4 ms·

Not only did not everyone agree with him, many people including Nikola Tesla thought he was a fraud.

sho_hn 3y ago
"The theory, wraps all these errors and fallacies and clothes them in magnificent mathematical garb which fascinates, dazzles and makes people blind to the underlying errors. The theory is like a beggar clothed in purple whom ignorant people take for a king. Its exponents are very brilliant men, but they are metaphysicists rather than scientists. Not a single one of the relativity propositions has been proved." (https://www.nytimes.com/1935/07/11/archives/tesla-79-promises-to-transmit-force-scientist-on-birthday-reveals.html https://www.nytimes.com/1935/07/11/archives/tesla-79-promise...) That certainly didn't age well.
bee_rider 3y ago
An engineer from the previous generation seems like the last person to ask about a physicist. Being established and in a downstream field seems especially likely to induce an unjustified sense of confidence.
slabity 3y ago
Well Nikola Tesla thought a lot of physicists who created successful theories were frauds. He openly disagreed with Einstein, Marie Curie, Maxwell, Hertz... And probably a lot more that I don't even know about. I think the most interesting thing about him is that, despite all his work in taming electricity, he disagreed with the existence of electrons (or really any subatomic particles).
- Konohamaru 3y ago
  Atomism is a philosophically offensive position to those of Tesla's personality type. Catholic Encyclopedia has an entry against it (while barely admitting an instrumental interpretation of atoms for chemistry). It's almost as bad as evolution!
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - User23 3y ago
    Charitably I’m going to ascribe this to ignorance and not dishonesty. You may not be aware but Catholic dogma has no problem whatsoever with evolution, an old Earth, heliocentrism, or any number of other more or less fashionable opinions. The Catholic encyclopedia is over a century old and it shows. Perhaps you failed to understand the article you attempted to read? Nevertheless, here[1] is the entry on atomism for those who are interested. The article immediately distinguishes between philosophy and science while you appear to be, for some reason, conflating them: Atomism [a privative and temnein to cut, i.e. indivisible] is the system of those who hold that all bodies are composed of minute, indivisible particles of matter called atoms. We must distinguish between 1) atomism as a philosophy and 2) atomism as a theory of science. [1] https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02053a.htm https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02053a.htm
    - colechristensen 3y ago
      > The Catholic encyclopedia is over a century old Tesla also died 80 years ago. The Catholic encyclopedia was finished in 1912, tesla was 56 at the time.
    - Konohamaru 3y ago
      It was neither ignorance nor dishonesty, my friend. It was measuring Tesla according to the beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church at his time in history. And I mentioned "atomism as a theory of science" under the instrumentalism part of my comment. In Catholic Theology, philosophy always means "ontological interpretation". That section you quoted is saying that Catholics are allowed to believe in atomism as an instrumental model, but not as the ultimate interpretation of how the Universe works.
      - User23 3y ago
        > In Catholic Theology, philosophy always means "ontological interpretation" That's a rather bold claim. It implies that Catholic theologians are, among other things, uninterested in ethics, aesthetics, metaphysics, and epistemology, just to name a few other subjects of interest to philosophers. I'm frankly baffled that you would reach such a conclusion, but OK. > Catholics are allowed to believe in atomism as an instrumental model, but not as the ultimate interpretation of how the Universe works Well to be Catholic you have to believe in an ultimate eternal God, so ultimately we believe that everything in the universe is both created and sustained by Him and everything observable is some kind of instrumentality, be it evolution, quantum electrodynamics, or anything else. Nevertheless that doesn't in any pragmatic way restrict one's ability to form scientific hypotheses or theories. Indeed it's arguably closer to the Newtonian ideal of focusing on accurate description of phenomena.
lo_zamoyski 3y ago
Another example is Georges Lemaître[0] who "was the first to theorize that the recession of nearby galaxies can be explained by an expanding universe", as well as the Big Bang theory. These were not ideas Einstein favored, at least not at first. Why should we be surprised people disagreed? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lema%C3%AEtre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lema%C3%AEtre

"The theory, wraps all these errors and fallacies and clothes them in magnificent mathematical garb which fascinates, dazzles and makes people blind to the underlying errors. The theory is like a beggar clothed in purple whom ignorant people take for a king. Its exponents are very brilliant men, but they are metaphysicists rather than scientists. Not a single one of the relativity propositions has been proved." (https://www.nytimes.com/1935/07/11/archives/tesla-79-promises-to-transmit-force-scientist-on-birthday-reveals.html https://www.nytimes.com/1935/07/11/archives/tesla-79-promise...) That certainly didn't age well.

bee_rider 3y ago

An engineer from the previous generation seems like the last person to ask about a physicist. Being established and in a downstream field seems especially likely to induce an unjustified sense of confidence.

slabity 3y ago

Well Nikola Tesla thought a lot of physicists who created successful theories were frauds. He openly disagreed with Einstein, Marie Curie, Maxwell, Hertz... And probably a lot more that I don't even know about. I think the most interesting thing about him is that, despite all his work in taming electricity, he disagreed with the existence of electrons (or really any subatomic particles).

Konohamaru 3y ago
Atomism is a philosophically offensive position to those of Tesla's personality type. Catholic Encyclopedia has an entry against it (while barely admitting an instrumental interpretation of atoms for chemistry). It's almost as bad as evolution!
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- User23 3y ago
  Charitably I’m going to ascribe this to ignorance and not dishonesty. You may not be aware but Catholic dogma has no problem whatsoever with evolution, an old Earth, heliocentrism, or any number of other more or less fashionable opinions. The Catholic encyclopedia is over a century old and it shows. Perhaps you failed to understand the article you attempted to read? Nevertheless, here[1] is the entry on atomism for those who are interested. The article immediately distinguishes between philosophy and science while you appear to be, for some reason, conflating them: Atomism [a privative and temnein to cut, i.e. indivisible] is the system of those who hold that all bodies are composed of minute, indivisible particles of matter called atoms. We must distinguish between 1) atomism as a philosophy and 2) atomism as a theory of science. [1] https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02053a.htm https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02053a.htm
  - colechristensen 3y ago
    > The Catholic encyclopedia is over a century old Tesla also died 80 years ago. The Catholic encyclopedia was finished in 1912, tesla was 56 at the time.
  - Konohamaru 3y ago
    It was neither ignorance nor dishonesty, my friend. It was measuring Tesla according to the beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church at his time in history. And I mentioned "atomism as a theory of science" under the instrumentalism part of my comment. In Catholic Theology, philosophy always means "ontological interpretation". That section you quoted is saying that Catholics are allowed to believe in atomism as an instrumental model, but not as the ultimate interpretation of how the Universe works.
    - User23 3y ago
      > In Catholic Theology, philosophy always means "ontological interpretation" That's a rather bold claim. It implies that Catholic theologians are, among other things, uninterested in ethics, aesthetics, metaphysics, and epistemology, just to name a few other subjects of interest to philosophers. I'm frankly baffled that you would reach such a conclusion, but OK. > Catholics are allowed to believe in atomism as an instrumental model, but not as the ultimate interpretation of how the Universe works Well to be Catholic you have to believe in an ultimate eternal God, so ultimately we believe that everything in the universe is both created and sustained by Him and everything observable is some kind of instrumentality, be it evolution, quantum electrodynamics, or anything else. Nevertheless that doesn't in any pragmatic way restrict one's ability to form scientific hypotheses or theories. Indeed it's arguably closer to the Newtonian ideal of focusing on accurate description of phenomena.

lo_zamoyski 3y ago

Another example is Georges Lemaître[0] who "was the first to theorize that the recession of nearby galaxies can be explained by an expanding universe", as well as the Big Bang theory. These were not ideas Einstein favored, at least not at first. Why should we be surprised people disagreed? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lema%C3%AEtre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lema%C3%AEtre