Einstein in Oxford

rsnr.royalsocietypublishing.org

92 points·sohkamyung··8 comments

There is a preserved blackboard[1] with Einstein's writing and a plaque[2] with explanation in the Museum of the History of Science[3] at Oxford.

[1] https://imgur.com/lmRE5pb [2] https://imgur.com/AS2Nhda [3] http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/

Anyone around the Oxford area, I recommend the History of Science museum. It has a fantastic collection of scientific, medical and navigational instruments, experiments, and general science paraphernalia.

Seconded. Went to visit earlier on in the year while I was in Oxford for a weekend. Popped in to get out the rain, stayed for most of the afternoon.

There is a ton of interesting artefacts from all manner of sciences, including some gruesome medical tools from days gone by. There's nothing like a leech as cure-all medication.

Yes, I particularly enjoyed the historical operating theaters scenes

And for LOTR and Narnia fans you can visit the Pub the Inklings met the Eagle and Child.

My favourite part of this is Einstein's response to how the lecture theater took his cutting-edge German-only physics talk:

> Ils ont bien dormi … Ils avaient le droit

"They slept well. They had the right"

> They show him in a period of intense rethinking of his cosmological views in the light of Edwin Hubble's recent evidence in favour of an expanding universe, an idea that Einstein had hitherto opposed.

interesting. i had been under the impression that Einstein had initially felt that Hubble's findings confirmed his ideas.

You are thinking of Arthur Eddington.

But yeah Einstein never got fully comfortable with many ideas, even the ones that his work helped to pioneer, like quantum physics and black holes.

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