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Astrophysicists discover exotic merger of black holes
Gravitational wave researchers observe black holes of different sizes colliding for the first time.
21 April, 2020
Simulation of two black holes of different size orbiting each other, while emitting gravitational waves. Blue colors are weaker gravitational radiation and red is stronger.
- Gravitational wave researchers at LIGO and Virgo observatories spot black holes of different sizes colliding.
- The finding is unusual because previous black hole mergers involved partners of similar size.
- The new information re-confirms Einstein's theory of relativity.
<p>Gravitational wave researchers discovered a very unusual merger of black holes 2.4 billion light-years away. They spotted a collision where one black hole was almost four times larger than another, expanding our understanding of such space cataclysms with help from Einstein (and even Elvis). </p><p><span style="background-color: initial;">All mergers detected previously involved partners of comparable sizes. The event detected on April 12th, 2019 </span><span style="background-color: initial;">was called "exceptional" by <strong>Maya Fishbach</strong>, an astrophysicist at the University of Chicago in Illinois. What she and her colleagues found proves that very unevenly matched black hole pairs exist. </span><span style="background-color: initial;">"This is the first event in which we can confidently say the mass-ratio is not one," she stated during an <a href="https://aps-april.onlineeventpro.freeman.com/" target="_blank">online meeting</a> of the </span><span style="background-color: initial;">American Physical Society.</span></p>
<p>The research was carried out in collaboration between the <a href="https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/" target="_blank">Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) </a>— twin detectors in Washington and Louisiana — as well as the <a href="http://www.virgo-gw.eu/" target="_blank">Virgo observatory</a> near Pisa, Italy. They both detected the merger. One of the black holes observed was <strong>30 times</strong> more massive than the sun and was spinning, said the scientists, while the other had a mass about <strong>eight times</strong> that of the sun.</p><p>In an amusing note, the scientists say that the very different masses created gravitational waves at multiple frequencies, which were actually in harmony with an Elvis Presley song. This cosmic music also confirms yet again Einstein's theory of general relativity.</p><p>Normally, two spiraling black holes of the same size would emit a single frequency, which would be double the rate at which they are orbiting one another, <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/04/gravitational-waves-reveal-unprecedented-collision-heavy-and-light-black-holes" target="_blank">explains</a> Science Magazine. In this case, as predicted by Einstein, the very different masses, also produce <em>overtones</em> - weaker waves at higher frequencies. And if you were to transpose these frequencies to piano notes and intervals, you would get the beginning of Presley's classic <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSaxhqJG1Mw" target="_blank">"I Can't Help Falling in Love with You."</a></p>
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<p>The scientists hope that this uniqueness of the detected event could help provide more information about how black holes form. Of special interest is how the variation in mass could have arisen. Under one scenario, the pair could be the result of two massive stars who were orbiting each other, collapsing into black holes. Under another theory, the black holes could have formed independently and found each other in dense star clusters.</p><p>You can read more of the new findings on the <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2004.08342" target="_blank">arXiv preprint server.</a></p>
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Astrophysicist claims "dark fluid" fills the missing 95% of the Universe
An Oxford scientist's controversial theory rethinks dark matter and dark energy.
29 October, 2019
Credit: YE AUNG THU/AFP/Getty Images.
- An astrophysicist and cosmologist Dr. Farnes published a paper while at Oxford University with a novel explanation for dark energy and dark matter.
- His theory claims to explain the missing 95% of the observable universe by the existence of "dark fluid".
- This fluid has negative mass, repelling other materials.
