-implemented it into my theme.

This isn't quite digital-homesteading. I'm not rolling my own crypto, or building my own CMS. I'm just taking back a little control, learning how things work, and enjoying the busy-work of Digital Gardening.

I don't know if this is a good idea. It means I don't get security updates if my knock-off code is vulnerable. I don't get new features. But I also don't have to trust that a 3rd-party developer isn't going to screw up (I can screw up on my own, thank-you-very-much!). I've had a few bad experiences with plugins which suddenly stopped working, or had abusive behaviour.

HowTo

I put new functionality into a file with a descriptive name, for example related-posts.php and I save it in my-theme/includes/.

In my WordPress's theme, I add this to functions.php:

//  Load all the files
$includes_path = get_template_directory() . "/includes/";
foreach ( new DirectoryIterator( $includes_path ) as $fileInfo ) {
    if( $fileInfo->isDot() ) continue;  //  Ignore . and ..
    if( $fileInfo->getExtension() != "php" ) continue; // Only load PHP
    require_once( get_template_directory() . "/includes/" . $fileInfo->getFilename() );
}

That loads all the .php files from /includes/.

I have no idea how performant this is. I have some fairly aggressive caching plugins which should minimise any slowness - and they're not part of my MonoRepo.

While yak-shaving for my MSc, I found an interesting looking research paper authored by one JC Shakespeare.

As you can probably tell from that snippet, there is something a bit hinkey going on here. Here's the page that Google Scholar has scraped:

It's pretty easy to see what has happened here. The algorithm (whether via simple AI or complex regular expression) "knows" that a typical surname followed by a comma followed by a typical given name is almost certainly a reference.

And so "JC Shakespeare" becomes the author of a delightfully diverse set of papers.

Of course, Julius Caesar isn't the only play which gets picked up in this way:

Remember, AI is a great tool. It can be remarkably quick at drawing nearly correct conclusions from a diverse data set. When talking about AI, we usually discuss false positives and false negatives. But we also need to ask "is this the sort of mistake a human would make?"

As it happens, Google has been making this class of mistakes for a few years:

Alex Klotz

@AlexanderRKlotz

Google Scholar has parsed this cafeteria lunch menu as an author list, and it's delightful pic.x.com/jobE6Z7bpI

---

At the time, all the FOAF relationships were defined in terms of positive sentiment. There wasn't (and still isn't) a FOAF representation for "divorced" or "estranged" or "fired by". I thought this was a failing. I understand why we all might want to play nice on the Internet. But sometimes it is useful to know about "negative" relationships.

For example, I want to organise a seating plan for my wedding - it's helpful to know that Alice and Bill divorced and can't be on the same table, Carol doesn't talk to David. Bill is in a relationship with David and wants to keep it secret. Ellen would like to know Alice better. That sort of thing.

More modern versions of FOAF have properties like enemyOf and wouldLikeToKnow. Which I think makes a great deal of sense.

And so we come to Academic Citations.

Using Google Scholar (or any other knowledge graph) I can find just about any academic paper. More importantly, it lets me see every paper which references that paper.

Great! I can see if something has been cited lots of times, or very few times. That gives me a weak signal about its "importance".

But it tells me nothing about the sentiment of those citations.

Suppose I've just read (Smith, 2015) and I want to know whether the consensus is that the paper is a work of genius or absolute horseshit. What are my options? I can find all the citations of it, then manually read each one to determine whether the author thinks Smith is off their rocker or not.

Wikidata has support for this. The Cites Work property can have roles like "objection" and "endorsement"

This means, in theory, someone could build a knowledge graph which says "Smith's argument rests on Jones' paper, but Xi's paper and Zhang's paper both object to Jones. Hook disagrees with Zhang's analysis, but these 500 papers disagree with Hook."

Why is this important

One problem that modern social media has is that its algorithms have no knowledge of sentiment. Whether you share a cute kitten video to make your friends smile or share a hateful message by a bigot in order to whip up a frenzy against them - the algorithm sees the same signal; +1.

This means the outrage economy grows quickly. All "shares" are seen as positive sentiment. The algorithm sees lots of shares, interprets that a positive signal, and then further promotes the content - or similar content. There is very little way that a social network can filter content by "agrees with" or "disagrees with".

Things like Facebook attempt to map sentiment with a series of emoji.

In theory, you could tell Facebook not to show you posts which have more than 10% of anger reactions. Or only show you posts with positive sentiment. I say "in theory" because Facebook profits off your rage, so has no interest in helping you moderate your emotions.

Popping back to academia for a moment. I recently read a paper that I disagreed with. I wanted to know if I was alone in my objection. This is currently no way for me to find all the citations which also disagree with the paper.

Why this will never happen

The first thing that stops this is that it is a lot of extra work for a human to perform. With hundreds of citations per paper, it would be a massive burden to categorise every single paper mentioned in passing. Most academics can't even be bothered to write alt-text for their images, so any extra labour is likely to be resisted.

