[lit-ideas] Re: Einstein
- From: Paul Stone <pas@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2005 11:02:14 -0500
At 10:46 AM 10/31/2005, you wrote:
So you're saying Einstein is just a tooth fairy? How do you answer my
statement that Einstein is a demigod, yet Edison is unknown except as the
guy who invented the lightbulb?
Here are some REAL reasons that Einstein is held in the esteem he is (by
the general public)
1) He's got a really cool, euphonious name -- it RHYNES for pete's sake!
2) He did something REALLY amazing (supplant Sir Isaac Fucking Newton),
when he was relatively young, and relatively UNINVOLVED in the whole
physics world, AND he did it cerebrally, before he EVER conceived of the
math. And... in the realm that he was talking, apart from a couple of
'glitches' it worked as he had conceived of it.
3) Most people can hum or whistle (something which further removes Mozart's
status as THE genius), whereas, MOST people cannot do even mildly
complicated mathematics... Therefore, Joe Blow see's Einstein as doing
something vaguely ingenious -- playing with dem dere numbers and like,
changing the world view -- which he unequivocally DID -- even if they have
no clue exactly how and, in fact, it's because of this cluelessness that
his status is even further elevated.
4) He's got a really cool name. Hawking, Greene, Wolfram? These guys just
don't have cool enough names that you can nounify. Plus, as far as the
newer guys go, it's all up in the air still. I would argue that Hawking has
celebrity status that is undeserved. Millions of people own "A brief
history of Time". Thousands have read it... hundreds have understood it. If
he had a cool name, the pardigm shift would have made people admonish "all
right Hawking, what's the answer" to their classmates.
Placating,
p
##########
Paul Stone
pas@xxxxxxxx
Kingsville, ON, Canada
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