einstein 19thc rotman
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Einstein… John D. Norton
Department of History andPhilosophy of Science
Center for Philosophy of Science
University of Pittsburghhttp://www.pitt.edu
Rotman Institute of PhilosophyMarch 14, 2013
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D e c e m b e r 3 1
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A Well-Deserved Honor 1902-1904 Independent discovery of Gibbs framework of statistical mechanics.
1905Brownian motion, the reality of molecules.Special relativity. E=mc 2.The light quantum
1907-1915 The general theory of relativity
1916 A and B coefficients. Basic principles for LASERs.
1917 Relativistic cosmology.
1924 Bose-Einstein statistics
1919-1955 Attempts at a unified field theory.
1935 EPR: Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen critique of completeness of quantum theory.
…and a lot more.
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Cornelius Lanczos
“…if somebody asked: “Who is thegreatest modern physicist after
Einstein?” the answer would be:Einstein again. And why? Becausealthough the theory of relativity in itself would have established him fameforever, had somebody else discovered
relativity, his other discoveries wouldstill make him the second greatest
physicist of his time.”
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5But his thought lives on...18 April 1955
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Einstein as aCultural Icon
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Advertisement for GMCTerrain SUV in “Sexiest ManAlive” issue of People
Magazine, November 30, 2009.
Einstein is No.7 in Forbesmagazine’s list of top -earning dead celebrities.
$10 million for October 2010 – October 2011.http://www.forbes.com/pictures/mfl45hggm/no-7-albert-einsetin/#gallerycontent Downloaded April 27, 2012
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Huffington Post
May 27, 2010
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Einstein as an Icon among Scientists
“Einstein wasright.”
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Gravity Probe B vindicatesgeodetic and frame dragging
predicted by Einstein’s generaltheory of relativity.
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Neutrinos do not travelfaster than light.
BUT…
Tachyons are compatiblewith special relativity(Einstein’s theory).
They are just odd.
Tachyons are notcompatible with(relativistic) quantumfield theory(not Einstein’s theory).
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BUT…
Einstein’s 1917 cosmologywas not expanding.
Cosmological constant l
(“dark energy’) introduced toenable matter in a staticcosmology.
1918: l “gravely detrimentalto the beauty of the theory.”
1932: l retracted withdiscovery of the expansion of the galaxies.
(to Gamow) his “greatest blunder”
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Historically the termcontaining the “cosmologicalconstant” l was introduced
into the field equations in order to enable us to accounttheoretically for the existenceof a finite mean density in astatic universe.
It now appears that in thedynamical case this end can bereached without theintroduction of l .
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String theory is Einstein’s nightmare ,antithetical to his program:a fundamentally quantum theory on a Minkowski spacetime background.
…fulfillment of AlbertEinstein’s lifelongdream of a Theory of
Everything, uniting thelaws of physics into asingle description…
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BUT…
Einstein was an outspoken critic of standard quantum theory and urgedthat the non-locality of the theorywas an illusion deriving from itsincompleteness.
…coincidentally provesthat Albert Einstein wasright when he thought hewas wrong…
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Albert Einstein, who liked to
make bold claims (oftenwrong), famously said that “if the bee disappears off thesurface of the globe, man wouldhave only four years to live.
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What Einstein has become…
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This Talk
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A proposal that werecalibrate our
understanding of Einstein’s work andachievement.
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Major Parts of Einstein’s…
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…are 19th Century.
science the reality of atomsspecial relativity
methods finding quantageometrizing physics
outlook unificationcausation
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Science
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Science: Reality of Atoms
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19 th CenturyMaxwell- Boltzmann’sstatistical physics.
The behavior of thermal systemsIS explained by their consistingof very many components (atoms,molecules, modes…) that tendtowards the most probable.
Einstein1905 Brownian motion.
The thermal motion of microscopically visible particlescan ONLY be explained if thermalsystems consist of very manymolecules.
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Science: Special Relativity
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19 th CenturyMaxwell- Boltzmann’selectrodynamics.
The first theory to give reliable
results on how things behave whenthey are moving at or near thespeed of light.
Einstein1905 special relativity.
The kinematics that extends up tospeeds near or close to the speedof light.
Einstein extracts the kinematics asan independent theory.
Lorentztransformation isalready “in” the
electrodynamics.
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Methods
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Methods: Constitution of Thermal System
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19 th CenturyEinstein’s method for vindicating a 19 th century result
Fluctuation phenomena reveal thediscrete components ( molecules )that comprise ordinary thermalsystems.
Einstein1905 The light quantum.
Fluctuation phenomena reveal thediscrete components ( quanta ) thatcomprise systems of thermalradiation.
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Einstein1912- 15 General Relativity…
…results when these new geometricand other methods are applied togravity.
Methods: Geometry
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19 th CenturyThe century of new discoveriesin geometry
Non-Euclidean geometry,
projective geometry, Klein’sErlangen Program, group theory,Ricci and Levi- Civita’s absolutedifferential calculus (“tensor calculus”)
Lobachevskygeometry
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Outlook
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Outlook: Unity of Forces
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19 th CenturyUnity of Forces
Light, electricity, magnetism arenot distinct but manifestations of different states of an underlyingelectromagnetic ether.
EinsteinUnified Field Theory
Electromagnetism and gravity are
not distinct but manifestations of different states of an underlyingspacetime geometry (Einstein’s new“ether”).
Aether und Relativitätstheorie. Rede gehalten am 5. Mai 1920 ander Reichs-Universität zu
Leiden.
Faraday’s magnetic
rotation apparatus
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Outlook: Causation
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19 th CenturyCausation is Determinism
"...the laws of the external world were alsotaken to be complete, in the following sense:If the state of the objects is completely givenat a certain time, then their state at any other time is completely determined by the laws of nature. This is just what we mean whenwe speak of 'causality.' Such wasapproximately the framework of the physicalthinking a hundred years ago."
Albert Einstein, "Physics, Philosophy, and ScientificProgress," International Congress of Surgeons,
Cleveland, Ohio, 1950; printed in Physics Today, June2005, pp.46-48.
Probabilities arise fromignorance of the complete state,
just as in Maxwell andBoltzmann’s 19 th c. physics.
EinsteinAgainst the Completenessof Quantum Theory
“The theory yields much, but it hardly
brings us closer to the Old One'ssecrets. I, in any case, am convincedthat He does not play dice.”
“It is hard to sneak a look at God's cards.But that he would choose to play dicewith the world...is something I cannot
believe for a single moment.” To Lanczos, Mar 21 1942
To Born, Dec 4, 1926
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ConclusionThe Bend in the Road
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“belongs equally to both … or … to neither”
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“To ask whether his [Copernicus’] work is really ancient
or modem is rather like asking whether the bendin an otherwise straight road belongs to thesection of road that precedes the bend or to the
portion that comes after it.
From the bend both sections of the road are visible, and itscontinuity is apparent. But viewed from a point before the
bend. the road seems to run straight to the bend and then todisappear; the bend seems the last point in a straight road.And viewed from a point in the next section, after the bend,the road appears to begin at the bend from which it runs
straight on.
The bend belongs equally to both sections, or it belongs to neither.”
T. S. Kuhn, Copernican Revolution , p. 182.
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