Albert Einstein – Physicist, Activist, Hero

In 1905, two years after the Wright brothers (Orville and Wilbur) took flight in the first airplane at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina; Albert Einstein at the age of twenty-six, published his groundbreaking work in physics: The Special Theory of Relativity, which fundamentally changed our understanding of the world, of time and space, of mass and matter, of gravity and the universe itself.

 This was a heroic feat of genius.

 Einstein is not the greatest physicist who ever lived; he admits to his limitations, though he never stopped trying to supersede them. He articulated the principles he was able to grasp, but did not cling to them as the next generation of physicists, standing on the platform he established, moved past him.

 After writing his seminal treatise, which included the publication of his famous equation E=MC2, he spent the rest of his life in search of a theorem that he referred to as the cosmological constant, he spent the rest of his life hunting for it, like King Pelinore on the trail of the questing-beast, he was searching for a mathematical construct that eluded him, like Pelinore’s dragon or the Holy Grail.

 By the end of his life, the province of theoretical physics occupied a completely new field than what Einstein had discovered through relativity. His work remained fundamental to twentieth century physics, but its scope had expanded into realms of uncertainty and the sub-atomica. Einstein grappled with those who came after him, men like Heisenberg with his quantum mechanics, countering their view of the world with his famous maxim: “God does not play dice with the universe,” which is more a statement of faith than a rational deduction, though it may be more fair to think of this as a hypothesis that balanced his lived experience with the exigencies of his experiments.

 I like to believe that Einstein was right…I think he was, but then again…who knows?

 In some ways God does play dice with the universe; chance and random indeterminants play a significant role in the actualization of potentialities, from the micro-verse to the macro-verse and at every stage in between.

 The great man lived a humble life, though I cannot speak to his actual humility, but he famously wore the same suit of clothes every day, stating in effect that he had too much on his mind to bother with trying to sort out what he would wear…therefore his garb went unchanged.

 (I have modeled my own wardrobe according to this principle.)

 Despite the enormity of his contribution to theoretical physics and cosmology Einstein was deeply engaged with the world; even though he was merely a man of letters and his genius made him remote and detached, he was an ardent member of the international peace movement.

 You might see a contradiction here, because Einstein was also a principle advocate behind the development of the atomic bomb, convincing the Americans that Germany was well on its way toward splitting the atom and that if the Germans did, Hitler would certainly use that power to win the war, out of those conversations the Manhattan Project took shape leading to the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the surrender of Japan and the dramatic end to the Second World War.

 Einstein’s advocacy for peace and his role in advancing us toward the nuclear age are somewhat paradoxical, but they show us the most important thing about his character, which was his practical commitment to humanity and our collective wellbeing. Peace in his time came at an incredible cost in terms of human suffering, though the suffering would have been greater, and lasted longer if he had done nothing…he did not gamble with his own life, but he gambled…Einstein, unlike God, threw the dice. He secured a kind of peace…for a time.  

 Einstein was a hero, an intellectual giant, emerging from the field of theoretical physics and passing into myth. He loved to sail, he played the violin, he kept company with Marilyn Monroe, he name is synonymous with genius...he was not an Einstein, he was the Einstein, he cut the mold.