<p><br></p></div>
<p>While it seems we are making great strides in unlocking the mysteries of the Universe, there is a sizable hole in what we know –<strong> up to 95%</strong> of the cosmos appears to be missing. We are talking about <strong>dark matter </strong>and <strong>dark energy, </strong>two useful, groundbreaking, but yet-to-be-directly-observed explanations for the vast majority of what exists. While there have been various attempts to pin down these ideas, inferred from their gravitational effects, a recent theory from a University of Oxford scientist claims to do away with them entirely. Instead, his model proposes something which may be even more unusual – what if the Universe is actually filled with a <strong>"dark fluid"</strong> possessing <strong>"negative mass"</strong>?</p><p>Dark matter takes up<strong> 27% </strong>of the known Universe (<a href="https://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/what-is-dark-energy" target="_blank">per NASA</a>), while dark energy, a repulsive force that makes the Universe expand, gets <strong>68%</strong>. Only<strong> 5%</strong> of the Universe is the observable world, including us and our planet. According to the model, proposed by <a href="http://jamiefarnes.co.uk/" target="_blank"><strong>Dr. Jamie Farnes,</strong></a> both dark matter and dark energy are unified in a fluid which has <strong>"negative gravity".</strong> It repels all other material away.</p>
<p>"Although this matter is peculiar to us, it suggests that our cosmos is symmetrical in both positive and negative qualities," <a href="https://phys.org/news/2018-12-universe-theory-percent-cosmos.html" target="_blank">wrote</a> Farnes, astrophysicist, cosmologist and data scientist who worked at Oxford at the time of publishing his paper, and has since moved on to <a href="https://faculty.ai/" target="_blank">Faculty</a>, a leading AI company.</p><p>Negative matter was previously discredited because it was concluded that such a material would become less dense with the further expansion of the Universe. Yet that's not how dark energy seems to be, with research showing it would not thin out over time. The study by Dr. Farnes proposes there's a <strong>"creation tensor"</strong> that would allow for negative masses to be continuously created and not become diluted, behaving "exactly like dark energy, as the <a href="https://bigthink.com/surprising-science/bizarre-dark-fluid-with-negative-mass-could-dominate-the-universe-what-my-research-suggests" target="_self">cosmologist explains.</a></p><p>Dr. Farnes sees his work to be building on Albert Einstein's, who in 1917 discovered the <strong>cosmological constant</strong>, which became associated with dark energy in modern research. </p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"Previous approaches to combining dark energy and dark matter have attempted to modify Einstein's theory of general relativity, which has turned out to be incredibly challenging," <a href="https://phys.org/news/2018-12-universe-theory-percent-cosmos.html" target="_blank">said Dr. Farnes,</a> adding "This new approach takes two old ideas that are known to be compatible with Einstein's theory—negative masses and matter creation—and combines them together."</p>
Check out the dark matter halo simulation created by Dr. Farnes:
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="67e51bee92c13d996735cb6649e26f97"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/56AIR9ZDv3w?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p><em>This computer simulation is based on the properties of negative mass, predicting the formation of dark matter halos like those inferred by observations via radio telescopes.</em></p><p>Testing the theory by Dr. Farnes will fall to the <a href="https://www.skatelescope.org/" target="_blank">Square Kilometre Array (SKA), </a>the world's largest telescope to be built in Australia and South Africa between 2020 and 2025. This international radio telescope project would have an area of one square kilometer and be <em>50 times</em> more sensitive than any other radio instrument in existence.</p><p>Since Farnes's theory is speculative at this point, the scientific community has been split in its reviews of his work. </p><p>Physicist <strong>Krzysztof Bolejko</strong> from the University of Tasmania in Australia, <a href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/space/could-negative-mass-unify-dark-matter-dark-energy" target="_blank">said</a>: "Farnes' maths is fine", and that he believes "Inside cosmic voids the signal will be clearer and so it will be easier to distinguish between processes caused by dark energy and those caused by a constantly created matter with negative mass".</p><p><strong>Alex Murphy,</strong> Professor of Nuclear & Particle Astrophysics at the University of Edinburgh, <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/most-universe-missing-dark-fluid-negative-mass-could-explain-why-1245014" target="_blank">conceded</a> that Farnes's discoveries had an elegance and that "It's one of many efforts trying to provide answers to deeply troubling issues with our understanding of the contents of the universe. It's just possible that an idea like this might provide the breakthrough that's needed".</p><p>However, others were more critical with <strong>Sabine Hossenfelder</strong> from the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, <a href="http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2018/12/no-negative-masses-have-not.html" target="_blank">noting</a> that: "negative masses have not revolutionized cosmology" while "Farnes in his paper instead wants negative gravitational masses to mutually repel each other. But general relativity won't let you do this". She also took issue with the "creation tensor," stating "A creation term is basically a magic fix by which you can explain everything and anything".<br></p><p>Further tests will show whether the theory holds, but in the meantime you can read Dr. Farnes's paper yourself in <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201832898" target="_blank"><em>Astronomy and Astrophysics</em></a>.</p>
Physicist Lisa Randall on Dark Matter:
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Physicist advances a radical theory of gravity
Erik Verlinde has been compared to Einstein for completely rethinking the nature of gravity.
