Einstein: A Life of Genius (The True Story of Albert Einstein) Page 5

  Another proposal, from a mathematician who proposed a fifth dimension to the four demonstrated by Einstein in spacetime, was likewise received critically. Einstein agreed that the proposed five dimensional world was possible, but that it had no basis in reality.

  Another paper on the subject of a unified theory was presented by Arthur Eddington, the physicist and astronomer who had been critical to proving Einstein’s argument that gravity bends light. After he studied Eddington’s work, Einstein decided to expand upon his findings. “I believe I have finally understood the connection between electricity and gravitation,” he wrote to a colleague. By 1923, Einstein had published a paper on the topic, written as he traveled through Asia. In a follow-up paper later that year, he described his approach as not yet complete, and intended in part to correct the uncertainty of quantum theory.

  Einstein’s New Approach to a Unified Theory

  By 1925 Einstein had abandoned the papers he presented in 1923, admitted that they were flawed, and announced a new approach to the problem. “After searching ceaselessly in the past two years, I think I have now found the true solution,” he announced. His solution, which relied on generalization, was built upon the theory of electromagnetism. He relied on the use of a mathematical model, rather than solely upon physics. This was a technique which he had used successfully when he encountered difficulties in general relativity in 1915. This time, the approach was unsuccessful, and a perplexed but stubbornly persistent Einstein refused to give up on his idea of a unified theory.

  Einstein’s next approach allowed him to form equations that ignored factors representing quanta. Einstein’s enthusiasm for this approach, as well as his knowledge of the resistance of fellow physicists, was evident in the letter he wrote describing his methods. “This looks old-fashioned, and my dear colleagues, and also you, will stick their tongues out because Planck’s constant is not in the equations,” he wrote. Planck’s constant described the behavior of quanta. Planck’s constant and quantum mechanics had been largely accepted by this time in the world of physics, and Einstein’s prediction of the reaction from fellow physicists was correct.

  Einstein’s Celebrity and the Reaction of Physicists

  In the world outside physics, in which Einstein’s celebrity was reaching its peak, the announcement of his work on a unified theory created a sensation. Einstein again used the press for self-promotion, and granted an interview prior to the publication of his paper in which he claimed to have found a unified theory. “Now, but only now,” he said “we know that the force that moves electrons in their ellipses about the nuclei of atoms is the same force that moves our Earth in its annual course around the sun.”

  When the paper was released it was widely reprinted and reported on in newspapers and magazines. It was discussed in sermons in New York, an event reported by the New York Times. In the mind of the general public in the United States, England, and Germany, Einstein’s genius was untarnished. But in the minds of physicists around the world there remained many questions. Einstein defended his paper for more than a year. One physicist, Wolfgang Pauli, told Einstein that he had abandoned his own theory of relativity and that his new unified theory bore no relation to reality.

  Within a year, Einstein gave up on the mathematical basis of his unified theory and abandoned it. In 1931, he presented two more unified theories, but was eventually forced to abandon them as well when it was demonstrated that they were unproven. “Most of my intellectual offspring end up very young in the graveyard of disappointed hopes,” Einstein wrote in 1938. Still, he refused to abandon his quest.

  Einstein Continues to Reject New Discoveries in Physics

  During this time, he attended formal conferences with fellow physicists, most of whom by then had accepted quantum mechanics. He used these conferences to continue to point out his objections to quantum theory. This point of view was clearly at odds with physicists such as Niels Bohr. Einstein reserved the majority of his objections to informal discussions over dinner, when he could express his views more freely without being disrespectful. “One can’t make it theory out of a lot of maybes,” Einstein said at one of these discussions. “Deep down it is wrong, even if it is empirically and logically right.”

  Einstein had by then become firmly ensconced in the old guard of physics, and the attempts of younger thinkers to convince him collided with his stubborn nature. “I admire to the highest degree the achievements of the younger generation of physicists that goes by the name of quantum mechanics,” he said, “and I believe in the deep level of truth of that theory.” Einstein believed that quantum mechanics was a part of the truth, but only a part of what would ultimately be a unified theory supported by causal determinism rather than random action.

  As Einstein continued his fruitless quest for a unified theory, he struggled to find a basis upon which to build it. He needed an observable quality to serve as a starting point. “I believe that, in order to make any real progress, one would again have to find a general principle wrested from nature,” he wrote early in his quest to Hermann Weyl.