The second problem is that sentiment is hard! Can it be boiled down to just "agrees with" and "disagrees with"? What about "Agrees with methodology but not conclusion" or "Disagrees with some definitions but supports others"? There are hundreds of different sentiments. Even just positive and negative probably need degrees of strength associated with them.

In the glorious future where DEEP AI and MACHINE CLEVERNESS rules, it might be possible for a computer to read an academic paper and determine whether it concurs with the papers referenced therein.

Perhaps we need an army of (paid?) dogsbodies to manually go through every paper ever published and assess the sentiment behind each citation?

But, for now, we have to make do with weak signals and uncertain sentiment.

1. Write down the problem.
2. Think real hard.
3. Write down the solution.

Easy!

As part of my MSc, I have to write a series of assignments. These are essays with a strict word count and an even stricter marking scheme. I'm proud that I've successfully developed a technique for writing these assignments. I've noticed that a number of students don't know where to begin when writing an essay, so I'd like to share my technique with you. It is slightly more complicated than Feynman's method - although still contains the "think real hard" step.

This is a "reverse engineering" technique. The aim isn't necessarily to have understood the material - but to demonstrate that you have understood the material. To do this, it is necessary to understand the marking scheme. Almost all tutors will share how your essays are to be marked. Your job is to write an answer for each point on the marking scheme.

The key is to do this at the start of term - as I'll explain later.

Write Down The Problem

My assignment questions usually come in this form:

• Discuss the background of X (10 points)
• Demonstrate you understand Y (20 points)
• What uses are there for Z (20 points)
• Conclusion (10 points)
• Word count: 3,000

Great! I now have the basic structure of my essay. I divide the wordcount by the points and that give me the maximum number of words I have for each section. So, before the start of teaching, I follow Step 1 of the Feynman algorithm and write out section headings for my essay:

• History of X (500 words)
• How Y works (1,000 words)
• Uses of Z (1,000 words)
• Combining X, Y, and Z (500 words)

This means I don't waste time writing 2,000 words of history which can't score me many points. I also know that my conclusion has to be more substantial than a couple of paragraphs.

Each paragraph should contain one idea. A paragraph is usually 4 sentences. A sentence is usually about 20 words. So, under each section, I put one bullet point per 100 words. My aim is to fill each bullet point with a paragraph.

But fill it with what? We're not quite at step 2 yet. One more piece of investigation to go!

Write Down The Marking Scheme

As mentioned before, it's time to find the rubric. This is the thing which tells the person marking your essay what they're looking for. It is really important to understand that you are not trying to produce a beautiful piece of literature. You are not writing florid prose. You are not proving how clever you are. All you are doing is responding to the marking scheme in as efficient way as possible.

This is a very different technique to writing a thesis, dissertation, article, or blog post. Treat the essay as an exam. If the question is "What is the Pythagorean theorem", you don't start your answer with "It was a hot and arid day in Samos, and the great philosopher was staring intently at a series of triangle crudely etched into the sand..."

A typical marking rubric for a particular section might be:

• Fail: Has not demonstrated knowledge of X
• Pass: Demonstrates basic understanding of X
• Merit: Shows thorough understanding of X and discusses some of the downsides
• Distinction: Comprehensively demonstrates understanding of X - and several related techniques. Discusses downsides and how they can be remediated.
• Exceeds: The above, and creates new techniques for managing X related problems

Here's where you get to make your first choice. What are you aiming for? Personally, I go for a pass. If I have spare words, I add in what I can for anything higher.

In my case, I just want to pass. If you're on track for something higher, go for it!

Again, get the rubric before teaching starts. That way you know what to concentrate on during the lectures.

A Worked Example

Here's the marking scheme for section 1 of the assignment I'm currently working on:

15% of 3,000 words is 450 words. So about 4-and-a-bit paragraphs. On the left-hand side are the three things I need to cover. The other sections tell me that if I want top marks, I need relevant models from a wide range of sources with relevant arguments building to a conclusion.

Anything which isn't in that description gets cut.

Think - but not too hard!

OK, so we have to write 5 paragraphs about X. And, if we can can, show we understand some of the problems with it. If there's room, show something related. Let's give these paragraphs names:

1. Define terms
2. Explain
3. Counterpoint
4. See also
5. Wordcount reserved

Naturally, some paragraphs are going to be longer that 100 words - so feel free to steal from the final paragraph if you need.

Go through each heading and section and do this. It is a bit tedious. But you've effectively taken the essay format so beloved by academics and turned it into an exam format so hated by students. You now have a fairly rigid set of questions and associated wordcount.

During your lectures, your tutor will occasionally say something like "It's really important that you mention Smith's definition in your assignment" or "You should read Jones' opinion on that" or - if you're lucky - "Not many students bother explaining how al-Sadiq's background influenced his design - and I wish they would."

Each time your tutor drops one of these hints - go into the template you've written and find a relevant paragraph. Leave a note to yourself which says "Use Smith's definition from the course text" or "Read the paper Jones mentions in their rebuttal."

