Einstein and E=mc2 - Why the hero worship?

Time ^ | 1-16-06 | Vainity - RcOcean

[rcocean]

As the century's greatest thinker, as an immigrant who fled from oppression to freedom, as a political idealist, he best embodies what historians will regard as significant about the 20th century. And as a philosopher with faith both in science and in the beauty of God's handiwork, he personifies the legacy that has been bequeathed to the next century.

In a hundred years, as we turn to another new century--nay, ten times a hundred years, when we turn to another new millennium--the name that will prove most enduring from our own amazing era will be that of Albert Einstein: genius, political refugee, humanitarian, locksmith of the mysteries of the atom and the universe.

[rcocean]

Could someone explain all the hero worship to Einstein to me? Time's man of the century? For what?

As a layman I was amazed to learn that Einstein did not come up with E=mc2 in 1905; others (obscure) scientists had already come up with the formula.

In addition, Einstein's formula did not lead to the A-bomb. Einstein came up with the formula in 1905, yet Rutherford and other scientists already knew that massive amounts of energy were locked up in the atom, and they also knew that the decay of the atoms produced large amounts of energy.

Futhermore, Einstein had nothing to do with the discovery of atomic power. It took other scientists almost 30 to map the atom (mainly Rutherford and Bohr) and it wasn't until 1932 that neutrons were discovered.

Fission was discoved by accident in 1939 and E=mc2 was used to EXPLAIN why large amounts of energy were released during fission. IOW, scientists did not discover atomic powere because of E=mc2; they discovered nuclear power and used E=mc2 to EXPLAIN why it released large amounts of energy.

Furthermore, Einstein was NOT a nuclear scientist, he was well known name and used by nuclear scientists as a "celebrity". All he did was SIGN a letter - drafted by others -to FDR stating we needed a Manhatten Project.

He had nothing to do with actually making the A-bomb or the H-bomb.

Why then the hero worship? Yes, he was a great theoretical scientist but so what?

[sarasota]

Believe I read somewhere that Einstein actually "rode" a light beam to understand it. That's pretty hero-like (if true).

[b2stealth]

Mmm, he come up with theory of relativity???

He actually talked President in to funding Nuke project in 1939 before Germans did it..

He is the smartest man ever lived :)

[xcamel]

The power of the atom overshadowed (and over hyped) the theoretical physicist. Einstein did 10^4 times more to allow man to understand the universe, time, and astrophysics then he ever did for the lousy A-bomb.

[GSlob]

"He is the smartest man ever lived"
Nah. That title belongs to Socrates.

[b2stealth]

---- During his stay at the Patent Office, and in his spare time, he produced much of his remarkable work and in 1908 he was appointed Privatdozent in Berne. In 1909 he became Professor Extraordinary at Zurich, in 1911 Professor of Theoretical Physics at Prague, returning to Zurich in the following year to fill a similar post. In 1914 he was appointed Director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Physical Institute and Professor in the University of Berlin. He became a German citizen in 1914 and remained in Berlin until 1933 when he renounced his citizenship for political reasons and emigrated to America to take the position of Professor of Theoretical Physics at Princeton*. He became a United States citizen in 1940 and retired from his post in 1945. After World War II, Einstein was a leading figure in the World Government Movement, he was offered the Presidency of the State of Israel, which he declined, and he collaborated with Dr. Chaim Weizmann in establishing the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Einstein always appeared to have a clear view of the problems of physics and the determination to solve them. He had a strategy of his own and was able to visualize the main stages on the way to his goal. He regarded his major achievements as mere stepping-stones for the next advance. At the start of his scientific work, Einstein realized the inadequacies of Newtonian mechanics and his special theory of relativity stemmed from an attempt to reconcile the laws of mechanics with the laws of the electromagnetic field. He dealt with classical problems of statistical mechanics and problems in which they were merged with quantum theory: this led to an explanation of the Brownian movement of molecules. He investigated the thermal properties of light with a low radiation density and his observations laid the foundation of the photon theory of light. In his early days in Berlin, Einstein postulated that the correct interpretation of the special theory of relativity must also furnish a theory of gravitation and in 1916 he published his paper on the general theory of relativity. During this time he also contributed to the problems of the theory of radiation and statistical mechanics. In the 1920's, Einstein embarked on the construction of unified field theories, although he continued to work on the probabilistic interpretation of quantum theory, and he persevered with this work in America. He contributed to statistical mechanics by his development of the quantum theory of a monatomic gas and he has also accomplished valuable work in connection with atomic transition probabilities and relativistic cosmology. After his retirement he continued to work towards the unification of the basic concepts of physics, taking the opposite approach, geometrisation, to the majority of physicists. Einstein's researches are, of course, well chronicled and his more important works include Special Theory of Relativity (1905), Relativity (English translations, 1920 and 1950), General Theory of Relativity (1916), Investigations on Theory of Brownian Movement (1926), and The Evolution of Physics (1938). Among his non-scientific works, About Zionism (1930), Why War? (1933), My Philosophy (1934), and Out of My Later Years (1950) are perhaps the most important. Albert Einstein received honorary doctorate degrees in science, medicine and philosophy from many European and American universities. During the 1920's he lectured in Europe, America and the Far East and he was awarded Fellowships or Memberships of all the leading scientific academies throughout the world. He gained numerous awards in recognition of his work, including the Copley Medal of the Royal Society of London in 1925, and the Franklin Medal of the Franklin Institute in 1935. Above: Niels Bohr, developer of the model of the atom, and Einstein

[CFC__VRWC]

"He is the smartest man ever lived"
Nah. That title belongs to Socrates.

