Delusions of Grandeur and Conspiracy theorists: Connection?
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http://phys.org/news/2015-05-science-historian-story-einstein-dangerous.html
Science historian tells a timely story about Einstein and his most dangerous critic:
:The Physicist and the Philosopher:
Two of the 20th century's greatest minds, one of them physicist Albert Einstein, came to intellectual blows one day in Paris in 1922. Their dispute, before a learned audience, was about the nature of time - mostly in connection with Einstein's most famous work, the theory of relativity, which marks its centennial this year
extracts:
The philosopher in the title, and Einstein's adversary that day, was Henri Bergson, a French philosopher who was much more famous at the time than the German-born Einstein. Presidents and prime ministers carefully read Bergson's work, and his public lectures often were filled to capacity. He was perhaps the pre-eminent public intellectual of his time, Canales said.
What he challenged instead was Einstein's interpretation of those claims, saying it went beyond science and was "a metaphysics grafted upon science." He said that Einstein's theory did not consider time as it was lived in human experience, the aspects of time that could not be captured by clocks or formulas.
Einstein quickly dismissed the philosopher's criticism. To an audience that day of mostly philosophers, he made the incendiary statement that "the time of the philosophers does not exist."
It was Einstein's ideas that gained prominence, however, in part because later research only reinforced the science of relativity, but also because Bergson was effectively discredited by scientists, Canales said. Outside of philosophy, Bergson has been largely forgotten and is rarely even mentioned in Einstein biographies.
Being against science in the modern world, "makes no sense," she said. "Clearly we should be for science."
Science historian tells a timely story about Einstein and his most dangerous critic:
:The Physicist and the Philosopher:
Two of the 20th century's greatest minds, one of them physicist Albert Einstein, came to intellectual blows one day in Paris in 1922. Their dispute, before a learned audience, was about the nature of time - mostly in connection with Einstein's most famous work, the theory of relativity, which marks its centennial this year
extracts:
The philosopher in the title, and Einstein's adversary that day, was Henri Bergson, a French philosopher who was much more famous at the time than the German-born Einstein. Presidents and prime ministers carefully read Bergson's work, and his public lectures often were filled to capacity. He was perhaps the pre-eminent public intellectual of his time, Canales said.
What he challenged instead was Einstein's interpretation of those claims, saying it went beyond science and was "a metaphysics grafted upon science." He said that Einstein's theory did not consider time as it was lived in human experience, the aspects of time that could not be captured by clocks or formulas.
Einstein quickly dismissed the philosopher's criticism. To an audience that day of mostly philosophers, he made the incendiary statement that "the time of the philosophers does not exist."
It was Einstein's ideas that gained prominence, however, in part because later research only reinforced the science of relativity, but also because Bergson was effectively discredited by scientists, Canales said. Outside of philosophy, Bergson has been largely forgotten and is rarely even mentioned in Einstein biographies.
Being against science in the modern world, "makes no sense," she said. "Clearly we should be for science."