It is (almost) time to start thinking! Yay!

Outsource your thinking to others

I find that the ratio of citations to text is about 2 references per paragraph. So about 50 per 3,000 word essay. Again, some paragraphs will be you discussing others' work - so will need more. Some paragraphs will be your own thoughts, so need less.

As you have been going through the course, you'll have been reading and discussing papers, books, websites etc. Each time you come across a paper, save it in Zotero. Every scrap of info should be saved in there. Create a folder per assignment and make sure you save anything you've read into it. Zotero will handle citation formatting in your paper as if by magic.

But! Just sticking a paper in Zotero isn't enough. You'll get to the end of the course and discover you can't remember what each entry is.

Every time you read something which might be useful, find a paragraph in your template which relates to it, and add a single sentence. Doesn't have to be the sentence you end up submitting, doesn't have to be perfect, may be deleted later.

Something like:

Faster-than-light travel was invented by scientists at the University of East Anglia (Smith, 2045) when they were trying to get a printer working.

or

Because of the causality problem (Jones, 1854) discuss more here

or

(al-Saiq, 1984) disagrees with (Zhang, 10BCE) about cats - worth writing more?

These are just little notes to yourself which explains what you read and how it is relevant to what you're discussing

That's it! You've finished thinking! That wasn't so hard, was it?

Write down the solution

This is the bit that most students seem to dread. If you're faced with acres of blank paper, how do you bash out 3,000 words? Argh!

Luckily, you don't have blank paper. You have a bunch of scope-limited questions, with some bullet points representing how many paragraphs to write. Most of those paragraphs already have a vague topic and, hopefully, a citation or two.

Now you just need to tie them all together!

Personally, I like writing and thinking in bullet points - something which earns me the ire of my tutors. So I gradually work on each bullet until it is a paragraph of prose. I shuffle citations around and delete things which are too wordy.

With each paragraph, I go back to the marking scheme. Am I being assessed on the cultural influence of the subject? No? That amazing paragraph goes in the bin. If it isn't worth points, it isn't worth the word count!

The key to this is writing regularly throughout the course. Even a sentence or two every week can be enough.

Feedback

Office Hours are the most valuable part of your course. Sitting in a (virtual) lecture hall with a hundred other students is fine - but you rarely get to ask targetted questions to make sure you've understood something. But being able to speak with a tutor or assistant one-on-one is a game-changer. Don't worry if you think you look stupid in front of them or your class-mates. This is your chance to ask targetted questions.

You will probably only have a few minutes - depending on how busy the session is - so make sure you have a brief list of specific questions. Something like:

• My understanding is that X is a form of Y. But Smith describes it as a modified form of Z. Which definition should I use?
• I don't understand what al-Sidiq means in the course text. Can you explain - or point me to a guide?
• Is it OK to use Jones as a reference - or is that out of date?

Your aim is to make sure that you've understood the topics and - more importantly - your understanding aligns with the rubric. This is a deeply cynical way of looking at things, I know. Your assignment is to demonstrate to their satisfaction that you have understood.

If you've followed the above algorithm during the course, you should have about 50% of your essay done by the time teaching finishes. Most courses let you submit a draft for feedback, and then have a few more weeks before you submit the final product.

Submit your draft as soon as possible. You want feedback at the earliest point. If you get a personal 1-2-1 with a tutor, even better. You are about to follow another algorithm!

1. Am I on the right path? That is - have I covered the basics and shown that I've engaged with the material?
   • If not, what have I missed? Write it in your draft as you receive the feedback.
2. What needs changing?
   • If nothing, stop working and submit now 😁
   • If stuff does need changing, write it in your draft as you receive the feedback.
3. What do I need to do to improve my mark?
   • Again - this is cynical. Be as blunt as you like with your tutor. They may prefer references to be post-2017, or they really love citations from business journals, or they hate quotes from blogs.

Editing

OK, you now have loads of paragraphs, and loads of notes, and loads of citations. This is where the "fun" begins. Now you have to write and edit your essay.

Personally, I like having my spouse read over what I've written. She can spot spelling errors and logical leaps that I just can't.

But, at the end of the day, it goes back to Feynman. You've already written down the problem, you know what you'll be assessed on, you've written down most of the answer - so now you just need to apply your brains to tie it all together into something cohesive and coherent.

Formatting

You'll notice I haven't talked about fonts, page numbers, titles, tables-of-content etc. That's all left to the end. Your class should have been provided with a style guide. Once you've finished editing, apply their guide. Use their font - even if you think it looks ugly. Put the reference list where they expect to find it. Abandon your funky page numbering scheme and surrender to what the marker is expecting.

You are writing for this to be marked. And the marker doesn't have time to go hunting. They want everything laid out exactly as they expect. Your aesthetic considerations don't count.

Submit and have a beer

Using this method, you should be able to bash out your essay and submit it before the deadline. Well… that's the plan!

I've successfully used it over 4 different assignments and it has made writing them a fairly stress-free experience.

Good luck!