Why Is There No New "Einstein"? | Hacker News Reader

Why Is There No New "Einstein"?

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16 pointsneilc33 comments

This is a very interesting question, but unfortunately in this case the author's answer is just the standard scientist's whine: "There's not enough funding for my kind of research".

Better possible answers include:

a) The time isn't right for the emergence of another Einstein just now

b) There are several around, we're just not paying attention

c) Einstein was really more of a media phenomenon than a physicist, and he wasn't really any more of a genius than several of his contemporaries, and several of ours.

d) There are so many more physicists nowadays than there were a hundred years ago that it's harder for one to stand so far above the others

e) Physics is almost over -- there's still things still left to discover, but no surprises on the scale of relativity or quantum mechanics left.

I'm not actually arguing for any of these possibilities right now, just saying that they are possibilities more interesting than Lee Smolin's "can has more money?" article.

Actually, to my great surprise, "give my field more money" was only one of his suggestions. It was, in fact, the last suggestion of his, and (at least to my reading) least important.

The rest of his answer is quite reasonable, and doesn't even need new money:

1. Seek out people with different points of view and invite them to join the discussion. 2. Give money/influence to individuals, not to large fiefdoms/research programs.

I think he is quite right on this. In at least one area the author mentioned (foundations of QM), even a single person with different views can be beneficial to a department. At Rutgers (where I got my Ph.D.) the math physics group has a single advocate of a deviant view. The department would be weakened if we replaced him with a normal scientist of equal quality.

Diversity of ideas is important, and we definitely don't do enough to promote it.

"... Seek out people with different points of view and invite them to join the discussion ..."

Heretical for Science.

I read this and think of some thinkers below each who are/where persecuted in some way for having unacceptable ideas:

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bart_Kosko

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beno%C3%AEt_Mandelbrot

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Darwin

"... Diversity of ideas is important, and we definitely don't do enough to promote it. ..."

True. Sometimes I think working at the edges of problems and across several fields reduces the chances of recognition. But it's here good ideas & people emerge.

"Diversity of ideas is important, ..."

Wouldn't that be, diversity of informed ideas is important?

Why might it be that people with the background to have an informed opinion on something do not show greater diversity in those opinions? (Or maybe they are there, and politics keeps them out of the inner circle?)

>Why might it be that people with the background to have an informed opinion on something do not show greater diversity in those opinions?

For one reason or another, one viewpoint gets a leg up on the other one. After this, life is easier for those with the mainstream viewpoint, and new people join the establishment.

Case in point: I'm working on a paper right now in foundations of quantum mechanics. I did most of the work with Bohmian mechanics as my mental model (as a result of being exposed to a "deviant"). That viewpoint helped a lot, and I probably wouldn't have built my model without it. Note that the model is completely justifiable without it, but it's an unmotivated magic trick.

I've given talks about it from a non-standard perspective. People attack that. I've also talked about it, pretending it's black magic that yields a result everyone knows. People love that.

The result is the same, but I have an easier time promoting it if it looks mainstream.

It's no wonder people stick to the establishment. Even I'm going to stick to the establishment when it comes time to submit the paper.

Lee Smolin's grievances are motivated by a greater concern than simply lack of funding for loop quantum gravity, his primary topic of research. The main problem is the unjustified (given the lack of falsifiable predictions, lack of proper formulation, lack of unique solutions) and unprecedented (given the proportion of string theorists in top-level research institutions) focus on string theories in the current environment. It's about the fate of a discipline, not simply about "not enough funding." See his book The Trouble with Physics for a more passionate defense.

I do agree that the answer to "why no Einsteins" is more complicated that Lee Smolin suggests, though I doubt any of (a)-(e) are true, except maybe (a).

"Physics is almost over -- there's still things still left to discover, but no surprises on the scale of relativity or quantum mechanics left."

If less than 100% of alien reports are fake/illusions/hallucinations, then we still have to discover faster-than-lightspeed travel and a bunch of other cool stuff.

a) The time isn't right for the emergence of another Einstein just now

this is the big one. scientific breakthroughs move in waves, it's not just the right person but also being in the right place and time. However I believe that with all the holes being poked in the Standard Model by dark matter/energy and the fact that we STILL have no idea what gravity actually is, we're headed for another Einstein popping up.

f) approaching singularity

Well, when you compare the free, male, non-laboring population of Ancient Athens with the entire educated population of the world today, you have to wonder where all the Socrateses, Platos, Aristotles, Aristophaneses, etc, etc, etc, are hiding. Using the roughest possible statistics, every mid-sized town should have a few.

When you compare the educational prerequisites needed to discover something new nowadays and the educational prerequisites needed in Ancient Athens, you have your answer.

Most reasonably bright high-school kids can understand Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Archimedes, etc. A few can even rederive their findings; there were a couple times when I was growing up when I had this great insight, only to find out that it had been discovered by a dead Greek guy 2000 years ago. But unfortunately, discovering the same stuff that the ancient Greeks discovered doesn't count as noteworthy anymore. The bar's been raised a little higher.

