On 7 Oct 2005 03:07:31 GMT, "Harry Lavo" wrote:

wrote in message
...
Harry Lavo wrote:

You know, Einstein was a railroad telegraph clerk when he came up with
the
insight that generated the theory of relativity.


No, he was not. Harry, you REALLY need to read your history.
Einstein, at the time was a university-trained and degreed
physicist with a 3.3 equivalent grade average who worked as
an examiner in the Swiss Patent Office.

History was never my strong suite...I stand corrected. I must have mixed
him up with somebody else....you sure he didn't work as a telegraph operator
*before* he became degreed, or while he was seeking the degree?

Albert Einstein was born at Ulm, in Württemberg, Germany, on March 14,
1879. Six weeks later the family moved to Munich and he began his
schooling there at the Luitpold Gymnasium. Later, they moved to Italy
and Albert continued his education at Aarau, Switzerland and in 1896
he entered the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich to be
trained as a teacher in physics and mathematics. In 1901, the year he
gained his diploma, he acquired Swiss citizenship and, as he was
unable to find a teaching post, he accepted a position as technical
assistant in the Swiss Patent Office. In 1905 he obtained his doctor's
degree.

During his stay at the Patent Office, and in his spare time, he
produced much of his remarkable work and in 1908 he was appointed
Privatdozent in Berne. In 1909 he became Professor Extraordinary at
Zurich, in 1911 Professor of Theoretical Physics at Prague, returning
to Zurich in the following year to fill a similar post. In 1914 he was
appointed Director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Physical Institute and
Professor in the University of Berlin. He became a German citizen in
1914 and remained in Berlin until 1933 when he renounced his
citizenship for political reasons and emigrated to America to take the
position of Professor of Theoretical Physics at Princeton*. He became
a United States citizen in 1940 and retired from his post in 1945.

After World War II, Einstein was a leading figure in the World
Government Movement, he was offered the Presidency of the State of
Israel, which he declined, and he collaborated with Dr. Chaim Weizmann
in establishing the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

You can't expect scientists to
bother investigating anything so specious.

And he received much the same response initially.

Not from the professional physics community, he didn't.
The professional physics community rather well embraced
relativity. Please check your history.

My understanding is that even in that community there were more deriders
than acceptors until after the famous "bending-light" verification.

That's how Science works. You observe something unusual, come up with
a theory to explain it, use that theory to predict something else, and
observe the truth or falsity of your prediction.

There was, in some quarters, widespread derision, but it should
be noted that even at the time, this was primarily from the
physics illiterate and the fringe community.

My understanding is that outside of a few close associates he was routinely
and widely derided.

Your understanding is at its usual level. Don't believe everything you
read in the popular press. Actually, that also applies to audio!

You might also bone up on his complete reluctance to embrace
quantum mechanics, despire being one of the founding fathers
(e.g., for explaining the photoelectric effect, for which he
won his only Nobel proze) and in spite of overwhelming physical
evidence.

I do know of his reluctance to aceept quantum mechanics....never said he
didn't have his weaknesses. But it goes to show what happens when science
as faith replaces science as science.

Oh dear. No, it goes to show that even the greatest scientists can
sometimes refuse to accept scientific facts. I suppose that gives you
*some* excuse............

Perhaps like Einstein musing about a train whistle.........?

Uh, that was Doppler, thank you.

Yep, as already pointed out. Again, apparently a memory mix up on my part.

And I haven't seen any Einsteins around here.

I'm not sure you would know one if you ran into one.
That's my point.

And if you were standing around the railroad in the late
1800's or early 1900's, neither would you.

No, but if I was one of those physicists my guess is I would have been on
his side.

My guess is that you would have been suggesting that some other force
must be bending light, because after all we don't know everything
about light.

However, if you had been hanging around the Physics
Department of the Zurich Federal Institute of Technology,
you would have had a far better chance of running into
the Man.

I might even have been his lunch-buddy. :-)

The incidence of aviating porcines was low, even then.

--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering