Excursions to the Edge of Thought
Of all the unique characters in the history of science, perhaps no one is as iconic as the German-born physicist Albert Einstein. Nearly anyone would recognize an image of the eccentric genius with the wild hair.
In 1905, while still holding down a day job at a patent office in Switzerland, Einstein published four short papers that forever changed how we understand the world. In the first one, he showed that light comes in discrete particles, later dubbed photons. In the second, he finally proved that atoms were real and showed how to calculate the seemingly random way they move around in gas or liquids. In the third paper, he introduced his theory of relativity, completely upending our notions about space and time. And in the last one, he coined his famous formula E=mc2, illuminating the relationship between mass and energy.
These papers were undoubtedly extraordinary achievements, and they shot Einstein to world fame. But few people know that Einstein spent the last years of his life in isolation, sneered at by the rest of the scientific community.
Here’s the key message: Toward the end of his life, Albert Einstein struck up an unlikely friendship with the young logician Kurt Gödel.
In 1933, with his greatest discoveries behind him, Einstein fled from Germany to the US and settled in Princeton, New Jersey. At the time, his star in the scientific community had already begun to fade. This was partially due to his opposition to quantum mechanics, a hot new theory that sought to explain the movement of subatomic particles. Einstein regarded the implications of quantum theory as too “spooky” to be true, alienating himself from much of the scientific community at the time.
And so he spent his days going on long, solitary walks around the Princeton campus. After a while though, he found an unlikely walking companion: the much younger Kurt Gödel. The genius logician Gödel was highly regarded for his incompleteness theorems, with which he had shown that no logical system is 100 percent airtight. With his ideas, Gödel challenged the notion that humans could ever achieve something like absolute knowledge.
While Einstein’s star was fading, Gödel’s star was shining brighter than ever. In terms of personality, too, the two men were polar opposites. Einstein was cheerful and gregarious, whereas Gödel was serious and pessimistic. Even by the standards of quirky old Einstein, Gödel was a strange fellow. It was rumored that he lived off a diet of baby food, butter, and laxatives.
Despite their differences, Einstein and Gödel shared a deep intellectual connection. They both believed that mathematics was not just some abstract game of symbols, but a discipline deeply rooted in physical reality. This wasn’t a very popular opinion at the time. Gödel also shared Einstein's skepticism of quantum mechanics. And on the matter of time, Gödel took Einstein’s famous relativity theory even further than its originator. We’ll see how in the next blink.
When Einstein Walked with Gödel (2018) is an excursion through both the fabric of our reality and the limits of scientific imagination. Combining math and physics with history and philosophy, it sheds light on some of the most important scientific theories of the last three centuries – and examines the turbulent lives of the geniuses who conceived them.
Ich bin begeistert. Ich liebe Bücher aber durch zwei kleine Kinder komme ich einfach nicht zum Lesen. Und ja, viele Bücher haben viel bla bla und die Quintessenz ist eigentlich ein Bruchteil.
Genau dafür ist Blinkist total genial! Es wird auf das Wesentliche reduziert, die Blinks sind gut verständlich, gut zusammengefasst und auch hörbar! Das ist super. 80 Euro für ein ganzes Jahr klingt viel, aber dafür unbegrenzt Zugriff auf 3000 Bücher. Und dieses Wissen und die Zeitersparnis ist unbezahlbar.
Extrem empfehlenswert. Statt sinnlos im Facebook zu scrollen höre ich jetzt täglich zwischen 3-4 "Bücher". Bei manchen wird schnelle klar, dass der Kauf unnötig ist, da schon das wichtigste zusammen gefasst wurde..bei anderen macht es Lust doch das Buch selbständig zu lesen. Wirklich toll
Einer der besten, bequemsten und sinnvollsten Apps die auf ein Handy gehören. Jeden morgen 15-20 Minuten für die eigene Weiterbildung/Entwicklung oder Wissen.
Viele tolle Bücher, auf deren Kernaussagen reduziert- präzise und ansprechend zusammengefasst. Endlich habe ich das Gefühl, Zeit für Bücher zu finden, für die ich sonst keine Zeit habe.
Hol dir mit Blinkist die besten Erkenntnisse aus mehr als 7.000 Sachbüchern und Podcasts. In 15 Minuten lesen oder anhören!
Jetzt kostenlos testen
Blink 3 von 12 - Eine kurze Geschichte der Menschheit
von Yuval Noah Harari
