The Centurys Greatest Minds
Albert Einstein
The scientific touchstones of the modern agethe Bomb, space travel, electronics, Quantum physicsall bear his imprint.
Einstein had conjured the whole business, it seemed. He did not invent the thought experiment, but he raised it to high art. Imagine twins , wearing identical watches; one stays home, while the other rides in a spaceship near the speed of light little wonder that from 1919, Einstein wasand remains todaythe worlds most famous scientist.
In his native Germany he became a target for hatred . As a Jew, a liberal, a humanist, an internationalist, he attracted the enmity of rationalist and anti-semites. His was now a powerful voice, widely heard, always attended to , especially after he moved to the U.S. He used it to promote zionism, pacifism, in his secret 1939 letter to Franklin D. Roosevelt, the construction of a uranium bomb.
Meanwhile, like any demigod, he made bits of legend: that he failed math in school . That he opened a book and found an uncashed $1,500 check he had left as a bookmark .That he was careless about socks, collars, slippers that he couldnt even remember his address: 112 Mercer Street in Princeton, where he finally settled.
He died there in 1955 And after the rest of Einstein had been cremated, his brain remained, soaking for decades in a jar of formaldehyde belonging to Dr. Thomas Harvey. No one had bothered to dissect the brain of Freud, Stravinsky or Joyce, but in the 1980s, bits of Einsteinian gray matter were making the rounds of certain neurobiologists, who thus learned absolutely nothing. It was just a brainthe brain that dreamed a plastic fourth dimension, that banished the ether, that released the pins binding us to absolute space and time, that refused to believe God played dice.
In embracing Einstein, our century took leave of a prior universe and an erstwhile God. The new versions were not so rigid and deterministic as the Newtonian world. Einsteins. God was no clockmaker, but the embodiment of reason in nature. This God did not control our actions or even sit in judgment on them. This God seemed rather kindly and absentminded, as a matter of fact . Physics was free, and we too are free, in the Einstein universe which is where we live.
英语讲义【136】“在……方面”的副词
英语讲义【147】翻译方法举隅
英语讲义【167】虚拟语气的形式和意义
相似词语辨析【106】neither,either
英语讲义【169】涉及时间的惯用语
英语讲义【170】有「头」的惯用语
相似词语辨析【108】no,not
英语讲义【168】委婉的话语
英语讲义【135】形容词+名词=名词惯用语
英语讲义【148】由on引导的介词短语
英语讲义【166】与日、夜相关的惯用语
英语讲义【140】由“at”引导的介词短语
英语讲义【159】和数目字有关的惯用语
相似词语辨析【109】not all(any/both/either)
相似词语辨析【104】 by,beside
英语讲义【138】形似义异的句子
相似词语辨析【86】in favour of,in favour with
英语讲义【146】由in引导的介词短语
英语讲义【158】多姿多彩的with结构
相似词语辨析【96】laugh,laughter
相似词语辨析【110】notable,noted
相似词语辨析【102】luxuriant,luxurious
英语讲义【162】As的各种用途
相似词语辨析【107】new,newly
英语讲义【172】一字不同,意义有别
英语讲义【171】More than的用法
英语讲义【151】句子合成法
相似词语辨析【81】hire,rent
英语词汇学系列讲座(英)
英语讲义【156】有动物的惯用语(下)
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