- #1
Ken Natton
- 187
- 0
I have searched around the Physics Forums website for any previous discussion of this book, and there are a couple of places where it is mentioned, but not on this Science Books forum. Mainly where it is mentioned is on the Special and General Relativity forum. And where it is mentioned, it is never actually discussing this book as such, it is just mentioning it in passing as part of a different discussion.
But something that has emerged from that search is that there are contributors to these forums who actually know Ohanian. Some of them have seen fit to defend Ohanian and say that he is someone who is pretty clued up. But the fact that they have done so shows that there are others who have questioned it.
And that is relevant to the discussion I would like to generate. I’m not really looking to review this book, but to discuss the matter that it raises. And the clue to that matter lies in the book’s title. If it were just being suggested that among all of Einstein’s extraordinary contributions to the progress of physical science there were also a few errors, I don’t think that would be a particular problem. One of the reviewers quoted on the cover of the copy I have makes a similar point – that Einstein’s errors only demonstrate the fact that he was human which actually serves the better to show up his achievements.
But when I read the actual text, that is not quite the impression that I got. There are times when it does seem to be that Ohanian is questioning whether Einstein deserves any of the credit he gets. In several cases, Ohanian questions outright whether Einstein was the first to prove a particular point or doubts whether Einstein ever did prove what he supposed he had proved. In other cases where he does seem to concede any measure of achievement at all by Einstein, he seems to feel the need to then juxtapose that with some account of Einstein’s outright incompetence. There were occasions, as I read the text, when I found myself wondering if Ohanian had some active agenda against Einstein’s legacy, though it is not at all clear to me what that agenda could be.
Of course it is clear that a popular myth has grown up around the figure of Einstein. I accept that there are some very good reasons for believing that some of the prominent figures around Einstein, men like Max Plank and Hendrik Lorentz were significantly his intellectual superior. It is a significant point to grasp that Einstein’s original insights were the product of an unusual way of thinking about things rather than so much a matter of an exceptional intellect.
But does Ohanian have a case to undermine the accepted view of Einstein quite so totally? Or am I perhaps reading too much into the text? Does anyone disagree with my assessment of Ohanian’s account? Or does anyone share my disquiet about Ohanian’s motivations?
But something that has emerged from that search is that there are contributors to these forums who actually know Ohanian. Some of them have seen fit to defend Ohanian and say that he is someone who is pretty clued up. But the fact that they have done so shows that there are others who have questioned it.
And that is relevant to the discussion I would like to generate. I’m not really looking to review this book, but to discuss the matter that it raises. And the clue to that matter lies in the book’s title. If it were just being suggested that among all of Einstein’s extraordinary contributions to the progress of physical science there were also a few errors, I don’t think that would be a particular problem. One of the reviewers quoted on the cover of the copy I have makes a similar point – that Einstein’s errors only demonstrate the fact that he was human which actually serves the better to show up his achievements.
But when I read the actual text, that is not quite the impression that I got. There are times when it does seem to be that Ohanian is questioning whether Einstein deserves any of the credit he gets. In several cases, Ohanian questions outright whether Einstein was the first to prove a particular point or doubts whether Einstein ever did prove what he supposed he had proved. In other cases where he does seem to concede any measure of achievement at all by Einstein, he seems to feel the need to then juxtapose that with some account of Einstein’s outright incompetence. There were occasions, as I read the text, when I found myself wondering if Ohanian had some active agenda against Einstein’s legacy, though it is not at all clear to me what that agenda could be.
Of course it is clear that a popular myth has grown up around the figure of Einstein. I accept that there are some very good reasons for believing that some of the prominent figures around Einstein, men like Max Plank and Hendrik Lorentz were significantly his intellectual superior. It is a significant point to grasp that Einstein’s original insights were the product of an unusual way of thinking about things rather than so much a matter of an exceptional intellect.
But does Ohanian have a case to undermine the accepted view of Einstein quite so totally? Or am I perhaps reading too much into the text? Does anyone disagree with my assessment of Ohanian’s account? Or does anyone share my disquiet about Ohanian’s motivations?