Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What Life Means to Einstein (1929) [pdf]

saturdayeveningpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 69 posts

Re: What Life Means to Einstein (1929) [pdf]

#21

Post by lou1306 »

vargr616 wrote: post #9
mewpmewp2 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean that it is just as bad if not more, right? Because it is making Einstein out to be some sort of rebel like who wants things to be "relative" as if it is a religion or philosophy of some sort. Relativity is just what he discovered, not some ideology he set out to prove or invented. Then the author goes on to try and apply this relativity to all aspects of the world, try to make puns on it despite Einstein spe…

exactly, plus the author's warped understanding, like einstein reinventing the wheel for every equation to make it "more" perfect, whatever that means; or in multiple instances, drawing up conclusions and asking them, or presenting these as facts in the article. or one article being split on 5 pages so I can see some ads in-between (not really the author's fault there though).

Choice of appropriate notation can absolutely make one version of a formula "more perfect" than another. Maxwell's equations underwent a painstaking "evolutionary" process as vector notation improved.

Ditto for proofs; it's not hard to believe that Albert Einstein could prove a theorem from scratch and end up with a better argument than one found in a previous textbooks.

The fatal flaw in the article, rather, is exemplified by the quote

> With the advent of Einstein, mathematics ceased to be an exact science in the fashion of Euclid.

Which I am in complete disagreement with. Einstein exploited elegant, novel (at the time), anything but inexact mathematical tools for his theory. That the theory posits uncertainty and, well, relativity of real-world phenomena has no bearing on the exactitude of mathematics. If anyone ever put a dent in that, it should be Gödel :)

Re: What Life Means to Einstein (1929) [pdf]

#22

Post by keiferski »

countrymile wrote: post #20

The thing that jumps out to me is how well read Einstein is, some of the modern day scientists could do with a much broader education. CP Snow's two cultures argument seems more relevant now than ever.

IIRC Kant was a huge influence on Einstein and arguably had an effect on his physics work.

https://philpapers.org/archive/PALTKG-5

Nowadays I doubt the average scientist has read the work of any single philosopher to that degree.

Re: What Life Means to Einstein (1929) [pdf]

#23

Post by keiferski »

laGrenouille wrote: post #18

> His fame may outlive Foch and Ludendorff, Wilson and Clemenceau. Funny to think how this has aged since 1915. Over a century later Einstein is an almost universally known figure. The others on this list are, particularly outside of France, names that I would not expect the median person to be able to say something interesting about.

I wonder how much of this ultimately comes down to branding. Einstein has a memorable name, a memorable haircut/photograph, and also managed to have his name become a byword for “genius.”

Re: What Life Means to Einstein (1929) [pdf]

#24

Post by pierrefermat1 »

keiferski wrote: post #22
countrymile wrote: post #20

The thing that jumps out to me is how well read Einstein is, some of the modern day scientists could do with a much broader education. CP Snow's two cultures argument seems more relevant now than ever.

IIRC Kant was a huge influence on Einstein and arguably had an effect on his physics work. https://philpapers.org/archive/PALTKG-5 Nowadays I doubt the average scientist has read the work of any single philosopher to that degree.

Sure not your average scientist, but could I find a few hundred who have but who are themselves of no particular fame? Quite easily yes.

Re: What Life Means to Einstein (1929) [pdf]

#25

Post by lqet »

keiferski wrote: post #22
countrymile wrote: post #20

The thing that jumps out to me is how well read Einstein is, some of the modern day scientists could do with a much broader education. CP Snow's two cultures argument seems more relevant now than ever.

IIRC Kant was a huge influence on Einstein and arguably had an effect on his physics work. https://philpapers.org/archive/PALTKG-5 Nowadays I doubt the average scientist has read the work of any single philosopher to that degree.

I think the philosopher who had the most influence on Einstein (and on other physicists of the early 20th century) was Arthur Schopenhauer:

> Schopenhauer was well read by physicists, most notably Einstein, Schrödinger, Wolfgang Pauli, and Majorana. Einstein described Schopenhauer's thoughts as a "continual consolation" and called him a genius. In his Berlin study three figures hung on the wall: Faraday, Maxwell, Schopenhauer. Konrad Wachsmann recalled: "He often sat with one of the well-worn Schopenhauer volumes, and as he sat there, he seemed so pleased, as if he were engaged with a serene and cheerful work."

> When Erwin Schrödinger discovered Schopenhauer ("the greatest savant of the West") he considered switching his study of physics to philosophy. He maintained the idealistic views during the rest of his life. Wolfgang Pauli accepted the main tenet of Schopenhauer's metaphysics, that the thing-in-itself is will.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Schopenhauer#Influence_...

Re: What Life Means to Einstein (1929) [pdf]

#26

Post by pierrefermat1 »

keiferski wrote: post #23
laGrenouille wrote: post #18

> His fame may outlive Foch and Ludendorff, Wilson and Clemenceau. Funny to think how this has aged since 1915. Over a century later Einstein is an almost universally known figure. The others on this list are, particularly outside of France, names that I would not expect the median person to be able to say something interesting about.

I wonder how much of this ultimately comes down to branding. Einstein has a memorable name, a memorable haircut/photograph, and also managed to have his name become a byword for “genius.”

If you purely value scientists with some sort of Value Over RePlacement metric on their scientific contribution alone, I would like to think Einstein is tier 1 along side another 20-50 people.

Re: What Life Means to Einstein (1929) [pdf]

#27

Post by keiferski »

lqet wrote: post #25
keiferski wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC Kant was a huge influence on Einstein and arguably had an effect on his physics work. https://philpapers.org/archive/PALTKG-5 Nowadays I doubt the average scientist has read the work of any single philosopher to that degree.

I think the philosopher who had the most influence on Einstein (and on other physicists of the early 20th century) was Arthur Schopenhauer: > Schopenhauer was well read by physicists, most notably Einstein, Schrödinger, Wolfgang Pauli, and Majorana. Einstein described Schopenhauer's thoughts as a "continual consolation" and called him a genius. In his Berlin study three figures hung on the wall: Faraday, Maxwell, Sch…

From what I understand, Einstein’s education and cultural milieu was very influenced by Kant, but Einstein himself was personally more interested in Schopenhauer.

Re: What Life Means to Einstein (1929) [pdf]

#29

Post by PunchTornado »

I am surprised to find out that Einstein was so convinced in the non-existence of free will.

> I claim credit for nothing. Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect, as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible player.

Meanwhile, I believe, that you can also be a determinist and believe in free will.

Re: What Life Means to Einstein (1929) [pdf]

#30

Post by ruthmarx »

keiferski wrote: post #23
laGrenouille wrote: post #18

> His fame may outlive Foch and Ludendorff, Wilson and Clemenceau. Funny to think how this has aged since 1915. Over a century later Einstein is an almost universally known figure. The others on this list are, particularly outside of France, names that I would not expect the median person to be able to say something interesting about.

I wonder how much of this ultimately comes down to branding. Einstein has a memorable name, a memorable haircut/photograph, and also managed to have his name become a byword for “genius.”

I'm not familiar with the other names in the parent comment, but do their accomplishments map to Einstein's as far as impact goes? I think they would have to before we consider branding as a main factor in longevity of...reputation?
Post reply on HN