
10 hidden facts about Max Born
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Born is second from the right in the second row, between Louis de Broglie and Niels Bohr. |
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Born is second from the right in the second row, between Louis de Broglie and Niels Bohr. |
Science without religion is lame and religion without science is blind. This popular quote of Albert Einstein has been repeatedly used, particularly in science versus religion debates. But from this statement alone can one say that Einstein was arguing for religion? A large number of believers definitely think so, referring to this adage and thus claiming the greatest scientist of the 20th century as one of their own.
However, Einstein had also famously written: "The idea of a personal God is a childlike one," in a letter to a friend dated 28 September 1949.
Einstein even went on to say, "You may call me an agnostic but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth."
From this saying alone, we can conclude that Einstein was neither a religious man in the usual sense nor was he a staunch atheist. Einstein was agnostic in belief. If you think about it, agnosticism really is the essence of science, whether ancient or modern.
Being an agnostic simply means that a man shall not say he knows or believes that which he has "no scientific grounds" for professing to know or believe.
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Does God play dice? (Einstein's most famous quote) |
Einstein was expected to make many statements on the origin of life, the universe and existence of God. Some of the views resonated with religious groups, but that does not make Einstein a believer. Albert Einstein was in fact one of the most famous agnostics in America, others being Edwin Hubble, Carl Sagan, John Bardeen, etc. and yet Einstein's name and his quotes are selectively chosen as merely "tools" by debaters to silence an opposition.
What had Einstein meant really, when he said: Science without religion is lame and religion without science is blind?
Actually, he was making a reference to a large part of human history in which science and religion were intertwined or interdependent. He put it like this, indicating that the interdependency still existed in the modern society.
This does not suggest in any way that Einstein was a deeply religious person and nor does it provide any surface to anyone to interpret it in such a way. If truth be told, Einstein had strongly asserted in one of his statements - "The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses."
So if Einstein wasn't even religious in the most ordinary sense, why his name is often dragged in trivial debates? Because it is assumed by a large number of people that in science "Einstein" is the authority. But they are wrong, because in actuality there is no authority in science. Feynman said: You can be the most amazing minds, if your ideas do not agree with experiment it is wrong. No matter who you are.
This is precisely how science progresses, by challenging, by having no authority, by questions and doubts; whereas religion has not progressed for hundreds and thousands of years.
Einstein's views were simply, that nature is not nurtured. That nature itself is nurturing. This is the ultimate essence of Spinozism a philosophical system which was largely advocated by Einstein. Spinoza belief is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world, the universe, so far as our science can reveal it.
Just a year before his death, Einstein had replied to a fan in a letter, "It was of course a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly."
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example of Feynman diagram |
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src: Wikimedia commons |
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src: Bibliothèque nationale de France |
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src: Brandon dinunno, wikimedia commons |
Dirac made a breakthrough, a new method of doing physics. He had the courage to simply guess at the form of an equation, and to try to interpret it afterwards.
No matter how beautiful an equation is, no matter who made the equation or how genius he was, if it disagrees with experiment, it is wrong!
October 17, 1946D’Arline,I adore you, sweetheart.I know how much you like to hear that — but I don’t only write it because you like it — I write it because it makes me warm all over inside to write it to you.It is such a terribly long time since I last wrote to you — almost two years but I know you’ll excuse me because you understand how I am, stubborn and realistic; and I thought there was no sense to writing.But now I know my darling wife that it is right to do what I have delayed in doing, and that I have done so much in the past. I want to tell you I love you. I want to love you. I always will love you.I find it hard to understand in my mind what it means to love you after you are dead — but I still want to comfort and take care of you — and I want you to love me and care for me. I want to have problems to discuss with you — I want to do little projects with you. I never thought until just now that we can do that. What should we do. We started to learn to make clothes together — or learn Chinese — or getting a movie projector. Can’t I do something now? No. I am alone without you and you were the “idea-woman” and general instigator of all our wild adventures.
When you were sick you worried because you could not give me something that you wanted to and thought I needed. You needn’t have worried. Just as I told you then there was no real need because I loved you in so many ways so much. And now it is clearly even more true — you can give me nothing now yet I love you so that you stand in my way of loving anyone else — but I want you to stand there. You, dead, are so much better than anyone else alive.I know you will assure me that I am foolish and that you want me to have full happiness and don’t want to be in my way. I’ll bet you are surprised that I don’t even have a girlfriend (except you, sweetheart) after two years. But you can’t help it, darling, nor can I — I don’t understand it, for I have met many girls and very nice ones and I don’t want to remain alone — but in two or three meetings they all seem ashes. You only are left to me. You are real.My darling wife, I do adore you.I love my wife. My wife is dead.Rich.PS Please excuse my not mailing this — but I don’t know your new address.
Satyendra Nath Bose was an Indian physicist who is best known for his contributions to statistical mechanics. Together with Albert Einstein, Bose is famous for the theory of Bosons and Bose Einstein condensate.
Following are 10 unbelievable facts about S.N. Bose which you may not know:
1. Bose was well versed in several languages including English, Bengali, Hindi, French, German and Sanskrit. He is remembered by his colleagues as a polyglot.
2. Since Bose had not done a doctorate, Einstein’s recommendation helped him become a professor. He served as a professor in Dhaka and then in Calcutta until 1956.
3. Seven Nobel Prizes have been awarded for research related to the concepts of the Bosons and the Bose-Einstein Condensate but Bose himself never won the most coveted prize.
4. Bose was good friends with several famous physicists including Indian physicist Meghnad Saha, English physicist Paul Dirac and Swiss mathematician Marcel Grossmann.
5. It was said that when Niels Bohr got stuck with a problem during his lecture in Calcutta, S.N. Bose instantly resolved it.
6. In 1919, Bose and Saha translated Einstein's book on the theory of relativity which was in German and published it in English. It was the first English translation of Einstein's groundbreaking work of 1915.
7. Paul Dirac coined the term Boson in the honor of S.N. Bose.
8. Bose wrote a letter to Einstein about a collaboration. Einstein immediately recognized Bose's genius and extended Bose's idea to the atoms that led to the existence of Bose Einstein condensate - the fifth state of matter.
9. Satyendra Nath Bose was devastated by the division of Bengal on the basis of religion in 1905. He was also depressed by the division of India and Pakistan and felt it to be a wound in the heart of his beloved nation.
10. Bose was also gifted when it came to music. He played an Indian stringed instrument called Esraj which sounded like a violin.