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Albert Einstein: Philosopher - Scientist, Volume I
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October 8, 2023
THE FIRST VOLUME OF A COLLECTION OF ESSAYS BY DISTINGUISHED CONTRIBUTORS
Editor Paul Arthur Schilpp wrote in the Preface to this 1949 book, “The contents of this volume speak eloquently enough for the inclusion of [this book] in this series without an superfluous words from the editor… There is, first of all, the matter of gratitude for help and cooperation. Foremost here stands Professor Einstein himself. Without his consent and willingness to cooperate, this book could never have appeared…Among the twenty-five other contributors to this volume there are no less than six Nobel Prize winners in science; and essays have come from as many as eleven countries…” (Pg. ix)
The book begins with Einstein’s own ‘Autobiographical Notes’ (which mostly cover his SCIENTIFIC work, not his PERSONAL recollections; and have the German original on the left-hand side), in which he recalls, “I came---despite the fact that I was the son of entirely irreligious (Jewish) parents---to a deep religiosity, which, however, found an abrupt ending at the age of 12. Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached the conclusion that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true… Suspicion against every kind of authority grew out of this experience, a skeptical attitude towards the convictions which were alive in any specific social environment---an attitude which has never again left me, even though later… it lost some of its original poignancy. It is quite clear to me that the religious paradise of youth, which was thus lost, was a first attempt to free myself from the chains of the ‘merely-personal,’ from an existence which is dominated by wishes, hopes and primitive feelings… The road to this paradise was not as comfortable and alluring as the road to the religious paradise; but it has proved itself as trustworthy, and I have never regretted having chosen it. (Pg. 3-5)
He asks, “What, precisely, is ‘thinking’? When, at the reception of sense-impressions, memory-pictures emerge, this is not yet ‘thinking’. And when such pictures form series, each member of which calls forth another, this too is not yet ‘thinking.’ When, however, a certain picture turns up in many such series, then---precisely through such return---it becomes an ordering element for such series, in that it connects series which in themselves are unconnected.” (Pg. 7)
After encountering Planck’s work, “All my attempts … to adapt the theoretical foundation of physics to this [new type of] knowledge failed completely. It was as if the ground had been pulled out from under one, with no firm foundation to be seen anywhere, upon which one could have built. That this insecure and contradictory foundation was sufficient to enable a man of Bohr’s unique instinct and tact to discover the major laws of the spectral lines and of the electron-shells of the atoms together with their significance for chemistry appeared to me like a miracle---and appears to me as a miracle even today. This is the highest form of musicality in the sphere of thought.” (Pg. 46-47)
He summarizes, “We now shall inquire into the insights of definite nature which physics owes to the special theory of relativity. (1) There is no such thing as simultaneity of distant events; consequently there is no such thing as immediate action at a distance in the sense of Newtonian mechanics… (2) The principles of the conservation of momentum and of the conservation of energy are fused into one single principle. The inert mass of a closed system is identical with its energy, thus eliminating mass as an independent concept.” (Pg. 61)
He observes, “Physics is an attempt conceptually to grasp reality as it is thought independently of its being observed. In this sense one speaks of ‘physical reality.’” (Pg. 81)
In his essay on Einstein’s 70th birthday, Arnold Sommerfeld recounted, “The battle over the theory of relativity had also slightly reached over into America, where youth was warned by a Boston Cardinal to beware of Einstein the atheist. Thereupon Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein of New York cabled Einstein: ‘Do you believe in God?’ Einstein cabled back, ‘I believe in Spinoza’s God, who reveals himself in the harmony of all being, not in a god who concerns himself with fate and actions of men.’ … I have often felt and occasionally also stated that Einstein stands in particular intimate relation to the God of Spinoza.” (Pg. 103)
Ilse Rosenthal-Schneider notes in her essay, “Very important in Einstein’s presuppositions is the notion of simplicity, imposed as a condition on the formation of a basis, and, on the deduction from this basis, of a logical theory of physics. This simplicity is to be understood as including the reduction in number of the logically independent basic elements, i.e., concepts and fundamental hypotheses, and is generally agreed upon as a goal of all scientific theory. The logically simpler is not always the mathematically simpler. The essential point is that for a physical theory a type of mathematics be consistent as a whole.” (Pg. 137)
Max Born observed, “Einstein’s philosophy is not a system which you can read in a book; you have to take the trouble to abstract it from his papers on physics and from a few more general articles and pamphlets.”
(Pg. 175)
Niels Bohr notes in ‘Discussions With Einstein’: “In particular, the general relationship between energy and mass, expressed in Einstein’s famous formula [E=mc2] should allow, by means of simple weighing, to measure the total energy of any system and, thus, in principle to control the energy transferred to it when it interacts with an atomic object.” (Pg. 225)
Later, Bohr acknowledges, “Although in recent years I have had several occasions of meeting Einstein, the continued discussions, from which I have always received new impulses, have so far not led to a common view about the epistemological problems in atomic physics, and our opposing views are perhaps most clearly stated in a recent issue of ‘Dialectica,’ bringing general discussion of these problems.” (Pg. 239)
This book will be of keen interest to those interested in Einstein.
