“I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.”
-Stephen Jay Gould.
This quote is great because so was Einstein himself! He never saw himself as a genius, as a mind like no other. He saw himself as a guy who studied alot and he was very dedicated to give that opportunity to others. He also spoke very openly against racism and was one of the few professors that thought black people at the time. Here are some great pictures of him in 1946
Adding onto this: I really recommend Einstein’s short, entry-level essay “Why Socialism?”, found here. It’s ~10 min read and it does a great job of explaining the crux of socialism.
Here are some of his major points:
The individual and society form a symbiotic relationship. A healthy individual needs a healthy society and a healthy society needs healthy individuals.
Capitalism undermines democracy by concentrating wealth into the hands of an economic elite, which in turn funds a political elite to represent its interests in government. The ultra-rich also control the media and educational systems to manipulate public opinion and prevent free thought. (Here Einstein is pre-empting Noam Chomsky and Ed Herman’s propaganda model).
Capitalism’s profit motive entails human needs going unmet to satisfy human greed.
The “worst evil” of capitalism is the crippling of individuals, which begins in school where an exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student.
A transition to socialism is necessary to overcome these problems, and is in fact imperative to avert constant warfare and ecological catastrophe. We need a fully democratic society where society’s productive capacity is not concentrated into the hands of a few, but owned by workers and society itself.
“My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.“
The ether is considered a universal medium consisting of a primary substance, attenuated beyond conception, which fills all space and connects all matter. This medium, or field of force, is responsible for action at a distance—a concept where an object can interact with other objects even though they are separated in space. This idea still baffles today’s physicists, but was understood by Nikola Tesla long before Albert Einstein coined his “spooky action at a distance”.
Before I get into Tesla’s explanation of the ether, I must first recall the famous 1887 Michelson-Morley experiment, because I know some readers will immediately bring it up. The experiment was intended to detect the ether using light beams and mirrors to record the speed of light through the ether relative to the Earth’s movement around the Sun; however, the two scientists failed to detect the ether and it became one of the most famous failed experiments in history. Surprisingly though, the experimenters did not account for the fact that the speed of light was relative to the observer moving with the apparatus, which led to the null effect. What it did, rather, was prove that the average velocity of light for a round trip between a beam splitter and a mirror was independent of motion through space. Either way, physicists agreed that by its nature, the ether cannot be detected and it is unnecessary for explaining how light travels through space.
It was Heinrich Hertz, who during the same time as the Michelson-Morley experiment, demonstrated the notion of action at a distance proving the existence of electromagnetic waves first predicted by James Clerk Maxwell in 1864. Since these waves travel across space, there must be a medium carrying the waves. Like Maxwell, Hertz postulated that ether was structureless beyond conception, and yet solid and possessed a rigidity incomparably greater than the hardest steel. Electromagnetic waves were then believed to be transverse waves (waves that vibrate at ninety degrees angles).
In the early 1890s, Nikola Tesla repeated Hertz’s experiments with a much improved and a far more powerful apparatus, coming to the conclusion that what Hertz observed were longitudinal waves in a gaseous medium propagated by alternate compression and expansion. After discovering these results, Tesla declared that light, and other electromagnetic waves, are not transverse waves (a theory still believed today in conventional physics), but instead are a longitudinal disturbance in the ether involving alternate compressions and rarefactions. In his own words, “light can be nothing else than a sound wave in the ether. Since light has such a constancy of velocity, light can only be explained by assuming that it is dependent solely on the physical properties of the medium, especially density and elastic force.” It wasn’t until after Nikola Tesla met with Hertz and explained his results that Hertz then changed his views on the ether and accepted that it was a gaseous medium rather than a stationary one.
Believing that the ether was one of the most important results of modern scientific research, Tesla refused to abandon it because in his mind the ether was an important key to understanding how electrical energy could travel through space without wires. He displayed this phenomenon in numerous experiments and lectures throughout the 1890s.
It wasn’t until 1896 when Tesla finally obtained experimental proof of the ether. He invented a new form of vacuum tube which could be charged to any high potential and operated with pressures up to 4,000,000 volts. In 1929, Tesla spoke of these vacuum tubes saying, “One of the first striking observations made with my tubes was that a purplish glow for several feet around the end of the tube was formed, and I readily ascertained that it was due to the escape of the charges of the particles as soon as they passed out into the air; for it was only in a nearly perfect vacuum that these charges could be confined to them. The coronal discharge proved that there must be a medium besides air in the space, composed of particles immeasurably smaller than those of air, as otherwise such a discharge would not be possible. On further investigation I found that this gas was so light that a volume equal to that of the earth would weigh only about one-twentieth of a pound.”
To explain the density of the ether, Tesla referred to William Thomson’s equations. In 1932, Tesla said, “Its density has been first estimated by Lord Kelvin and conformably to his finding a column of one square centimeter cross section and of a length such that light, traveling at a rate of three hundred thousand kilometers per second, would require one year to transverse it, should weigh 4.8 grams. This is just about the weight of a prism of ordinary glass of the same cross section and two centimeters length which, therefore, may be assumed as the equivalent of the ether column in absorption. A column of the ether one thousand times longer would thus absorb as much light as twenty meters of glass. However, there are suns at distances of many thousands of light years and it is evident that virtually no light from them can reach the earth. But if these suns emit rays immensely more penetrative than those of light they will be slightly dimmed and so the aggregate amount of radiations pouring upon the earth from all sides will be overwhelmingly greater than that supplied to it by our luminary. If light and heat rays would be as penetrative as the cosmic, so fierce would be the perpetual glare and so scorching the heat that life on this and other planets could not exist.”