14 August, 2019
Photo by Willeke Duijvekam
- The Dutch physicist Erik Verlinde's hypothesis describes gravity as an "emergent" force not fundamental.
- The scientist thinks his ideas describe the universe better than existing models, without resorting to "dark matter".
- While some question his previous papers, Verlinde is reworking his ideas as a full-fledged theory.
<p><br></p></div>
<p>The Dutch theoretical physicist <strong>Erik Verlinde </strong>is no stranger to big ideas. His 2009 hypothesis about gravity earned him comparisons to Einstein for its complete rethinking of what gravity could be. Verlinde proposed that gravity was not a fundamental force of nature but rather emerged out of the interactions of information that fills the universe. He also <a href="https://bigthink.com/paul-ratner/remarkable-new-theory-says-theres-no-gravity-no-dark-matter-and-einstein-was-wrong" target="_self">didn't think</a> there was such a thing as <strong>"dark matter" </strong>– a useful construct which is supposedly taking up 27% of the known universe (but is yet to be observed). Now, in a new interview, Verlinde reveals he is taking steps towards conceptualizing his groundbreaking ideas in a full-fledged theory.</p><p>As <a href="https://www.nwo.nl/en/common/news--events/social-media/onderzoek-online/2019-1-undecided" target="_blank">reported</a> by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), Verlinde understands why many had trouble accepting his original proposal. After all, the previous leading explanations of gravity have been by Newton, who saw it as an invisible pulling force, and Einstein, who conceived of it as a curvature of space-time by mass and energy.</p>
<p>In Verlinde's view, based on string theory, quantum information theory and the physics of black holes, gravity is an "<strong>entropic</strong>" force that comes into existence as a result of "information associated with the positions of material bodies," as he wrote in his <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FJHEP04%282011%29029" target="_blank">2011 paper.</a> What drives gravity is the quantum entanglement of tiny bits of spacetime information.</p><p>Ten years after publishing his ideas in a paper that caused much discussion, both from admirers and critics, Verlinde shares that he is still fleshing them out, based on the research and advancements that have taken place since then.</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"Over the past ten years, we have gradually learned a lot more about how you should talk about space and time information," <a href="https://www.nwo.nl/en/common/news--events/social-media/onderzoek-online/2019-1-undecided" target="_blank">said Verlinde to NWO</a>. "I am seriously considering rewriting my story from 2009, but now formulated much more precisely. I think that could remove some of the scepticism that still exists.'</p>
Verlinde: Gravity Doesn't Exist
<div class="rm-shortcode" data-media_id="4lCPiAum" data-player_id="FvQKszTI" data-rm-shortcode-id="bfeb95bbd0094c74ab42ca401d2e0d58"> <div id="botr_4lCPiAum_FvQKszTI_div" class="jwplayer-media" data-jwplayer-video-src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/4lCPiAum-FvQKszTI.js"> <img src="https://cdn.jwplayer.com/thumbs/4lCPiAum-1920.jpg" class="jwplayer-media-preview" /> </div> <script src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/4lCPiAum-FvQKszTI.js"></script> </div><p>In 2016, Verlinde's ideas were tested by a team from Leiden Observatory, which found that a key prediction of the physicist held up. <a href="https://bigthink.com/paul-ratner/controversial-new-theory-that-says-theres-no-gravity-or-dark-matter-actually-passes-its-first-test" target="_self">They studied</a> the lensing effect of gravitational fields that are far away from the centers of more than 33,000 galaxies and found the numbers to be consistent with what the Dutch scientist's theory showed. The only way to get these calculations to match under the prevalent gravitational theory would have been to invoke dark matter – a potential fudge factor more than fact at this point. </p><p><a href="https://www.quantamagazine.org/researchers-check-space-time-to-see-if-its-made-of-quantum-bits-20170621/" target="_blank">A 2017 study</a> from Princeton University found against Verlinde's ideas, however, showing that they are not consistent with the observed data on the rotation velocities of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf_galaxy" target="_blank">dwarf galaxies.</a></p><p>While some have accused of Verlinde of publishing his thoughts too early, before they are packaged in a theory that explains all of the implications, the scientist thinks such naysayers don't really understand the way theoretical physics works. "You need to elaborate and test a new idea step-by-step," <a href="https://www.nwo.nl/en/common/news--events/social-media/onderzoek-online/2019-1-undecided" target="_blank">he explains,</a> adding "We must find the correct formulations and techniques.'</p>
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<p>Scientists like the theoretician <strong>Koenraad Schalm</strong> from Leiden University defend Verlinde, <a href="https://www.nwo.nl/en/common/news--events/social-media/onderzoek-online/2019-1-undecided" target="_blank">saying</a> that "Contrary to the sceptics' opinions, Verlinde's work is definitely taken seriously". In fact, Verlinde, who is the winner of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinoza_Prize" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Spinoza Prize,</a> has been cited over <strong>700 times </strong>by other scientists. </p><p>The physicist himself feels his overall thesis that information is the fundamental building mechanism of the universe is becoming more accepted. Perhaps his long-awaited new paper on the subject can bring it to an even stronger position amidst the main physics ideas of our time.</p>
Dark matter and dark energy explained | Erik Verlinde
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- A little-known correspondence between Einstein and Freud reveals his thoughts on war.
