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2
Jan

32

Einstein versus Newton debate

By admin | Filed in Uncategorized

In 2005, to mark the celebrations for Einstein year (marking the 100th anniversary of the publication of Einstein’s miracle year papers) The Royal Society held a poll on Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton’s contributions to science and to humankind and invited votes from both the public and fellows of the Royal Society.
The culmination was a debate held at the Royal Society and the announcement of the results. Follow this link to view the debate.
Jim Al-Khalili, an Iraqi-born British theoretical physicist, author and broadcaster and who is currently Professor of Theoretical Physics and Chair in the Public Engagement in Science at the University of Surrey supported Albert Einstein in the debate. Below are his reasons for nominating Einstein as the winner of the debate. Einstein provided:
• Mathematical proof that atoms exist. Until then scientists were till arguing over their existence.
• Proof that light was lumpy, made of small particles we call photons. It launched quantum theory. Without this work we wouldn’t have solar panels
• Two papers on special relativity giving us a new view of reality. Without relativity we could not study the building blocks of matter i.e subatomic particles
• An explanation as to why the sky is blue
• In 1915 the General Theory of Relativity, which led to a whole new field of science called cosmology and to black holes, the big bang and parallel universes
• Proof of the theory behind the laser, leading to CD’s, DVD’s.

The results? Sadly, Isaac Newton was the winner, but then with the debate being hosted by The Royal Society, Sir Isaac’s old stamping ground the result is hardly surprising.
A total of 1363 members of the public voted online and 345 Royal Society scientists responded to an email questionnaire.
The results showed Newton to be the winner on all counts, although opinion was much closer on the overall contribution to humankind. When asked who made the bigger overall contribution to science the public voted 61.8% for Newton and 38.2% for Einstein and the scientists voted 86.2% for Newton and 13.8% for Einstein.
When asked who made the bigger positive contribution to humankind the public voted extremely closely with 50.1% for Newton and 49.9% for Einstein and the scientists voted 60.9% for Newton and 39.1% for Einstein.
However, viewing the debate reveals that in the audience on the night, the debate swayed many who watched. A straw poll was taken at the beginning and the end and although there were no numbers it appeared certain that the numbers voting for Einstein were greatly increased at the end. For me this highlights that when the arguments for Einstein are actually heard, it causes a much greater acknowledgment of his contributions and influence. Everyone has heard of Einstein, but they don’t really appreciate his work and its influence, they just know the sound bites.
My hope is that this blog and Einstein day will help to correct such perceptions.
I like Professor Al-Khalili’s arguments. My vote is always for good old Albert.

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14
Oct

11

Einstein’s God

By admin | Filed in Uncategorized

Albert Einstein is back in the news. This week a letter he wrote in 1954 to the Jewish philosopher Eric B. Gutkind is to be auctioned on eBay with a reserve price of $3,000,000. The interest in the letter and its price are proof, if any was needed, of the continuing fame of Einstein. However, it is the subject that has got a lot of people interested and many hot under the collar. Einstein and God make good copy and seem to have stoked up some considerable hostility about Einstein, because his letter appears to deny the existence of God. Some of the key passages are set out in full below.

What does all this say about Einstein’s sense and view of God and religion? It is much more complex than simply saying Einstein is a non-believer in God. His relationship with God and organized religion was an uneasy one.

If one takes the traditional understanding of God, then Einstein was an atheist and he thought religions themselves destructive because of their reliance on fate. However, he often referred to and used the term God. So what did he mean by God? A good place to start is an article by Corey S. Powell in My Einstein.
With the General Theory of Relativity, Einstein, more than any person before him determined the scope of natural law and thus forever changed our relationship with the universe. Unlike all previous concepts of the universe there is no split between heaven and earth (even Isaac Newton described absolute space as the “sensorium of God”).

