Many physicists say the next Einstein has not been born yet, or is a baby now. Thats because the quest for a unified theory that would account for all forces of nature has pushed current mathematics to its limit. (New math must be created before the problem can be solved).

What do you think?


http://www.livescience.com/othernews..._einstein.html

I think Andrew Wiles was the closest thing we had to an Einstein, and his proof of Fermats Last Theorum to me represents a greater intellectual achievement than Einsteins E=MC2.

I would actually rank Einstein second to Wiles in those terms, and equal with Valentin Glushko (R-7/Zenit engine designer) in terms of modern influence, right a long with Keldish.

i think there have been many einsteins, and even many of greater intellect. estimates put his IQ in the 160-180 range, which is certainly phenomenal, but not unheard of (marilyn vos savant scored a 228 on the stanford-binet when she was 10).

however, as many threads in these fora have indicated, nailing down IQ or intelligence or brainpower or whatever isn't really an exact science. to do so for someone long since dead that never even took such tests is downright ludicrous.

IMO, einstein had two things going for him. he was brilliant (we can say that easily given his work) and he happened to be implementing his brilliance at the right time on the right subject. the latter makes him stand out above all others of even greater intellect simply because of the fame that followed.

taks

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goodbye richard pryor :(...

Einstein rejected the notion that he was a genius. He said that he just stayed with a problem longer than most. Note that after delivering his special theory of relativity in 1905, he worked pretty much continusouly generalizing it before he released the improvement in 1915.

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I agree with Taks, Einstein was a great man, but he was a man of his time. If he had been born a little earlier or a little later we would probably not even know his name. The basic groundwork for his theories was in place at the right moment, and no one else had yet solves the problems. The issue is whether we will ever get an issue that is quite as central to a branch of science and quite as visible and important to the general public. The character of the person is also important. I find it doubtful. Watson and Crick determining the structure of DNA probably had a far greater impact on biology than any one of Einstein's theories, perhaps even all of his theories together, yet not very many people have heard of them. Einstein is a wild-haired, goofy looking man who is probably the absolute stereotype mad scientist look. No one could forget his face. I think extremely highly of Watson and Crick, the double helix was a brilliant piece of detective work on their part with not a lot for them to go on (only very crude x-ray crystallogrphay data), but I can't for the life of me remember what either of them actually look like besides that they looked like perfectly ordinary, run-of-the-mill guys.

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That maybe applies to publiusr's idea of Andrew Wiles. I mean, the guy spent seven years pretty much locked up in his attic working on that problem, plus the time he spent on it in grad school, plus a year and a half of revisions. Sure, he's a genius, but it was persistence (obsession?) that got him the result he wanted.

Will there be someone who makes huge advances in physics, as Einstein did? Of course there will! There will always be more breakthroughs, more big advances, and better understanding of the world. Einstein is special not just because of relativity, but because he had his fingers in a lot of different pies. He'd be famous as a chemist even if he wasn't famous as a physicist. It's just a matter of statistics -- someone will probably make a few big breakthroughs and be put on the same sort of pedestal.

The time is ripe for another big step, too. There are still some important open questions in physics, and a lot of available research for an aspiring physicist with some imagination.

Geniuses often aren't recognized as such until after their deaths.

At any rate, I'll bet that a lot of the people working on M-theory are intellectual matches for Einstein.

Serendipity plays an incredible role in "genius". I remember once looking at possible locations for a cave whose entrance was 'lost'. Other cavers had been searching for it for about a decade with no success. After staring at the maps for about three months, it suddenly became obvious to me where the entrance had to be. On my first physical trip to the cave entrance area, we found it exactly where I said it would be (and were the first people in that cave in fourty years).

I got a lot of praise for being exceptionally good at finding cave entrances, as if I had some natural gift. To be honest, I just had a lot of good research to work with and a lot of the pieces already in place.

Sometimes it just happens that way. You just try to take advantage of the problems presented.

john

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One of the reason I rank the Soviet Chief Designers so high is due to their access to almost unlimited funds. Einstein and Oppy gave us the nuke, but Glushko gave us the delivery system--and to me that is much harder. It is a shame that Valentin Petrovich is a relative unknown in the West, since he was a better engineer than Korolov, and was a man of culture and distinction.

Keldish's long tenure of steady work coming out of a system that delivered one study after another is significant. He even got a research ship named after him. To this day, the Russians still run gov't operated printing houses, with new titles coming out all the time. Very few are ever translated into English. They recognize that just because a book won't 'sell' doesn't mean that it is unimportant.

There is untapped genius among the former Soviets in many fields thanks to Keldish and others, and it is a shame that it remains so isolated.

