George Bernard Shaw and Science…

Photo: Einstein, Lord Rothschild, and Bernard Shaw, at Hotel Savoy, in 1930.

On the evening of 27 October 1930, Einstein spoke at the Savoy Hotel in London for a dinner organized by the British Committee for the Promotion and Economic Welfare of Eastern Jewry. George Bernard Shaw, Lord Rothschild, and H. G. Wells were also there. Einstein said at the end of his discourse: “It rejoices me to see before me Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells, for whose conception of life I have a special feeling of sympathy.” Shaw ended his discourse with ‘My lords, ladies, and gentlemen, I raise my glass to our greatest contemporary: Professor Einstein’. And Einstein replied: ‘I personally thank you for the unforgettable words which you have addressed to my mythical namesake who has made my life so burdensome’ [1].

 

“Science is always wrong,” George Bernard Shaw famously proclaimed in a toast to Albert Einstein. “It never solves a problem without creating 10 more.” (see also [2])

REF:

[1] Einstein lived here, Abraham Pais Link here: http://bookzz.org/book/766740/5c9012

[2] https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1921/einstein-docu.html

Chronicles from Bern: Einstein and the cosmic quest

This beautiful and charming city of Bern occupied a special place in Einstein’s heart and, with all due distances, Bern is in my heart, too. Today, I revisited the Einstein’s museum and rediscovered another fact of this genial, but also, out most complex human being. His failed marriage with Mileva mostly touched me. Einstein’s parents, especially his mother, Pauline Einstein, didn’t like Mileva Maric, because she was a non-Jewish, older girl, from rural Serbia, and, in addition, with a club foot. Pauline Einstein, his mother, sent a series of severe letters to the mother of Mileva, claiming that she was taking advantage of her son… From this turbulent, but the intellectually fertile relationship was born outside the wedlock a girl named Lieserl, born in January 1902. Nobody knows her destiny, possible given for adoption (probably by Maric’ friend Helene Savic). Another possible outcome, according to Times magazine was this one: «And there Lieserl’s life was poignantly short. According to Zackheim, the little girl died at 21 months after a bout of scarlet fever. Zackheim even gives the date of her death–Sept. 15, 1903, when Vojvodina was darkened by a solar eclipse, the sort of celestial ballet between sun and the moon that would later provide the world with the first proof of the correctness of Einstein’s radical new ideas about time and space.»[1]

Maric was a more disciplined student than Einstein, as we can infer from the handwritten notes of both (Maric had a very careful calligraphy, full of detailed information; Einstein had a more careless calligraphy and not so detailed). Then, in 1914 their marriage was near the breakout (and Einstein already writing secret notes to his cousin Elsa) when he wrote a list of conditions to his return back to Mileva.

CONDITIONS

1. You will make sure:
   1. that my clothes and laundry are kept in good order;
   2. that I will receive my three meals regularly in my room;
   3. that my bedroom and study are kept neat, and especially that my desk is left for my use only.
2. You will renounce all personal relations with me insofar as they are not completely necessary for social reasons. Specifically, You will forego:
   1. my sitting at home with you;
   2. my going out or traveling with you.
3. You will obey the following points in your relations with me:
   1. you will not expect any intimacy from me, nor will you reproach me in any way;
   2. you will stop talking to me if I request it;
   3. you will leave my bedroom or study immediately without protest if I request it.
4. You will undertake not to belittle me in front of our children, either through words or behavior.

She stays a few more month with Albert before moving to Zürich with their two children. The marriage continued (although they were effectively far apart) for more 11 years, with the divorce taking place in 1919. Einstein married Elsa 4-5 months later in the same year. They agreed that Maric was to receive the monetary award of the Nobel Prize if he ever won one… But it was written in the stars and, in 1921, Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics and the prize money was given to Maric. After the divorce, life was difficult for Maric, giving lessons to compliment her salary. But it was in 1930 that her life suffered a devastating blow when her son Eduard suffered a mental breakdown. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia and spent the rest of his life in mental institutions. Hans Albert, her other son, moved to the United States with his family in 1938, joined the faculty of the University of California in 1947, but Albert and Hans were estranged to each other. Einstein loved flirting and had several female admirers with whom he exchanges letters. When the Nazis took power in the 1930’s, Einstein advised Mileva to return to Yugoslavia, under the suppositions that were safer. Mileva didn’t follow Albert advice and that’s was her lucky choice because soon the country was occupied by the Nazis…

As someone said, Einstein “a genius, secular saint, pacifist, humanitarian, indifferent parent, jokester, poet, dreamer, musician, world saver, father of the bomb, loyal friend, flirt, and fraud?” [2] He didn’t believe in Quantum Mechanics, but he was probably the superposition of all these qualities…

REFS.

[1] Times magazine, http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,31490,00.html

(«Michele Zackheim, 58, a Greenwich Village painter turned writer, argues that the toddler was severely retarded and probably had Down syndrome.»)

[2] Discovery Magazine; http://discovermagazine.com/2004/sep/a-tangled-life

 

Henri Bergson: l’intellectuel engagé

It is rarely referred the Bergson and Einstein debate that took place on April, 6, 1922, at the venerable institution Société Française de Philosophie. For some, it was the great debate of 20th century, for others it passed unnoticed. Bergson was 63 years old, a famous philosophe with fame, prestige and influence; Einstein was 43 years old. For about an half-hour, Bergson spoke about his view on Relativity; Einstein spoke in less than one minute, including in his short answer the killing sentence: “Il n’y a donc pas un temps des philosophes.”

Apparently, this was the date where Science separated from all the rest, from philosophy. Bergson, invigorated by this debate, wrote an important book “Duration and Simultaneity” [1] (which includes mathematical equations), and Einstein later told that Bergson hadn’t understood him. For Bergson, it was the concept of “duration” that was not properly represented in the Theory of Relativity, that anyway, according to Bergson, couldn’t be grasped quantitatively. It was shocking at the time the concept of “time dilation”. “Bergson became aware that the moment one attempted to measure a moment, it would be gone: one measures an immobile, complete line, whereas time is mobile and incomplete. For the individual, time may speed up or slow down, whereas, for science, it would remain the same.” (Ref.2-Wikipedia).

Probably, this debate needs further discussion by philosophers and physicists, but the fact is that the the president of the Nobel Committee explained that although “most discussion centers on his theory of relativity,” it did not merit, because “It will be no secret that the famous philosopher Bergson in Paris has challenged this theory.” And why this statement? Like a mystical revenge, because Bergson, “had shown that relativity “pertains to epistemology” rather than to physics—and so it “has therefore been the subject of lively debate in philosophical circles.”(See Ref[3]-Jimena Canales, Princeton University Press, 2015)…

«Bergson’s international reputation grew to be greater than ever by the time Germany occupied France at the beginning of World War II. He had won acclaim as a writer and philosopher, having been awarded the 1927 Nobel Prize in Literature and been the recipient of several honorary degrees. By this time he was quite old and infirm, but his symbolic potential as a French citizen, as an intellectual, and as someone with a Jewish background was immeasurable. No one seems to have understood this better than Bergson himself. Technically, he was required by the Nazi occupiers to register as a Je. He might have been then desired baptism into the Catholic Church. Instead, he opted to self-identify as a Jew, in this way using his celebrity to draw attention to the injustices visited upon French Jews by their Nazi occupiers. This act of solidarity with the most vulnerable segment of French society living under German occupation was the final service he performed for his country before he died, and it illustrates how thoroughly Bergson inhabited the role of a public intellectual.» – Jonathan Lavery, in Ideas Under Fire: Historical Studies of Philosophy and Science in Adversity (Ed Jonathan Allen Lavery, Louis Groarke, William Sweet.Ref[4]

REFERENCES:

Ref.[1] – Henri Bergson, “Duration and Simultaneity”

Ref.[2] – Henri Bergson, Wikipedia

Ref.[3] – Jimena Canales, Princeton University Press, 2015), 2

Ref.[4] – Ideas Under Fire: Historical Studies of Philosophy and Science in Adversity (Ed Jonathan Allen Lavery, Louis Groarke, William Sweet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Einstein and Fantova: one famous couple of Princeton…

Einstein and Fantova met in 1929, in Germany, during the Fanta Salon where among the guests were Kafka. Running away from Nazi Germany, Einstein in 1933 and Fantova in 1939, Fantova become Einstein’s assistant to his personal library. Fantova attempted to publish her notes during her lifetime without success, but were published a few years ago when scholars at Princeton started to torganize the story of historical couples associated to the university. Among interesting quotes:

“He claims he is totally stupid,” writes Fantova, “that he has always thought so, and that only once in a while was he able to accomplish something.”

Einstein and Fantova, sailing in Lake Carnegie.

They both together spent many enjoyable hours on Lake Carnegie. “Seldom did I see him so gay and in so light a mood as in this strangely primitive little boat.”

 

He was also concerned about his reputation in the scientific world, where by the time of his death attention had moved away from his theory of relativity.

“The physicists say that I am a mathematician, and the mathematicians say that I am a physicist,” he told Fantova. “I am a completely isolated man and though everybody knows me, there are very few people who really know me.”

