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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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