Ilse Rosenthal-Schneider

Ilse Anna Marie Felicia Rosenthal-Schneider (25 April 1891 – 6 February 1990) was a German-Australian physicist and philosopher. She is best known for her collaboration and correspondence with the physicists Albert Einstein, Max von Laue, and Max Planck.^[1][2][3]

In the 1940s and 1950s, she exchanged a series of letters with Albert Einstein about philosophical aspects of physics, such as theory of relativity,^[4] fundamental constants and physical reality.^[5][6][7][8] She remained in contact with Einstein through correspondence until the death of Einstein in 1955.^[9] Rosenthal-Schneider contributed various articles and book reviews to the history of science journal Isis^[10] and the Australian Journal of Science.

Life

Ilse Schneider was born on 25 April 1891 in Finsterwalde, Niederlausitz in Brandenburg and died on 6 February 1990 in Sydney, Australia. She was the daughter of Hermann Schneider (1852–1912), a district court judge, and Hedwig Friedmann (1860–1932). Ilse had an older brother, Hans Samuel Gustav Johannes Schneider (born on 28 June 1889, died in Auschwitz in 1944). The family belonged to the educated and well-established Prussian-German bourgeoisie. Ilse grew up in Berlin, where she passed her “Abitur” at the Realgymnasium Charlottenburg (Berlin) in 1909. She began studying Philosophy and Physics at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin on 29 April 1909 and attended courses by Max Planck, Max von Laue, Heinrich Rubens, Ernst Cassirer, Alois Riehl, Eduard Spranger and Carl Stumpf, among others.

Rosenthal-Schneider earned a PhD in philosophy in 1920 at the University of Berlin, where she first met Albert Einstein. Her doctoral thesis was assessed and supervised by Alois Riehl (philosophy) and Max von Laue (physics). Albert Einstein was closely involved in the process. He had many conversations and discussions with Ilse Schneider beforehand and strongly supported Schneider's dissertation. The doctoral examination took place on 29 July 1920. The examiners were Max von Laue (physics), Alois Riehl (philosophy), Eduard Spranger (education) and Eduard Norden (Greek). Ilse Schneider’s application for exemption from the compulsory examination in Greek at the Faculty of Philosophy at the time, dated 24 October 1919, was rejected by the Dean's Office, although Alois Riehl emphatically supported Ilse Schneider's application in a letter dated 29 October 1919.^[11] The title of the doctoral thesis was: ‘The relationship of Einstein's theory of relativity to philosophy with special consideration of Kant's doctrine.’ Max von Laue recommended the thesis to the Springer publishing house (publisher at the time: Arnold Berliner). It was published in 1921 under the title Das Raum-Zeit-Problem bei Kant und Einstein. On 26 August 1922, Ilse Schneider married Hans Samuel Arthur Rosenthal (1890-1968), an electrical engineer of Jewish descent. The couple's daughter Stephanie (Hedwig Magda Dorothea Stephanie) was born on 13 June 1923. Little is known about Ilse Rosenthal-Schneider's professional and academic career after her marriage. As a freelance journalist, she wrote short articles on current developments in physics, including for the Vossische Zeitung in Berlin.

In 1938, Ilse Rosenthal-Schneider emigrated to Australia with her husband and daughter, five years after Hitler's National Socialist Party came to power. The journey took them on the RMMS AORANGI, a transpacific ocean liner, via Canada to Sydney. The family arrived in Sydney on 1 July 1938. The family settled in the eastern suburb of Sydney, Vaucluse, and a year later bought a property at 48 Cambridge Avenue. In the following years, Rosenthal-Schneider gave a series of lectures on scientific and philosophical topics, was involved in a project to bring academic knowledge from the large coastal cities to the rural areas of the country, and published articles in the Australian Journal of Science and other scientific journals.

Ilse Rosenthal-Schneider's hopes for a permanent position at the University of Sydney were not realized. While her husband Hans found a permanent position as Senior Lecturer in the School of Electrical Engineering at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of New South Wales, Ilse Rosenthal-Schneider only got precarious casual jobs for the rest of his life. Ilse Rosenthal-Schneider initially taught at a public school in Hopewood House, Darling Point. From 1944, she offered the ‘Science German’ course, which was organized by the so-called ‘Extension Board’, an institution of the University of Sydney for adult education. In addition to her work for the Extension Board, she became a part-time tutor in the German department at the University of Sydney and taught history and philosophy of science^[12][13] from 1945 until her retirement on 8 June 1952. Ilse Schneider died in Sydney on 6 February 1990 at the age of 98. Ilse Rosenthal-Schneider's commitment and her publications from her time of emigration bear witness to the attempt to anchor a philosophy of science in Australia. At the same time, her essays are a contemporary document of the social and political relevance of physics in the post-war period and the necessity of philosophical-critical reflection.