- In this letter, Einstein puts forth the idea for a world government run by an intellectual elite.
- His goal in this letter was to get Freud's insight into the psychologial matter of violence and how to solve it.
<p>Albert Einstein is synonymous with genius. While we're all aware of his outstanding contributions to science, much of his brilliance is incomprehensible to us because it pertains to such an advanced domain of physics. That's why it's always enlightening to hear Einstein's personal thoughts on a <a href="https://bigthink.com/did-einstein-pray-what-the-great-genius-thought-about-god" target="_self">number of other issues</a>, less scientifically esoteric and more worldly. It's no surprise that for a man as smart as Einstein, he had a number of concerns and opinions on how to contend with some of the greatest challenges civilization faced. </p><p>In 1931 the Institute for Intellectual Cooperation invited Einstein to engage in a cross-disciplinary exchange of ideas about world politics and peace. Always up for dialectics and diverse opinions, he went ahead and began a series of letters with Sigmund Freud. This little known correspondence between these two luminaries reveals a great deal about some of Einstein's thoughts on war, mankind and global politics. </p><p>Einstein admired Freud's work and believed that some of his psychological ideas could help him unravel the eternal problem of man's affinity for violence. Within these letters, the two of them discuss human nature at length and muse on both tangible and abstract ways of reducing violence and war in the world. </p><p>There is a strange sense of foreboding in these series of letters. As the onslaught of World War II had yet to rear its head, their words hold an even greater prescience and importance. Much of what they discuss are problems that still plague the world and persist, albeit with new political actors and much greater apocalyptic means of destruction. </p><p>This letter we're going to explore illuminates an aspect of Einstein's thinking on the notion and nature of war and world governance.</p>
Why war? Albert Einstein’s letter to Sigmund Freud
<p>Einstein begins his letter to Freud lamenting a common plight of intellectuals throughout the ages. The fact that we are led by the least among us. Scoundrels, profiteers, ideologues and other moronic factors of society makeup our ruling political classes. That is as true as it was then as it is today. </p> <p>Referencing men like Goethe, Jesus and Kant – Einstein mentions how great spiritual and moral leaders are universally recognized as leaders even though their ability to directly affect the course of human affairs is quite limited and tangibly ineffective. </p> <p style="margin-left: 20px;">"… But they have little influence on the course of political events. It would almost appear that the very domain of human activity most crucial to the fate of nations is inescapably in the hands of wholly irresponsible political rulers.</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px;">Political leaders or governments owe their power either to the use of force or to their election by the masses. They cannot be regarded as representative of the superior moral or intellectual elements in a nation. In our time, the intellectual elite does not exercise any direct influence on the history of the world; the very fact of its division into many factions makes it impossible for its members to cooperate in the solution of today's problems."</p> <p>Historically, this was right around the time that the League of Nations was in effect, which proved to be a futile endeavor. Einstein believed that in order to counteract this ineptitude of the ruling class, an intellectual elite control would need to be established. </p> <p style="margin-left: 20px;">"In our time, the intellectual elite does not exercise any direct influence on the history of the world; the very fact of its division into many factions makes it impossible for its members to cooperate in the solution of today's problems. Do you not share the feeling that a change could be brought about by a free association of men whose previous work and achievements offer a guarantee of their ability and integrity?"</p> <p>Einstein seems to be thinking about the idea of a philosopher-king but in the form of an international council. It would include an international legislative and judicial body, while being able to settle all conflicts. In effect, it would be a perfect world government, led by the greatest among us. Yet even Einstein was even quick to temper this utopian political idea with a note of caution. </p> <p style="margin-left: 20px;">"Such an association would, of course, suffer from all the defects that have so often led to degeneration in learned societies; the danger that such a degeneration may develop is, unfortunately, ever present in view of the imperfections of human nature."</p>Einstein’s main concern
