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    Einstein's Essays in Science
    Einstein's Essays in Science
    Einstein's Essays in Science
    Ebook114 pages2 hours

    Einstein's Essays in Science

    By Albert Einstein

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    About this ebook

    His name is synonymous with "genius," but these essays by the renowned physicist and scholar are accessible to any reader. In addition to outlining the core of relativity theory in everyday language, Albert Einstein presents fascinating discussions of other scientific fields to which he made significant contributions. The Nobel Laureate also profiles some of history's most influential physicists, upon whose studies his own work was based.
    Assembled during Einstein's lifetime from his speeches and essays, this book marks the first presentation to the wider world of the scientist's accomplishments in the field of abstract physics. Along with relativity theory, these articles examine the methods of theoretical physics, principles of research, and the concept of scientific truth. Einstein's speeches to audiences at Columbia University and the Prussian Academy of Science appear here, along with his insightful observations on such giants of science as Johannes Kepler, Sir Isaac Newton, James Clerk Maxwell, Niels Bohr, Max Planck, and others.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDover Publications
    Release dateJan 9, 2013
    ISBN9780486163529
    Einstein's Essays in Science
    Author

    Albert Einstein

    Albert Einstein was a German mathematician and physicist who developed the special and general theories of relativity. In 1921, he won the Nobel Prize for physics for his explanation of the photoelectric effect. His work also had a major impact on the development of atomic energy. In his later years, Einstein focused on unified field theory.

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    • 4/5
      In this book Einstein discusses his motive and philosophical guidance in forming relativity theory and some other topics. It is not a good book to learn about the relativity theories themselves. It could be said to be concerned with the philosophy of relativity, which of course fits the fact that it was published as part of the Philosophical Library. The primary motivation for Einstein was a belief in the simplicity and unity of nature and natural laws. He searched for the simplicist explanation of the reality that we see around us. Simplicity in this context does not mean easy to calculate, but means the logical scheme with the least axioms. This view is expressed very clearly in this book. For Einstein the distinguishing advantage of the theories of relativity is their logical completeness, not the accuracy of their predictions or the ease of calculation of the predictions. One of his motivations for the general theory of relativity was to explain by one axiom the identity of gravitational and inertial mass. In one essay, the nature of reality is discussed. In view of Mermin's article in the May 2010 issue of Physics Today, questioning the reality of fields, this essay is of special interest. If he were still alive, Einstein would surely have joined in the chorus of critical letters, since in this book (probably written early in the 20th century) he affirms his firm belief in the reality of electromagnetic fields even though the ether played no role in forming the fields. His expectation of the developement of physics was that all observed phenomena would be expressed as fields, ie., solutions of partial differential equations without singularities, with particles being clumps of high intensity fields. Said in this way, Einstein's goal is presently being approached with fields being the Lagrangian fields of QED, but Einstein went further than this and expected that only the values of metric field and another field describing the property of parellel direcrtions would be needed. This attempt to explain fields and particles in term of just these two fields as an clearly an example of the search for logical simplicity. The need for the parallel field has been obviated by modern relativity theory since this characteristic has been supplied by the concept of parallel transport which in turn comes from the covariant deravitive and this in turn comes from the derivatives of the metric field. Although it seems that we are very close to realizing "Einstein's dream" with just one basic field, it has been found too difficult to close the gap in a mathematically consistent way, but this story may not be over. Einstein gives a good description of his thought processes in coming to the general theory. The first step was the equivalence principle: that the phenomena of gravitation was equivalent to an acceleration of the coordinate system. This brought in the idea of a nonlinear transformation of coordinates, a problem, since this was in conflict with the conept of a coordinate as a physical entity. The equivalence principle also brought in another problem since according to special relativity the mass of a body depends on its energy and if gravity was a force proportional to mass, bodies of different energy content could not fall at the same rate. The common solution was Riemann geometry where the metric was also changed by a transformation of coordinates with physical reality being only the combination of a coordinate system with a metric, and where the path of a freely moving body could be given by a geodesic in the Riemann space with that metric, thus giving up the idea of a force of gravity. The concept of massive body being the origin of a force was replaced by showing that the paths of bodies responding to gravitation were determined by properties of space (curvature as expressed by the metric) through which they passed which in turn were determined by the surrounding distribution of matter and/or energy (Einstein field equations). The belief in fundamental logical simplicity was almost surely the fundamental reason why Einstein was upset by quantum mechanics (which has no logical connection to relativity theory). This situation is best described by assuming the relation between relativity theory and quantum theory as their being connected by a black box. Some say we have no need to know what is in the box because the two theories together describe reality as we know it. From this book it is clear that Einstein would say we need to know what is in that box.
    • 4/5
      Who says you can't judge a book by its cover? I haven't read this one yet, but it looks really interesting. Some of Einstein's speeches and papers, given on various topics, were gathered together in 1934 and published in book form as "The World As I See It." This little volume is a reprint of just the science topics from that book. According to the dust jacket, the central core of the Theory of Relativity is explained in clear language accessible to any interested reader. Einstein also holds forth on the principles of research, the nature of scientific truth, and the method of theoretical physicsHe also offers acute analyses and appreciation of the work of such giants as Johannes Kepler, Isaac Newton, Clerk Maxwell, and Niels Bohr. In short, the book offers a rare look into one of the greatest minds of the 20th century. I'm looking forward to reading it.

