Conrad Habicht

File:Einstein-with-habicht-and-solovine.jpg: Conrad Habicht, Maurice Solovine, and Albert Einstein]]

Conrad Habicht (28 December 1876 in Schaffhausen – 23 October 1958 in Schaffhausen) was a Swiss mathematician and close personal friend of Albert Einstein.

Association with Einstein

Together with Maurice Solovine, the three founded the Olympia Academy, an informal circle of friends who met together in Bern from 1902 to 1904 to discuss physics and philosophy.{{cite book |last1=Rosenkranz |first1=Arnold |title=The Einstein Scrapbook |date=2002 |publisher=Jewish National Library |location=Jerusalem |isbn=0-8018-7203-0 |page=2 |edition=2nd}}{{cite web |last1=Einstein |first1=Albert |title=Letter to Conrad Habicht 2 February 1902 |url=https://einsteinpapers.press.princeton.edu/vol1-trans/212 |website=einsteinpapers.press.princeton.edu/ |publisher=Princeton University |access-date=26 January 2023}}{{cite web |last1=Brittney |first1=Tom |title=Genius (TV Series) Einstein: Chapter Three (2017) Conrad Habicht |url=https://www.metacritic.com/tv/genius-2017/season-1/episode-3-einstein-chapter-three|website=metacritic |publisher=metacritic |access-date=26 January 2023}}

Habicht and Solovine were the only two witnesses to Einstein's 1903 wedding to Mileva Marić.{{cite web |last1=l'Association KronoBase |title=Chronologie: Conrad Habicht Biographie |url=https://www.kronobase.org/chronologie-categorie-Conrad+Habicht.html |website=kronobase |publisher=Kronobase |access-date=26 January 2023}}

Habicht was the recipient of Einstein's 1905 letter{{cite web |url=https://einsteinpapers.press.princeton.edu/vol5-trans/41 |title=Letter of Albert Einstein to Conrad Habicht of May 18 or 25, 1905, Document 27 in The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, Volume 5 |accessdate=9 February 2019 |publisher=Princeton University Press}} in which Einstein described his Annus mirabilis papers.{{cite web |last1=Overbye |first1=Dennis |title=Brace Yourself! Here Comes Einstein's Year |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/25/science/brace-yourself-here-comes-einsteins-year.html |website=nytimes |publisher=New York Times |access-date=26 January 2023}} Habich also received Einstein's letter about quanta.{{cite web |last1=Einstein |first1=Albert |title=Letter to Conrad Habicht, 14 April 2005 |url=https://einsteinpapers.press.princeton.edu/vol5-doc/82 |website= Princeton |publisher=Scientific Research |access-date=26 January 2023}}

Einstein and Solovine lost contact with Habicht but regained contact in 1947.{{cite book |last1=Einstein |first1=Albert |title=Letters to Solovine |date=1987 |publisher=Plilosophic Library |location=New York |isbn=0-8022-2526-8 |page=95 |edition=1st}}

A book of letters between Einstein and Habicht in German Language was published in 2000.{{cite book |last1=Schneider|first1=Thomas|title=die Einstein-Sammlung Habicht |date=2000 |publisher=Tfs |location=Basel |edition=1st}}

Early life

Habicht came from a middle class family in Schaffhausen and grew up there with four brothers and sisters. Son of Johann Conrad Habicht, merchant, and Susanna Elisabetha Oechslin, from Schaffhausen. In 1913 he married Anna Margarethe Kehlstadt, teacher, from Basel. He studied mathematics and physics in Zurich, Munich and Berlin, earning a doctors degree in 1903 at Bern, writing a dissertation on series of circles by Steiner. He studied violin.{{cite web |last1=Schneider |first1=Thomas Franz |title=Conrad Habicht |url=https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/it/articles/048666/2006-08-09/ |website=hls-dhs-dss |publisher=Il Dizionario storico della Svizzera |access-date=26 January 2023}}

Conrad's brother Paul was active in early development of automobile engines and had many Swiss patents.{{cite web |last1=Habicht |first1=Paul |title=My Espacenet |url=https://worldwide.espacenet.com/patent/search?q=in%20any%20%22Habicht%22%20AND%20in%20any%20%22Paul%22 |website=espacenet |publisher=European patent office |access-date=27 January 2023}}

University and school teacher

Habicht taught university master's level mathematics and physics 11 years at Schiers in the Canton of the Graubünden where he also played violin. Then he taught mathematics and physics 33 years at Schaffhausen Canton high school, retiring in 1948.{{cite web |last1=ETH-Bibliothek |title=Conrad Habicht |url=https://www.e-periodica.ch/ |website=e-periodica |publisher=ETH-Bibliothek |access-date=26 January 2023}}

Habicht and Einstein invented a meter for measuring very small electric potentials in millivolts with Conrad's brother Paul.{{cite web |last1=Einstein |first1=Albert |title=The Machine - Albert Einstein in a letter to Conrad Habicht, 4 March 1910 |url=https://einstein-website.de/en/maschinchen/ |website=einstein-website.de |publisher=einstein-website |access-date=26 January 2023}}{{cite web |last1=Illy |first1=József |title=The Practical Einstein: Experiments, Patents, Inventions |url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/674492?journalCode=isis |website=U Chicago |publisher=University of Chicago}}

Einstein wrote to Habicht about his first attempt to explain the perihelion advance of Mercury.{{cite web |last1=Einstein |first1=Albert |title=A Chronology of the Genesis of General Relativity and its Formative Years - Letter To Conrad Habicht 24 December 1907 |url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9781400865765-009/pdf |website=degruyter |publisher=Princeton University Press |access-date=26 January 2023}}

Habicht wrote and published a book in Swiss German, biography of Gustav Kugler 1874-1939 a Rector of the Schaffhausen Canton school. He also published 5 editions of his mathematics in addition to his dissertation. Between 1943 and 1947 Habicht published another 6 books in 10 editions about the Swiss view of the world around them. He also published an education article about technical supervision of students.{{cite web |last1=Habicht |title=Conrad Habicht |url=https://www.worldcat.org/identities/viaf-1002523/ |website=OCLC Worldcat Identities |publisher=OCLC Worldcat Identities |access-date=27 January 2023}} Habicht only published in Swiss German language.

Later life

Habicht was in retirement from teaching ten years, continuing to direct a local music academy until 1958. He died four years later after injury in an accident, survived by his wife, four children and ten grandchildren.{{cite web |last1=Società Elvetica di Scienze Naturali |title=Conrad Habicht |url=https://www.e-periodica.ch/ |website=e-periodica |publisher=ETH-Bibliothek |access-date=26 January 2023}}

Literature

{{HLS|48666|Habicht, Conrad}} Author: Thomas Franz Schneider
Jürgen Neffe: Einstein. Eine Biografie. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 2006.
Maurice Solovine: Freundschaft mit Albert Einstein. In: Physikalische Blätter 15 (1959), 3, S. 97–103.
Albert Einstein: Eine neue elektrostatische Methode zur Messung kleinster Elektrizitätsmengen. In: Physikalische Zeitschrift 7 (1908), S. 216–217.