<p>Einstein approached Freud for his insight on the unconscious and because he knew that Freud's "sense of reality is less clouded by wishful thinking." In approaching Freud on this issue, Einstein lays out the concern by charting out man's lust for power, greed, capacity for evil and the psychological roots of an individual being roused to violence, which inevitably leads to the communal death march of mass warfare.</p><p>The crux of Einstein's inquiry with Freud could be summed up as the following: </p><blockquote><em>Is there any way of delivering mankind from the menace of war?</em></blockquote><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"It is common knowledge that, with the advance of modern science, this issue has come to mean a matter of life and death for civilization as we know it; nevertheless, for all the zeal displayed, every attempt at its solution has ended in a lamentable breakdown."</p><p>Einstein's solution for an international governance of elites of mind and intellect has to first contend with a number of issues. One of those being nationalism, the crowd outgrowth of all those aforementioned psychological maladies of individual man. </p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"Thus I am led to my first axiom: the quest of international security involves the unconditional surrender by every nation, in a certain measure, of its liberty of action, its sovereignty that is to say, and it is clear beyond all doubt that no other road can lead to such security."</p><p>The early 20th century saw a number of political and philosophical movements that tried to establish this type of world governance. Einstein recognized that fact and realized that there must be something deeper at play in opposition to this goal. </p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"The ill-success, despite their obvious sincerity, of all the efforts made during the last decade to reach this goal leaves us no room to doubt that strong psychological factors are at work, which paralyse these efforts. Some of these factors are not far to seek. The craving for power which characterizes the governing class in every nation is hostile to any limitation of the national sovereignty." </p><p>Einstein points out that within many nations is a small group of people whose sole purpose is to advance their personal interests and power through warfare. This is the logical conclusion for any group that rises to power, regardless of their political disposition. Whether it be leftist or right rhetoric, the only way to enforce and advance their power is through violence and war. </p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"I have specially in mind that small but determined group, active in every nation, composed of individuals who, indifferent to social considerations and restraints, regard warfare, the manufacture and sale of arms, simply as an occasion to advance their personal interests and enlarge their personal authority."</p><p>They manage to pull this off politically by using their control over mass media and other varied institutions. </p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"Another question follows hard upon it: how is it possible for this small clique to bend the will of the majority, who stand to lose and suffer by a state of war, to the service of their ambitions? An obvious answer to this question would seem to be that the minority, the ruling class at present, has the schools and press, usually the Church as well, under its thumb. This enables it to organize and sway the emotions of the masses, and make its tool of them."</p><p>Although Einstein realized there is more than meets the eye to this answer. Underneath the surface lies not only the root of deeper problem, but also a potential solution to this very weighty inquiry into the nature of humanity. </p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"Yet even this answer does not provide a complete solution. Another question arises from it: How is it these devices succeed so well in rousing men to such wild enthusiasm, even to sacrifice their lives? Only one answer is possible. Because man has within him a lust for hatred and destruction. In normal times this passion exists in a latent state, it emerges only in unusual circumstances; but it is a comparatively easy task to call it into play and raise it to the power of a collective psychosis. Here lies, perhaps, the crux of all the complex of factors we are considering, an enigma that only the expert in the lore of human instincts can resolve."</p><p>Poised in Einstein's question to Freud is a desire to be able to identify and then remedy this "enigma of human instincts." </p><blockquote><em>Is it possible to control man's mental evolution so as to make him proof against the psychosis of hate and destructiveness?</em></blockquote><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"Here I am thinking by no means only of the so-called uncultured masses. Experience proves that it is rather the so-called "Intelligentzia" that is most apt to yield to these disastrous collective suggestions, since the intellectual has no direct contact with life in the raw, but encounters it in its easiest, synthetic form upon the printed page."<br></p><p>Einstein's letter leaves us with a lot to think about. His letter can be read <a href="https://en.unesco.org/courier/mai-1985/why-war-letter-albert-einstein-sigmund-freud" target="_blank">in its entirety here.</a> </p><p><a href="https://en.unesco.org/courier/marzo-1990/why-war-letter-freud-einstein" target="_blank">Freud's response</a> is equally compelling and seeks to answer a lot of the questions that Einstein put forth.<br></p><p>While on first glance, their conclusions may look dour, especially in light of the tragedies that befall the world only a decade later during World War II. Their blunt honesty and teardown of the problems we all face puts us one step closer to one day remedying the perils of war and unjust world governance. </p><blockquote><em>But my insistence on what is the most typical, most cruel and extravagant form of conflict between man and man was deliberate, for here we have the best occasion of discovering ways and means to render all armed conflicts impossible.</em></blockquote>
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What Einstein meant by ‘God does not play dice’
Einstein's God is infinitely superior but impersonal and intangible, subtle but not malicious. He is also firmly determinist.
