Einstein on U.S. News Cover
Steve Harris
& World Report (Einstein Revealed, Dec9) had to pay the Roger Richman
agency. Probably not, since the article is about the Einstein papers
project, and so the image can be used under "fair use." Which isn't to say
they're not using the prof's fiz to sell copy.
The article is strewn with errors, even to the non expert (poor Steve
Speicher must be going bananas). We're told that the photo of Einstein and
Szilard looking at the letter to Roosevelt is from 1939 (it's a post war
re-enactment). We're told that Einstein distrusted Communism and Capitalism
equally, but even Einstein was to say that his politics were, if not red, at
least pretty pink. And the physics! Gahh, the same old errors. The atom
bomb is supposed to confirm E=mc^2, which is the idea that matter and energy
are "interchangeable" and are "exchanged" (wrong). The date for this idea is
given as 1905, as is the Minkowskian idea that space and time are connected
as a transformational-continuum (both off by 2 years, and Einstein didn't
invent the space-time geometry, but of course later adopted it and
generalized it to included gravity). The general theory is supposed to be
confirmed by light bending near the sun, with no mention that it is
crucially the *amount* of bending that is important to Einstein theory. And
so on.
And I think young Einstein's letter to Mileva about wanting to bring their
work on "relative motion" to a triumphant end, is a coy Victorian reference
to sex. Nyah. Really.
SBH
--
Steve Harris
You can email me at sbhar...@ix.netcom.com
But remove the numerals in the address first.
==============================
Our nada who art in Nada
Nada be thy nada..
-- Dada Hemingway
==========================
Matthew Lybanon
philosophy than in accuracy. And in this case, they don't have to be
concerned that many people will notice the errors.
RM Mentock
>
> I see that old Albert's image is still selling stuff.
Mostly good points, but I have a small nit
> generalized it to included gravity). The general theory is supposed to be
> confirmed by light bending near the sun, with no mention that it is
> crucially the *amount* of bending that is important to Einstein theory. And
> so on.
In hindsight, maybe. You must be talking about the difference between
the "Newtonian" bending and Einstein's twice that--but remember he supported
an earlier eclipse expedition to determine the bending when his version
of the theory coincided with the Newtonian value, and when the common
idea was that there was *no* bending.
> And I think young Einstein's letter to Mileva about wanting to bring their
> work on "relative motion" to a triumphant end, is a coy Victorian reference
> to sex. Nyah. Really.
Ha
--
RM Mentock
It is not enough to be wrong, you must also be polite - Niels Bohr
Steve Harris
news:3DF35F56...@earthlink.net...
> US News & World Report is more interested in advancing its political
> philosophy than in accuracy. And in this case, they don't have to be
> concerned that many people will notice the errors.
>
They seem pretty bland to me. By contrast TIME is relentlessly Left. For
example, you can find many "hard line conservative" senators and congressmen
in TIME, but no hard line liberals. All liberals in TIME are "moderate
liberals". Or (when faced with an extreme case like Wellstone) just
"liberal."
SBH
--
I welcome Email from strangers with the minimal cleverness to fix my address
(it's an open-book test). I strongly recommend recipients of unsolicited
bulk Email ad spam use "http://combat.uxn.com" to get the true corporate
name of the last ISP address on the viewsource header, then forward message
& headers to "abuse@[offendingISP]."
Steve Harris
news:3DF37FDA...@mindspring.com...
> Steve Harris wrote:
> >
> > I see that old Albert's image is still selling stuff.
>
> Mostly good points, but I have a small nit
>
> > generalized it to included gravity). The general theory is supposed to
be
> > confirmed by light bending near the sun, with no mention that it is
> > crucially the *amount* of bending that is important to Einstein theory.
And
> > so on.
>
> In hindsight, maybe.
No, it was well-enough understood by 1919, when the eclipse test was finally
done.
You must be talking about the difference between
> the "Newtonian" bending and Einstein's twice that--but remember he
supported
> an earlier eclipse expedition to determine the bending when his version
> of the theory coincided with the Newtonian value, and when the common
> idea was that there was *no* bending.
He did screw up pre-1915 (before the full GTR was done) in giving a
Newtonian-magnitude light bending figure. Perhaps 1912? I wasn't aware that
he'd actively championed a eclipse test to look at this. In any case, he'd
corrected himself before a search could actually be mounted (the Great War
intervening).
> > And I think young Einstein's letter to Mileva about wanting to bring
their
> > work on "relative motion" to a triumphant end, is a coy Victorian
reference
> > to sex. Nyah. Really.
>
> Ha
Yep. This was 1901 and she bore his illegitimate child maybe a year later.
You see similar stuff in Ben Franklin's letters to young ladies complaining
that they won't let him teach them multiplication.
People used to be quite metaphorical and allusional, and circumspect in
these matters. Did you ever see Bogie and Bacall in To Have and Have Not
(1944)*? They're discussing horse racing and Bogie innocently asks whether
or not she thinks a certain pony can go the distance. She replies that a lot
depends on who's in the saddle. This kind of byplay and subtext used to be
part of adult conversation. Mostly, we've lost it.
SBH
*(Possibly this scene is in the later movie The Big Sleep..)
RM Mentock
> You must be talking about the difference between
> > the "Newtonian" bending and Einstein's twice that--but remember he
> supported
> > an earlier eclipse expedition to determine the bending when his version
> > of the theory coincided with the Newtonian value, and when the common
> > idea was that there was *no* bending.
>
> He did screw up pre-1915 (before the full GTR was done) in giving a
> Newtonian-magnitude light bending figure. Perhaps 1912? I wasn't aware that
> he'd actively championed a eclipse test to look at this. In any case, he'd
> corrected himself before a search could actually be mounted (the Great War
> intervening).
Not true at all. There was an expedition to Brazil in 1912 that was
rained out, and Einstein's frustration with the astronomer Freundlich
seems to have been a result of the latter's efforts during the 1914
expedition to the Crimea to measure the bending of light--war did
break out, and some of the members of the party were arrested. Of
course they didn't get any results.
> depends on who's in the saddle. This kind of byplay and subtext used to be
> part of adult conversation. Mostly, we've lost it.
Heh? Hear it all the time.
Hayek
Steve Harris wrote:
>We're told that Einstein distrusted Communism and Capitalism
> equally, but even Einstein was to say that his politics were, if not red, at
> least pretty pink. And the physics! Gahh, the same old errors. The atom
> bomb is supposed to confirm E=mc^2, which is the idea that matter and energy
> are "interchangeable" and are "exchanged" (wrong).
Pardon my ignorance,
but why is this wrong ?
Hayek.
--
The small particles wave at
the big stars and get noticed.
:-)
Stephen Speicher
> I see that old Albert's image is still selling stuff. I wonder if U.S. News
> & World Report (Einstein Revealed, Dec9) had to pay the Roger Richman
> agency. Probably not, since the article is about the Einstein papers
> project, and so the image can be used under "fair use." Which isn't to say
> they're not using the prof's fiz to sell copy.
>
> The article is strewn with errors, even to the non expert (poor Steve
> Speicher must be going bananas). We're told that the photo of Einstein and
> Szilard looking at the letter to Roosevelt is from 1939 (it's a post war
> re-enactment). We're told that Einstein distrusted Communism and Capitalism
> equally, but even Einstein was to say that his politics were, if not red, at
> least pretty pink. And the physics! Gahh, the same old errors. The atom
> bomb is supposed to confirm E=mc^2, which is the idea that matter and energy
> are "interchangeable" and are "exchanged" (wrong). The date for this idea is
> given as 1905, as is the Minkowskian idea that space and time are connected
> as a transformational-continuum (both off by 2 years, and Einstein didn't
> invent the space-time geometry, but of course later adopted it and
> generalized it to included gravity). The general theory is supposed to be
> confirmed by light bending near the sun, with no mention that it is
> crucially the *amount* of bending that is important to Einstein theory. And
> so on.
