Sunday, June 4, 2017

Our Hero

Be thankful of those who helped us in this world. At a time when Hitler was rounding up as many Jews he could kill, one emerged safely and changed our lives forever. His theories paved the way for us to now enjoy GPS Navigation, yes, no more cumbersome large paper maps to analyze when trying to drive our cars. He developed the science of solar panels to provide us clean energy from our abundant sun. He paved the way for our extensive weather forecasting. The digital cameras we use daily in our phones can be traced to the theories from this man. Even the dawn of the nuclear age of power and weapons could be attributed to the findings of Albert Einstein.
Albert was no ordinary man with his crazy hair. He was known to always lose his keys and forget where he put just about anything. The epitome of the absent minded professor could have described him well. Yet his brilliant mathematical theory of E=mc2 paved the way for all the essential inventions we all rely on so much these days. His quirky personal life is said best in a new TV series. After all, we learn the most from our constant fascination with the movies and not books these days. In scientific circles stars don’t get any bigger than Albert Einstein. He became a first rate scientific celebrity in our generation. In the 1920’s he would visit America and crowds would flock to get a glimpse of the man. TV’s wasn’t invented yet. It was a great warm response for a theoretical physicist.
Related imageThe TV miniseries chronicles the unusual progressive life of the man who was born in Germany in 1879. Einstein led an ordinary life who loved people and loved to play with children; not the usual starchy aloft scientists of the day. For a better view find the series being shown on the National Geographic Channel called Einstein’s Genius played by Jeffrey Rush as Einstein. Albert’s life was as unconventional as his theories. As a kid he was a runaway, always got in trouble with his teachers, he had a child before marriage and gave off a rebellious impudent nature. Most geniuses who think out of the box usually acts out of the box too. His rebellious nature also challenged him to question the methods of science. He upended more than 200 years of scientific thinking and found new ways to scientific development.  This is why creativity should never be suppressed in any industry or talent.
In 1915 Einstein developed the mechanics of gravity. Before Albert, everyone thought gravity was settled with the theories of   Isaac Newton with his apple falling from the tree. Albert Einstein comes forward and declares that he has a radically new way of thinking about gravity. He threw out ideas about space and time curving and working together. Suddenly, Albert Einstein had a quest to uncover the structure of the universe. He gets hot on the trail of the Theory of Relativity that was so revolutionary that it triggered bigotry against him. At first no one wanted to believe him and thought of him as a crazy professor until his mathematical calculations helped them to understand his new thoughts. A new physics emerged based on Albert Einstein’s theories.
Finally the community of scientists agree that there is a new direction to pursue. In 1933 Albert was visiting the United States when Hitler rose to power. It wasn’t safe to be a Jew in Germany any longer so he settled in Princeton, New Jersey and remained there until his death in 1955.  We all think of science as the cold hard facts but this guy Albert Einstein thought of science in a more creative way questioning what was known as the facts and created new facts that led to all the new inventions we enjoy today. We need heroes now more than ever. Think of our modern day heroes who thought in magical ways and did not restrict themselves to rules and regulations but more to creative unconventional thoughts and practices.  


No comments:

Post a Comment