Albert Einstein Biografy

ALBERT EINSTEIN:

The Scientist, The Philosopher,
The Moralist, The Man

Born in Ulm, Germany in 1879, Albert Einstein is still considered one of the greatest scientific and mathematical geniuses in history. In 1905, at the age of 26, he set forth his theory of relativity which discards the concept of time and space as absolute entities, and views them as relative to moving frames of reference. At the same time, he postulated light quanta or photons, comparable to energy quanta, and on these based his explanation of the photoelectric effect. In 1911, he asserted the equivalence of gravitation and inertia. In 1916, he completed the mathematical formulation of his general theory of relativity, which included gravitation as a determiner of curvature of space-time continuum and represented gravitation as a field rather than a force. In 1921, he won the Nobel Prize for his contributions to theoretical physics, especially for his work on the photoelectric effect. In 1950, he presented his unified field theory, which attempts to explain gravitation, electromagnetism, and subatomic phenomena in one set of laws. He completed it’s mathematical formulation in 1953, just two years before his death in 1955 at the age of 76.

Philosophy? Yes, Albert Einstein, the greatest scientist and mathematician of the twentieth century, studied philosophy. He felt deeply that science, mathematics and technology not only needed to be balanced with philosophy, ethics, spirituality, and the arts, but that they were merely “different branches of the same tree”. He said, "All religions, arts and sciences are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual toward freedom.” He felt it no mere chance that universities originally developed from clerical schools. “Both churches and universities - insofar as they live up to their true function - serve the ennoblement of the individual. They seek to fulfill this great task by spreading moral and cultural understanding, renouncing the use of brute force,” he explained. “Man owes his strength in the struggle for existence to the fact that he is a social living animal. As little as a battle between single ants of an ant hill is essential for survival, just so little is this the case with the individual members of a human community.” Present world leaders could benefit from this profound truth!

In THE RELIGIOUSNESS OF SCIENCE, he wrote, “The scientist is possessed by the sense of universal causation. The future, to him, is every whit as necessary and determined as the past. There is nothing divine about morality; it is a purely human affair. His religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that compared with it, all the systemic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection. This feeling is the guiding principle of his life and work, insofar as he succeeds in keeping himself from the shackles of selfish desire. It is beyond question closely akin to that which has possessed the religious geniuses of all ages.”

Einstein said the laws of science and the laws of ethics are basically one and the same. Using the example of the question “Why should we not lie?”, he explains, “Lying destroys confidence in the statements of other people. Without such confidence, social cooperation is made impossible or at least difficult. Such cooperation, however, is essential to make human life possible and tolerable. This means that the rule ‘Thou shalt not lie’ has been traced back to the demands ‘Human life shall be preserved’ and ‘Pain and sorrow shall be lessened as much as possible’.”

He felt that a school’s main goal should always be to produce individuals who are “harmonious personalities”, not specialists. “If a person masters the fundamentals of his subject and has learned to think and work independently, he will surely find his way and will be better able to adapt himself to progress and changes than the person whose training principally consists in the acquiring of detailed knowledge.” At the 1990 OATAG Conference, Dr. Smutny stated that she felt education has focused too much on technical brilliance and achievement and “separated our heads from our hearts.”

Albert Einstein was not only an extraordinary scientist and mathematician and an extraordinary philosopher, moralist, and teacher, he was an extraordinary human being! We can learn from him not only quantum physics, but how to educate our children, especially our gifted children. We need to change our school systems to help encourage the development of the “inward freedom” of independent thought. We need to allow our children the freedom and opportunity to develop “harmonious personalities” as well as “the gifts which may be latent” in them. We need to teach our children to not only tolerate differences between individuals and between groups, but to welcome their enrichment of our existence. We need to teach them that science, mathematics, technology, philosophy, ethics, spirituality, music and the arts are all merely “different branches of the same tree”, all with the same purpose of ennobling the lives of individuals and enabling society to achieve its “richest flowering.”

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