>
> And I think young Einstein's letter to Mileva about wanting to bring their
> work on "relative motion" to a triumphant end, is a coy Victorian reference
> to sex. Nyah. Really.
>
I have been secluded for several days, and I had not seen this
article. Thanks for mentioning it. I just took a look at the
piece, and, indeed, it has numerous errors and does a poor job of
capturing the flavor of Einstein. Typical of the sort of fluff
articles one sees in these magazines. I am, however, looking
forward to see the exhibit, now at the American Museum of Natural
History, when it makes its way to California in September 2004.
--
Stephen
s...@speicher.com
Ignorance is just a placeholder for knowledge.
Printed using 100% recycled electrons.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Boris Mohar
wrote:
>
>
>Steve Harris wrote:
>
>
>>We're told that Einstein distrusted Communism and Capitalism
>> equally, but even Einstein was to say that his politics were, if not red, at
>> least pretty pink. And the physics! Gahh, the same old errors. The atom
>> bomb is supposed to confirm E=mc^2, which is the idea that matter and energy
>> are "interchangeable" and are "exchanged" (wrong).
>
>
>Pardon my ignorance,
>but why is this wrong ?
>
>Hayek.
You can exchange a right hand glove with a left hand glove but they would
not fit right because they are not interchangeable.
Boris Mohar
Stephen Speicher
>
> Newtonian-magnitude light bending figure. Perhaps 1912? I wasn't aware that
> he'd actively championed a eclipse test to look at this. In any case, he'd
> corrected himself before a search could actually be mounted (the Great War
> intervening).
>
I have not seen the post to which you are responding, but permit
me to correct a few things you have said with a brief excursion
into this interesting history. Einstein's first public statements
regarding the deflection of light go back to a paper in 1907, in
which Einstein said:
"From this it follows that those light rays that do not
propagate along the xi-axis are bent by the
gravitational field ... Unfortunately, the effect of
the terrestrial gravitational field is so small
according to our theory (because of the smallness of
{gamma}x/c^2) that there is no prospect of a comparison
of the results of the theory with experience."[1]
Many people express surprise to learn that Einstein was already
speaking of gravitational influences on light, as far back as
1907. However, that period was when Einstein had discovered the
equivalence principle, which enabled him to investigate such
things as the effect of gravitation on electromagnetic phenomena,
if only in a transitory state towards his beginning formulations
of general relativity, proper.
Between 1907 and 1911 Einstein did not work intensively on
gravitation, but when he resumed in 1911 he did so from the
pserspective of gravitational influences on light. He opens this
1911 paper with:
"In a paper published three years ago [my reference 1],
I already tried to answer the question as to whether
the propagation of light is influenced by gravitation.
I now return to this topic because my former treatment
of the subject does not satisfy me, but, even more
importantly, because I have now come to realize that
one of the most important consequences of that analysis
is accessible to experimental test. In particular, it
turns out that, according to the theory I am going to
set forth, rays of light passing near the sun
experience a deflection by its gravitational field, so
that a fixed star appearing near the sun displays an
apparent increase of its angular distance from the
latter, which amounts to almost one second of arc."[2]
Einstein goes on to discuss the ideas of his new theory, and he
makes a specific calculation, with the results that "Accordingly,
a ray of light traveling past the sun would undergo a deflection
amounting to 4 x 10^-6 = 0.83 seconds of arc." Einstein then ends
his paper with an impassioned plea.
"It is greatly to be desired that astronomers take up
the question broached here, even if the considerations
here presented may appear insufficiently substantiated
or even adventurous. Because apart from any theory, we
must ask ourselves whether an influence of
gravitational fields on the propagation of light can be
detected with currently available instruments."
So we see that, indeed, Einstein (strongly) called for
verification of his prediction on the deflection of light, as
early as 1911. I said I would make this just a brief excursion,
so I will not document, but will simply assert, that Einstein
continued to call for, many times, experimental verification of
this phenomena, in the intervening years.
The well known circumstances of the ill-fated expeditions is one
of those fortunate quirks of history, in that had decent results
been achieved for the early expeditions, Einstein's theory would
have been shown to be wrong in this prediction. However, Einstein
was well aware of this possibility -- his early formulations of
general relativity did not hold the same level of conviction for
him as did his final formulation -- but he continued to push for
the experiment regardless of whose theory was vindicated (At the
time there was a competing theory which made the opposite
prediction than Einstein about the deflection of light).
[1] Albert Einstein, "On The Relativity Principle and the
Conclusions Drawn From It," _Jahrbuch der Radioaktivitat und
Elektronik_, 4, pp. 411-462, 1907.
[2] Albert Einstein, "On tghe Influence of Gravitation on the
Propagation of Light," _Annalen der Physik_, 35, pp. 898-908,
1911.
Stephen Speicher
> Steve Harris wrote:
> >
> > "RM Mentock" <men...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
>
> > You must be talking about the difference between
> > > the "Newtonian" bending and Einstein's twice that--but remember he
> > supported
> > > an earlier eclipse expedition to determine the bending when his version
> > > of the theory coincided with the Newtonian value, and when the common
> > > idea was that there was *no* bending.
> >
> > He did screw up pre-1915 (before the full GTR was done) in giving a
> > Newtonian-magnitude light bending figure. Perhaps 1912? I wasn't aware that
> > he'd actively championed a eclipse test to look at this. In any case, he'd
> > corrected himself before a search could actually be mounted (the Great War
> > intervening).
>
> Not true at all. There was an expedition to Brazil in 1912 that was
> rained out, and Einstein's frustration with the astronomer Freundlich
> seems to have been a result of the latter's efforts during the 1914
> expedition to the Crimea to measure the bending of light--war did
> break out, and some of the members of the party were arrested. Of
> course they didn't get any results.
>
I suspect you have misunderstood someone's (Pais?) brief synopsis
of the events, but you do great injustice to Erwin Freundlich. It
was not Freundlich with whom Einstein was frustrated, but others
involved in a complicated intrigue. Throughout the years, in many
writings, Einstein always held Freundlich in high esteem, and
commended Freundlich's attitude and approach.
Steve Harris
> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> >Steve Harris wrote:
> >
> >
> >>We're told that Einstein distrusted Communism and Capitalism
> >> equally, but even Einstein was to say that his politics were, if not
red, at
> >> least pretty pink. And the physics! Gahh, the same old errors. The
atom
> >> bomb is supposed to confirm E=mc^2, which is the idea that matter and
energy
> >> are "interchangeable" and are "exchanged" (wrong).
> >
> >
> >Pardon my ignorance,
> >but why is this wrong ?
> >
> >Hayek.
Because it promotes the false idea that mass is somehow "turned into" energy
in an atom bomb. In reality, mass and energy are the same thing, and there's
nothing you can do to turn mass into energy, because it's energy already.
All you can do is turn it into usable energy.
Likewise, all energy has mass, so long as it's trapped (or at least not all
moving in the same direction at the speed of light). Where you have energy,
you'll have mass, save for this little exception. The exception is required
because we need mass to be something invarient of observers, and if energy
is all moving in the same direction at c, the mass is frame dependent, so
can be arbitrarily set to zero by choice of observer.
Thus, when you blow up an atom bomb (which goes in all directions), the mass
of the system doesn't change, and the energy doesn't change. What does
happen is merely that potential energy (fields between nucleons) becomes
kinetic energy (heat). But the heat has just as much mass (and weight) as
the fields did.
If you put an atom bomb in a magic super strong container or magic force
bubble, put it on a sensitive scale, and blew it up, the needle on the scale
wouldn't budge or flicker, so long as the heat and the radiation remained
trapped. Many people who think they understand what E=mc^2 means, will have
a hard time with that.
