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Einstein Has Left the Building
Ant writes to tell us of an interesting editorial by John Horgan that is being run by the New York Times asking "will there ever be another Einstein?". The author looks at why Einstein holds such a hallowed position in public opinion and why it will be so hard for any one physicist to attain the same level of fame today. From the article: "The paradoxical answer, Gleick suggested, is that there are so many brilliant physicists alive today that it has become harder for any individual to stand apart from the pack. In other words, our perception of Einstein as a towering figure is, well, relative."
"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
From Wikipedia:
This is pretty obvious. While many people were studying physics while Einstein worked, the mathematical methods they used tended to be relatively primitive. A precocious undergraduate can easily understand the state of physics up to Einstein's first few papers. This is not to say that Einstein wasn't insightful. He certainly was. However, we're now studying the fruits of his insights, and it takes a few years of graduate school to become an expert in even a small field. If there is a next Einstein, I foresee people studying him for years after becoming a Ph.D. before they become "experts."
After all, I am strangely colored.
What about Hawking? You can't tell me many lay people with no interest in science don't at least know of him.
I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
"The paradoxical answer, Gleick suggested, is that there are so many brilliant physicists alive today that it has become harder for any individual to stand apart from the pack. In other words, our perception of Einstein as a towering figure is, well, relative."
There were *many* brilliant physicists in Einstein's time as well.
Einstein is also credited with a huge crossover from the theoretical to the applied aspects of physics. As a population, we tend to see the theoretical side of physics as more complex and intimidating, but the applied side as more down to earth and relevant to our day to day lives.
Einstein's work straddled this line within his lifetime, making him a figure of daunting intellectual prowess and yet still accessable (in some small manner) by the average man. Surely this combination of theory and practice has strengthened his legacy.
More over, Einstein lived at the height of the modernist movement in world history - a time when advances in technology could do no wrong. In the minds of many (and they would be wrong) he single-handedly brought about the revolution in the views society holds on technology. While Einstein is not to be entirely credited or blamed for post-modernism, he is often thought of as the turning point by the public at large.
Information technology, more than any other force, has accelerated the theoretical side of physics away from the applied aspects of the same. We are capable of manipulating mathematics with far greater precision and finess than the physical world we inhabit. As a consequence, it would seem unlikely that any physicist will straddle that line between the theoretical and applied worlds in the near future.
Killfile(TGK)
No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.
Yes, in the past several hundred years, at any given time, there have been brilliant physicists. I've known/worked for some of the best. There are one or two who really stand out in each era of physics, and Einstein overlapped several of these. Newton, Kepler, Galileo, Maxwell, et al are the true greats, and Einstein is in that category.
Its very easy to say today that Einstein's works are simple and obvious. Thats because they are first year teachings for most students today. However, we stand on the shoulders of giants. Someday a lot of things will seem very obvious, and those people who do the hard work of making that so will be worth of comparison with Einstein.
I would argue two points.
First, once you get an iconic person, that's it. The game is up for quite a while. Ever notice how all the caricatures of muscle-types take after Governor Arnold? Or how all psychiatrists take after Freud? This is not because we haven't had people with more muscles (we have) or analysts who have not helped larger numbers of people. When you have an icon, you might as well keep it. It's a reference that everyone already "gets".
Second, I would argue that as time goes on, it becomes harder and harder to dominate a field. Look at da Vinci. He was a brilliant man to be sure. But if he were alive today, he'd never have been able to master so many fields. There is just so much research out there about the most minute aspect of any field that no one would have time to keep up. And why would we idolize the guy worked in one very small subset, when these people of past years could dominate so many fields? In a way, they had it easy. Anything they looked at represented a new area of science much the way that any explorer who sailed from Europe a thousand years ago would have been able to claim a new territory. It's much harder now; I've tried!
Also, for those of you who have read the story, I suppose the article should not have asked "Will there be another Einstein?", but rather "Will there be another ThatGeek?". And no, there won't be as I've already registered the nick.
What are you eating? isItVeg?.
I think a lot of his popularity has to deal with the fact that E=mc^2 is simple enough for anyone to remember. That and his theories were used to create the atomic bomb, ending WWII.
Those 2 things make Einstein much more tangible to the average person. One can remember what he actually did, and see an enormous practical application.
I'm reasonably certain that people around the turn of the last century were also saying similar things and i'm reasonably certain a century into the future the same will be true when they look back at us. I guess one could say maturity would depend on ones perspective.
After the invention of the atomic bomb, governments realized that physicists could actually do something useful. Funding poured in and physics became a business.
A different but similar thing happened to programming in the dotcom boom. The field got flooded with people who were in it for the money and not for the love of the game.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
Part of Einstein's fame probably has a lot to do the the impedending atomic bomb.
That, but also, he was an interesting character. He's got a catchy tagline (E=MC2). He had funny hair.
The fact that he was utterly brilliant, and revolutionized the way we see the world takes a back seat to the fact that your average person sees him as they would a cartoon character. Until we get another person with a comparable combination of brilliance and memorable traits, then no, we won't see "another Einstein."
