5 ms·

Einstein's big year was 1905, not 1915, and the four (five?) papers he produced during that year (one of which won him a Nobel) could easily be described as the

by cubano 11y ago

Einstein's big year was 1905, not 1915, and the four (five?) papers he produced during that year (one of which won him a Nobel) could easily be described as the work of a "lone genius." He did most of work of that year while working, of course as we all know, as a patent clerk. Obviously, no one lives in a vacuum, and all legendary geniuses stand on the shoulders of other giants, but I can't help but think this article somewhat misrepresents the reality of Einstein's world-changing contributions. [edits]

rewqfdsa 11y ago
It's part of a larger push toward revisionist history in general. It's no longer correct to imagine that great people moved history through inspiration and force. Now, everything is cooperative, gradual, social, and voluntary. Today's archaeologist might find the remains of a burned city littered with arrowheads and skulls and say, "There was no invasion! This was clearly just theater!" You might see an entire civilization wiped out, a language made extinct, a change in religious idols, and a sudden decrease in the sophistication and production of pottery, and the conclusion has to be "Oh! The people of this region voluntarily absorbed the language and practice of their neighbors" and not the fucking obvious conclusion "They were wiped out and replaced." And now, there are no inventory, no inspired people, just groups and systems that at some place and time happened to squirt out relativity.
- forgingahead 11y ago
  I wish I could upvote this again. There is definitely this shift in the understanding of the world, and I believe it stems from an unwillingness to accept the cruelty of life. Accepting the harshness of the world and of human nature means also accepting the need to act in ways to survive and thrive in such an environment. Standards, dare I say virtues, have fallen to the wayside in pursuit of an easy, sedentary acceptance.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - hsitz 11y ago
    There is no shift. The question of whether individuals are primary influence on events or whether things are "in the air" and thus almost bound to happen (albeit caused by some individual or other) has been kicked around for at least a couple centuries. Napoleon was one of early examples often used. Was he a unique individual who exerted enormous influence on course of world events? Certainly. Were conditions in the world ripe for an individual to exert forces like Napoleon did, and would someone like Napoleon have arisen if Napoleon had never been born? Also, perhaps, yes. Evidence for the "in the air" version clearly exists in science and mathematics, where progress leads a certain direction, then a particular individual is the one who makes big advance or discovery. Often more than one person is independently making the same advance at the same time. Think of Newton and Leibniz, who independently and at same time developed calculus. Or Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, same thing with theory of evolution. All of these guys did extremely impressive things. But do you really think nobody else would have developed calculus or discovered evolution if these guys had all died in childbirth? I'm not saying all advancements are 100% "in the air" and that individuals basically do nothing. But, certainly, for many of these individuals -- who we (rightfully) revere -- the same advancements (or discoveries, or destruction, or whatever) would have been accomplished by someone else if they had never been born.
    - hguant 11y ago
      Right, but the conditions being ripe for a Naploean still requires Napolean. Saying that "the time was such that someone like so and so HAD to rise up" is meaningless. Nothing HAS to happen, in the realms of human behavior. People may be likely to do something, or the potential to do a great thing might be more potent at one point in time than another, but that potency still requires an efficient cause to become real. People with vision and talent and will can, and do, and have been changing the world. If you're interested in a smarter man than me going on about this idea, I suggest you read the Foundation series by Issac Asimov.
      - akiselev 11y ago
