The Faces of Immortality in Science |
| Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein had many disagreements, but the two did enjoy each other's company.Picture is a courtesy AIP Emilio Segre Visual Archives. |
There was Thomas Jefferson and
John Adams, there was Sigmund Freud and Carl Gustav Jung, and then there was
Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein.
These two men were obviously
different in regards to their views of the world, definitely when it was in
concerns to Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. Einstein wanted a definite
reason for everything, whereas Bohr accepted that there was uncertainty in the
world and that it was never going to solely function on a cycle of
predictability. Einstein was never satisfied with the remaining gaps of
uncertainty, and he continued to debate with Bohr till the day he died.
Science is often defined as the
“systematic study of the physical world through observation and experiment"(Oxford Dictionary).Is
that all there is to science? Without an eagerness to close the gaps of
uncertainty, what need is there for science? Einstein was characterized as an
absent-minded genius that reached for a fragment of certainty that may not even
exist. People need to also remember that there was also a time in science that
validated that space and time were absolute, and that the speed of light was
relative. Einstein proved that there was more to relativity and that the world,
that science was merely satisfied with a weak explanation before he was
determined to correct the old theories of physics.
So Einstein: a stubborn scholar or a absent-minded fool? Regardless of your opinion, the iconic face of Einstein will forever be imprinted on the world of science and pop culture.