Refs:

[1] – Princeton-Weekly bulletin: https://www.princeton.edu/pr/pwb/04/0426/

“Thinking is to man what flying is to birds”: Eintein’s note

And, like a message sent in his Time-Machine, it was rediscovered last year, locked in a school safe at Colégio Anchieta in Porto Alegre, Brazil, a letter written by Albert Einstein to students of this same college. The typed note, written in German is signed by himself.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3093810/Thinking-man-flying-birds-Incredible-unseen-letter-Albert-Einstein-offering-advice-students-rediscovered-65-years.html#ixzz4E0til6dD
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‘He who knows the joy of understanding has gained an infallible friend for life.

‘Thinking is to man what flying is to birds. Don’t follow the example of the chicken when you could be a lark.’

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3093810/Thinking-man-flying-birds-Incredible-unseen-letter-Albert-Einstein-offering-advice-students-rediscovered-65-years.html#ixzz4E0tGDWyA
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Einstein lived here…

Einstein went into this same post office to send his letters. This post office is located a few dozen meters when we walk down kramgasse, where he have rent a small but cosy apartment. Contrary to common knowledge, his wife Maric was very demanding and during their period in Bern she pressed Einstein to change of apartment, which they did about… ten times, staying finally at the fine and chic apartment at Kramgasse, where rich people live nowadays. Much later, it was these registered letters that allowed us to know during which period of time effectively he had lived in Bern.

The Post-Office

I can now understand why Einstein felt well in this town. Because every time I come here, I feel good as well. In fact, I feel as I have been living here for centuries. The people are in general very polite, maybe because the city is very wealthy despite we see altogether some poorness.

Beyond control?…

«Politically violent individuals have also always been a part of society, and their activities have been largely contained by the police or militar. Today, things are different. These individuals have discovered a political lever which will (italics) move the System and they have begun exercising it to effect. The lever is terrorism: the use of coercive intimidation for political motives. Terrorism is not new, but it has undergone refinement; it is no longer the blunt instrument that it used to be.» – Michael Flood, in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, October 1976.

This scenery is quite actual but we may say that people are in general wishing peace, if they seek violence there are reasons, the major ones are poverty and ignorance. Governments should attack terrorism not on their ground (but out of their ground, fighting poverty and enhancing the quality of education)…It is a question of common sense, on their grounds, governments, normal people will always loose… Fighting on their grounds, strengthen terrorism. It seems basic strategy that any boxeur or martial arts fighter knows. Einstein once wrote (my translation) «All that man ignores does not exist for him. So the universe of each one is reduced to its knowledge.»

The doubt…

«Now you think that I am looking back at my life’s work with calm satisfaction. But, on closer look, it is quite diferent. There is not a single concept of which I am convinced that it will stand firm and I am not sure if I was on the right track after all» – Albert Einstein, on his 70th birthday…

 

Chronicles from Bern

Tags

Bern, Einstein, Switzerland

Every time I sit to start writing my chronicle I have a different excuse to be diverted from that mission, but what it bothers me a little is the fact that, each time I attempt to start it, I have in my mind a different reason. For example, right now I remember my father had a strong wish to travel and to know other countries and cultures and in a certain way (besides running away from WWII) this drove him to the faraway East Africa. One day, when he was already old and had returned back to his motherland with the family, he said to me: «Bring me with you in your suitcase…» You know, the importance of a father is huge for a man, because if at the beginning of our lives is our mother that counts to you, that means everything to you, and provides you with milk, cheese, meat and pizzas, when we become a matured man, then what gains huge importance is our father, his character and soul that dictates our future and wins our sympathy (notwithstanding our perennial love for our mother)…

So, several motives can drive you out of your country… One of them is basic curiosity, the other, a little more ornate, is an inner driving force that we cannot understand. When I listen the call of this mysterious voice, I start to organize my suitcase like a zombie and go, yes, it’s true, I feel like a bird looking for the place where he dies, or start another phase of his life. In my case I am looking for food for thought. Your family will not understand really what is going on, but I promise to stay connected anyway with them, talking occasionally via Skype.

Now, you may ask: and what about Bern, Switzerland? Well, these notes will come by pretty soon. High spirits!

Einstein lived at Kramgasse in a very small apartment with Maric. At the end of the avenue we found a medieval tower built at the XIII century that certainly helped with Time the third officer at the Bureau des Brevets, Herr Albert Einstein.

 

The voice of Albert Einstein

Come hear the great genius of Theoretical Physics, despite all the criticisms that can be filed against him …

http://sploid.gizmodo.com/listening-to-this-incredible-recording-of-einstein-will-1464557213

Einstein was often invited to play violin.

Einstein still young student.