Yorkshire Philosophical Society

Event Information

Einstein: Superscientist? Superman?

by Professor Jim Matthew, The University of York

Albert Einstein was a genius by any measure of that term but that doesn’t mean he was a perfect scientist or a perfect human being. After a momentous career between 1905 and the 1920s he became the best known scientist in the world but this coincided with him being out of fashion with the mainstream of research in physics. In addition his political intrusions into the League of Nations and Zionist promotion of a state of Israel were not always consistent and helpful. This lecture paints a sympathetic but realistic picture of an extraordinary man and pose the question “Will there ever be another scientist like Einstein?”

Report
by Carole Smith

A repeat of the lecture given in Pocklington in the spring, this was a bonus for anyone unable to hear it first time round. A moderately gifted musician, a somewhat unreliable ally, a wayward statesman of science, attractive to women (but a difficult husband), Einstein was also an extraordinarily interesting personality and perhaps the most extraordinary scientist ever. In the early 20th century it was believed that there was nothing new to discover. How wrong that was: Einstein’s firework brilliance gave us theories of relativity, and quantum physics; his work led to the splitting of the atom, and the laser, developments that are still central to our lives. Would we ever see his like again? Scientific research methods and funding have changed; the oblique approach to the mainstream by an individual is not encouraged and may not be tested, merely ignored. But mavericks have a way of emerging.