2011年12月英语四级阅读备考材料(30)

　　By 1914 Einstein had gained world fame. He accepted the offer to become a professor at the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin. He had few duties, little teaching, and unlimited opportunities for study. It was an ideal position, but soon his peace and quiet were broken by the First World War. Einstein hated violence. Though he was not personally involved, the war and its misery affected him deeply. He lost interest in much of his research. Only when peace finally came in 1918 was he able to get back to work.

　　During the years following World War I, Germany heaped honors upon Einstein. He was persuaded to become director of Theoretical Physics in the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. He won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921. Prussia made him an honorary citizen. Potsdam built an Einstein Tower in its Astro-Physical Institute (天体物理学院). Berlin held public celebration on his fiftieth birthday. Being a shy man, Einstein did not attend, but he received several baskets full of cards, letters, and telegrams expressing admiration and best wishes. The gifts to him would have filled a railway freight car.

　　Four years later, Adolph Hitler came to power in Germany. He and his Nazis disliked intellectuals, and they hated Jews. There was no respect even for Albert Einstein, who only wanted to think of the problems of time and space and who never got involved in politics. The Academy of Sciences was closed to him; his house was searched for weapons; he lost his professorship; all his property was seized; and finally his German citizenship was taken away. He became a man without a country.

　　Upon leaving* Germany, Einstein went first to France, then to Belgium, and then to England. There he received an invitation from the United States. The Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, New Jersey, offered him a lifetime professorship. He accepted, but he asked so small a salary that to maintain its own pay-scale (费用 ) the Institute had to give him more than he requested. • 252 •

　　Such behaviour was characteristic of Einstein. He had little interest in money, though he could have been very wealthy. He once turned down an offer of $ 1,000 a minute to speak on the radio. On another occasion he put a check for $ 1,500 from the Rockefeller Foundation between the pages of a book to help him remember where he had stopped reading. Then, having used the check as a bookmark, he lost the book!

　　In 1955 Einstein became an American citizen. When interviewed about his new country, he told reporters: "Seven years ago, when asked for the reason I left Germany, I made this statement: 'As long as I have any choice, I will only stay in a country where political liberty, toleration, and equality of all citizens before the law is the rule. Political liberty implies liberty to express one's political opinions orally and in writing, and a tolerant respect for any and every individual opinion. '" Einstein lived the rest of his life in the United States.

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