With Einstein, science’s authority is total, the universe is a total thing governed by one set of rules. His cosmos leaves no room for heaven, no place where the rules of physics do not apply and so he not only redefines our relationship with the universe, but also with God. However, Einstein found a religious interpretation in this deep scientific order. He came to regard physical law itself as divine. In this he followed the philosophy of Baruch Spinoza, Einstein said: ‘I believe in Spinoza’s God who reveals himself in the harmony of all that exists, not in God who concerns himself with the fate and actions of human beings’.

His use of the term God was not symbolic, but an acknowledgment that a universal theory of physics has theological implication. Einstein believed God was the ultimate manifestation of the beauty and order of his scientific theories. He often described this as a “cosmic religious feeling”. There may be no deity in Einstein’s universe, but there was a cosmic connection based on understanding the rules of reality.

Of all of Albert Einstein’s legacies, the possibility of a new religious sensibility is the least explored and understood. Perhaps the appearance of this letter and interest in its auction is a good time to properly evaluate this long ignored aspect of his work.

Extracts from the letter

I read a great deal in the last days of your book, and thank you very much for sending it to me. What especially struck me about it was this. With regard to the factual attitude to life and to the human community we have a great deal in common.

… The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. These subtilised interpretations are highly manifold according to their nature and have almost nothing to do with the original text. For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are also no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything ‘chosen’ about them.

In general I find it painful that you claim a privileged position and try to defend it by two walls of pride, an external one as a man and an internal one as a Jew. As a man you claim, so to speak, a dispensation from causality otherwise accepted, as a Jew the privilege of monotheism. But a limited causality is no longer a causality at all, as our wonderful Spinoza recognized with all incision, probably as the first one. And the animistic interpretations of the religions of nature are in principle not annulled by monopolization. With such walls we can only attain a certain self-deception, but our moral efforts are not furthered by them. On the contrary.

Now that I have quite openly stated our differences in intellectual convictions it is still clear to me that we are quite close to each other in essential things, i.e; in our evaluations of human behavior. What separates us are only intellectual ‘props’ and ‘rationalization’ in Freud’s language. Therefore I think that we would understand each other quite well if we talked about concrete things.

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23
Sep

64

Two Fusion Futures

By admin | Filed in Uncategorized

Fusion is in the news. Two recent events have outlined a future in which Nuclear Fusion may be central to great leaps forward in human development.

These are, of course, gifts of Albert Einstein. We would have no understanding of the Fusion process without his fundamental contribution of E=mc2. It is the formula that explains the process whereby the fusion of elements releases energy. In the case of stars, of which our sun is an average example, it is the fusion of protons that powers them. Fusion will have a very important part to play in our futures and as the two examples below show, that future moves ever closer.

Energy. This is a subject that has appeared on this blog before. For many, Fusion power has been a cherished dream, for others a joke forever out of our grasp. If it works, Nuclear fusion promises near limitless, pollution free, cheap energy that would power humanity and human development for many centuries. It would be one of the greatest and most fundamental steps our civilisation has taken or is likely to take. Our society is an energy society and if it is to last and flourish, an alternative to solid fuel energy is a necessary requirement. Fusion offers our very future if it can be made to work.

We are a step closer. In France, construction is under way of Iter, an experimental Nuclear Fusion reactor to determine the viability of Fusion on a generating level. It is due to start operating in 2020. The sun’s process of fusion of protons is too difficult a process, so it will fuse deuterium and tritium, which are heavier particles and will make the easier. If there is a viable generating system then it is proposed to have a fully functioning generator by 2030.

Intersteller Travel. Texas has recently hosted The 100 year star-ship Symposium, an event backed by both NASA and The pentagon. The symposiums mission is to launch a spaceflight to another star system within 100 years. This is a huge undertaking. To put the task into context, our nearest star is 4.2 light years away. Voyager 1, which is set to leave our solar system, travelling at 38000 mph would take 75000 years to get there. So, a much, much faster propulsion system would be required. A leading candidate and recognised as such, would be a Fusion engine. There has been some considerable work on the feasibility of such an engine. If scientific and engineering progress continues at it’s present rate there is no reason why a Fusion engine could not be built and literally carry us to the stars. 

