*I've been reading the latest issue of Discover Magazine, which is
dedicated to Albert Einstein and his work in science. It's a really
marvelous set of articles by all different people, and I've only read
maybe half of them so far. But the one by Lee Smolin, "Einstein's Lonely
Path" is particularly insightful and profound. From my perspective, in
my position as both the daughter and friend of Robert Rosen ("Biology's
Einstein", one article, written about ten years ago, labeled him), I
found this piece by Lee Smolin to be very moving. Fortunately, my father
wasn't nearly as lonely in his personal life as Einstein apparently was,
but his professional experiences were practically identical in a slew of
ways. Einstein had higher highs and lower lows; my father decided early
on to avoid the politics of Nobel prize committees and fame. But the
times were different, just one generation later than Einstein's day, and
my father was able to avoid some of those pitfalls (he probably had
Einstein's well-documented experiences to thank for that, I suspect).*
**
*Smolin writes:*
*/"I think a sober assessment is that up till now, almost all of us who
work in theoretical physics have failed to live up to Einstein's legacy.
His demand for a coherent theory [that would apply universally and
represent accurately the Laws of Nature] was uncompromising. It has not
been reached-- not by quantum theory, not by special or general
relativity, not by anything invented since /[*this guy obviously hasn't
read any of my father's work-- which is outside of physics, but
pertains deeply*] /Einstein's moral clarity, his insistence that we
should accept nothing less than a theory that gives a completely
coherent account of individual phenomena, cannot be followed unless we
reject almost all contemporary theoretical physics as insufficient./*
*//*
*/So is it possible to follow the path of Einstein? To do so, you cannot
be a crank; you must be a well-trained physicist, literate in current
theories and aware of their limitations. And you must insist on absolute
clarity in your own work, rather than follow any fad or popular
direction. Given the pressures of competition for academic positions, to
follow Einstein's path is to risk the price that he paid: unemployment
in spite of abundant talent and skill at the craft of theoretical physics./*
*//*
*/... Let us be frank and admit that most of us have neither the courage
nor the patience to emulate Einstein. We should instead honor Einstein
by asking whether we can do anything to ensure that in the future,
those who do follow Einstein's path, who approach science as
uncompromisingly as he did, have less risk of unemployment... and
marginalization... of the sort he suffered. If we can do this, if we can
make the path easier for those few who do follow him, we may make
possible a revolution in science that even Einstein failed to achieve."/*
*//*
*This article grabbed me because I believe that my father's work
(collectively "Rosennean Complexity Theory") is the basis for that
revolution. What Einstein was trying to do, and what he kept trying to
do, was look at the relationships between things, but he never
formalized that aspect fully enough for it to sink in, either in Physics
or in science in general. But what does "relativity" mean? He was saying
that where things are in relation to other things (i.e.; the
organization) has a significant causal impact that cannot be ignored if
we really want to know why things happen in the universe the way they
do. He had the "unified" theory he had been searching for /in his hands
already/ but he didn't have quite enough time to put all the pieces
together before he died.*
**
*My father often mused that Einstein's work made it possible for him to
see the subtle flaws at the bottom of physics far more clearly, because
it stripped away so many of the larger flaws in Newtonian mechanics. I
personally believe that the reason Einstein was stymied in his drive for
a unified theory was due to his lack of experience with biology.
Biological systems are far more complex than atoms, and it is precisely
that complexity which is not addressed by physics. But physicists rarely
venture into biology, as can be seen by some of the things the writer of
this article says. To reiterate: Lee Smolin wrote, "/So is it possible
to follow the path of Einstein? To do so, you cannot be a crank; you
must be a well-trained physicist, literate in current theories and aware
of their limitations..."/ Do you suppose he'll react with horror over
the fact that Robert Rosen was a biologist? What's in a label like that,
anyway? Isn't it all part of the same effort?*
**
*I'll have to try and get in touch with him, methinks.....*
**
*Judith*