Dr. Phillip Frank

Dr. Phillip Frank, a friend of the famous Einstein, was to experience this relativity of time in Shri Nathji’s presence. He and his wife were friends of Priya Nath at Harvard. His wife was a member of the Theosophical Society in Boston, but Dr. Frank had always preferred to stay away from all pursuits of a spiritual nature. Both, husband and wife, were greatly touched to the core by Shri Nathji’s personality, and visited him several times. Mrs. Frank would say: "There is something about him that floods my soul with indescribable happiness!" Once, when Shri Nathji was at their home and speaking to the couple, Mrs. Frank was suddenly seized by uncontrollable waves of happiness. It reached a point where the old lady lost control over her body consciousness. Dr. Frank thought she had fallen ill. Shri Nathji blessed the couple and left. The spiritual effulgence had become more than they could bear.

Philipp Frank's father was Ignaz Frank and his mother was Jenny Feilendorf. Philipp studied physics at the University of Vienna obtaining a doctorate in theoretical physics in 1907 after working under Boltzmann.

In 1907 Frank wrote an important paper on causality. Einstein was impressed by Frank's ideas which he put forward in this paper and the resulting discussions led to another life long friendship, this time between Frank and Einstein. Both loved the philosophy of science and the ideas of each would influence the other. Frank received his habilitation and was appointed a lecturer in the University of Vienna in 1910. On Einstein's recommendation Frank succeeded him to the chair of theoretical physics in the German University of Prague in 1912.

 Frank had an old friend von Mises. The friendship between Frank and von Mises developed into a collaboration in the mid 1920s. They were joint authors of the lengthy two volume book Differentiagleichungen und Integralgleichungen der Mechanik und Physik which was published in 1925. Frank had married on 16 November 1920, his wife being Hania Gerson.

Frank remained at the German University in Prague until 1938. The Munich Agreement in that year saw large parts of the Czechoslovak republic surrendered to Germany. German troops along with Hitler himself had entered Austria on 12 March 1938, and a Nazi government had been set up there. Political pressure was put on Frank and other members of the Vienna Circle, and the group disbanded with many of its members including Frank fleeing to the United States. In the United States Frank was first appointed as a visiting lecturer, then made a lecturer in physics and mathematics at Harvard. He was joined at Harvard by his friend von Mises. In 1947 Frank wrote an excellent biography Einstein: His Life and Times. Frank worked on a wide range of topics in mathematics, and when one takes into account his publications on physics and philosophy it was a truly remarkable breadth. In mathematics he worked on the calculus of variations, Fourier series, function spaces, Hamiltonian geometrical optics, Schrödinger wave mechanics, and relativity.