95 Will There Be Another Einstein

名称：95 Will There Be Another Einstein
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[00:02.95]Will there ever be another Einstein?
[00:06.10]This is the undercurrent of conversation at
[00:10.13]Einstein memorial meetings throughout the year.
[00:13.59]A new Einstein will emerge, scientists say.
[00:17.28]But it may take a long time. After all,
[00:20.52]more than 200 years separated
[00:23.24]Einstein from his nearest rival, Isaac Newton.
[00:27.13]Many physicists say the next Einstein
[00:30.41]hasn't been born yet, or is a baby now.
[00:33.78]That's because the quest for a unified theory
[00:37.25]that would account for all the forces of nature
[00:40.81]has pushed current mathematics to its limits.
[00:43.81]New math must be created before the problem
[00:47.80]can be solved.But researchers say
[00:50.79]there are many other factors working against
[00:54.57]another Einstein emerging anytime soon.
[00:56.90]For one thing, physics is a much different field today.
[01:01.46]In Einstein's day, there were only a few
[01:04.91]thousand physicists worldwide, and the theoreticians
[01:08.94]who could intellectually rival Einstein probably would
[01:13.47]fit into a streetcar with seats to spare.
[01:14.27]Education is different, too.
[01:18.58]One crucial aspect of Einstein's training
[01:22.55]that is overlooked is the years of philosophy
[01:25.44]he read as a teenager—Kant, Schopenhauer
[01:30.13]and Spinoza, among others.
[01:32.67]It taught him how to think independently
[01:34.40]and abstractly about space and time,
[01:37.05]and it wasn't long before he became a philosopher himself.
[01:41.58]“The independence created by philosophical insight is—in
[01:46.93]my opinion—the mark of distinction
[01:49.49]between a mere artisan or specialist
[01:52.82]and a real seeker after truth,”
[01:55.57]Einstein wrote in 1944.
[01:57.95]And he was an accomplished musician.
[02:01.63]The interplay between music and math is well known.
[02:06.17]Einstein would furiously play his violin as a way
[02:10.92]to think through a knotty physics problem.
[02:13.58]Today, universities have produced millions of physicists.
[02:18.02]There aren't many jobs in science for them,
[02:21.48]so they go to Wall Street and Silicon Valley to apply their
[02:25.48]analytical skills to more practical—and rewarding—efforts.
[02:29.45]“Maybe there is an Einstein out there today,”
[02:33.91]said Columbia University physicist Brian Greene,
[02:37.74]“but it would be a lot harder for him to be heard.”
[02:42.00]Especially considering what Einstein was proposing.
[02:46.32]“The actual fabric of space and time curving?
[02:51.86]My God, what an idea!” Greene said at a recent gathering
[02:56.78]at the Aspen Institute. “It takes a certain type of person
[03:00.86]who will bang his head against the wall
[03:03.85]because you believe you'll find the solution.”
[03:07.58]Perhaps the best examples are the five scientific papers
[03:12.39]Einstein wrote in his “miracle year” of 1905.
[03:15.12]These “thought experiments” were pages of calculations
[03:20.06]signed and submitted to the prestigious journal
[03:23.87]Annalen der Physik by a virtual unknown.
[03:26.93]There were no footnotes or citations.
[03:29.94]What might happen to such a submission today?
[03:34.46]“We all get papers like those in the mail,”
[03:37.74]Greene said. “We put them in the junk file.”