04 January, 2019
A boy looks at a wall showing a graffiti painting of Albert Einstein in Tunis, on July 11, 2010. AFP PHOTO / FETHI BELAID/Getty Images
'The theory produces a good deal but hardly brings us closer to the secret of the Old One,' wrote Albert Einstein in December 1926. 'I am at all events convinced that He does not play dice.'
<p>Einstein was responding to a letter from the German physicist Max Born. The heart of the new theory of quantum mechanics, Born had argued, beats randomly and uncertainly, as though suffering from arrhythmia. Whereas physics before the quantum had always been about doing <em>this</em> and getting <em>that</em>, the new quantum mechanics appeared to say that when we do <em>this</em>, we get <em>that</em> only with a certain probability. And in some circumstances we might get <em>the other</em>.</p><p>Einstein was having none of it, and his insistence that God does not play dice with the Universe has <a href="https://aeon.co/essays/why-do-we-love-to-quote-and-misquote-albert-einstein" target="_blank">echoed</a> down the decades, as familiar and yet as elusive in its meaning as E = mc<sup class="ld-superscript">2</sup>. What did Einstein mean by it? And how did Einstein conceive of God?</p><p>Hermann and Pauline Einstein were nonobservant Ashkenazi Jews. Despite his parents' secularism, the nine-year-old Albert discovered and embraced Judaism with some considerable passion, and for a time he was a dutiful, observant Jew. Following Jewish custom, his parents would invite a poor scholar to share a meal with them each week, and from the impoverished medical student Max Talmud (later Talmey) the young and impressionable Einstein learned about mathematics and science. He consumed all 21 volumes of Aaron Bernstein's joyful <em>Popular Books on Natural Science</em> (1880). Talmud then steered him in the direction of Immanuel Kant's <em>Critique of Pure Reason</em> (1781), from which he migrated to the philosophy of David Hume. From <a href="https://aeon.co/essays/hume-is-the-amiable-modest-generous-philosopher-we-need-today" target="_blank">Hume</a>, it was a relatively short step to the Austrian physicist Ernst Mach, whose stridently empiricist, seeing-is-believing brand of philosophy demanded a complete rejection of metaphysics, including notions of absolute space and time, and the existence of atoms.</p><p>But this intellectual journey had mercilessly exposed the conflict between science and scripture. The now 12-year-old Einstein rebelled. He developed a deep aversion to the dogma of organised religion that would last for his lifetime, an aversion that extended to all forms of authoritarianism, including any kind of dogmatic atheism.</p><p>This youthful, heavy diet of empiricist philosophy would serve Einstein well some 14 years later. Mach's rejection of absolute space and time helped to shape Einstein's special theory of relativity (including the iconic equation E = mc<sup class="ld-superscript">2</sup>), which he formulated in 1905 while working as a 'technical expert, third class' at the Swiss Patent Office in Bern. Ten years later, Einstein would complete the transformation of our understanding of space and time with the formulation of his general theory of relativity, in which the force of gravity is replaced by curved spacetime. But as he grew older (and wiser), he came to reject Mach's aggressive empiricism, and once declared that 'Mach was as good at mechanics as he was wretched at philosophy.'</p><p>Over time, Einstein evolved a much more realist position. He preferred to accept the content of a scientific theory realistically, as a contingently 'true' representation of an objective physical reality. And, although he wanted no part of religion, the belief in God that he had carried with him from his brief flirtation with Judaism became the foundation on which he constructed his philosophy. When asked about the basis for his realist stance, he explained: 'I have no better expression than the term “religious" for this trust in the rational character of reality and in its being accessible, at least to some extent, to human reason.'</p><p>But Einstein's was a God of philosophy, not religion. When asked many years later whether he believed in God, he replied: 'I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals himself in the lawful harmony of all that exists, but not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and the doings of mankind.' Baruch Spinoza, a contemporary of Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz, had conceived of God as <em>identical</em> with nature. For this, he was considered a dangerous <a href="https://aeon.co/essays/at-a-time-of-zealotry-spinoza-matters-more-than-ever" target="_blank">heretic</a>, and was excommunicated from the Jewish community in Amsterdam.</p>
