Greg+Silva+-+Week+8

Why //was// Einstein such an innovative genius in the field of science?

Is his theory of relativity his claim to fame? Perhaps, but then again, Henri Poincaré had also contemplated time and the consequences of simultaneity and delays as he had observed in telegraphic electrical signals. Unfortunately for science, the two appear “as if they lived in parallel but nonintersecting universes” (Galison), and did not draw from each other’s work. Einstein, then, was neither the sole inventor of relativity nor the refiner of Poincaré’s theories, since he had never considered Poincaré’s work.

Perhaps, even though Einstein may not have been the only one to devise relativity, Einstein can claim his fame based on the myriad of experimental and observational evidence that fell in his favor shortly after he published his theory. Again, history indicates that this is probably not the case. The 1919 observation of stellar displacement due to gravity involved a total of 38 plates in two locations. In Sobral, Brazil, scientists obtained observations from 36 plates – eight that had developed well had indicated a slightly greater refraction than Einstein’s theory had predicted (1.7 arc seconds), and eighteen that had not developed well that indicated a refraction anywhere between virtually zero and what Einstein had predicted (including the Newtonian prediction of .8 arc seconds in between). In Principe, off the coast of Africa, two poorly developed plates indicated refraction approximately between the Newtonian prediction and refraction greater than Einstein’s prediction. However, the scientists collecting this data had interpreted these results, which were inconclusive at best given the lack of strong data on any side, as in support of Einstein’s claim.

Furthermore, the only supposedly valid experiment claiming to support the existence of aether stood uncontested but ignored because science had so quickly embraced relativity. The Michelson-Morley experiment of 1887 had, at the time, been interpreted as a failure because it did not detect any light disturbance caused by moving through aether. However, later supporters claimed it as proof of relativity, despite the existence of a different experiment conducted by Dayton Miller that claimed to have detected a significant amount of aetheral disturbance by conducting his experiment in favorable conditions. Supporters of relativity conducted tests that contradicted his findings, however these tests did not mimic the claimed ideal conditions for finding aether (on high ground, without metal shielding so that aether can flow freely through the apparatus). To further confuse things, so many error-causing factors existed in the experiments in the first place (any slight change in temperature, wear, etc. could significantly affect the result) that the results of any interferometric experiment were shaky at best. This lack of clear evidence either way indicates that Einstein’s theory was not automatically right due to experimental evidence.

Einstein is probably most famous, in a sense, for the exact trait that the media has emphasized the most – the sheer magnitude of his logical thinking. Einstein introduced relativity as a thought experiment; assuming two seemingly innocuous physical facts he had turned the world of physics upside-down and undermining the concept of absolute time or space. Furthermore, unlike other scientists such as Max Planck who had determined that their findings were “merely a mathematical trick” (Cassidy), Einstein actually believed that his derivations had to be the way the universe actually worked. If for nothing else, Einstein deserves a place in scientific history for his development of the role of logic in science.