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100 Years of Einstein
spacerabbits writes "A century after Einstein's miracle year, most people still do not understand exactly what it was he did. The Economist tries to elucidate what AE did in a recent article."
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> If you really want to get a handle on what Einstein did and what his work has influenced, I
> would recommend buying The Elegant Universe by Brian Green. Somehow it found it's way onto my
> Amazon wishlist a few years ago (I don't remember putting it there), and my mom bought it for me for
> xmas. I've read about half of it so far and it's amazing stuff. It's about the (super)string theory,
> which essentially ties together Einstein's theory of relativity and quantum physics. I can feel my
> brain get bigger as I read it.
And I would recommend that you also take what Green says about string theory with a grain of salt. While he's a good scientist, he like all string theorists, tend to paste over the cracks in string theory. There is no experimental evidence to support string theory, at the moment it just isn't science. He also tends to handwave away difficulties with multiple theories. He is clearly biased towards string theory, and at points I'd say unreasonably biased.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
it's not that physicists hate Einstein, it's more they hate how people view Einstein. it's mostly because Einstein became the poster-boy for the media about modern physics. as we know, the media tends to simplify things and so it suggests that Einstein did relativity, photoelectric effect, etc. by himself.
given that Newton said he had seen far only because he stood on the shoulders of giants, Einstein is even more indebted to others before and during his time.
look, i'm not saying that he wasn't a remarkable physicist- when i read some of his papers, i do feel like i'm reading something that's very close to 'god'- so clear, so elegant, so beautiful.
yes, i am a physicist. and yes, i do find myself using Einstein's results. i'm glad when it happens, because i *feel* i'm close to reality.