"I only wish I had more mathematics" -- Albert Einstein, lamenting to his son that he did not pay enough attention to mathematics during his life, realizing that it would have made his life easier and more fulfilling.
Einstein Sparks Enthusiasm for Science & Math
This is a cute video about a school that sponsored a great Einstein festival:
Book Review
I finished listening to Walter Isaacon's Einstein biography, Einstein: His Life and Universe. It was a very good book. I learned a lot about the man who fundamentally changed our understanding of space and time. Here are some things I did not know:
- Einstein could not stand the German educational system. He hated the militaristic style of forced learning of facts and rote memorization.
- He excelled when he went to school in Switzerland where the teachers taught by using visualization techniques. Teachers helped guide students in their natural curiosity and engaged their minds.
- His Special Theory of Relativity, from 1905, and General Theory of Relativity, from 1915, fundamentally transformed the way we understand the nature of the universe, forever displacing Newton's model. It proved that light speed is the fastest speed possible and that matter is equivalent to energy, as well as the facts that observers have no authority to claim precedence in observing events. That is, a person who sees something happen "now", only sees it "now" because the speed of light is constant, and thus takes longer to travel to someone further away from an event's source than it does to travel to someone close by.
- However, he received the noble prize for his paper about the photo-electric effect, not the Theory of Relativity.
- He almost named The Theory of Relativity a different name: Invariance Theory. This is ironic, because the "relativity" in the theory is not about everything being "relative" and open to interpretation in a post-modernist kind of way, but is instead about space and time the relative position of observers .
- Einstein did not believe in a "personal God", but instead said he believed in Spinoza's God, which esentially equates "God" with the universe itself.
- He was an accomplished violinist and played throughout his entire life.
- He was not trusted by the US to take part in the Manhattan project, even though he had warned the US president Roosevelt that the Germans were likely working on an atomic bomb.
- His son Hans Albert Einstein became a respected professor of engineering.
- Einstein was falsely accused of communist sympathies because of his outspoken views and refusal to accept mainstream ideas without critically thinking.
- He got in arguments with Thomas Edison about the purpose of education. Einstein firmly believed that education should not be about memorizing facts, but about teaching students how to think crtically
and expansively. - Einstein's brain was taken out of his head after he died and was carried around the country for decades!
Misconceptions About The Theory of Relativity
It's a sad misconception in today's world that so few pepole understand that a scientific "theory" is not the same thing as a commonplace, everyday conjecture. Part of this is because the word theory comes from the word theoria, in Greek. This word does mean conjecture. But, a scientific theory has been observed and tested over and over. It is no longer a hypothesis. It has a body of evidence and observatoin to back it up. It makes claims that can be tested and verified by independent observers.
As such, when people say things like, "Well, it's just a theory!" about science, it really frustrates me. Scientific theories are open to revision and change when new evidence comes along that will force them to change. They are not "the truth". Rather, they are descriptive and predictive within a certain context of parameters and bounds. Einstein's theory of relativity has been tested and found accurate in hundreds of experiments, for more than 100 years.
Videos About the Theory of Relativity and Einstein
Carl Sagan explains time dilation in Cosmos Series
Time bends the faster you travel. Time actually slows down the faster you travel. This is NOT SCIENCE FICTION. This is REALITY. This clip really blew my mind when I watched it as a 5-year-old kid. It left me convinced that reality is far more amazing and worthy of my interest than fantasy since reality is stranger than fiction!
The Elegant Universe Part I: Einstein's Dream
Find the rest of the videos in this series here:
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=elegant+universe+einstein%27s+dream&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&sa=N&tab=wv
Einstein's Relativity
Time Travel: Einstein's Big Idea
Simultaneity: Albert Einstein and The Theory of Relativity
Time Dilation: Albert Einstein and The Theory of Relativity
Einstein's Brain!
His brain was dissected and taken all around the country in a jar!
The Secrets of Einstein's Brain
Einstein's Brain: Part I
Eerie but cool music in this video:
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