But that doesn't mean we'll never make any more progress in physics.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
It's funny, because I actually spent quite a long time a while back thinking about this issue. In the end, I would say it's really difficult to give a certain 'yes' or 'no' answer.
On one hand, there is the issue that information that humans possess is increasing at exponential rate, if not faster. At one point in history, you could be a painter, a sculptor, a mathematician, a philosopher, a physicist, among other things, and still be useful to the society in all of those areas. Today however, such thing is unrealistic due to the fact of how deep each area goes, and how much must be learned of the works of those who came before you in order for you to get to the level of being able to make personal contributions.
On the other hand, you do have to remember that a century or two ago, physics was thought to be a "finished" science. As in, many physicists around the world believed that the Newtonian model has given them all that is needed, and most viewed physics as a done deal. We understand how it works, nothing more is left to learn, move along. Then came Einstein and turned the whole thing upside down.
While on my commutes to and from university last semester, I downloaded audio lectures on particle physics. One of the very first things the professor said was "today, most particle physicists believe that we have a solid understanding of what the world is made up of, and that, unlike a few decades ago, we really have gotten to the bottom layer of the universe." He ended the lectures (which were extremely interesting btw) by saying that as good as the standard model of physics is, we still have 23 quantum numbers that are unattainable through mathematics, ideas which defy logic, and a bunch of other theories like string which may also be onto something.
Overall, I think that if any conclusion is to be made about the state of physics today, I would say that no, Einstein hasn't left the building. In my opinion, we are still missing something crucial about the way the world operates, but we may not realize this until advances in other technology areas such as space travel. Individuals still can make great breakthroughs, but because of issues such as the amount of foundational knowledge, the number of people working on the same things, and the money needed for some of the research, it may be more likely that future discoveries will need to be left to teams of scientists, rather than individuals.
I can't say much in regards to Einstein, but I know that it is getting harder to point out musical geniuses, because the bar is constantly being raised. There are thousands of violinists, who are perfectly happy to practice all day to produce perfect performances. Anything less and they simply won't be noticed. I heard a professional musician comment, some years ago, that nobody stands out any more, because so many are at the level of Heifitz.
:)
I played the violin for about 15 years, and had to stop, because for me the strain of a performance + the need for constant practice overshadows the joy received from playing. I now play quite happily at the back of the second violins in an orchestra - room for fun, and mistakes are rarely heard
Anyway, my point is, perhaps something similar is happening in the field of science.
Consciousness is a myth. Trust me.
I'm having trouble parsing this one; if it's radical, it can hardly be common place, no?
XML causes global warming.
Einstein is so famous because pop culture made him famous. There were lots of brilliant physicists back then, and there are many today.
Same with Stephen Hawking. He's famous in pop culture today mostly because of his disability, which fits with the media's love of handicapped geniuses (aside from eccentric looking geniuses, like Einstein).
"Sufferin' succotash."
It's not just a matter of that Einstein is more recent, it's that Newton is wrong. Even though from my understanding Newton's work was a much bigger jump at the time than was Einstein's at his (which is somewhat of a biased view as just yesterday I read most of Feynman's "Six Not-So-Easy Pieces" so am more familiar with the working leading up to special relativity, while I don't know much about the giants Newton stood upon), the fact that its Einstein's, and not Newton's, that marks our best understanding of the universe I think is a major factor in Einstein's fame.
This is, of course, related to the fact that Einstein is more recent, but still deserves mention.
(And on a side note, let me just say that learning about aspects of relativity, even as much as I can, has convinced me that if there is a god, He has quite the sense of humor and creativity.)
Show me modern physics papers that contain math that most people with any scientific or engineering background can understand, and that are just a few pages long.
The unsolved problems that people are working on today are much more complex, so comparing the rates at which they are solved is meaningless.
When I was slogging through my 250 page PhD dissertation, I came across an article about disserations of such famous people as Schroedinger and other physicists of the 1920's - whose entire dissertations were about as long as Section 1.1 of my introduction.
Trying to compare now and then is all but irrelevant.
I think that all this tells us is that society has moved on (ahead) and if you want to achive the same level of fame that you have to work harder at it. For his time, Einstein still had to do a lot. Its not like it was easy. Likewise, its not easy 100 years later to achive the same level of fame. Perhaps Richard Feyman or Carl Sagan came close, but of course neither of them don't have an opera with their name in it (AFAIK).
Not to denigrate Einstein's prodigious achievements but general relativity would have been impossible were it not for Riemann's (and Gauss before him) work setting up differential geometry. Not to mention, the contributions by Lorentz, Minkowski and other contemporaries who we forget in our quest to annoint a scientific messiah. It seems that the public *needs* a quaint ubermensch to worship with rather than accepting the more mundane truth that scientific advances occur from the concerted work of many very bright people.
On a scientific level, had Einstein not existed, someone else would have done the work eventually - the tools and conditions were in place for these discoveries to be made. But on a societal level, it probably would have been necessary to invent him...