This discussion is not complete without mention of Sir Isaac Newton.

[timer]

Yes, when all else fails, go back to Newton, esp his first law which explains the true wave/particle nature of momentum and mass.

[rcocean]

Thanks for posting the letter. Per "The making of the A-bomb":

"He (Szilard) told Einstein of about the experiments and his calculations toward a chain reaction in uranium and graphite. Long afterwords he would recall with surprise that Einstein had not heard of the possibility of a chain reaction. When Szilard mentioned it, Einstein interjected, "I never thought of that".

After going to Dr. Sachs, who suggested they write FDR, Szilard prepared a draft letter to Roosevelt. The letter was in German because Einstein was insecure about his English.

Einstein, Slizard and Sachs then rewrote, revised, and translated the letters into English. They drafted two versions, Einstein signed both and returned them to Sachs and Slizard.

Slizard choose 1 letter, and wanted Charles Lindberg to deliver it to FDR. However, since Lindberg was unavailable, Sachs delivered the letter to FDR.

[rcocean]

Thanks for posting the letter. Per "The making of the A-bomb":

"He (Szilard) told Einstein of about the experiments and his calculations toward a chain reaction in uranium and graphite. Long afterwords he would recall with surprise that Einstein had not heard of the possibility of a chain reaction. When Szilard mentioned it, Einstein interjected, "I never thought of that".

After going to Dr. Sachs, who suggested they write FDR, Szilard prepared a draft letter to Roosevelt. The letter was in German because Einstein was insecure about his English.

Einstein, Slizard and Sachs then rewrote, revised, and translated the letters into English. They drafted two versions, Einstein signed both and returned them to Sachs and Slizard.

Slizard choose 1 letter, and wanted Charles Lindberg to deliver it to FDR. However, since Lindberg was unavailable, Sachs delivered the letter to FDR.

[GSlob]

Socrates was given the title by Apollo the god, in Delphi. All others have their accolades from mere mortals.

[GSlob]

Given that no love was lost between Charles Lindbergh and FDR, this part of the story is less than plausible.

[Prost1]

I prefer Nicolai Telsa, the man who created Lightening...

It is one thing to be a thinker, another to be a thinker and creator.

[rcocean]

This is August 1939, Lindberg didn't start making anti-war speeches until September 1939. Szilard didn't know about the personal dislike FDR had for Lindberg.

Other people that Szilard considered as alternatives:

1) C.T. Compton (then President of MIT)
2) Bernard Baruch (Wall Street Financier and sometime FDR adviser on business matters)

[rcocean]

It surprised me too.

But Richard Rhodes has it all sourced.

[Dead Corpse]

Dunno... he was also a proponent of socialism. Go figure.

As for "smartest man ever"... I don't think so. There are just too many candidates for that title.

[timer]

Ol' Nick died an unknown pauper in a NY hotel in 1943, the pigeons were his only friends, Edison's funeral was attended by many well wishers...why the difference? Ans:theoretical physics vs experimental physics. Tesla was clearly the equal of Einstein, a top-down kinda guy, Edison was a bottom-up kinda guy. The key battle was in the type of generator chosen for the niagara falls hydroelectric dam, Tesla's AC won hands down over Edison's DC system. Also, in 1958 the supreme court ruled that Tesla invented the first radio circuit in the 1890's but was too busy lighting the chicago world's fair to properly develop it at the time. He did do the tower on long island though, a WORLD WIDE radio tower when even local radio towers didn't exist. But he didn't get funded and so the tesla-radio-baby died in the cradle. At EEMF we have the same problem : advanced technology and worthless funding promises...

[SunkenCiv]

"As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear-headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as the result of my research about the atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particles of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter." -- Max Planck

[see also: http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/PlancksConstant.html]

[SunkenCiv]

bad link! Bad, bad link!

http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/PlancksConstant.html

[the bracket got stuck in there by the software]

[MikeD]

Einstein is revered because in one year he published the matter-energy equivalence (E=mc^2), the invariable nature of the speed of light (Special Relativity and all of its daughter products), as well as the defining paper describing the photo-electric effect. The last one won him his only Nobel Prize. No one else has had a better year in the history of physics, and that doesn't even touch his work with General Relativity.

Of course, to be fair, he didn't invent an entirely new branch of mathematics to describe his theories, like Newton, so who can say which is smarter. They're both beyond me...