SBH
Maleki
<s...@speicher.com> wrote in
<Pine.LNX.4.33.021208...@localhost.localdomain>
that:
Nice account. Are you familiar with other science
history issues as well, or have you concentrated on
Einstein related material?
-------------------------
az kalamAte naghze irAni:
khodAyA:
marA az in fAje'eye palide "maslahat parasti," ke
chon hamegir shodeh vaghAhatash az yAd rafteh, va
bimAri'i shodeh ke az fart omumiyyatash har ke az
An sAlem mAndeh bimAr minamAyad, masun bedAr, tA
be ra'Ayate maslahat haghighat rA zebhe shar'i
nakonam.
"Ali Shari'ati"
Stephen Speicher
Thanks. There is _much_ more that be can be said about this.
> Are you familiar with other science
> history issues as well, or have you concentrated on
> Einstein related material?
>
I think I have a fair knowledge of science history dating back to
Ancient Greece, but I do have a particular interest in Einstein
and relativity. Why do you ask?
Maleki
<SBHar...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in
<asv36t$krk$1...@slb2.atl.mindspring.net> that:
>I see that old Albert's image is still selling stuff. I wonder if U.S. News
>& World Report (Einstein Revealed, Dec9) had to pay the Roger Richman
>agency. Probably not, since the article is about the Einstein papers
>project, and so the image can be used under "fair use." Which isn't to say
>they're not using the prof's fiz to sell copy.
>
>The article is strewn with errors, even to the non expert (poor Steve
>Speicher must be going bananas). We're told that the photo of Einstein and
>Szilard looking at the letter to Roosevelt is from 1939 (it's a post war
>re-enactment). We're told that Einstein distrusted Communism and Capitalism
>equally, but even Einstein was to say that his politics were, if not red, at
>least pretty pink. And the physics! Gahh, the same old errors. The atom
>bomb is supposed to confirm E=mc^2, which is the idea that matter and energy
>are "interchangeable" and are "exchanged" (wrong). The date for this idea is
>given as 1905, as is the Minkowskian idea that space and time are connected
>as a transformational-continuum (both off by 2 years, and Einstein didn't
>invent the space-time geometry, but of course later adopted it and
>generalized it to included gravity). The general theory is supposed to be
>confirmed by light bending near the sun, with no mention that it is
>crucially the *amount* of bending that is important to Einstein theory. And
>so on.
>
>And I think young Einstein's letter to Mileva about wanting to bring their
>work on "relative motion" to a triumphant end, is a coy Victorian reference
>to sex. Nyah. Really.
>
>SBH
Send them a letter.
Einstein, up until early 1960s, was "the great
mathematician" in Iran. The media and people knew him
as a math genius.
Another one. Mahmud Hessabi was an Iranian physicist
(who incidentally had worked closely with Einstein for
a while) in those Shah time years. He related that in
the 1950s he came back to Iran and the word about his
arrival reached Shah's minister of higher education who
arranged a meeting with Hessabi to facilitate the
process of providing him with a job. In that meeting,
Hessabi relates, the minister began his conversation
like:
Minister: What is your field of study?
Hessabi: Physics.
Minister: I see. They say you are a doctor. Do you
receive patients? What sort of ailments you
have expertise in?
Hessabi: No I'm not a doctor, but yes I have a
doctorate in physics. More like fundamental
science, minister :-)
Minister: So is physics chemistry?
Hessabi: No, physics is a separate field and deals
with more fundamental issues in science.
Minister: Oh, you are an engineer!
Hessabi: No I am a physicist. I do have a couple of
engineering degrees from early on in Beirut
University years, but what I do now is
physics.
Minister: What do you do now?
Hessabi: I am working on some ideas in field theory.
These are some of my published papers ...
Minister: (after going over a couple of papers for a
few seconds) Are you some sort of
architect? Do you design road
cross-sections and squares? [the word used
for "field" in Persian is same as the one
used for cross-sections or squares]
Hessabi: No, no. Errr, physics is the science that
deals with matter and laws governing it at
the most fundamental level.
Minister: Like chemistry?
Hessabi: Errr, yes, like chemistry.
Minister: So physics is chemistry?
Hessabi: Yes. Physics is chemistry.
Minister: In that case you're really a chemist! :-)
Hessabi: Yes, I am a chemist.
This was Iran's minister of "higher education" under
Shah's government. Hessabi related this story to us in
one of his classes (I took E&M with him).
Maleki
>> Are you familiar with other science
>> history issues as well, or have you concentrated on
>> Einstein related material?
>>
>
>I think I have a fair knowledge of science history dating back to
>Ancient Greece, but I do have a particular interest in Einstein
>and relativity. Why do you ask?
I have questions in science history that pertain
various eras and individuals. Mostly questions dealing
with details that might not be of much interest to
others. Just giving it a shot in the dark you might
have answers. That's why I asked.
Example: I just replied to Harris's post mentioning one
of Iran's physicists who was active in the middle of
past century and had worked with Einstein on some
problems. I do not know the extent of his work with
Einstein, if they published joint papers or if he was
one of Einstein students or just a visiting researcher,
... . I have no idea. If you happen to know anything
about this person, "Mahmoud Hessabi" (or perhaps
"Hesabi"), in relation to Einstein, I would really
appreciate if you could share them here. He died in the
80s, so I cannot ask him directly.
Hessabi's account of his first encounter with Einstein
is rather educational :-) I'll tell the story if you
want.
-------------------------
az kalamAte naghze irAni:
khodAyA:
"ali-vAr" budan rA dar madde nazaram negAhdAr;
ali, An "yek ruh dar chand bo'd", An khodAvande
sokhan bar manbar, An khodAvande parastesh dar
mehrAb, khodAvande kAr dar zamin, khodAvande
peykAr dar sahneh, khodAvande vafA dar kenAre
mohammad, khodAvande mas'uliyat dar jAme'eh,
khodAvande pArsAyi dar zendegi, khodAvande dAnesh
dar eslAm, khodAvande enghelAb dar zamAn,
khodAvande adl dar hokumat, khodAvande ghalam dar
nahjolbalAgheh, khodAvande pedari va ensAnparvari
dar khAnevAdeh, va bandeye khodA dar hamejA va
hamevaght; ali, yek shi'iye mas'ul, vafAdAre be
"maktab", "vahdat", va "edAlat" ke se fasle
zendegiye ust, va rahAyi va barAbari ke maz-habe
ust, va fadA kardane hameye maslahat-hA dar pAye
haghighat, ke raftAre ust.
"Ali Shari'ati"
Stephen Speicher
> On Sun, 8 Dec 2002 22:08:24 -0800, Stephen Speicher
> <s...@speicher.com> wrote in
> <Pine.LNX.4.33.021208...@localhost.localdomain>
> that:
>
> >> Are you familiar with other science
> >> history issues as well, or have you concentrated on
> >> Einstein related material?
> >>
> >
> >I think I have a fair knowledge of science history dating back to
> >Ancient Greece, but I do have a particular interest in Einstein
> >and relativity. Why do you ask?
>
> I have questions in science history that pertain
> various eras and individuals. Mostly questions dealing
> with details that might not be of much interest to
> others. Just giving it a shot in the dark you might
> have answers. That's why I asked.
>
Okay.
> Example: I just replied to Harris's post mentioning one
> of Iran's physicists who was active in the middle of
> past century and had worked with Einstein on some
> problems. I do not know the extent of his work with
> Einstein, if they published joint papers or if he was
> one of Einstein students or just a visiting researcher,
> ... . I have no idea. If you happen to know anything
> about this person, "Mahmoud Hessabi" (or perhaps
> "Hesabi"), in relation to Einstein, I would really
> appreciate if you could share them here. He died in the
> 80s, so I cannot ask him directly.
>
In the literature he is referred to as M. Hessaby, with a "y" not
an "i," and I know that in the 1940s he was at the University of
Chicago, on leave from the University of Teheran. He published
just a few papers in the late 1940s, and then his "Model of an
Infinite Particle" in 1957. I have one of his earlier papers, a
short one on charged particles.
