[I had written this article in article earlier this year, for the souvenir of the 42nd Reunion of the Physics Department of my university.]
What does a genius look like? With pictures of Einstein at our disposal, this question has been rather easy to answer for the past hundred years or so. We think we know what makes a genius: an apparently unorthodox “brilliance” coupled with myriad eccentricities – or in other words, a madman who got lucky. We often mistake complicated for complex and the notion that Einstein’s achievements are profound because of their seeming indecipherability is so widespread that it has become absolutely essential to rescue Einstein from the tag of “genius”. Otherwise, how do we distinguish between Einstein and the kind of “genius” who philosophises about space, time, existence, human condition and whatnot in a state of intoxication? (It is not uncommon, even in the second decade of the 21st century, to find Einstein equated to that other sort of “genius”, even in many “reputed” quarters.) Why then does Einstein’s work deserve our respect? The answer is not very difficult to understand at all.
In 1905, arguably the most sacred year in the history of physics, Einstein published four papers (known as the Annus mirabilis papers) which would change the way we look at physics. It is often emphasised that Einstein shook the very foundation of all that went before him. What almost invariably goes unmentioned is the fact that his new foundation was based on the old one. It is often claimed that Einstein introduced the principle of relativity in physics with his special theory of relativity. This is laughably wrong. The principle of relativity was a cornerstone even in Newtonian mechanics, which went by the name of Galilean relativity. In fact, special relativity had to be formulated because the principle of relativity was threatened. In the words of Steven Weinberg, “the principle of relativity was not originated by the special theory of relativity, but rather restored by it”. Many think that Einstein’s theory tells us that everything is relative and tend to apply this ill-defined (also completely false) notion to different fields, usually with disastrous consequences. If special relativity tells us anything, it is the absoluteness of physical laws which retain the same form for all observers moving with uniform velocity with respect to one another.
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| Most Distant Gravitational Lens J1000+0221 [Credit: NASA, ESA, and A. van der Wel (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy)] |
One Hundred Years of Exactitude
A look at the scientific method in the centenary year of Einstein’s general relativity
What does a genius look like? With pictures of Einstein at our disposal, this question has been rather easy to answer for the past hundred years or so. We think we know what makes a genius: an apparently unorthodox “brilliance” coupled with myriad eccentricities – or in other words, a madman who got lucky. We often mistake complicated for complex and the notion that Einstein’s achievements are profound because of their seeming indecipherability is so widespread that it has become absolutely essential to rescue Einstein from the tag of “genius”. Otherwise, how do we distinguish between Einstein and the kind of “genius” who philosophises about space, time, existence, human condition and whatnot in a state of intoxication? (It is not uncommon, even in the second decade of the 21st century, to find Einstein equated to that other sort of “genius”, even in many “reputed” quarters.) Why then does Einstein’s work deserve our respect? The answer is not very difficult to understand at all.
In 1905, arguably the most sacred year in the history of physics, Einstein published four papers (known as the Annus mirabilis papers) which would change the way we look at physics. It is often emphasised that Einstein shook the very foundation of all that went before him. What almost invariably goes unmentioned is the fact that his new foundation was based on the old one. It is often claimed that Einstein introduced the principle of relativity in physics with his special theory of relativity. This is laughably wrong. The principle of relativity was a cornerstone even in Newtonian mechanics, which went by the name of Galilean relativity. In fact, special relativity had to be formulated because the principle of relativity was threatened. In the words of Steven Weinberg, “the principle of relativity was not originated by the special theory of relativity, but rather restored by it”. Many think that Einstein’s theory tells us that everything is relative and tend to apply this ill-defined (also completely false) notion to different fields, usually with disastrous consequences. If special relativity tells us anything, it is the absoluteness of physical laws which retain the same form for all observers moving with uniform velocity with respect to one another.
