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atom physics was not Einstein's field of work, and he had nothing to do with the development of atom bomb.

he did, however, sign some letter of intention or something like that, together with many scientists of that time, that called for development of atom bomb, because enemy (Germany) was close to developing it itself.

i always did say, and i still think so, that bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a good idea. just like developing the bomb was. people who don't think so should ask themselves what the world would look like if Germany developed it before the US, and how many people would Japanese kill (and how many Japanese would be killed in the process) if they didn't face extinction.

atom physics was not Einstein's field of work, and he had nothing to do with the development of atom bomb.

Hum...Yes and No.

"But bombs were not what Einstein had in mind when he published this equation. Indeed, he considered himself to be a pacifist." As everybody knows, what we are doing and what we are saying and thinking are not always in tune. Also in war time, things are so up side down. Some actions that look like wrong in peace time seem to be right in war time.

This is why I think that any conflict should be solve otherwise than by beginning a war.

Being in the reality lets me little room to see the reality. What is good what is bad? I mean, as a part of the big pattern of this reality that I can not embrace in a whole how can I cease it enterely?

Still, I still think that conflicts could be solve without violence (agressivity maybe, sometimes, which is different) and without hatred, and before entering in any war. After... G_d knows...

Why don't we choose to increase habilities in communication technics while we are in peace time (so to speak) to avoid this mean of solving conflicts (war) in the future?

Nice links Tchoc (Yes and No).

Here another one that I like (not on the bomb)....on how his theory touches every aspect of our daily technological life today. Newton and Einstein are in a class of their own in terms of impact IMHO.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7318567/

Its Alberts world. We just live in it.

Really? I understand now why Byron is taking such great care of his teddy bear and its every mood.

Interesting document. I remimber having laughed my head off - some time ago - when I heard some feminists claiming about his wife being the only genius of the family (it was in a time were feminists were discovering discrimination even in the profil Betty Crocker used in publicities - so to speak). I thought it was one of the most comic politically correct joke. (You know, like seing ghosts under the bed, or a martian sitting in the living room watching tv, or something like that) so I never gave a second thought.

But while reading your link, I was surprised to see that the matter was raised and is making the case of a real debate. So I checked some links about this and found the worst (some very low gossips) and the best (documented research) about the fact. After having read the worst and the best, and eliminate the impossible or questionable, surprisingly enough, my conclusion is that although they could not be seen as Pierre and Marie Curie, because their love story did not pass the test of time, I am convinced now that she was part of Albert's world in many more ways than having been his wife. The fact that "your" article Kush, stressed that he did the more valuable work during the period he collaborated with his wife tends to reinforce my impression.

This is strange, certainly here is another man of his time, a time were women were in the shadow and men in the light, and private lifes were very private, but, still it is strange that the name of Albert Einstein is so well known and who has heard of Mileva Maric?

Here is a link, which impartiality I don't trust too much because it claims to defend certain causes :

http://compuserb.com/mileva01.htm

And another one which seems to be neutral but gives credit to Maric as well. The photo of the two is a marriage photo. Albert had 24 and Maric a little bit more.

http://www.teslasociety.com/Mileva.htm

There is a movie :

http://www.promotion.opb.org/ewife/ewife.htm

Hum...

I dont think so, Tchoc. But it must have certainly been an intellectual partnership. This is the stuff of conspiracy theories

Like conspiracies have never existed, eh, Kush ? Women have pretty well been systematically left off the credits in many a realm, y'know.

All the work of his later years dealt with the Unified Field Theory problem that he never found the solution to. And physicists are still searching for this most Holy Grail of physics and much of his work of later years is now coming back to the foreground. Substantial parts of Michio Kaku's book "Hyperspace" deals with how Einsteins later work is now being set as a base for this quest for contemporary physicists and that his work of later years was really ahead of its time coz the mathematics had not been developed as yet for the complexity of Einsteins "thought experiments" of later years.

Lizzytysh...please dont involve me in a discussion based on rumor and innuendo and hearsay. Same as you would not like to do so on LCs financial affairs...
This is like that other one that Shakespeare did not really write his plays but it was some other person who wanted to remain anonymous.

Kush wrote: This is like that other one that Shakespeare did not really write his plays but it was some other person who wanted to remain anonymous.

Well, you know, this is sorta true. Shakespeare used plays written by other writers all the time - but his were much better versions, lol!

It's happened all through history - writers using the works of others and improving on them - or not!

Kipling wrote this very telling poem:

"When 'Omer smote 'is bloomin' lyre,
He'd 'eard men sing by land an' sea;
An' what he thought 'e might require,
'E went an' took - the same as me!

The market-girls an' fishermen,
The shepherds an' the sailors, too,
They 'eard old songs turn up again,
But kep' it quiet - same as you!

They knew 'e stole; 'e knew they knowed.
They didn't tell, nor make a fuss,
But winked at 'Omer down the road,
An' 'e winked back - the same as us!

Yes and no Kush

I read a lot about the subject since yesterday and my conclusion is that at some point their love affair went very sour.

When you are just lab buddies, there is no problem to share the credit (although you are not so naive and badly informed about not so honest colleagues that had stolen others' idea and works and credits) but when deep feelings and such intimacy are laced with work, and the relationship is over, and is so to speak getting so rotten that the smell of it is in all your clothes and hair all the time, and you just want to get rid of it, one just don't want to have anything to do, any links with the former partner.

This is my conclusion also.

As for the baby girl... very sad, but Geezzz.... how can people... It annoys me sometimes. How can some people could not understand the social context of the time one was living in. They are judging and accusing without taking this reality into account.

Lz, believe me, it is not just gossips, and yes, women had to live in shadow, it was like that and it is too often still like that, even if it is often denied. But you know this. Really I don't blame Albert Einstein or his wife for what happened to her (as an "she should have stand for her rights" manner) and the baby girl because two individuals alone could not be stronger than a whole society.

