Even Einstein Had His Off Days

[pmbryant]

From the New York Times:

Even Einstein Had His Off Days

By SIMON SINGH
London

WE have now entered what is being celebrated as the Einstein Year, marking the centenary of the physicist's annus mirabilis in 1905, when he published three landmark papers - those that proved the existence of the atom, showed the validity of quantum physics and, of course, introduced the world to his theory of special relativity. Not bad for a beginner.

"It's not that I'm so smart," Einstein once said, "It's just that I stay with problems longer." Whatever the reason for his greatness, there is no doubt that this determination allowed him to invent courageous new physics and explore realms that nobody else had dared to investigate.

What he was not, however, was a perfect genius. In fact, when it came to the biggest scientific issue of all - the origin of the universe - he was utterly wrong. And while we should certainly laud his achievements over the next 12 months, we may learn a more valuable lesson by investigating Einstein's greatest failure.

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More: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/02/opinion/02singh.html

[papau]

1. I liked the "anti-gravity"of Einstein being back in fashion as Dark energy

A great topic to ponder -

and a great man (although his wife was a smarter mathematician, better physicist!)

:-)

[HereSince1628]

2. For an interesting read about reworking Einstein's lambda

and other cosmological constants that may not be constant I recommend Magueijo's 2002, Faster than the Speed of Light.

I'm gonna cut Einstein a lot of slack on greatness. Although he didn't get things entirely right, in fairness we still don't know what entirely right is, and his work spawned a tremendous growth in both scientific activity and understanding.

[Gman]

3. very nice article

[Cornjob]

4. Another Einstein Boo-Boo...

involved his derivation of specific heat vs. temperature of crystalline materials from first principles. It was later corrected by other brilliant scientists who recognized Einstein's mistake.

To me Einstein's greatest contributions were those that showed the incredible beauty and simplicity of nature expressed in mathematical language.

Oh yes! He was a true genius of the highest order!