As to Einstein, I am almost 100% percent sure that Hessaby was
neither a student of Einstein's nor did he ever jointly publish a
paper with him. If you have any evidence to the contrary, I would
be greatly surprised. Note that history is replete with those
who have claimed some allegiance with Einstein, and many of those
are more fiction than fact. However, when I get a chance, I will
ask some of the editors at the Einstein Papers Project if they
have any catalogued references to or from Hessaby.
> Hessabi's account of his first encounter with Einstein
> is rather educational :-) I'll tell the story if you
> want.
>
By all means, I would enjoy hearing the "story."
Hayek
Steve Harris wrote:
>>>Pardon my ignorance,
>>>but why is this wrong ?
>>>
>>>Hayek.
>>>
>
> Because it promotes the false idea that mass is somehow "turned into" energy
> in an atom bomb. In reality, mass and energy are the same thing, and there's
> nothing you can do to turn mass into energy, because it's energy already.
> All you can do is turn it into usable energy.
I agree with you, on one condition,
you get the iron, and I get the U235.
> If you put an atom bomb in a magic super strong container or magic force
> bubble, put it on a sensitive scale, and blew it up, the needle on the scale
> wouldn't budge or flicker, so long as the heat and the radiation remained
> trapped. Many people who think they understand what E=mc^2 means, will have
> a hard time with that.
Not at all.
It is just Lavoisier on a nuclear scale.
Robert Kolker
Maleki wrote:
>
> Hessabi's account of his first encounter with Einstein
> is rather educational :-) I'll tell the story if you
> want.
A very amusing story. Is it true that the main means of mass
transportation in Iran is Flying Carpets?
Bob Kolker
"You never know when you will meat a DJewish Djinn" -- punch line of a joke.
Maleki
<s...@speicher.com> wrote in
<Pine.LNX.4.33.021209...@localhost.localdomain>
that:
>
>In the literature he is referred to as M. Hessaby, with a "y" not
>an "i," and I know that in the 1940s he was at the University of
>Chicago, on leave from the University of Teheran. He published
>just a few papers in the late 1940s, and then his "Model of an
>Infinite Particle" in 1957. I have one of his earlier papers, a
>short one on charged particles.
>
Thanks for the clarification of the name and the
information. Quite good ...
>As to Einstein, I am almost 100% percent sure that Hessaby was
>neither a student of Einstein's nor did he ever jointly publish a
>paper with him. If you have any evidence to the contrary, I would
>be greatly surprised.
In that case his visits to him must have been for
consultations and at most as a visiting researcher and
not a collaborator or student.
>Note that history is replete with those
>who have claimed some allegiance with Einstein, and many of those
>are more fiction than fact.
I'm aware of that, but if you knew Hessaby you'd know
he wouldn't fall into that category.
>However, when I get a chance, I will
>ask some of the editors at the Einstein Papers Project if they
>have any catalogued references to or from Hessaby.
>
That would be great. Please do.
>> Hessabi's account of his first encounter with Einstein
>> is rather educational :-) I'll tell the story if you
>> want.
>>
>
>By all means, I would enjoy hearing the "story."
He told us in his class he'd gone to see Einstein
mainly to get some advice on what to do next for his
problem. This is what I remember, it is not word for
word but very closely the English translation of what I
remember he told us:
I went to the appointment in his office and found
him very eager and ready to hear what I had done. But
he wouldn't want the review of the work done in his
office, he stood up and told me to follow him. We
went together somewhere and found an empty classroom
and Einstein went sat on the first row and told me to
go over my work by the blackboard. He was all ears
and eyes.
I began presenting my work with extraordinary tact
and control and mastery of the subject as I had
prepared myself perfectly well for this important
occasion. But a couple of minutes later when I was
two or three lines into the equations suddenly
Einstein said,
"Wait wait wait wait wait!!".
I stopped. Einstein proceeded as,
"Please explain your work to me _exactly_ like you
would explain it to a first year undergraduate
student in physics. Please!"
So I proceeded to explain it just like he wanted me
to, and he absorbed everything that I said from begin
to end, including everything that I didn't say, all
the mistakes, all virtues in the work, and how to
correct and proceed from there.
Hehe :) This is what I remember he said about his first
meeting with Einstein.
-------------------------
az kalamAte naghze irAni:
besmellAhe rahmAne rahim. alyowm este'mAle tanbAku
va tutun, be'ayye nahwe kAwn, dar hokme mohArebeye
bA emAme zamAn salavAtollAhe va salAme alayheh
ast. mohammad hasan alhoseyni
"MirzA Hasan Shirazi"
Stephen Speicher
> On Mon, 9 Dec 2002 00:19:42 -0800, Stephen Speicher
> <s...@speicher.com> wrote in
> <Pine.LNX.4.33.021209...@localhost.localdomain>
> that:
>
> >
Do you have any idea what year this first meeting took place?
Do you know anything about the specific content which Hessaby
presented?
When did you study with Hessaby, and what course was he teaching?
Hessaby lived for 25 years after that 1957 paper which I
mentioned, yet that paper seems to be the last technical thing
which he wrote. This would place his technical career into a
rather narrow range, in the few papers of the late 1940s, and
then 1957.
Any other details you can provide would be of interest.
Keith F. Lynch
> People used to be quite metaphorical and allusional, and circumspect
> in these matters. Did you ever see Bogie and Bacall in To Have
> and Have Not (1944)*? They're discussing horse racing and Bogie
> innocently asks whether or not she thinks a certain pony can go the
> distance. She replies that a lot depends on who's in the saddle.
> This kind of byplay and subtext used to be part of adult conversation.
> Mostly, we've lost it.
You obviously haven't seen the latest James Bond movie.
--
Keith F. Lynch - k...@keithlynch.net - http://keithlynch.net/
I always welcome replies to my e-mail, postings, and web pages, but
unsolicited bulk e-mail (spam) is not acceptable. Please do not send me
HTML, "rich text," or attachments, as all such email is discarded unread.
Maleki
>
>Do you have any idea what year this first meeting took place?
>
>Do you know anything about the specific content which Hessaby
>presented?
>
I just went through a ton of depressing old papers and
magazines and material to find an article I had kept
about Hessaby from decades back. It does have quite
some clues and information, had I seen that first all
my questions would have been answered :-) But this
might still be of some interest to you, so I proceed.
After WWII, in search of insight and advice
about his works he first went to Britain where he was
told he could have better assistance in
those subjects in USA, so he traveled to USA and first
spoke with Bergman (not sure about spelling - this is
transliterated from Persian) whom advised him that he
sees Einstein. Einstein checked his work, got
interested in it and supervised it while Hessaby made
corrections and modifications to it, and it was
published in 1946 under the title (again this is
translation from Persian so it is not word to word)
"Determination of Configuration of Elementary Particles
of Atomic Nucleus Using Einstein's General Theory of
Relativity".
This work was carried on in Princeton.
The work in U Chicago that you mentioned was published
in 1947 and 1948 and was about bending of light when
passing by massive objects. His title while in U
Chicago was "Research Associate". The article doesn't
say in what role he worked on his ideas in Princeton.
>When did you study with Hessaby, and what course was he teaching?
>
I took four courses with him in mid 1970s. Two optics
and two E&M courses. The texts he taught were all his
own, a separate book for each subject. He also taught
solid state but I took that with someone else. His new
Quantum Optics book had just been published but it was
a graduate text so I missed that.
>Hessaby lived for 25 years after that 1957 paper which I
>mentioned, yet that paper seems to be the last technical thing
>which he wrote. This would place his technical career into a
>rather narrow range, in the few papers of the late 1940s, and
>then 1957.