Editor Paul Arthur Schilpp wrote in the Preface to this 1949 book, “The contents of this volume speak eloquently enough for the inclusion of [this book] in this series without an superfluous words from the editor… There is, first of all, the matter of gratitude for help and cooperation. Foremost here stands Professor Einstein himself. Without his consent and willingness to cooperate, this book could never have appeared…Among the twenty-five other contributors to this volume there are no less than six Nobel Prize winners in science; and essays have come from as many as eleven countries…” (Pg. ix)
The book begins with Einstein’s own ‘Autobiographical Notes’ (which mostly cover his SCIENTIFIC work, not his PERSONAL recollections; and have the German original on the left-hand side), in which he recalls, “I came---despite the fact that I was the son of entirely irreligious (Jewish) parents---to a deep religiosity, which, however, found an abrupt ending at the age of 12. Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached the conclusion that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true… Suspicion against every kind of authority grew out of this experience, a skeptical attitude towards the convictions which were alive in any specific social environment---an attitude which has never again left me, even though later… it lost some of its original poignancy. It is quite clear to me that the religious paradise of youth, which was thus lost, was a first attempt to free myself from the chains of the ‘merely-personal,’ from an existence which is dominated by wishes, hopes and primitive feelings… The road to this paradise was not as comfortable and alluring as the road to the religious paradise; but it has proved itself as trustworthy, and I have never regretted having chosen it. (Pg. 3-5)
He asks, “What, precisely, is ‘thinking’? When, at the reception of sense-impressions, memory-pictures emerge, this is not yet ‘thinking’. And when such pictures form series, each member of which calls forth another, this too is not yet ‘thinking.’ When, however, a certain picture turns up in many such series, then---precisely through such return---it becomes an ordering element for such series, in that it connects series which in themselves are unconnected.” (Pg. 7)
After encountering Planck’s work, “All my attempts … to adapt the theoretical foundation of physics to this [new type of] knowledge failed completely. It was as if the ground had been pulled out from under one, with no firm foundation to be seen anywhere, upon which one could have built. That this insecure and contradictory foundation was sufficient to enable a man of Bohr’s unique instinct and tact to discover the major laws of the spectral lines and of the electron-shells of the atoms together with their significance for chemistry appeared to me like a miracle---and appears to me as a miracle even today. This is the highest form of musicality in the sphere of thought.” (Pg. 46-47)
He summarizes, “We now shall inquire into the insights of definite nature which physics owes to the special theory of relativity. (1) There is no such thing as simultaneity of distant events; consequently there is no such thing as immediate action at a distance in the sense of Newtonian mechanics… (2) The principles of the conservation of momentum and of the conservation of energy are fused into one single principle. The inert mass of a closed system is identical with its energy, thus eliminating mass as an independent concept.” (Pg. 61)
He observes, “Physics is an attempt conceptually to grasp reality as it is thought independently of its being observed. In this sense one speaks of ‘physical reality.’” (Pg. 81)
In his essay on Einstein’s 70th birthday, Arnold Sommerfeld recounted, “The battle over the theory of relativity had also slightly reached over into America, where youth was warned by a Boston Cardinal to beware of Einstein the atheist. Thereupon Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein of New York cabled Einstein: ‘Do you believe in God?’ Einstein cabled back, ‘I believe in Spinoza’s God, who reveals himself in the harmony of all being, not in a god who concerns himself with fate and actions of men.’ … I have often felt and occasionally also stated that Einstein stands in particular intimate relation to the God of Spinoza.” (Pg. 103)
Ilse Rosenthal-Schneider notes in her essay, “Very important in Einstein’s presuppositions is the notion of simplicity, imposed as a condition on the formation of a basis, and, on the deduction from this basis, of a logical theory of physics. This simplicity is to be understood as including the reduction in number of the logically independent basic elements, i.e., concepts and fundamental hypotheses, and is generally agreed upon as a goal of all scientific theory. The logically simpler is not always the mathematically simpler. The essential point is that for a physical theory a type of mathematics be consistent as a whole.” (Pg. 137)
Max Born observed, “Einstein’s philosophy is not a system which you can read in a book; you have to take the trouble to abstract it from his papers on physics and from a few more general articles and pamphlets.”
(Pg. 175)
Niels Bohr notes in ‘Discussions With Einstein’: “In particular, the general relationship between energy and mass, expressed in Einstein’s famous formula [E=mc2] should allow, by means of simple weighing, to measure the total energy of any system and, thus, in principle to control the energy transferred to it when it interacts with an atomic object.” (Pg. 225)
Later, Bohr acknowledges, “Although in recent years I have had several occasions of meeting Einstein, the continued discussions, from which I have always received new impulses, have so far not led to a common view about the epistemological problems in atomic physics, and our opposing views are perhaps most clearly stated in a recent issue of ‘Dialectica,’ bringing general discussion of these problems.” (Pg. 239)
This book will be of keen interest to those interested in Einstein.
Displaying 1 of 1 review