There we have it. More proof, if any was really needed, about how the work of Albert Einstein carries within it the seeds of our future.

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9
Sep

35

Albert Einstein and driverless cars

By admin | Filed in Uncategorized

What has Albert Einstein got to do with futuristic driverless cars?

Quite a lot actually.

How would a driverless car work? The most important element is a reliance on GPS. It allows on board computers to accurately locate the car to within just a few feet. Without this accuracy it would be impossible to automatically determine where the car is on the road. It would be coupled by radar on board to avoid other vehicles.

The GPS system is a marvel of modern technology. Originally it was developed by the US military in order to guide ICBM missiles. The system is still operated by the military from an air base deep in Colarodo, where the 32 satellites that form the system are controlled.

And what has this to do with Albert Einstein? GPS simply wouldn’t work without the General Theory of Relativity. Time moves quicker where the satellites circle than on earth and accurate time is required to synchronise the whole system.

That would not be his only contribution. At the heart of any system would be computers making the whole thing work. The computer is reliant on the transistor, which could not be understood with Quantum Theory. Einstein lies at the centre of the creation of Quantum Theory.

Driverless cars may not be the most important of future technology, but imagine all you could be doing in the car whilst it drives itself?

Another reason to thank Einstein and to marvel at his importance to our world and futures.

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15
Jul

57

Einstein and Higgs-boson

By admin | Filed in Uncategorized

Suddenly Big Science is leading the news. The announcement of the discovery of a Higgs-boson like particle at the Hadron collider has TV news, newspapers and global magazines falling over themselves to report on the importance and significance of the discovery. Physics is for the time being back at the centre of the big questions of understanding our universe, our lives and our futures.

What is the Higgs-boson? Named after Peter Higgs, the Higgs-boson is crucial to understanding the origins of mass and how sub-atomic particles have mass. It is thought that shortly after the Big Bang, many particles lacked mass, but became heavy later on as the passed through the Higgs field.

The field is a theoretical invisible energy field of particles (the Higgs-bosons) that stretches throughout the universe. As sub atomic particles pass through this sticky field, it clings to the particles, dragging on them and making heavy – in other words, giving them mass. Some particles find the field more sticky and so have greater mass. Photons (light particles) have no mass as they simply pass through the field without any drag.

What does the discovery mean? Firstly that the standard model of physics, which envisages 12 fundamental particles and four forces is correct, as the Higgs-boson is predicted by the standard model and is the missing piece. On a theoretical level, it may opens the way to unlocking the theory of everything, higher dimensions and parallel universes. There is also an endless scope of possible technologies that may be born as a result. Perhaps we may be able to remove mass from objects, move them at the speed of light (after all it is mass that means almost endless energy is required to move items at near light speed) and re-assemble them at massive distances . I n the next years, there is bound to be more speculation as to the practical consequences. After all, our technology driven world has been born of the fundamental discoveries of Quantum physics, and as we delve deeper into more fundamental forces and building blocks of the universe the prediction is for greater and more powerful technologies.  

The importance of the Higgs-Boson and the understandings and future technologies it may lead to prove the fundamental importance of Albert Einstein’s work to our world and futures.

Why?

Without Einstein’s work there would have been no theory of such a particle and no Hadron collider.

The eventual prediction of the Higgs-boson is a direct descendant of Einstein’s fundamental work on the light quanta (see 5 steps from Einstein to Hadron) and the Hadron collider itself simply would not exist without Einstein’s linking of energy and mass (see Einstein’s Big Bang machine) through his famous E+mc2 formula.

Albert Einstein and his work stand central to our world and futures. The news of the Higgs-Boson not only places physics back at the centre of the news, but highlights again the importance and significance of Einstein.

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