<p>Einstein's God is infinitely superior but impersonal and intangible, subtle but not malicious. He is also firmly determinist. As far as Einstein was concerned, God's 'lawful harmony' is established throughout the cosmos by strict adherence to the physical principles of cause and effect. Thus, there is no room in Einstein's philosophy for free will: 'Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control … we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible player.'</p><p>The special and general theories of relativity provided a radical new way of conceiving of space and time and their active interactions with matter and energy. These theories are entirely consistent with the 'lawful harmony' established by Einstein's God. But the new theory of quantum mechanics, which Einstein had also helped to found in 1905, was telling a different story. Quantum mechanics is about interactions involving matter and radiation, at the scale of atoms and molecules, set against a passive background of space and time.</p><p>Earlier in 1926, the Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger had radically transformed the theory by formulating it in terms of rather obscure 'wavefunctions'. Schrödinger himself preferred to interpret these realistically, as descriptive of 'matter waves'. But a consensus was growing, strongly promoted by the Danish physicist Niels Bohr and the German physicist Werner Heisenberg, that the new quantum representation shouldn't be taken too literally.</p><p>In essence, Bohr and Heisenberg argued that science had finally caught up with the conceptual problems involved in the description of reality that philosophers had been warning of for centuries. Bohr is quoted as saying: 'There is no quantum world. There is only an abstract quantum physical description. It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature <em>is</em>. Physics concerns what we can <em>say</em> about nature.' This vaguely positivist statement was echoed by Heisenberg: '[W]e have to remember that what we observe is not nature in itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning.' Their broadly antirealist 'Copenhagen interpretation' – denying that the wavefunction represents the real physical state of a quantum system – quickly became the dominant way of thinking about quantum mechanics. More recent variations of such antirealist interpretations suggest that the wavefunction is simply a way of 'coding' our experience, or our subjective beliefs derived from our experience of the physics, allowing us to use what we've learned in the past to predict the future.</p><p>But this was utterly inconsistent with Einstein's philosophy. Einstein could not accept an interpretation in which the principal object of the representation – the wavefunction – is not 'real'. He could not accept that his God would allow the 'lawful harmony' to unravel so completely at the atomic scale, bringing lawless indeterminism and uncertainty, with effects that can't be entirely and unambiguously predicted from their causes.</p><p>The stage was thus set for one of the most remarkable debates in the entire history of science, as Bohr and Einstein went head-to-head on the interpretation of quantum mechanics. It was a clash of two philosophies, two conflicting sets of metaphysical preconceptions about the nature of reality and what we might expect from a scientific representation of this. The debate began in 1927, and although the protagonists are no longer with us, the debate is still very much alive.</p><p>And unresolved.</p><p>I don't think Einstein would have been particularly surprised by this. In February 1954, just 14 months before he died, he wrote in a letter to the American physicist David Bohm: 'If God created the world, his primary concern was certainly not to make its understanding easy for us.'<img src="https://metrics.aeon.co/count/55faa8e3-8b91-4c5c-a360-377dce2bde3c.gif" alt="Aeon counter – do not remove"></p><p>Jim Baggott</p><p>This article was originally published at <a href="https://aeon.co/?utm_campaign=republished-article" target="_blank">Aeon</a> and has been republished under Creative Commons.</p>
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