According to Nikola Tesla’s ether theory, all matter in the universe is metamorphous from the ether. When the ether is set in motion, it becomes gross matter. All matter, then, is merely ether in motion. In 1900, Tesla said, “By being set in movement, ether becomes matter perceptible to our senses; the movement arrested, the primary substance reverts to its normal state and becomes imperceptible. If this theory of the constitution of matter is not merely a beautiful conception, which in its essence is contained in the old philosophy of the Vedas, but a physical truth, then if the ether whirl or atom be shattered by impact or slowed down and arrested by cold, any material, whatever it be, would vanish into seeming nothingness, and, conversely, if the ether be set in movement by some force, matter would again form. Thus, by the help of a refrigerating machine or other means for arresting ether movement and an electrical or other force of great intensity for forming ether whirls, it appears possible for man to annihilate or to create at his will all we are able to perceive by our tactile sense.”
In summary, Tesla experimented, and proved his theories using the scientific method. His methods were far more superior to other physicists of his time, because he had the motors and transformers invented by himself to help with his experiments. These include the induction motor, his Telsa coil, and many more apparatuses. In the future the ether may be referred to as dark matter, the force etc., but Nikola Tesla’s ether theory will surely be proven true in years to come.
One hundred years have passed since Albert Einstein submitted the defining paper about the theory of general relativity. Titled “The Field Equations of Gravitation”, Einstein presented the final, workable field equations of general relativity that describes the interaction of gravity and the geometry of spacetime. This video celebrates the hundredth anniversary of the theory with a brief overview of the subject.
I’ve always loved old fashioned things, but lately there’s so much more being brought to me by the internet it’s easier to see into the past, but at the same time, you can never really see the past. antique things for sale on the internet just don’t feel the same as they did in the olden days. recreations are beautiful and fun, but we can never take away all of our stuff and just show theirs. things in museums are very fascinating, but they’re all taken apart and isolated and looked at and lonely. but I still love to see things that really existed a hundred or so years ago, it sparks me to imagine what it’s life was like, what it’s been through. I had an idea, I wonder if anyone has dug up any time capsules and put pictures on the internet for us to see? I’d love to see what people buried in their backyards, it’s like another way of freezing time like photographs do. so I looked up “interesting time capsules dug up” and I found a blog post, which became a time capsule itself because it was made before 2009, it even says “The deadline [for a space time capsule which will come back to earth in 50000 years] is December 31, 2009. Messages can be posted here.”
apparently there was a digital time capsule from 2006, which was opened in march 2020, but I couldn’t find anything about it except people talking about it before it was opened, and saying that it was opened. I really love the 2000’s, and I didn’t have the internet back then, so I’ve been catching up and it looked like so much fun on the internet in 2006, so I’d love to see it.
and, I found out that the world’s largest time capsule from 1975 is supposed to be opened in 2025, that’s in just 3 years! it’s so big because they buried 2 cars in it. but another time capsule where they buried a brand new car in concrete for 50 years, the concrete room leaked and the car came out all completely rusted and rotten. they chose a special kind of car, because they thought it was a good example of the bestest and smartest modern technology… which makes me imagine people today burying a tesla as a symbol of how totally brilliant we are and then a little water destroys it like the invention was no match for nature.
another interesting thing I read on this blog, was that Albert Einstein wrote a note in a time capsule that is supposed to be opened in 5000 years, he said “Our time is rich in inventive minds, the inventions of which could facilitate our lives considerably. We are crossing the seas by power and utilize power also in order to relieve humanity from all tiring muscular work. We have learned to fly and we are able to send messages and news without any difficulty over the entire world through electric waves. However, the production and distribution of commodities is entirely unorganized so that everybody must live in fear of being eliminated from the economic cycle, in this way suffering for the want of everything. Further more, people living in different countries kill each other at irregular time intervals, so that also for this reason any one who thinks about the future must live in fear and terror. This is due to the fact that the intelligence and character of the masses are incomparably lower than the intelligence and character of the few who produce some thing valuable for the community. I trust that posterity will read these statements with a feeling of proud and justified superiority.”
it’s really sad that it’s already been almost a hundred of those 5000 years, and those things haven’t changed. but some things have changed. I guess some people can look back and feel proud and justified superiority, but there were good people back then too. I am not proud of all the people in the world, so I don’t like to say “we” when I’m talking about everyone. but I am very lovingly proud of everyone who tried to make the world better, and everyone who has made the world better, and everyone who wants to make the world better. they can look around at the world in 1939 or 6939 and feel proud and justified superiority. we don’t need to wait for the cruel ones to catch up to be proud of ourselves, and we don’t need to feel their shame. I feel ashamed of them, but not ashamed for them.