>
Could be that he got heartbroken over how American
scientific community credited him with his work. This
article I'm reading says his theoretical works
predicted the existence of a particle 205 times the
mass of electron and carrying one electronic charge. It
says the particle was later discovered in USA in late
1950s but the theoretical prediction of it was not
credited to Hessaby. The discovered particle had a mass
206 times that of electron, very close to what his
theory had predicted.
I am not sure this was a cause or the effect, but he
spent enormous amounts of time on other projects,
mostly related to science and physics but some totally
unrelated (working with government on raising the level
of sophistication of Persian language for instance). He
was a very busy man. He founded a number of
institutions in Iran for the first time. The
meteorology center was mainly founded by his efforts.
The department of geophysics itself (in Tehran
University) was added to the science building by his
efforts. Center for Nuclear Energy and the observatory
were also initiated and founded by groups of Iranians
whose main member was Hessaby. At one time he also
became minister of education.
>Any other details you can provide would be of interest.
Well, other than what I said out of this article I can
only refer to my own memories. He had a method of
teaching that required students study the material that
was to be presented in the classroom in advance, and
discuss the material in the classroom themselves with
him present and correcting them. You could never get a
totally chewed out ready to swallow piece of
information from him unless you had already done your
best to understand the subject first. So we had to read
chapters of his books in advance and do our best before
coming to class so we wouldn't be making fools of
ourselves in front of Hessaby and others. His classes
were relaxed and informal (we sat around a large
table), yet gruesomely demanding. These were supposed
to be "undergraduate" courses.
He was also a linguist. A remarkable linguist. Any word
we asked him about, mostly scientific words but
certainly not limited to that, he could step by step go
back in time telling us where the word had come from,
all the way back to Sanskrit! If you would not
interrupt him he would also give you stories and
anecdotes that went with those words. He once published
an article proving vividly by math that Persian
language was a stronger tool for science than Arabic,
when some had started to doubt the effectiveness of his
ideas in reviving Persian rather than enriching
students with more and more Arabic and Western terms
for verbal proficiency and ability to express minute
ideas accurately. The Iranian lexicon owes him big time
indeed. He founded an institution to create new words
from Persian roots for terms which the new words would
give stronger level of accuracy and future development.
I have seen the effects of this effort in my own
lifetime so far. He was not alone in that venture of
course. We have had a lot of Hessaby's :-)
-------------------------
az kalamAte naghze irAni:
gusfande ghorbuni ham tuye azA koshte misheh ham tu
arusi.
Stephen Speicher
>
> After WWII, in search of insight and advice
> about his works he first went to Britain where he was
> told he could have better assistance in
> those subjects in USA, so he traveled to USA and first
> spoke with Bergman (not sure about spelling - this is
Possibly Peter Bergmann, for whom Einstein wrote a foreword
to Bergmann's book on relativity.
> transliterated from Persian) whom advised him that he
> sees Einstein. Einstein checked his work, got
> interested in it and supervised it while Hessaby made
> corrections and modifications to it, and it was
> published in 1946 under the title (again this is
> translation from Persian so it is not word to word)
> "Determination of Configuration of Elementary Particles
> of Atomic Nucleus Using Einstein's General Theory of
> Relativity".
>
I am somewhat suspicious about this. Einstein was working, almost
exclusively, on unification at that time, and the rest of the
time he devoted to the politics at the end, and continuing after
the end, of WWII. Goedel was Einstein's one vice then, and even
that was limited to walks around the campus, and home. I suppose
it is possible that Einstein was involved with Hessaby as the
article says, but, again, I am somewhat suspicious. I can find
no reference to any publications by Hessaby prior to 1947. Is
there a more specific cite in the article, containing the Journal
name?
> >Hessaby lived for 25 years after that 1957 paper which I
> >mentioned, yet that paper seems to be the last technical thing
> >which he wrote. This would place his technical career into a
> >rather narrow range, in the few papers of the late 1940s, and
> >then 1957.
> >
>
> Could be that he got heartbroken over how American
> scientific community credited him with his work. This
> article I'm reading says his theoretical works
> predicted the existence of a particle 205 times the
> mass of electron and carrying one electronic charge. It
> says the particle was later discovered in USA in late
> 1950s but the theoretical prediction of it was not
> credited to Hessaby. The discovered particle had a mass
> 206 times that of electron, very close to what his
> theory had predicted.
>
Well, this certainly leads one to question the veracity of the
article you are getting your information from. The discovered
particle was the muon, but it was discovered in 1937. Hessaby's
paper, "Theoretical Evidence for the Existence of a Light-Charged
Particle of Mass Greater Than That of the Electron," _Physical
review_, 73 (9): p. 1128, 1948, makes a prediction for a
particle "1.444 times that of the electron," not "205 times" as
the article claims. This "article" is sounding more and more
like a work fiction
Please try to find any specification citations in regard to
dates, Journals, etc. in the article, and let me know. In the
meantime, I will ask the editor I mentioned previously for any
reference that may be catalogued for Hessaby, but I would not be
all that surprised to find that there was none.
Hessaby sounds like an interesting person, in several respects,
but the question remains as to how much of the characterization
in the article is actually true. Certainly we have at least
uncovered some events for which the article was clearly (grossly)
mistaken. Any more specific information from the article, about
specific dates, or detailed references to publications, will help
to sort things out.
Maleki
>On Tue, 10 Dec 2002, Maleki wrote:
No. This article is not from a scientific publication.
It is from a cultural issue of a famous newspaper in
Iran, so the writer is more of a journalist than
someone who should speak about achievements of Hessaby
in physics. This is the problem (I guess I am blabbing
this under the correct subject header for once after
all - Harris initiated it to say the same thing about
journalists vs the truth). Here I give the source for
the heck of it: [Kayhan-i Farhangi, Vol. 4, No. 7,
October 1987, pages 4-15].
I am not even sure the title of the paper I translated
is correct because I do not know the person who wrote
or edited it fully knew what he was saying. The wording
he used is not that of someone with physics background
(for instance he used the term, "main" ["asli" in
Persian] particles which I took to mean "elementary"
["bonyAdi" in Persian] particles, and he used the word
"construction" ["sAkhtemAn" in Persian] where I took
this to mean "configuration" ["sAkhtAr" in Persian]).
The aforementioned title of the paper appears in page 7
first column in a list of items under the heading
"scientific research works". It is the second item
there. Here I translate what comes there one more time
in its entirety:
2- Research works on "Determination of configuration of
elementary particles inside atomic nucleus using
Einstein's general theory of relativity" which was
conducted and continued under Einstein's supervision
and proved successful. Princeton University, 1946.
This is the closest translation of that item. It sounds
bogus to me, or at least I don't know enough to know if
this even makes sense or not. It looks more like what a
journalist unfamiliar with physics would recreate from
his hasty notes.
>> >Hessaby lived for 25 years after that 1957 paper which I
>> >mentioned, yet that paper seems to be the last technical thing
>> >which he wrote. This would place his technical career into a
>> >rather narrow range, in the few papers of the late 1940s, and
>> >then 1957.
>> >
>>
>> Could be that he got heartbroken over how American
>> scientific community credited him with his work. This
>> article I'm reading says his theoretical works
>> predicted the existence of a particle 205 times the
>> mass of electron and carrying one electronic charge. It
>> says the particle was later discovered in USA in late
>> 1950s but the theoretical prediction of it was not
>> credited to Hessaby. The discovered particle had a mass
>> 206 times that of electron, very close to what his
>> theory had predicted.
