Talk:Albert Einstein

Agnostic

he wasn't a agnostic, Although never coming to belief in a personal God, he recognized the impossibility of a non-created universe. The Encyclopedia Britannica says of him: "Firmly denying atheism, Einstein expressed a belief in "Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the harmony of what exists." This actually motivated his interest in science, as he once remarked to a young physicist: "I want to know how God created this world, I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts, the rest are details." Einstein's famous epithet on the "uncertainty principle" was "God does not play dice" - and to him this was a real statement about a God in whom he believed. A famous saying of his was "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.174.18.39 (talk) 20:54, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree that he wasn't agnostic as indeed he believe in God (no matter whether personall or not), so by definition he couldn't be one.--Gilisa (talk) 20:57, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

You can have beliefs and still be agnostic, I'm not sure that you comprehend the term quite right. Agnosticism only refers to knowledge, and many of his quotes fall in line with agnosticism (not to mention that he described himself as one.) He did not definitively have a belief in a deity, as his use of the word "god" was technical, not a personal belief, similar to Stephen Hawking's use of the word. 98.168.192.162 (talk) 03:20, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Agonism is closely related to atheism but unlike atheist who decisively argue that there is no divinity an agonist would state that we have no way to infer whether there is or isn't and that in any case we can't know anything about it. Einstein explicitly belived in Gcd, so he expressed himself manytimes. However, as I wrote, he adopted the ideas of Spinoza and even composed a kind of admiring song for him when he was 40 years old...--Gilisa (talk) 21:27, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

His religion is hard to label. See however Religious views of Albert Einstein#Agnosticism. —teb728 t c 23:56, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

His religion was jewish. That isn't even in question. Bus stop (talk) 13:34, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Bus stop, it was his religion by birth but Iguess that in this entries they ask one self identified himself. However, I realy don't think that based on one letter he wrote it's reasonable to define him as agonist as in many other he clearly expressed a believe in the ideas of Spinoza --Gilisa (talk) 13:42, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

After reading his many comments about God, religion and the nature of the universe, I would classify him as one who embraces the ideas of Pantheism, much in the same way as Spinoza. That he was Jewish is beside the point. So was Spinoza, though his views did get him excommunicated from Orthodox Judaism. EditorASC (talk) 04:11, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Maybe. I think he could also be described as being a deist, but it's too difficult to put a label on someone long dead who was never perfectly clear. I've read that he often used the word "god" in the sense that Stephen Hawking uses it, which also makes it somewhat more difficult. This quote leads me to find him to not be a theist, but closer to deism: "I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his [sic] creatures, or has a will of the type of which we are conscious ourselves." He was certainly agnostic, though, many of his quotes back that up - and he called himself one. 98.168.192.162 (talk) 03:20, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

if god created everything, who or what created god? I rest my case. Dave 01:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Davesilvan (talk • contribs)

Further Reading

Suggestion for "Further Reading" section of the Einstein Wikipedia page: there is now an excellent biography written in 2007 that contains primary Einstein material (e.g., letters) unsealed and released for the first time to the public in 2006. It is: Isaacson, Walter (2007): Einstein: His Life and Universe. Simon & Schuster. ISBN-13: 978-0-7432-6473-0 For someone with access to editing this Wiki page, this would be a fine book to include in the "Further Reading" section.

                                                                                David Graham, 18 October 2009  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.107.49.97 (talk) 17:46, 18 October 2009 (UTC) 

I will add it in. While we are on the topic of further reading, I would also like to point people to [1] which hopefuly might be useful to anyone that wants additional info re: Einstein and non scientific aspects about him.Calaka (talk) 05:34, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Aspergers and Einstein

I noticed that not one word in the article mentioned that Albert had Aspergers or even ASD. Though it is common knowledge that he does. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.122.240.27 (talk • contribs) 22:31, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

That's only a myth that people tell to their autistic children to boost their self esteem... 24.7.32.178 (talk) 03:13, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Actually it's not. My personal belief is that he had social anxiety or something similar. It's certainly not a myth that he had AS, more of a theory. And Aspergers>Autism are not the same thing. AS is part of the autistic spectrum but is considered somewhat different, people with Autism generally have lower than average IQ's, people with AS tend to have average or higher, sometimes exceptionally so. AS is like autism but without the mental retardation attached someone once told me…--Sooo Kawaii!!! ^__^ (talk) 22:40, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

He was not diagnosed with any such disease. The only connection is that it is claimed that as a child he didn't speak until he was several years old, and had problems with early education, which led them to believe he had mental disabilities.

