Isaac Newton had argued that there was a universal force of gravity, the incessant tugging of one body on another. But Einstein argued that there was no “force” of gravity at all. Space and time were as wobbly as a trampoline; they could warp, bend or distend in the presence of massive objects like the sun....As we approach Veteran's Day, which was originally Armistice Day, it's worth noting some of the other pitfalls for Einstein that the story mentioned. Some of his earliest adopters might have done more, and more quickly, were they not held in POW camps by the other side -- or had they not died in the war.
Just months after Eddington’s announcement, right-wing political opportunists in war-ravaged Germany began to organize raucous anti-Einstein rallies. Only an effete Jew, they argued, could remove “force” from modern physics; those of true Aryan spirit, they went on, shared an intuitive sense of “force” from generations of working the land.
Politics & Science
They mix, but not well.
It always pays to remember that the most educated, sophisticated country on the planet went bat-shit insane in the 20th C.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure that you'd have called Whilimine or Weimar Germany the most sophisticated or possibly even the most educated compared to other European countries at the time--I rather think that is a sop to the idea that "it can happen to anybody" kind of thinking. Really, it takes something pretty bone-headed to start two world wars.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't the least sophisticated, at least. For that matter, Japan in 1941 had been chasing progress and sophistication the whole of the 20th century to date.
ReplyDelete"It takes something pretty bone-headed to start two world wars."
ReplyDeleteI disagree. The first was a "matter of honor" disguising a political move. An age old tradition pretty much everywhere. We still do it here. The second was... a direct product of the first. Beat a man and he is down. Break a man and he may never recover. But if you leave a man desperate, especially if his family is suffering, he will act in desperation. And they were made a desperate people at Versailles.
William sends
Re the question of how & why German society went collectively insane, I've collected several posts relating to this matter here:
ReplyDeletehttp://chicagoboyz.net/archives/46723.html
That Dorothy Thompson piece is a classic.
ReplyDelete