        Perhaps the conditions being ripe for Napoleon require a Napoleank not the Napolean, which is the crux of this individual vs circumstances debate. The interesting question is whether Napoleon (or Hitler or Stalin) was a unique individual necessary for the progression of events we call history or could that role have been fulfilled by another narcissistic, paranoid egomaniac (which Napolean, Hitler, and Stalin arguably were)? Was it fate, random chance, or is it a case of the nature of those randomly in power deciding the destiny of all? We'll probably never know.
- ethnomusicolog 11y ago
  I don't know but I used to have a kind of contrarian opinion on early einstein work and I just want to share it for the sake of the discussion. When I was a child and the concept of relativity where explained to me I used to think of einstein has having done something unique in the history of mankind. But the more I started to study and really get soaked in the spirit of the time of the evolution of maths, of physics of other brilliant ideas. the more I came to think of einstein as someone how had a "strategic" action managed to leverage that to the maximum effect. Now in that light he still "qualify" as a genius but not of the lone genius kind. To draw a comparison, I 'll rather put einstein in a "zuckerberg" genius bucket than a "jeff dean" (of google) genius. It's just a picture though, so take it with a grain of salt.
- fsloth 11y ago
  I don't think it's revisionism, more like giving flesh to the skeleton of the popular version of a markable person. No one denies that it was Einstein that published those papers. History is quite incomprehensible without giving a social context. Genghis Khan could have not conquered without the mongols being trained in hunting and herding, thus leading to the tactics that resulted in overwhelming victories. Einstein could not have written the papers he did without the corpus of the scientific knowledge and the people around him. It was his will that drove him forwards but to truly undertsand his conditions better we need the historical context. Maybe a stone age Einstein would have invented bronze. Who knows. But, theory of relativity even as a concept would have been beyond incomprehensible. People do not exist in a vacuum. The social context is the ocean, the individual is the surfer on the waves. Individual impetus drives the person forwards but if the weather is not agreeable to his ambitions he cannot surf.
zasz 11y ago
His work on the photoelectric effect is definitely the work of a lone genius. Is it not fair to say though, that for the theory of relativity, he had to collaborate with others? This article seems pretty exhaustive to me.
yk 11y ago
In 1905 Einstein was not only working as a patent clerk, he was also finishing his PHD thesis. (He got it for his paper on Brownian motion.) The other two papers, special relativity, for which he is famous, and the photo electric effect, for which he got the Nobel, are actually using the same trick, just take the (already existing) equations seriously. Granted that is the closest to "one weird trick" you will ever see and it is perhaps even more important for modern physics than his tangible contributions, but it is simply not the case that he was working in a vacuum.
- vacri 11y ago
  > "one weird trick" Reading this, I couldn't help but think "Maintain correct time in orbit by using this one weird trick discovered by a patent clerk. Click to find out how!"... :)
  - eru 11y ago
    For the machine learning folks: http://www.oneweirdkerneltrick.com/ http://www.oneweirdkerneltrick.com/
    - iopq 11y ago
      > You Only Learn Once: A Stochastic Weight Aggregation approach to Online Regret Minimization oh cool, this is relevant to my interests, I'm reading papers on monte carlo tree search for adversarial games wait... what is this? I don't even
  - iopq 11y ago
    "Lone wolf patent clerk rewrites 10 most important physics equations. #7 will shock you!"
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      "This Lone Pattern Clerk Dozed Off At His Job, Dreaming About Light. You Won't Believe What Happened Next!"
  - 11y ago
nrao123 11y ago
Yes- 1905 is part of the Annus Mirabilis series because of Einstein's work https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annus_mirabilis#1905_.E2.80.93_Albert_Einstein https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annus_mirabilis#1905_.E2.80.93...
wmil 11y ago
He married Mileva Marić in 1903, who was also a physicist. At a minimum, she would have been reading his work and giving him feedback. That really takes away from his "lone genius" status.