Personal belief does not a diagnosis make. ^________________________________^ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.66.207.167 (talk) 23:53, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Lieserl Einstein

Concern has been expressed that the article on Lieserl Einstein does not pass our notability guidelines (it is overly reliant on primary source materials... and notablility is not inherited). It has been suggested that the article be redirected to this one, with any relevant material merged into this article. Please comment at that article's talk page and let us know what materials should be merged. Blueboar (talk) 23:01, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Scattered ashes

In the article it says "Einstein’s remains were cremated and his ashes were scattered around the grounds of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey."

There is disagreement here throughout the web. I've found things like: "Ashes scattered in an undisclosed place." "Ashes scattered in a nearby river."

You might want to have a look. DarkLightA (talk) 08:22, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Nonsense sentence within article

The following sentence:

Direct current (DC) lost the War of Currents to alternating current (AC).

appears to be nonsense, which should be removed.

99.251.204.40 (talk) 02:04, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

What is nonsensical about it? Read it in the context of the description of the company. --OuroborosCobra (talk) 02:18, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Common Myths about Al

Would it be appropriate to have a section in this article regarding common myths about Einstein? I often hear people say that Al flunked math, got Ds or Cs in science, thought that education wasn’t important, and so on. I don’t have the research to add this on my own. But If some one wanted to take this up that would be great. Redmander (talk) 01:13, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

That could be a good idea, but I suggest we make a draft version on the talk page, and then transpose it to the front page. That way we can avoid having an unfinished, and likely problematic, section displayed while we're working on it. Throwaway85 (talk) 05:27, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Einstein's Mistakes: Derivation of E=mc2

The correctness of Einstein's 1905 derivation of E=mc2 was criticized by Max Planck (1907), and also by Herbert Ives (1952), and also in a recent book (2008) by Hans Ohanian see http://discovermagazine.com/2008/sep/01-einstein.s-23-biggest-mistakes This info should be added to the section on Einstein's Mistakes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.169.90.98 (talk) 15:17, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Planck had no problem with E=mc2, as Poincaré had already published the formula in 1900. Planck however did not consider Einstein's derivation to be correct, neither do Ives nor Ohanian consider Einstein's derivation to be correct. In fact, it is impossible to prove E=mc2 for real mass, no one has ever rigourously done it. The formula can only be rigourously proved for the effective mass of radiation, as Poincaré had done. Einstein tried all his life to prove the formula for real mass but never did, as Ohanian writes in his book, all of Einstein's subsequent derivations of E=mc2 were false. 173.169.90.98 (talk) 01:50, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Poll: Greatest Physicist Ever

An important accolade is missing: In 1999, 100 leading physicists voted Einstein "greatest physicist ever." Gimmemoretime (talk) 18:30, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Here is the reference to the statement above: BBC news, Monday, 29 November, 1999, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/541840.stm Gimmemoretime (talk) 18:33, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