  Einstein’s Stubbornness Contributes to Failure

  Ironically, Einstein’s rejection of quantum mechanics may have been a factor which contributed to his failure to develop a unified theory. Einstein’s refusal to accept quantum mechanics and the probabilities they present caused him to turn his back on more recent developments in physics. It also served to alienate him from the rest of the physics community. Yet the harder Einstein worked on his unified theory, and with each successive failure, he found himself more isolated than before. Einstein was aware of this increasing ostracism, but was unwilling to change. Late in his life he would comment, “I must seem like an ostrich who forever buries its head in the relativistic sand in order not to face the evil quanta.”

  Einstein’s greatest discoveries had been based on physics, and the intuition that he had honed to a razors edge. As he continued to search for a workable unified theory, Einstein relied more on mathematics than physics, a field where intuition is next to useless.

  Einstein’s Lonely Quest

  Quantum mechanics had been accepted by the time Einstein started his work on the unified theory, and the field of quantum mechanics offered an opportunity to examine and explore its absorbing consequences. Many physicists did not see the need for a unified theory. Much of what drove Einstein was what he perceived to be the elegance of the combination of electromagnetism and gravity. To many of his fellow physicists, by the mid-1930s, Einstein no longer contributed anything of significant value to the world of physics and was merely wasting his time.

  Einstein was surely aware of the opinions of his colleagues and fellow physicists toward his work. In a letter he wrote in 1953, Einstein related, “Every individual has to retain his way of thinking if he does not want to get lost in the maze of possibilities. However, nobody is sure of having taken the right road, me the least.”

  By early 1955, Einstein began to accept the idea that the end was drawing near. The stomach ailments which had first appeared during the stressful divorce with Maleva had recurred sporadically throughout his life. An aneurysm had formed in his abdominal aorta. Yet he continued to appear at his office at Princeton, usually arriving by foot, to work on the unified theory.

  When the aneurysm began to break, causing him acute pain, his doctors recommended a surgeon who may be able to repair the damage. “It is tasteless to prolong life artificially,” he said, declining. When he died, early in the morning of April 18th, 1955, his notebook with his most recent calculations was at his bedside. The afternoon before his death, he had lamented to his secretary over his “poor” mathematical skills, which he believed was at the heart of his failure to achieve a breakthrough in the unified theory.

  Looking at Einstein’s Failure

  One way of looking at Einstein’s search for the unified theory is to compare it to his search for the general theory of relativity. Einstein was completely focused on the search for general relativity
for eleven years, which consumed much of his youth, and then he endured the rejection of the old guard of physicists until the theory was proven irrevocably in 1919. It was Einstein’s stubborn spirit and independent activity that allowed him to produce the general theory of relativity. His search for the unified theory could well be looked at as a reflection of his earlier triumphs.

  This second way of looking at Einstein’s search for the unified theory is reflected in the fact that thousands of physicists have continued it since his death, over sixty years ago. Several promising approaches have developed. Ideas and techniques which may or may not have been discovered by Einstein have been utilized to solve this problem. The unified theory has been referred to as the “Holy Grail” of physics, and some physicists have dedicated their entire careers in its pursuit.

  Einstein may have failed to achieve the unified theory in his more than thirty year quest, but he believed in it literally until the day he died. Whether it will ever be proven is unknown, but Einstein did more than fail. He opened the door to a new field of physics, one that has brought steadily increased attention from physicists and mathematicians since his death. If it is discovered, it will be because Einstein first proposed the idea a century ago, and dedicated the remainder of his life to proving it. It may have brought him criticism during his lifetime, but the idea of the unified theory survives.

  Chapter 6: The Scientific Search for God

  Albert Einstein shared many attributes with Benjamin Franklin; both men became international celebrities for their work in science— Einstein in physics, and Franklin in electricity; both cultivated a love of music— Einstein on the violin, and Franklin on the armonica, an instrument of his own design consisting of containers of water; they shared a taste for the company of attractive women; and both men became as well-known for their philosophical work as for their work in the sciences.

  By the time Einstein was in his late forties, he was often approached to relate his religious and philosophical views as often for his scientific achievements. Einstein was a man who kept even his closest friends somewhat distant, yet he willingly discussed his personal beliefs and how he came by them. He published articles in newspapers, granted interviews, wrote in his books, and presented in his speeches his thoughts regarding his beliefs in God, the Bible, established religions, atheism, and philosophy. During his lifetime, the intensely private Einstein exposed these personal thoughts to public debate.

  He has since been quoted and misquoted to both support religion and to condemn it, and was called both an atheist and a creationist. His thoughts on religion have been hijacked by religious groups to support their individual dogmas, often inaccurately. Although his stated views on God and religion are clear— and far easier to comprehend than general relativity — they have, over time, become blurred by misappropriation.

