I apologize if this has been covered before, but I tried running a search and it timed out.
Einstein’s position as a patent clerk is part of popular folklore, and AFAIK is based in truth. What I’m curious about is this: What exactly was he doing? Was he really a clerk, or something more? Was he part of the patent approval process? Or was he basically rubber-stamping official documents after somebody higher up made the decisions, and then sticking them in the appropriate drawer, while his mind wandered?
Obviously, if he was part of the approval chain in any way, it would be interesting to see which patents he liked, and which he rejected. (I originally wrote “which he passed on, and which he passed on,” i.e. passed on vs. passed on, a case of a phrase being its own negative, but then I realized it didn’t make any sense. Sorry for the digression.) I suspect he was just a file clerk, and this question is moot, but I don’t know that for sure.
Why do I ask? I’m just curious; it’s one of those things where you’re staring at the patterns in the carpet, or compressing the thin sliver of old soap onto the new bar, and an odd, random thought pops up. Normal people usually have a moment of intrigued speculation, and then dismiss the notion, but 'Dopers, of course, have a means of scratching their curiosity itches. And while I was clipping my nails earlier today, it somehow occurred to me to wonder what patents Einstein might have seen in his temporary stint there. Don’t know how the thought came up, but there it is – and hence this post.
So: Is there anyone out there who has made a hobby of early Einsteinian lore, and who can offer at least an informed guess on the topic?
He was part of the approval process. He was appointed June 16, 1902, as technical expert third class, trial basis. Pais says he did well, took his work seriously, and found it interesting. On April 1, 1906, he was promoted to technical expert second class. Pais: "He now knew enough technology and, writes Haller, ‘belongs among the most esteemed experts at the office.’ Of course, by that time, he’d already published the paper that would win him the Nobel Prize, plus the one describing special relativity and the one which first used quantums. Seems like it’d be impossible to say someone was “over-qualified,” wouldn’t it?
Are you thinking that he somehow improved the patents that he reviewed? Or maybe that he expected too much of them?
Of course his boss was constantly telling him “Al, I like you and you’re really coming along here at the office. But it’s going to take more than a Nobel prize before we can talk about making you a Technical Expert First Class.”
It’s also true that he spent a lot of time doing nothing but staring at his desktop and wringing his hands in frustration. He was waiting for the computer and the internet to be invented so he could join the SDMB.
He wanted to answer all the relativity questions that keep getting asked over and over again in this forum. He was also going to start a thread in GD asking who was really the world’s smartest human being – Cecil or Marilyn Vos Savant?
Anyone have any idea how many patent applications were processed during Einstein’s tenure in that job. People weren’t nearly as patent-happy as they are now.
I doubt Einstein had to spend a lot of time now looking at weird golf gadgets or toilet lid ideas.
(I bring up those two from the time when I used to work at a Patent Depository Library and seemed that every other person who came in with an idea for an invention had something to do with golf or toilets. People like to tinker with things that they see a lot apparently.)
What sort of things would Einstein have been examining? I don’t think there were a lot of inventions being created back then that required a physics background. Perhaps he was working in the chemical field.
There weren’t a lot of legitimate physics inventions, maybe, but there have always been crackpots, and they’re the reason you need a patent approval process in the first place. I understand that a large part of his job was shooting down perpetual motion machines, for instance.