By the way, one should delete the embarrassing link from Einstein to The_100 (and maybe even delete the entire The_100 article which describes one guy's personal opinions shared by few others). In fact, one should delete all the links from Wikipedia articles about truly notable personalities to this rather ridiculous list by a rather irrelevant author, who seems to be the only person profiting from those links. Lots of people made wildly varying lists of the most influential people ever - should we create Wikipedia articles for all? For example, here is another top 10 list http://www.faqs.org/shareranks/1338,Most-Influential-People-of-All-Time which puts Einstein 2nd: Manu (shanker mishra), Einstein, Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, Newton, Lao Tzu, Moses, Darwin, Franklin. Here is a Japanese top 10 list http://www.japanprobe.com/2007/04/01/historys-100-most-influencial-people-hero-edition-video/ which puts Einstein 8th: Sakamoto Ryoma, Napoleon I, Oda Nobunaga, Saigo Takamori, Miyamoto no Yoshitsune, Jean of Arc, Hideyoshi Toyotomi, Albert Einstein, Yutaka Ozaki, Akechi Mitsuhide. Yet another list http://www.rateitall.com/t-1283-most-influential-people-in-world-history.aspx puts Einstein 5th: 1 Jesus Christ, 2 Muhammad, 3 Adolf Hitler, 4 Ronald Reagan, 5 Albert Einstein, 6 Buddha, 7 Johann Gutenberg. A US top 10 list http://www.smccd.edu/accounts/goth/MainPages/100_most_important_people.pdf by LIFE magazine puts an American first: Edison, Columbus, Luther, Galileo, Leonardo, Newton, Magellan, Pasteur, Darwin, Jefferson. Yet another list has Gutenberg first: http://www.falls.igs.net/~dphillips/biography3.htm Yet another top 10 list http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showthread.php?t=173626 goes like this: Mohammed, Aristotle, Tsai Lun, Johann Gutenberg, Jesus of Nazareth, Paul of Tarsus, Shih Huang Ti, Louis Pasteur, Plato, Siddhartha Guatama. Yet another list I found goes like this: 1 Mitochondria Eve, 2 Jesus, 3 Mohammed, 4 Columbus, 5 Confucius, 6 Darwin, 7 Sun Yat-sen, 8 Karl Marx, 9 Buddha, 10 Rousseau. And here is another list http://www.the-top-tens.com/lists/most-influential-person-of-all-time.asp and another http://www.worldtop.org/Culture/People/Most+influential+people+ever/ and another http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Who_are_the_25_most_important_people_in_history and another http://www.historum.com/showthread.php?t=2971 ... I guess most people would agree that most of these lists are ridiculous. What I am trying to say is: either insert links to all those different personal opinions, or remove all those links, unless they are backed by some sort of authority such as the Physics World Poll above. Gimmemoretime (talk) 20:24, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

WP:TLDR, but I agree that Einstein's appearance in some list in some book by some author is by no means an award, so therefore it definitely does not belong in the "Awards" section. I have edited it out. Good catch.

By the way, I have some reservations about mentioning the Gallup poll thing as well, but I'll leave the removal to someone else.

By another way, as can be seen in the complete article Physicsworld.com - Physics: past, present, future - Dec 6, 1999, that accolade should sound more like

• In 1999, 119 out of 250 leading physicists voted Einstein "greatest physicist ever".

DVdm (talk) 00:06, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

DVdm, sorry for being too verbose. Sure, do insert the accolade In 1999, 119 out of 250 leading physicists voted Einstein "greatest physicist ever". Maybe add that he got more votes than others (not obvious from this statement). Thanks for removing the link to Hart's personal opinion. You may want to remove a similar link in Isaac Newton's intro. Gimmemoretime (talk) 22:01, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi, Gimme. Well, I don't really feel inclined to insert the accolade to begin with, as it's not really an award either. I.m.o. it belongs in some trivia list, together with the Gallup poll result. But by all means, be wp:bold and go ahead. It might survive.

I had a look at Newton. I think it can survive in that context, as the book is merely listed in a section "Further reading", which is of course where it belongs. Cheers. DVdm (talk) 23:12, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Did Einstein copy relativity from Poincaré?

(Moved out of above section)

Most physicists don't ever bother to research the historical record, to find that Einstein copied relativity from Henri Poincaré. 173.169.90.98 (talk) 03:30, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

(personal attack deleted.)

Their math is identical and Einstein presented no new physical interpretations. Poincaré published it first all in detail on June 5,1905, well before Einstein then plagiarized it. 173.169.90.98 (talk) 13:15, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

(personal attack deleted.)

There is no difference. Einstein copied Poincaré's theory of relativity with NO changes. Compare Poincaré's June 5,1905 paper with Einstein's september paper of the same year. There is NO difference in equations nor interpretations. 173.169.90.98 (talk) 14:47, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

(off-topic discussion deleted.)

This is an interesting claim. Would you have a link to a copy of the Poincaré paper, Number 173? Of course, we're not supposed to do original research here, but I'd like to see it. If you want this claim to be included in the article, you would need a reliable source stating it. I found http://web.ihep.su/library/pubs/tconf05/ps/c5-1.pdf, but I don't know how reliable that is; it doesn't seem to be a paper in a peer-reviewed publication. — Sebastian 19:02, 31 December 2009 (UTC) Amended 19:09, 31 December 2009 (UTC).

No, it is not an interesting claim. Has been raised and endlessly debunked since 1905. The reasons are those that you deemed a "personal attack". --Michael C. Price ^talk 22:25, 31 December 2009 (UTC)