Some of the world’s greatest scientific minds tell us what they love—and hate—about Einstein

Discover ^ | Aug 2004 | various

[my_pointy_head_is_sharp]

These physicists, Einstein included, have an overblown sense of their intellectual powers. They think they can understand how our Universe works. They will only ever be able to understand a small fragment of it.

[RightWingAtheist]

If Einstein has had a negative influence on anything, it's that the physics community since his time has teneded to lean left on most issues, largely because they have looked up to him on everything else. That and the Oppenheimer case has led a lot of otherwise bright minds to advocate some of the most dunderheaded policy positions imaginable.

[RightWingAtheist]

Denis Weaire wrote an article about the physics of missing socks years ago. What is it about Irish physicists and foot garments?-)

[RightWhale]

They think they can understand how our Universe works.

They have known for 50 years that relativity and quantum mechanics are incompatible. They hope that superstring theory can be of some help, but probably no one thinks they will ever understand ultimately what the structure of the Universe might be, or if that is even the right question.

[PatrickHenry]

Old thread, from 1999: Why Socialism? (Albert Einstein).

[The Scourge of Yazid]

Case in point, Helen Caldicott.

Blecchh!

UNION OF CONCERNED LIBERAL SCIENTIFIC SISSY BOYS

-good times, G.J.P. (Jr.)

[Doctor Stochastic]

A picture circa 1912:

[The Scourge of Yazid]

Archetypal Irish physicist:

Aye, we be a strange lot, laddie boy. I tink it's de Guinness.

[Oberon]

"He seemed to consider working out the details of the atom and its nucleus more as busywork than as fundamental science."

Google: INTP

As a hardcore ENTP, I know where he's coming from. Paperwork...can't the clerks do that?

[Physicist]

These physicists, Einstein included, have an overblown sense of their intellectual powers. They think they can understand how our Universe works. They will only ever be able to understand a small fragment of it.

On the contrary, we physicists understand much better than laymen how little--or how much--is understood, because we know where the boundaries lie.

It turns out that fundamental questions of how space and time behave are comparatively simple and knowable, and if our answers aren't truly complete, they are very nearly so. Questions such as "how does water flow" or "how do protein molecules get their shapes" or "how do bumblebees keep aloft" or "how does a carburetor do what it does", now, those are hard questions.

[The Scourge of Yazid]

Surly civil servant:

Hey pal, what da hell do I look like, some kinda butlah or sometin'?(!) Friggin' clerk. Gimme a friggin' break. Sheesh! Deez people.

[Oberon]

Hey pal, what da hell do I look like, some kinda butlah or sometin'?(!) Friggin' clerk. Gimme a friggin' break. Sheesh! Deez people.

Hey, I never said it was right...I just said I understood! =]

[xm177e2]

The implication being he had stumbled on something that outmoded his theory, or simply showed it to be a specialized subset of something bigger.

Maybe he just recognized that he didn't understand the universe, after all.

[tang-soo]

I just finished reading a book titled "How the Laser Happened" by Charles H. Townes. Townes was the inventor of the Maser (Microwave Amplified Stimulated Emission Radiation) in 1954 and along with his brother-in-law Art Schawlow was awarded the first patent for the Laser (or optical Maser aka Light Amplified ...) in 1959. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1961 for this work. By the way, Townes is still alive at 89 years old.

In his book, Townes mentions that Einstein was the first to conceive of Stimulated Emissions in 1917 and in retrospect was very curious that it took so long (1954 and 1959) for his theory to be realized.

[djf]

LOL!

Well at least they talk about socks and not underwear...

Maybe there's a sock shortage there.

[longshadow]

The Lucasian(sp?) chair at Cambridge?

I'm wrong, I think that's Horton.

No, it's Hawking.

[djf]

You are correct. Not sure what Conway (Horton) is doing these days. He certainly revolutionized mathematics.

[Physicist]

The Lucasian(sp?) chair at Cambridge?

By "occupying the Siege Perilous", I meant to say that they're both dead.

I'm wrong, I think that's Horton.

Who?

[mikegi]

What still drives me crazy about Einstein is that he did not participate in the scientific revolution he helped launch. His successful theory of the photoelectric effect was a key step in establishing the correctness of quantum mechanics.

That's because he knew that QM was/is a hack.

[djf]

John Horton Conway, mathematician. He invented the game of Life, a set of rules for two-dimensional automatons, that take on a life of their own.

He has succesfully proved that there are a limited number of problems in math.. I think the number he came up with is 19.

Thats all there is. Every math problem is one of the 19 types.