Same goes for most fields. Lots of college CS students can implement a Lisp interpreter now; it was a big deal when McCarthy did it in 1960. When Tchaikovsky wrote his violin concerto, he gave it to the best concert violinist of his day, who took one look at it and replied "This is unplayable." Now it's standard repertoire for dedicated high-schoolers.

Two reasons. 1) The achievements of modern day scientists appear less amazing than they really are. 2) The achievements of scientists of the pass seem more amazing than they really were.

There are quite a few candidates for a modern day "Einstein." Stephen Hawking or Michio Kaku, for example.

The simple truth is that great scientist are simply a a rare event. How many scientists with the capacity of Einstein have there been? Newton, maybe Aristotle and Archimedes. That's four in the last two thousand years.

The capacity of scientists (genius, output or however you define it) most probably follows a powerlaw with a lot of mediocre scientists, a few outstanding (Louis Pasteur, Henry Cavendish, Louis Maxwell) and only one true genius for every two centuries. Since we had a genius that broke through in 1905 we will statistically have to wait for quite a while for the next one.

There are way more people around now than there were then—the number of people alive today is comparable to the number of people who have died in the last millennium.

Which should amount to an Einstein every millenium or so.

How many scientists with the capacity of Einstein have there been? Newton, maybe Aristotle and Archimedes. That's four in the last two thousand years.

Look, I admire these guys as much as anyone. But Zombie Einstein himself would come back from the dead and smack you if he heard you claim that, e.g., Maxwell wasn't as smart as he was. Einstein figured out special relativity by staring at Maxwell's equations, after all.

I also look forward to your battle with Zombie Leibniz, who will be pretty pissed off at your one-sided exaltation of Newton. Although it's understandable that you didn't choose to anger Zombie Newton. Nobody does that and lives.

Having actually met the late Hans Bethe before he died, I assure you that his zombie will pack a mean slide rule. We're talking about a guy who discovered the main sequence, wrote the book on solid state physics, and served as the theoretical lead for the Manhattan project in his spare time.

Indeed, the list of dead scientists who were arguably as capable as Einstein is awfully long. You'd better start running. I hear that the tag team of Zombie Nicola Tesla and Zombie Michael Faraday is deadly even at long range, especially if you aren't properly grounded. And that's just the physicists... can you imagine the sheer size of Zombie Charles Darwin's Army of the Extinct?

If you ever write a book on popular science in that prose please let me know. I wan to buy it.

Well, one of my favorite science books ever is Molecular Biology Made Simple and Fun, and it reads kind of like this.

The science in the book is 100% serious, too, and at the approximate level of an intro course in college. I faked it for three years as a biophysics postdoc with the help of that book. Admittedly, the molecular biologists chuckled at my understanding of their field, the way you would chuckle at a precocious four-year-old, but at least I had a vague idea of what I didn't know.

Thanks for the tip - think I'll pick it up.

Thanks a lot. I was looking for a book like that.

"The simple truth is that great scientist are simply a a rare event. How many scientists with the capacity of Einstein have there been? "

FFTW

(Feynman for the win)

FFTW FTW. Fastest fourier transform in the west FTW! oh.

Luboš Motl has several responses to this question on his blog:

http://motls.blogspot.com/2005/06/why-no-new-einstein.html

http://motls.blogspot.com/2005/09/why-no-new-einstein-ii.htm...

This one isn't directly addressed to the Smolin piece, but it addresses the "No New Einstein" question:

http://motls.blogspot.com/2007/09/bad-physicists-and-populis...

Scene from the Big Bang Theory:

PENNY What's new in physics?

LEONARD Really nothing, except for string theory. But only then I can say, "My theory has certain mathematical consistencies"

The Big Bang Theory has surprised me in that it actually has truly intellectual jokes. I thought it would just be another stereotype-promoting, nerd-meets-hottie sitcom, but this one actually has some intelligent humor.

It's a "scribd.com" link, but it looks like now it's smart enough to not bother with the wonky Flash plugin for Mac users, and just send us to the PDF. Yay!

I don't think so; I got a PDF as well in Opera and Firefox on Ubuntu.

It's a scribd.com link that redirects you to a PDF on everythingimportant.org.

The PDF is encrypted, and we can't convert encrypted PDFs to iPaper. In this case we just allow the original PDF to be downloaded.

New Einstein dropped out, built and sold his "Hot Physicist or Not?" startup, and now just likes to kick back and listen to some choons.

There is one - J. Craig Venter. I know he's not a physicist but I think the comparison is valid.

two words: computer science. All our great minds are busy learning how to program.

That's actually quite funny. I met a prominent CS professor at a major school (think top 10) who admitted he doesn't know any programming languages (C, java, etc.).

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