>>
>
>Well, this certainly leads one to question the veracity of the
>article you are getting your information from. The discovered
>particle was the muon, but it was discovered in 1937. Hessaby's
>paper, "Theoretical Evidence for the Existence of a Light-Charged
>Particle of Mass Greater Than That of the Electron," _Physical
>review_, 73 (9): p. 1128, 1948, makes a prediction for a
>particle "1.444 times that of the electron," not "205 times" as
>the article claims. This "article" is sounding more and more
>like a work fiction
>
Huh. It clearly says (page 6, beginning of third
column) that Hessaby predicted a mass 205 times that of
electron and it was found to be 206 times and therefore
his work was not credited for it, then the author even
goes on to complain that Yukawa's prediction of another
particle gave a mass 200 times that of the electron but
found to be actually 273 times the electron's mass and
yet Yukawa was credited for that prediction. I just
also checked the date of discovery of muon, as you said
it took place in 1937. Well, this journalist has added
a certain amount of his own imagination and/or
confusion to this article, perhaps writing it from the
hasty and incomplete notes he had taken sometime
earlier talking directly with Hessaby. I also know that
Hessaby himself was not consulted with the final form
of the article (his son was consulted!).
Could it be that Hessaby did derive that 205 factor in
one of his other papers, thus showing that his theory
gave correct prediction of the already discovered muon?
This sounds more plausible to me. Anyway, the gross
misrepresentation of facts on the part of the
journalist in this article is not intentional just as
the lad's in US News' article wasn't. Although mainly a
literary magazine, the magazine this article appeared
in does not allow such baloney to creep in knowingly.
Are you sure about the 1.444 factor?
>Please try to find any specification citations in regard to
>dates, Journals, etc. in the article, and let me know.
It won't be out of this article. I'll try to find other
sources and will come back to this thread.
>In the
>meantime, I will ask the editor I mentioned previously for any
>reference that may be catalogued for Hessaby, but I would not be
>all that surprised to find that there was none.
>
As long as you ask them I appreciate it very much.
>Hessaby sounds like an interesting person, in several respects,
>but the question remains as to how much of the characterization
>in the article is actually true. Certainly we have at least
>uncovered some events for which the article was clearly (grossly)
>mistaken. Any more specific information from the article, about
>specific dates, or detailed references to publications, will help
>to sort things out.
I'll see if I can find more detail.
-------------------------
az kalamAte naghze irAni:
ghadre majmu'eye gol morghe sahar dAnado bass
ke na har ku varaghi khAnd ma'Ani dAnest
"Hafez"
RM Mentock
>
> On Sun, 8 Dec 2002, RM Mentock wrote:
>
> > Steve Harris wrote:
> > >
> > > "RM Mentock" <men...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
> >
> > > You must be talking about the difference between
> > > > the "Newtonian" bending and Einstein's twice that--but remember he
> > > supported
> > > > an earlier eclipse expedition to determine the bending when his version
> > > > of the theory coincided with the Newtonian value, and when the common
> > > > idea was that there was *no* bending.
> > >
> > > He did screw up pre-1915 (before the full GTR was done) in giving a
> > > Newtonian-magnitude light bending figure. Perhaps 1912? I wasn't aware that
> > > he'd actively championed a eclipse test to look at this. In any case, he'd
> > > corrected himself before a search could actually be mounted (the Great War
> > > intervening).
> >
> > Not true at all. There was an expedition to Brazil in 1912 that was
> > rained out, and Einstein's frustration with the astronomer Freundlich
> > seems to have been a result of the latter's efforts during the 1914
> > expedition to the Crimea to measure the bending of light--war did
> > break out, and some of the members of the party were arrested. Of
> > course they didn't get any results.
> >
>
> I suspect you have misunderstood someone's (Pais?) brief synopsis
> of the events,
Are you saying that you still think that no expeditions to search
for light bending had been mounted before 1915?
> but you do great injustice to Erwin Freundlich. It
> was not Freundlich with whom Einstein was frustrated, but others
> involved in a complicated intrigue. Throughout the years, in many
> writings, Einstein always held Freundlich in high esteem, and
> commended Freundlich's attitude and approach.
I've just finished reading something that seems to say otherwise.
I'll go back to the library, and get you the whole thing.
RM Mentock
>
> Stephen Speicher wrote:
> > but you do great injustice to Erwin Freundlich. It
> > was not Freundlich with whom Einstein was frustrated, but others
> > involved in a complicated intrigue. Throughout the years, in many
> > writings, Einstein always held Freundlich in high esteem, and
> > commended Freundlich's attitude and approach.
>
> I've just finished reading something that seems to say otherwise.
> I'll go back to the library, and get you the whole thing.
Found it in my notes, it was Aczel's God's Equation. I'll look
into it further, but I wasn't that impressed with it, even with his
treatment of Freundlich.
Randy Poe
> On Tue, 10 Dec 2002, Maleki wrote:
>
>>After WWII, in search of insight and advice
>>about his works he first went to Britain where he was
>>told he could have better assistance in
>>those subjects in USA, so he traveled to USA and first
>>spoke with Bergman (not sure about spelling - this is
>
> ~~~~~~~
> Possibly Peter Bergmann, for whom Einstein wrote a foreword
> to Bergmann's book on relativity.
Peter Bergmann was one of my professors at Syracuse in
the 70s. He also had a teaching position at a school
in New York (Yeshiva, I think). I believe he had been a
grad student of Einstein's in the 50s.
Nope, I see I'm wrong. He had been at Syracuse since
1947, so his grad student days would have been during
the war, which makes the chronology plausible.
Incidentally, Bergmann died this fall. I see I've been
out of touch. http://physics.syr.edu/info/news/blurbs.htm
- Randy
Tom Snyder
"Randy Poe" <rp...@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:at516...@enews2.newsguy.com...
>
> Peter Bergmann was one of my professors at Syracuse in
> the 70s. He also had a teaching position at a school
> in New York (Yeshiva, I think).
>
Randy,
While I was physics student in the 70's I studied Bergmann's book on
relativity and his two books on "Basic Theories of Physics". I thought they
were nice.
Did you take specific courses under Bergmann? If so, would you mind
commenting on the nature of the courses - particularly regarding Bergmann's
teaching style and personal characteristics?
Thank you.
Tom Snyder
Eric Prebys
> "Matthew Lybanon" <lyb...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
> news:3DF35F56...@earthlink.net...
>
>>US News & World Report is more interested in advancing its political
>>philosophy than in accuracy. And in this case, they don't have to be
>>concerned that many people will notice the errors.
>>
>
>
>
> They seem pretty bland to me. By contrast TIME is relentlessly Left. For
> example, you can find many "hard line conservative" senators and congressmen
> in TIME, but no hard line liberals. All liberals in TIME are "moderate
> liberals". Or (when faced with an extreme case like Wellstone) just
> "liberal."
>
> SBH
>
That's funny. I've always considered Time pretty middle of
the road, and not too long ago I defended it from a friend
who referred to it as a "right wing rag". I guess it's all
in your point of view.
-Eric
Stephen Speicher
Yes, I am positive. I gave you the reference to Hessaby's paper,
which I have, and I quoted directly from the paper. As I said, I
would question the veracity of the article to which you are
referring.
Stephen Speicher
What do you mean by "still think?" I have never thought what you
allude to. I am quite well aware of the history of all of the
expeditions leading up to 1919, as well as several which
followed. My point was that you may have misunderstood what some
author wrote, because, as I indicated right below, it was not
with Freundlich that Einstein was frustrated, but others who were
involved.
> > but you do great injustice to Erwin Freundlich. It
> > was not Freundlich with whom Einstein was frustrated, but others
> > involved in a complicated intrigue. Throughout the years, in many
> > writings, Einstein always held Freundlich in high esteem, and
> > commended Freundlich's attitude and approach.
>
> I've just finished reading something that seems to say otherwise.
> I'll go back to the library, and get you the whole thing.
>
Well, by all means provide the information, for if some author is
mistaken his words should be corrected. I have a half-dozen or
more letters from Einstein which clearly makes Einstein's
thoughts and feelings known.
Stephen Speicher
> RM Mentock wrote:
> >
> > Stephen Speicher wrote:
>
> > > but you do great injustice to Erwin Freundlich. It
> > > was not Freundlich with whom Einstein was frustrated, but others
> > > involved in a complicated intrigue. Throughout the years, in many
> > > writings, Einstein always held Freundlich in high esteem, and
> > > commended Freundlich's attitude and approach.
