Remembering Einstein

By Jibanananda Khuntia

It is out of the question that UMD Pugwash will not remember Einstein on his birthday, or at least that one of the members should have a “cognitive celebration” of his work and contributions to humankind. For the newcomers, who do not know about Einstein (presumably possible, as he did not take birth in our times), this should be good start.

I would not be exaggerating to say that he has left his footprints on every aspect of our lives, from simple mathematics to engineering, to understanding the light. For a connoisseur of food like me, his most noteworthy contribution is perhaps the refrigerator. From 1926 until 1933 Einstein worked a lot on refrigeration technology with Leó Szilárd. Einstein used the experience he had gained during his years at the Swiss Patent Office to apply for valid patents for their inventions in several countries, the two eventually being granted 45 patents in their names for three different models. Although neither Einstein nor the technology gained much out of these patents, these early works were crucial to the advancement of the field of refrigeration technology.

However, coming back to the context of Pugwash. The Russell-Einstein Manifesto is perhaps another landmark in history which led to the establishment of Pugwash. Pugwash and Rotblat jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995 for efforts in nuclear disarmament. International Student/Young Pugwash groups have existed since 1979; and the rest is perhaps history.

The temporal structure of my brain likes Einstein for two reasons: firstly he was an engineer, and secondly a philosopher. In 1918, Einstein proclaimed that the foundations of his general theory of relativity lay in three principles: the principle of equivalence, the (generalized) principle of relativity, and Mach's principle. For a long time, an understanding of the foundations of the general theory of relativity seemed to require elucidation of the content of each of the principles. Perhaps one school of elucidation led to the philosophical interpretations of general relativity towards certain aspects of that theory. A discourse of the early Philosophical Interpretations of General Relativity can be found here at this Stanford Encyclopedia. Interesting to see Bertrand Russell’s comment on the Philosophical Consequences of Relativity where he concludes:

"From a practical point of view, the physical world only matters in so far as it affects us, and the intrinsic nature of what goes on in our absence is irrelevant, provided we can predict the effects upon ourselves. This we can do, just as a person can use a telephone without understanding electricity. Only the most abstract knowledge is required for practical manipulation of matter. But there is a grave danger when this habit of manipulation based upon mathematical laws is carried over into our dealings with human beings, since they, unlike the telephone wire, are capable of happiness and misery, desire and aversion. It would therefore be unfortunate if the habits of mind which are appropriate and right in dealing with material mechanisms were allowed to dominate the administrator's attempts at social constructiveness."