  Einstein Rejects Organized Religion

  As a child raised in a Jewish home, though a non-practicing one, Einstein was exposed to Jewish beliefs and traditions. His earliest days of formal schooling were in a Catholic institution, and there he was exposed to the New Testament and the Catholic catechism. In his autobiographical notes, Einstein wrote, “I came — though the child of entirely irreligious parents — to a deep religiousness, which however, reached an abrupt end at the age of 12.” As Einstein became more exposed to science, he could not reconcile scientific laws to biblical stories. “Mistrust of every kind of authority grew out of this experience, a skeptical attitude toward the convictions that were alive in any specific social environment — an attitude that has never again left me…”

  During his teenage years, Einstein developed a propensity for hiking in the Alps around Munich and Northern Italy. His enjoyment of these hikes came from both the contemplation of nature and solitude, which allowed his mind free rein. It has been speculated that these walks were when he began attempts to reconcile science with God. Having rejected religion, both Jewish and Catholic, by his early teens Einstein made little comment on the subject for more than thirty years.

  Einstein’ Jewish Identity Resurfaces

  Sometime in his forties, Einstein began to consider the subject of religion more deeply. His support of Zionist agendas was tightly bound to his Judaism.

  His work in theoretical physics revealed a universe that worked in accordance with established laws. It also established the basis for his religious beliefs. “… God himself could not have arranged these connections any other way than that which does exist, any more than it would’ve been in his power to make four a prime number,” he wrote.

  Einstein denied consistently throughout his life that he was an atheist. He repeatedly claimed to be a Jew— although not in the aspects of religion. In an interview for a book entitled Glimpses of the Great, written by George Viereck, Einstein compared belief in God to a child in a library filled with books. “The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God.” When asked by Viereck if he believed in immortality, Einstein replied, “No. And one life is enough for me.”

  Einstein himself later wrote, in an essay entitled What I Believe, “The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science.” Einstein’s essay describing his beliefs led to as much interest in his thoughts about religion as had his earlier theory of relativity.

  Einstein Defines God Through His Work

  As Einstein made clear in numerous essays and letters, he did not believe in a personal God. “I cannot conceive of a personal God who would directly influence the actions of individuals or would sit in judgment on creatures of his own creation. My religiosity consists of a humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself in the little that we can comprehend about the knowable world.”

  Despite this, Einstein denied repeatedly that he was an atheist, which did not stop leading church officials from labeling him as such. Einstein’s denial of a personal God made him a popular target for attacks from religious leaders on both his religious beliefs and his theory of relativity. A Catholic Church leader, Cardinal William O’Connell wrote, “…the outcome of this doubt and befogged speculation about time and space is a cloak beneath which hides the ghastly apparition of atheism.” Einstein responded, “I believe in Spinoza’s God, who reveals himself in the lawful harmony of all that exists, but not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and the doings of mankind.”

  Einstein believed in a universe of orderly laws, created by a Supreme Being, and that these laws allow the universe to operate as designed. As he studied these laws, and was both awestruck by their order and intrigued by the mysteries his research revealed, Einstein sensed true religion.

  This was his belief in God, and he resented being labeled as an atheist simply because he did not believe in a personal God, one who altered His own laws based on whim. “What separates me from most so-called atheists is a feeling of utter humility toward the unattainable secrets of the harmony of the cosmos… The cosmic religious feeling is the strongest and noblest motive for scientific research.”

  The Absence of Free Will

  To Einstein, it was the belief in a personal God as described by organized religions that drove the wedge between religion and science. Einstein believed in causal determinism, both scientifically and otherwise. He felt that causal determinism was incompatible with the concept of a personal God, as is the concept of free will. Einstein believed that, “Human beings in their thinking, feeling and acting are not free but are as causally bound as the stars in their motions.”

  In response to a question about whether humans can act freely, unimpeded by unseen forces, Einstein said, “…everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over whic
h we have no control. It is determined for the insect as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all danced to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible player.”

  To many critics, Einstein’s deterministic beliefs absolved individuals from the moral responsibility of their actions. Einstein reconciled this by acceding that free will was a useful tool to society, which gave the appearance of responsibility. Intellectually, however, he maintained that all actions are causally predetermined. “I know that philosophically a murderer is not responsible for his crime but I prefer not to take tea with him,” he wrote.

  Einstein Separates Religion of Fear from Morality

  Despite his steadfast belief in causal determinism, Einstein believed in the development of a strong personal morality. He understood that the basis of that morality should be the desire to live in a manner that would benefit mankind. It was Einstein’s belief that this morality was derived purely on a social level, without any religious or biblical authority. “A man’s ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary,” he said. “Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.”