> >
> > I've just finished reading something that seems to say otherwise.
> > I'll go back to the library, and get you the whole thing.
>
> Found it in my notes, it was Aczel's God's Equation. I'll look
> into it further, but I wasn't that impressed with it, even with his
> treatment of Freundlich.
>
I have read (and have been dissatisfied with) many of the
popular presentations of the subject, but I have not read this
book by Aczel. As I said in my previous post, if that was your
source and indeed he has something relevant to say, please post
it.
Stephen Speicher
You were fortunate to have studied with Bergmann. His book is a
classic; though out-of-date, even with the update thirty years
after the original, he presents some material in a fairly unique
way.
RM Mentock
>
> On Tue, 10 Dec 2002, RM Mentock wrote:
>
> > Stephen Speicher wrote:
> > >
> > > On Sun, 8 Dec 2002, RM Mentock wrote:
> > >
> > > > Steve Harris wrote:
> > > > > he'd actively championed a eclipse test to look at this. In any case, he'd
> > > > > corrected himself before a search could actually be mounted (the Great War
> > > > > intervening).
> > Are you saying that you still think that no expeditions to search
> > for light bending had been mounted before 1915?
> What do you mean by "still think?" I have never thought what you
> allude to.
The passage included above, you said Einstein had corrected himself
before a search could actually be mounted
> > I've just finished reading something that seems to say otherwise.
> > I'll go back to the library, and get you the whole thing.
> >
>
> Well, by all means provide the information, for if some author is
> mistaken his words should be corrected. I have a half-dozen or
> more letters from Einstein which clearly makes Einstein's
> thoughts and feelings known.
Aczel (God's Equation, Four Walls Eight Windows, 1999) says (p.87)
"While Freundlich spent the rest of the war years in Berlin, even
working part of the time for Einstein, the relationship between the
two soured." Aczel says that they reconciled, sorta, but "Einstein
apparently blamed Freundlich, who risked his life and freedom for
Einstein's theory, for the misfortunes of war, and it seems that his
rancor would last for five years, until an Englishman would succeed
where Freundlich was not allowed to tread."
That seems to cast Einstein in a negative light--and another letter
that Aczel quotes makes Einstein brutally candid to Freundlich--but
there is also a footnote at the bottom of p.88 that reads "This
letter clearly proves that Einstein's relationship with Freundlich
started to deteriorate when Freundlich's eclipse expedition failed.
Other researchers of the Einstein-Freundlich relationship apparently
missed this point. In a recent book, The Einstein Tower, Stanford
University Press, 1997, pp. 137-8, Klaus Hentschel claims that the
relationship began to sour in 1921 when Freundlich attempted to
obtain money for one of Einstein's manuscripts, which enraged the
latter."
Stephen Speicher
> Stephen Speicher wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, 10 Dec 2002, RM Mentock wrote:
> >
> > > Stephen Speicher wrote:
> > > >
> > > > On Sun, 8 Dec 2002, RM Mentock wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > Steve Harris wrote:
>
> > > > > > he'd actively championed a eclipse test to look at this. In any case, he'd
> > > > > > corrected himself before a search could actually be mounted (the Great War
> > > > > > intervening).
>
> > > Are you saying that you still think that no expeditions to search
> > > for light bending had been mounted before 1915?
>
> > What do you mean by "still think?" I have never thought what you
> > allude to.
>
> The passage included above, you said Einstein had corrected himself
> before a search could actually be mounted
>
You seem to be confusing _me_, Stephen Speicher, with Steve Harris.
The words you refer to were from Steve Harris, not me.
This gets worse and worse. But first, before dealing with Aczel,
my comments about you being unfair to Freundlich were in response
to you saying:
"There was an expedition to Brazil in 1912 that was
rained out, and Einstein's frustration with the
astronomer Freundlich seems to have been a result of
the latter's efforts during the 1914 expedition to the
Crimea to measure the bending of light."
Nothing in the Aczel quotes you give above support what you said,
namely that Einstein was frustrated with Freundlich because of
his "efforts during the 1914 expedition." Aczel says other things
-- none of which I believe to be true -- but nothing to support
your words to which I responded.
As to Aczel: When I get some time I will get his book, and
perhaps write something more detailed to counteract the claims
which you here quote. The correspondence record between
Freundlich and Einstein, throughout many years, stands in direct
contradiction to what Aczel claims. Einstein held Freundlich in
great esteem, and helped fight battles for Freundlich for years
after the ill-fated 1914 expedition. And Freundlich virtually
devoted a major portion of his life to assisting Einstein in his
endeavors. As to the Einstein Tower: It was Freundlich who
_raised the money_ for Mendelsohn to design and build the tower,
and it was also Freundlich who, in 1921, spoke up to try to stop
printing of the unauthorized biography of Einstein written by a
journalist, after Born and then Einstein expressed strong
objections to the printing of the book. All this too is
documented, this particularly in the Born-Einstein letters.
I think that you first over-generalized what Aczel said, and
mistakenly applied his words to the 1914 expedition itself. I am
dismayed at what Aczel has said, and I doubt very much that his
claims can be substantiated, since I know first-hand of so much
information which contradicts what he says. I will also check
Klaus Hentschel's book on the Tower to see if Aczel has
accurately reported this supposed tiff over a manuscript (if it
was something other than the biography which I just wrote about
up above).
p.s. I just ordered both books, and will look into this further.
It is certainly possible that I may not be aware of certain
facts, but the claims made by Aczel -- at least ones which I know
to be wrong -- do not seem right. You should also realize that
Einstein is a target for many who are more interested in
capitalizing on his name, than on actual scholarship. I am not
saying that that is the case here, but I must say I am very
suspicious.
RM Mentock
> You seem to be confusing _me_, Stephen Speicher, with Steve Harris.
> The words you refer to were from Steve Harris, not me.
Sure did, sorry.
Well the first quote comes right after discussion of the expedition,
the footnote says their relationship deteriorated after the failure
of the expedition, and the second quote says that Einstein blamed
Freundlich and his rancor lasted five years, so it's pretty good
support for what I said, as far as Aczel goes. Whether Aczel is
right is a different thing.
> I think that you first over-generalized what Aczel said, and
> mistakenly applied his words to the 1914 expedition itself. I am
> dismayed at what Aczel has said, and I doubt very much that his
> claims can be substantiated, since I know first-hand of so much
> information which contradicts what he says. I will also check
> Klaus Hentschel's book on the Tower to see if Aczel has
> accurately reported this supposed tiff over a manuscript (if it
> was something other than the biography which I just wrote about
> up above).
>
> p.s. I just ordered both books, and will look into this further.
> It is certainly possible that I may not be aware of certain
> facts, but the claims made by Aczel -- at least ones which I know
> to be wrong -- do not seem right. You should also realize that
> Einstein is a target for many who are more interested in
> capitalizing on his name, than on actual scholarship. I am not
> saying that that is the case here, but I must say I am very
> suspicious.
I did get that impression from the book, but Aczel offers
what he says are quotes from letters. On p.89 he quotes a
letter to Freundlich that says "Yesterday Planck spoke with
Struve about you. Struve cursed you." There's more, and I'm
interested in your reaction.
Randy Poe
To my previous response, I'll add that he had a way of saying
things, in his quiet way, that stuck with you. I remember
one time he casually made the comment that "I decided that since
I was going to make my living with my brain, I would never
drink alcohol or do anything to damage it." I won't say
I lead an alcohol-free life, but I've never been drunk or
taken drugs and that one comment has always been on my
mind when faced with those situations.
- Randy
Randy Poe
> "Randy Poe" <rp...@nospam.com> wrote in message
> news:at516...@enews2.newsguy.com...