by cubano 11y ago

rewqfdsa 11y ago

It's part of a larger push toward revisionist history in general. It's no longer correct to imagine that great people moved history through inspiration and force. Now, everything is cooperative, gradual, social, and voluntary. Today's archaeologist might find the remains of a burned city littered with arrowheads and skulls and say, "There was no invasion! This was clearly just theater!" You might see an entire civilization wiped out, a language made extinct, a change in religious idols, and a sudden decrease in the sophistication and production of pottery, and the conclusion has to be "Oh! The people of this region voluntarily absorbed the language and practice of their neighbors" and not the fucking obvious conclusion "They were wiped out and replaced." And now, there are no inventory, no inspired people, just groups and systems that at some place and time happened to squirt out relativity.

forgingahead 11y ago
I wish I could upvote this again. There is definitely this shift in the understanding of the world, and I believe it stems from an unwillingness to accept the cruelty of life. Accepting the harshness of the world and of human nature means also accepting the need to act in ways to survive and thrive in such an environment. Standards, dare I say virtues, have fallen to the wayside in pursuit of an easy, sedentary acceptance.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- hsitz 11y ago
  There is no shift. The question of whether individuals are primary influence on events or whether things are "in the air" and thus almost bound to happen (albeit caused by some individual or other) has been kicked around for at least a couple centuries. Napoleon was one of early examples often used. Was he a unique individual who exerted enormous influence on course of world events? Certainly. Were conditions in the world ripe for an individual to exert forces like Napoleon did, and would someone like Napoleon have arisen if Napoleon had never been born? Also, perhaps, yes. Evidence for the "in the air" version clearly exists in science and mathematics, where progress leads a certain direction, then a particular individual is the one who makes big advance or discovery. Often more than one person is independently making the same advance at the same time. Think of Newton and Leibniz, who independently and at same time developed calculus. Or Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, same thing with theory of evolution. All of these guys did extremely impressive things. But do you really think nobody else would have developed calculus or discovered evolution if these guys had all died in childbirth? I'm not saying all advancements are 100% "in the air" and that individuals basically do nothing. But, certainly, for many of these individuals -- who we (rightfully) revere -- the same advancements (or discoveries, or destruction, or whatever) would have been accomplished by someone else if they had never been born.
  - hguant 11y ago
    Right, but the conditions being ripe for a Naploean still requires Napolean. Saying that "the time was such that someone like so and so HAD to rise up" is meaningless. Nothing HAS to happen, in the realms of human behavior. People may be likely to do something, or the potential to do a great thing might be more potent at one point in time than another, but that potency still requires an efficient cause to become real. People with vision and talent and will can, and do, and have been changing the world. If you're interested in a smarter man than me going on about this idea, I suggest you read the Foundation series by Issac Asimov.
    - akiselev 11y ago
      Perhaps the conditions being ripe for Napoleon require a Napoleank not the Napolean, which is the crux of this individual vs circumstances debate. The interesting question is whether Napoleon (or Hitler or Stalin) was a unique individual necessary for the progression of events we call history or could that role have been fulfilled by another narcissistic, paranoid egomaniac (which Napolean, Hitler, and Stalin arguably were)? Was it fate, random chance, or is it a case of the nature of those randomly in power deciding the destiny of all? We'll probably never know.
ethnomusicolog 11y ago
I don't know but I used to have a kind of contrarian opinion on early einstein work and I just want to share it for the sake of the discussion. When I was a child and the concept of relativity where explained to me I used to think of einstein has having done something unique in the history of mankind. But the more I started to study and really get soaked in the spirit of the time of the evolution of maths, of physics of other brilliant ideas. the more I came to think of einstein as someone how had a "strategic" action managed to leverage that to the maximum effect. Now in that light he still "qualify" as a genius but not of the lone genius kind. To draw a comparison, I 'll rather put einstein in a "zuckerberg" genius bucket than a "jeff dean" (of google) genius. It's just a picture though, so take it with a grain of salt.
fsloth 11y ago
I don't think it's revisionism, more like giving flesh to the skeleton of the popular version of a markable person. No one denies that it was Einstein that published those papers. History is quite incomprehensible without giving a social context. Genghis Khan could have not conquered without the mongols being trained in hunting and herding, thus leading to the tactics that resulted in overwhelming victories. Einstein could not have written the papers he did without the corpus of the scientific knowledge and the people around him. It was his will that drove him forwards but to truly undertsand his conditions better we need the historical context. Maybe a stone age Einstein would have invented bronze. Who knows. But, theory of relativity even as a concept would have been beyond incomprehensible. People do not exist in a vacuum. The social context is the ocean, the individual is the surfer on the waves. Individual impetus drives the person forwards but if the weather is not agreeable to his ambitions he cannot surf.

zasz 11y ago

His work on the photoelectric effect is definitely the work of a lone genius. Is it not fair to say though, that for the theory of relativity, he had to collaborate with others? This article seems pretty exhaustive to me.

yk 11y ago

In 1905 Einstein was not only working as a patent clerk, he was also finishing his PHD thesis. (He got it for his paper on Brownian motion.) The other two papers, special relativity, for which he is famous, and the photo electric effect, for which he got the Nobel, are actually using the same trick, just take the (already existing) equations seriously. Granted that is the closest to "one weird trick" you will ever see and it is perhaps even more important for modern physics than his tangible contributions, but it is simply not the case that he was working in a vacuum.

vacri 11y ago
> "one weird trick" Reading this, I couldn't help but think "Maintain correct time in orbit by using this one weird trick discovered by a patent clerk. Click to find out how!"... :)
- eru 11y ago
  For the machine learning folks: http://www.oneweirdkerneltrick.com/ http://www.oneweirdkerneltrick.com/
  - iopq 11y ago
    > You Only Learn Once: A Stochastic Weight Aggregation approach to Online Regret Minimization oh cool, this is relevant to my interests, I'm reading papers on monte carlo tree search for adversarial games wait... what is this? I don't even
- iopq 11y ago
  "Lone wolf patent clerk rewrites 10 most important physics equations. #7 will shock you!"
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    "This Lone Pattern Clerk Dozed Off At His Job, Dreaming About Light. You Won't Believe What Happened Next!"
- 11y ago

nrao123 11y ago

Yes- 1905 is part of the Annus Mirabilis series because of Einstein's work https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annus_mirabilis#1905_.E2.80.93_Albert_Einstein https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annus_mirabilis#1905_.E2.80.93...

wmil 11y ago

He married Mileva Marić in 1903, who was also a physicist. At a minimum, she would have been reading his work and giving him feedback. That really takes away from his "lone genius" status.