Well many people still believe that Einstein remains the formost scientist of modern era and that only Newton, Galileo and Aristotle were his equals.

I do agree with the comments made about that the basic ground work for his theorys was in place at the right moment. I believe that even if Einstein would not have discovered the theorys they were determined to be discovered anyway.

Although i am aware that there are many many misteries about the universe that are still to be uncovered, but what do you think would be the next outstanding discovery that not only would consider the discoverer as the next Einstein but would probably change the way we think about our universe today?



Titana.........

Ramanujan.

unheralded ability with mathematics. his genius was an ability to "see" mathematical relationships that were proven later.

taks

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goodbye richard pryor :(...

I'd put him ahead of Einstein.

The Russians had both brilliance and massive institutions to forward their agendas. The combination was devastating to American pride with Sputnik.

Einstein attained international recognition almost overnight when they took the pictures that showed the stars had move like he prdicted. The recent application of telegraph helped, along with BlackCat's observation of his ecentricities. I'm somewhat divided though on whether he would have been unknown had he happened along a few years earlier or later. The ideas were attacked so viciously that it may have been a great many years later, decades, before anyone else withstood the pressure to think in more traditional directions.

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There are ten kinds of people. Those that understand binary, and those that do not.

Yep, Srinivasa Ramanujan could easily be one of the greatest geniuses who ever lived. You wouldn't believe the uses for some of the stuff he came up with... IIRC, some of it's even used in string theory now.

(And what about Andrei Sakharov?)

A quantum theory of gravity, perhaps? Something that reconciles relativity with quantum theory, anyway.... Either that or a discovery of the nature of mass (either finding the Higgs particle or some other idea), which might be related.

There are still a lot of questions about the nature and structure of black holes that are open, too, and the solution to any could have deep implications.

I don't know if any single discovery will put someone on Einstein's level, though. In terms of popular opinion, you need a number of discoveries. Probably the future famous scientists will be geneticists or computer people.

Einstein himself once said the greatest of them all was Lorentz. It was the Lorentz transformations that brought about the Special Theory. He traveled to see Lorentz to firm up all his questions. On other issues he sought out Marcel Grossman to tutor him regularly in the math he needed. At the turn of the century, the Germans arguably were foremost in the world in several fields, physics, chemistry, medicine, engineering....there's no telling where it would have gone had they not fought and lost two world wars. Einstein was privy to the teachings of many of the best minds in Europe...and used his edge with uncanny intuition for picking the solvable problems.
Many today might equate equal status for construction of a unified field theory. Population biologists will say that of all the brilliant people who ever lived, most of them are alive today, due to the growth curve. There are very bright people everywhere today. Listening to them personally is available around every metropolitan area in the world...a resource worth using. While the net offers forums electronically, I would encourage young scientists to also not disregard the traveling speakers who come to small colleges, and major universities to clarify the latest ideas with their colleagues. It was a shock to me to hear two young physics majors at MIT in the physics reading room decide to pass on the weekly Colloquiem by T.D.K.Lee, one day..( He inadvertently enrolled out of high school into the Masters program at Columbia....thereby skipping the undergrad four years....and succeeded without it) followed up with a Nobel for discovering parity effects in K meson decays: the famous Tau-Theta paradox with his buddy, C.N. Yang. His insights into the history of the dead ends and successes of the weak interactions over five decades was nothing short of amazing. Ciao. Pete

When it comes to great physicists, Newton and Einstein stand alone at the summit, IMO.

Aristotle was a philosopher and naturalist, and, in fact, his teachings with regard to physics and astronomy (he was a far better biologist) impeded scientific progress for many centuries.

Nobody has mentioned Richard Feynman.

Many modern day theoretical physicists consider Ed Witten to be a scientist of Einstein's caliber.

Dave Mitsky

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People rank Einstein as the genius of recent civilization because he was an inspiring and lucid thinker, not because he brought us revolutionary developments. Einstein and Genius have become synonymous, but unfortunately, many groundbreaking thinkers have gone underappreciated. For example, I consider Alan Turing to be one of the greatest geniuses of the 20th century, having given us some crucial insights into computational science, which has arguably brought more change to our society than all of general relativity and quantum mechanics combined.

Also, ideas are less attached to individuals than they once were. Genius thinkers will go underappreciated as universities, groups, corporations, and governments take credit. Developments in physical theory will dwindle and stagnate in coming years, taking a diminishing role in mainstream science.

Turing is one of the people that may be remembered thousands of years from now; but the people that will remember him most fondly might be intelligent robots.

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In terms of his influence on physics, I would rate Stephen Hawking equal to Einstein. In terms of mathematical ability, both are below Ramanujan or Paul Erdos.

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