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    Einstein's Essays in Science - Albert Einstein

    15

    PRINCIPLES OF RESEARCH

    IN THE temple of Science are many mansions, and various indeed are they that dwell therein and the motives that have led them thither. Many take to science out of a joyful sense of superior intellectual power; science is their own special sport to which they look for vivid experience and the satisfaction of ambition; many others are to be found in the temple who have offered the products of their brains on this altar for purely utilitarian purposes. Were an angel of the Lord to come and drive all the people belonging to these two categories out of the temple, it would be noticeably emptier, but there would still be some men, of both present and past times, left inside. Our Planck is one of them, and that is why we love him.

    I am quite aware that we have just now light-heartedly expelled in imagination many excellent men who are largely, perhaps chiefly, responsible for the building of the temple of Science; and in many cases our angel would find it a pretty ticklish job to decide. But of one thing I feel sure: if the types we have just expelled were the only types there were, the temple would never have existed, any more than one can have a wood consisting of nothing but creepers. For these people any sphere of human activity will do, if it comes to a point; whether they become officers, tradesmen or scientists depends on circumstances. Now let us have another look at those who have found favor with the angel. Most of them are somewhat odd, uncommunicative, solitary fellows, really less like each other, in spite of these common characteristics, than the hosts of the rejected. What has brought them to the temple? That is a difficult question and no single answer will cover it. To begin with I believe with Schopenhauer that one of the strongest motives that lead men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the fetters of one’s own ever shifting desires. A finely tempered nature longs to escape from personal life into the world of objective perception and thought; this desire may be compared with the townsman’s irresistible longing to escape from his noisy, cramped surroundings into the silence of high mountains, where the eye ranges freely through the still, pure air and fondly traces out the restful contours apparently built for eternity. With this negative motive there goes a personal one. Man tries to make for himself in the fashion that suits him best a simplified and intelligible picture of the world; he then tries to some extent to substitute this cosmos of his for the world of experience, and thus to overcome it. This is what the painter, the poet, the speculative philosopher and the natural scientist do, each in his own fashion. He makes this cosmos and its construction the pivot of his emotional life, in order to find in this way the peace and security which he cannot find in the narrow whirlpool of personal experience.

    What place does the theoretical physicist’s picture of the world occupy among all these possible pictures? It demands the highest possible standard of rigorous precision in the description of relations, such as only the use of mathematical language can give. In regard to his subject matter, on the other hand, the physicist has to limit himself very severely: he must content himself with describing the most simple events which can be brought within the domain of our experience; all events of a more complex order are beyond the power of the human intellect to reconstruct with the subtle accuracy and logical perfection which the theoretical physicist demands. Supreme purity, clarity and certainty at the cost of completeness. But what can be the attraction of getting to know such a tiny section of nature thoroughly, while one leaves everything subtler and more complex shyly and timidly alone? Does the product of such a modest effort deserve to be called by the proud name of a theory of the Universe?

    In my belief the name is justified; for the general laws on which the structure of theoretical physics is based claim to be valid for any natural phenomenon whatsoever. With them, it ought to be possible to arrive at the description, that is to say, the theory, of every natural process, including life, by means of pure deduction, if that process of deduction were not far beyond the capacity of the human intellect. The physicist’s renunciation of completeness for his cosmos is therefore not a matter of fundamental principle.

    The supreme task of the physicist is to arrive at those universal elementary laws from which the cosmos can be built up by pure deduction. There is no logical path to these laws; only intuition, resting on sympathetic understanding of experience, can reach them. In this methodological uncertainty, one might suppose that there were any number of possible systems of theoretical physics all with an equal amount to be said for them; and this opinion is no doubt correct, theoretically. But evolution has shown that at any given moment, out of all conceivable constructions, a single one has always proved itself absolutely superior to all the rest. Nobody who has really gone deeply into the matter will deny that in practice the world of phenomena uniquely determines the theoretical system, in spite of the fact that there is no logical bridge between phenomena and their theoretical principles; this is what Leibnitz described so happily as a pre-established harmony. Physicists often accuse epistemologists of not paying sufficient attention to this fact. Here, it seems to me, lie the roots of the controversy carried on some years ago between Mach and Planck.

    The longing to behold this pre-established harmony is the source of the inexhaustible patience and endurance with which Planck has devoted himself, as we see, to the most general problems of our science, refusing to let himself be diverted to more grateful and more easily attained ends. I have often heard colleagues try to attribute this attitude of his to extraordinary will-power and discipline—wrongly, in my opinion. The state of mind which enables a man to do work of this kind is akin to that of the religious worshiper or the lover; the daily effort comes from no deliberate intention or program, but straight from the heart. There he sits, our beloved Planck, and smiles inside himself at my childish playing-about with the lantern of Diogenes. Our affection for him needs no threadbare explanation. May the love of science continue to illumine his path in the future and lead him to the solution of the most important problem in present-day physics, which he has himself posed and done so much to solve. May he succeed in uniting the quantum theory and electro-dynamics in a single logical system.

    (Address on the occasion of Max Planck’s sixtieth birthday delivered at the Physical Society in Berlin)

    INAUGURAL ADDRESS TO THE PRUSSIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES (1914)

    Gentlemen,

    First of all, I have to thank you most heartily for conferring the greatest benefit on me that anybody can confer on a man like myself. By electing me to your Academy you have freed me from the distractions and cares of a professional life and so made it possible for me to devote myself entirely to scientific studies. I beg that you will continue to believe in my gratitude and my industry even when my efforts seem to you to yield but a poor result.

    Perhaps I may be allowed a propos of this to make a few general remarks on the relation of my sphere of activity, which is theoretical physics, towards experimental physics. A mathematician friend of mine said to me the other day half in jest: The mathematician can do a lot of things, but never what you happen to want him to do just at the moment. Much the same often applies to the theoretical physicist when the experimental physicist calls him in. What is the reason for this peculiar lack of adaptability?

    The theorist’s method involves his

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