The parent post is just another case of "America's youth is going to hell" bitterness (see the comments in this article for more). This one happens to have a "drug companies are evil" twist to it, though; so kudos. Guess what? There are brilliant people working - right now - in graduate school, in high positions in academia, and in industry. Yes, in the United States, as well as many other places in the world. Who do you think designs your cars, your medications, and your operating systems? Who diagnoses your illnesses, designs your buildings, and plans your cities? Trust me, we aren't going to run out of brilliant minds any time soon.
But Einstein is the posterboy of scientific brilliance *because* standard physics of the time had so many blindspots. There has to be some unoccupied intellectual ground in for a super genius to make "a huge and profound leap." In other words, once the wheel has already been invented, it's harder to make so much progress so quickly. When intellectual fields and/or society maintain large blindspots, it's easier for an individual to make significant leaps by seeing what others can't. Maybe today physicists maintain fewer blindspots. If a clone of Einstein came onto the physics scene today, it's not clear that Einstein 2 would be all that noticable. It seems like a lot of brilliant minds are already tackling all the problems within physics, and I have to doubt there's so much room for more "huge and profound leaps."
Back in 1900 there were a few Unexplained Phenomena such as the Michaelson-Morley experiment, spectral lines, what held the positive and negative kinds of matter apart.
In retrospect we realize that these were major problems that required fundamental new theories.
There are also some Unexplained Phenomena today, it's just a question whether these are misinterpreted experiments or something new that existing theory can't explain.
When there comes to be too much unexplained stuff, people start thinking outside the box, and we get another Feynman. Or Einstein.
Duh! I wasn't putting him in the same class as Einstein. I just said that he might come close in terms of how many people know about him. Quick ask someone to name as many scientists as they can. I bet in 5 out of 10 respondants that Carl Sagan and Richard Feyman will be in the list. And I was talking about Scientists in general. Not just physicists.
But of course leave it to someone on Slashdot to nit pick my comments.
Now you (usually) need huge accelerators and expensive satellites to collect fundamental data... and when those things produce readings, many people find out about them simultaneously, and the race is on. We just don't build many of these in a year, and we don't build the stuff that would really show us something exciting, since it would cost too much. So fundamental physicists may be somewhat starved for data, which is why they to off on adventures into this purely abstract mathematical string theory wonderland. Of course, they're a clever lot, and if we let them work on it longer, maybe the will find a way to test it.
Second, why should we expect another Einstein, or Newton? Given that anyone's accomplishments must be measured relative to the common populace, we would expect people of such stature to be rare.
There are many factors that go into what makes someone great. Part of it is certainly being in the right time and place. Another is the social climate. Is Einstein the equal of Newton, or vice versa? That is difficult to say. They lived in completely different times. Could one do the same accomplishments as the other? One common element that appears between the two is that they were both fairly prolific (Newton did calculus, physics, and ironically enough, why light is a wave). I'd be curious if other people could come up with other historical science figure that also had several major findings. Feynman? Turing?
YES, IMHO. Provided we have the same ENVIRONMENT, ECONOMIC and SOCIAL conditions. They seed and stimulate the right individual.
Slashdot = Sarcasm
Nobody has mentioned the late Richard Feynman?
A humoristic and personable genius figure--or at least he comes off as such in his books. Maybe it's all crap--I don't know. I seriously think that his image could bolster the reputation of physicists the world over.
If you use a fourth dimension, then you're moving a square peg _around_ a round hole, because you're displacing it from the space in which the hole exists.
Sorry, kid, your brilliant physics was trumped by your incorrect use of basic vocabulary. Don't get too hopeful about that philosophy degree, eh.
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
I agree to that comment in the article such that we (the applied physics community) are somewhat wrapped with the theoretical clan of Einstein wannabes. Physics back in 1905 was not separated into 2 styles (theoretical & experimental/applied). You created a theory, then a gedanke experiment, then a physical experiment and finally provide an application--doesn't happen currently. In addition, quantum mechanics and following software OOD has completely turned our thought process on its head. From that and the computer, a lot of the other disciplines (Math, Biology, Chemistry and others) are using so many physics-derived concepts that the category "physics" has become blurred aside from pure theoretical studies. Then again, most cultures nowadays are so wrapped up into politics or $profiting$ that the real science is missed to be rediscovered years later--as Einstein found.
I think the next revolutionary discoveries that are "categorized under physics" will either be in Biophysics or non-linear science (aka Chaos Theory). Lots of interesting applications and major shifts in our 'thought processes' are evident in those studies. Cynically, the next Einstein will likely come after we all are convinced that Intelligent Design is fact and Math&Science are not requirements in High School anymore (J/K)--nah, really, there will be another "Einstein" from the TFA's context... in due time.
Sure there is a lot of clever people working on exciting things today, that is stated in the article.
The downside is that there is not sufficient funding to make them work at peak performance, that too is part of the article.
More specifically: researchers spend on average 30 percent of their time seeking grants, that is time that I can easily see would be better spent on something more productive, like you know, research.
As a former reasearcher I can assure you there is a lot of neat stuff in the labs. Lack of funding and fear of litigation is preventing it from reaching the malls. That, however, was not stated in the article.
Einstein, on the other hand, was NOT mathematically gifted by any stretch
That's the most ridiculous thing I've heard in my life. I challenge you to find even one working physicist who agrees with it.