>
>>Peter Bergmann was one of my professors at Syracuse in
>>the 70s. He also had a teaching position at a school
>>in New York (Yeshiva, I think).
>>
>
>
> Randy,
>
> While I was physics student in the 70's I studied Bergmann's book on
> relativity and his two books on "Basic Theories of Physics". I thought they
> were nice.
>
> Did you take specific courses under Bergmann?
Yes, a couple. Not relativity, unfortunately. One was
statistical mechanics, and I can't remember what the other was.
> If so, would you mind
> commenting on the nature of the courses - particularly regarding Bergmann's
> teaching style and personal characteristics?
Teaching style and personal style... very gentle, soft-spoken,
a quiet sense of humor. I remember once he showed up late for
class, found us all standing in the hall, and expressed amused
surprise that none of us had managed to secure an (illegal)
copy of a master key "by this point in your career."
In the classroom, this style manifested itself as what I
guess you would call Socratic rather than autocratic
approach. Rather than going to the board and scribbling
equations as fast as you could write them down for an
hour and a half, he would be leading discussions and
eliciting the reasoning from the class.
He also used to leave amusing little notes on people's
message boards outside their offices.
- Randy
Stephen Speicher
> Stephen Speicher wrote:
>
> >
> > p.s. I just ordered both books, and will look into this further.
> > It is certainly possible that I may not be aware of certain
> > facts, but the claims made by Aczel -- at least ones which I know
> > to be wrong -- do not seem right. You should also realize that
> > Einstein is a target for many who are more interested in
> > capitalizing on his name, than on actual scholarship. I am not
> > saying that that is the case here, but I must say I am very
> > suspicious.
>
> I did get that impression from the book, but Aczel offers
> what he says are quotes from letters. On p.89 he quotes a
> letter to Freundlich that says "Yesterday Planck spoke with
> Struve about you. Struve cursed you." There's more, and I'm
> interested in your reaction.
>
Oh my, this is even worse than I thought. First of all, the quote
from the letter is not even right. The letter from Einstein to
Freundlich, dated 5 February 1915, states:
"Yesterday Planck spoke with Struve about you. Struve
indicated that he would not oppose a habilitation
petition submitted by you. Otherwise, he railed about
you thoroughly."
But, regardless of Aczel's questionable scholarship in regard to
quoting of the letter, if it is he (Aczel), and not you, who has
concluded from this quote that Einstein was at odds with
Freundlich, then that is just absurd. It was Struve, not
Freundlich, who Einstein was horribly mad at. Both Planck and
Einstein were on Freundlich's side. You see, after the failed
1914 expedition, Freundlich came up with another means, using
Jupiter, of testing Einstein's hypothesis about light. Einstein
was ecstatic about this, and did everything he could to encourage
Freundlich and make this happen. It was Struve who stood in the
way. Einstein writes to Sommerfeld, on 28 November 1915, and
says:
"Freundlich has a method of measuring light deflection
by Jupiter. Only the intrigues of pitiful persons
prevent this last important test of the theory from
being carried out."
Here Einstein is referring to Struve as the "pitiful" person.
Einstein has nothing but praise for Freundlich.
If it was Aczel who drew the conclusions which you are then
relaying, then indeed that book of his should be held in low
regard. If it was yourself who drew this mistaken conclusion
about Freundlich, based on snippets like the one you just
presented, then indeed, as I originally said, you do a great
injustice to Freundlich.
RM Mentock
> If it was Aczel who drew the conclusions which you are then
> relaying, then indeed that book of his should be held in low
> regard. If it was yourself who drew this mistaken conclusion
> about Freundlich, based on snippets like the one you just
> presented, then indeed, as I originally said, you do a great
> injustice to Freundlich.
On page 89, he says "Einstein's ungrateful attitude towards
Freundlich manifested itself in many ways over the following
years..."
I think that's clear, don't you? I mean, as far as who is
drawing the conclusion.
Maleki
>specific dates, or detailed references to publications, will help
>to sort things out.
I know for sure that I have another article on Hessaby
but I cannot find it. It came out right after his death
early in 1990s. I've already looked for it for most of
this evening. I quit.
Google doesn't give much information either (what a
surprize) other than some nostalgic pictures etc. I can
email Tehran University physics department and ask
around. Somebody might be willing to take the time go
look up some things. I think it's easier if I do that.
By the way, Caltech holds a folder of Feynman's
correspondence with Hessaby during 1967-68 according to
this link:
http://www.aip.org/history/ead/caltech_feynman/19990006_content.html
If the content pertains Hessaby's theory of infinite
particles (combining gravitational, electric, and
nuclear forces) these letters should be interesting to
see cause they'd have Feynman's view and evaluation of
it. But most likely the letters should be about
Hessaby's inquiries on QED. During 1960s and well into
70s he was into laser research. Some of that material
appeared inside his quantum optics book (titled,
"didegAniye kuwAntik") that came out in 1974 or 75.
About his work under Einstein, I can still only guess,
and my guess is that he started to work on his infinite
particle theory in 1946 but Einstein died before he
published the final form of it in late 50s and
therefore perhaps he could not mention Einstein in
relation to this work when Einstein was not there to ok
it. Every link I found about Hessaby mentions him as
"Einstein's sole Iranian student". If this thing was
not correct, so many different authorities wouldn't say
the same thing about him unless every one of them
carelessly used one and the same incorrect source to
quote this (which is probable!).
Anyway, after I receive replies from U Tehran's faculty
I'll add to this.
-------------------------
khodAyA:
ghanA'at, sabr, va tahammol rA az mellatam bAzgir
va be man arzAnidAr.
"Ali Shari'ati"
Stephen Speicher
> Stephen Speicher wrote:
>
> > If it was Aczel who drew the conclusions which you are then
> > relaying, then indeed that book of his should be held in low
> > regard. If it was yourself who drew this mistaken conclusion
> > about Freundlich, based on snippets like the one you just
> > presented, then indeed, as I originally said, you do a great
> > injustice to Freundlich.
>
> On page 89, he says "Einstein's ungrateful attitude towards
> Freundlich manifested itself in many ways over the following
> years..."
>
> I think that's clear, don't you? I mean, as far as who is
> drawing the conclusion.
>
Okay. it looks like you bought what Aczel was selling. When I get
the book and have time to review it in regard to Freundlich, I'll
comment back to this thread. I deliberately held back providing a
lot of detailed evidence which I have to contradict what is being
said, until I see the details of his presentation myself.
Stephen Speicher
>
> By the way, Caltech holds a folder of Feynman's
> correspondence with Hessaby during 1967-68 according to
> this link:
> http://www.aip.org/history/ead/caltech_feynman/19990006_content.html
>
That could be interesting. When I get some time I'll read the
correspondence at the archive. I'm _very_ busy with many things
right now, but I'll get to it eventually. I'll let you know.
> If the content pertains Hessaby's theory of infinite
> particles (combining gravitational, electric, and
> nuclear forces) these letters should be interesting to
> see cause they'd have Feynman's view and evaluation of
> it.
Are you aware that Hessaby's paper on "Infinite Particles" was
published in 1957? It was in a French Journal: "Model of an
Infinite Particle," M. Hessaby, _Journal de Physique et le
Radium_, 18 (5), pp. 323-326 1957.
>
> About his work under Einstein, I can still only guess,
> and my guess is that he started to work on his infinite
> particle theory in 1946 but Einstein died before he
> published the final form of it in late 50s and
> therefore perhaps he could not mention Einstein in
> relation to this work when Einstein was not there to ok
> it. Every link I found about Hessaby mentions him as
> "Einstein's sole Iranian student". If this thing was
> not correct, so many different authorities wouldn't say
> the same thing about him unless every one of them
> carelessly used one and the same incorrect source to
> quote this (which is probable!).
>
As I said, I remain suspicious of all this. Let's see what is
uncovered in the Einstein archives.