Like he said : "prejudice etc...." Those times he lived in were very troubled times.

Fljtsdl, this reminds me of the great artistic works of Renaissance signed by well know artists, like for example, Michelangelo, while cohorts of anonymous assistants had participate to the chef-d'oeuvre.

I'm not requiring your involvement, Kush . Simply stating an historical fact, which doesn't preclude the possibilities here. Of course, it doesn't discredit Einstein's genius in any way, either.

Blame lies with the societies, as a whole, much moreso than with any individuals.

Reality does not need people to recognize it to be real.

Although people does need to recognize reality to do so.

(he he)

Aaaaah Tchoco - but there you're wrong

This is an extract (paraphrased) from a book called Zen Physics written by David Darling, who says:

Einstein's experiments re the photo-electric effect proved that light travels in both waves and in particles. Shows further, according to quantum mechanics, (don't understand the physics exactly, but can sort of follow the logic & get the conclusion/s - that this is true of all matter) looking at anything changes it from waves to particles, as even directing a conscious gaze at anything changes it at sub-atomic level, shifts the little quanta thingys around, and then it takes on substance. From which he concludes that intelligence is absolutely integral to the existence of the universe. No consciousness - no universe. "There is no existence without the conscious act". He says "Everything and every event is meaningful only in how it stands in direct relationship to the rest of the cosmos."

So - remember Zen Physics whenever you say (as I often have ) that whatever someone says or does has no effect on you.

David Darling continues: Even if we ever do find out exactly how the brain works, we still won't know "why a person should feel and be aware and experience a whole fantastic inner world instead of being just a complex, unconscious automaton." He says "..consciousness is not a product of the brain, nor did it come about at some point during the development of life" and "as soon as the analytical activity of the brain is suppressed or circumvented, pure consciousness - the background consciousness of the universe - floods in. The barrier is removed, the partition between subject and object dissolved. And of all the occasions when this happens none is more profound or revealing than at the point of death when, with the brain almost totally disabled, a condition of the most indescribably profound and expansive awareness takes hold."

So ... only when we chuck off the brain do we become truly conscious, and we keep trying to do this with mind altering substances like LSD, "magic mushrooms, licking the psychoactive secretions of certain types of toads", or Southern Comfort. "For others music, poetry, prayer, quiet contemplation, or a walk in the woods or the hills can trigger the same effect. In a remarkable variety of ways, it seems that we all at times try to break free from our normal mode of self-centered awareness."

Remember what Clarissa Pinkola-Estes said in "Women who run with the wolves"? - that we have to get back in touch with our instincts and we all do it in various ways, as above.

Jo

Ah Jo...couldnt have put it any better.
The only reality is the one that we create between our ears

Ah! Jo you are the one who did it for me. I tried this trick called social intelligence, which I found is a bit manipulative and a lot boring. (So I come back to my old bugger me.)

What do I mean by this?

When you seem to have no credit in a community or with a person, have another member of this community wich has more credit than you have (in the best case) (for any reason) in this community or with this person, to say exactly what you mean, what he/she says is likely to "go home" while what you are saying would never be recognized 'cause "prejudice is more difficult to broke than an atom".

You bet that I know about this phenomenon of quantum physic! Very interesting post indeed.

But if I am not wrong, this time (it happens for real once in a while- wink again), poor ol' Albert may be the father of this child, (quantum physic) but never recognized it. Is it correct?

Tchoco, it goes without saying that you'll correct me if I've misunderstood your post.

I have no idea whatsoever what I "did for" you so I certainly can't claim credit for it - and I'm not familiar with the "trick called social intelligence" but it certainly sounds interesting - perhaps you can explain in more detail? At the risk of course of being "boring" - but that's the beauty of the written word - one is not obliged to read or respond to what doesn't interest one.

It seems to me you're implying that I have no confidence in my own opinions and no "credit" in this (I assume you mean the forum) community and I therefore used quotes from someone who I think is better known and therefore more likely to be believed.

I may not be particularly well known in this forum, but I doubt that the author of the book I quoted from is any more familiar here than I am. "Credit" in the context you used it usually implies there is a question as to one's veracity. I wasn't aware that I was regarded as a liar or imposter here and I would certainly appreciate clarification on that.

I'm not a physicist so, yes I would certainly base whatever fuzzy scientific thoughts I have on a better informed person's valid and legitimate research. It would be easy to pass these off as my own, but I was taught at university, and I'm damn sure it still applies in civilised countries, that one NEVER tries to pass off another's ideas as one's own - that's plagiarism and one can be prosecuted legally for that offense - and the way to avoid that is by quoting one's sources. This way the interested reader can get either confirmation, clarification or further information by consulting the said references.

My apologies if I've in any way misunderstood the content or tone of your post.

Quantum theory was around in Einstein's lifetime but not as widely popular as now. Einstein did not believe quantum theory was the route to follow - as far as I remember the theory in quantum physics is that the little tiny thingies (the quanta, I think - but I also think there are other more specific names for them in their various states of electrical charge) are in a constant state of flux so cannot be measured to the degree of accuracy scientists prefer - so nothing is "real" until it is actually observed, the act of observing in fact makes it "real" - you might want to check out "Schrödinger's Cat" in google. Einstein was adamant that the universe is governed by strictly logical and measurable rules and he therefore felt that he could not subscribe to quantum theory - his widely misunderstood quote "God does not play dice with the universe" was a direct reference to this - I believe I may have mentioned this in another thread sometime far far away in another galaxy

Personally I think Einstein was right and science has just not yet discovered the rules which govern particles at the quantum level.

Sorry to have bored you - but as I said earlier - you can stop reading at any stage

Jo