*****
Einstein wrote about himself, “I do what my inner nature drives me to
do. It is somewhat embarrassing for me to have received so much love and praise
in one lifetime. Arrows of hatred have also been directed at me, but they did
not hit me because hatred is from another world, with which I have no
connection. I live in a solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in
the years of maturity.”
What was Einstein's world like? In Bengali, the word 'ভুবন' (world) has
many meanings. When we talk about Einstein's world, it encompasses all these
meanings in different ways. Einstein's personal world was multidimensional.
There was Einstein the child, Einstein the student, Einstein the lover,
Einstein the husband, Einstein the father, Einstein the scientist, Einstein the
philosopher, Einstein the politician – at times it seems like these were
distinct identities.
Furthermore, there is a significant difference between the pre-1987
Einstein and the post-1987 Einstein. Until 1987, biographies of Einstein did
not reveal his relationships with many women, his mental turmoil with his wife,
his divorce from his first wife Mileva, and other such personal issues. Thanks
to the relentless efforts of Einstein's secretary, Helen Dukas, all the
negative aspects of Einstein's personal life were kept secret. However, in
1987, when the Einstein archives at Princeton University and the Hebrew
University of Israel were opened to the public, many unknown aspects of
Einstein's personal life were revealed. Especially after the publication of
Roger Highfield and Paul Carter's 'The Private Lives of Albert Einstein' in
1993, the saintly image of Einstein turned into that of a 'devil' in the eyes
of many – someone who even raised his hand against his wife!
On October 31, 1993, the New York Times Magazine depicted Einstein with two horns on his forehead, comparing him to a monster. On the other hand, the renowned Time magazine recognized Einstein as the Person of the Century.
*****
The scientist Freeman Dyson viewed Einstein's life as follows:
"Albert Einstein’s life was full of paradoxes." There are many
reasons for this. In personal life, contradictions can arise for various
reasons. However, contradictions in science are unacceptable. Let's see how the
scientist Einstein was contradictory in his own world—his universe. What was
Einstein's universe like?
The concept of Einstein's universe began to emerge with the publication
of his Special Theory of Relativity. However, he forced the world to rethink
the universe when he started publishing his papers on the General Theory of
Relativity. In 1915, three of his papers were published in Berlin: "On the
General Theory of Relativity," "Explanation of the Perihelion Motion
of Mercury from the General Theory of Relativity," and "The Field
Equations of Gravitation."
In 1916, the 49th issue of Annalen der Physik published "The
Foundations of the General Theory of Relativity." This paper was the first
comprehensive presentation of Einstein's General Theory of Relativity.
Following the three successive papers on General Relativity published in 1915,
this paper presented the final form of General Relativity. It provided a
detailed description of how the gravitational field equations are established
in non-Euclidean spacetime through tensor analysis. General Relativity can explain
the bending of light rays due to the gravitational field, a phenomenon that
Newton's classical theory cannot account for. Herein lies the superiority of
General Relativity. The universe, which had been viewed through Newton's
classical theory, would now be understood through Einstein's General
Relativity.
However, writing scientific papers was not enough. Experimental proof
was necessary. To prove it, a large-scale experiment with a substantial budget
was needed. It took almost three years to prove Einstein's General Theory of
Relativity.
In June 1919, on two dates, Einstein's theory of relativity was proven
to be true. Sir Arthur Eddington, the director of the Cambridge Observatory and
a renowned theoretical physicist from England, observed the bending of
starlight around the Sun's gravitational field during a total solar eclipse.
This observation confirmed that the path of light is curved by the
gravitational field, as predicted by Einstein's theory. In November of that
year, the Royal Society announced the confirmed results of Eddington's
expedition, making Einstein instantly world-famous. His theory seemed so
counterintuitive to the general public that some began to believe that only
Einstein had the ability to see the world differently, to understand much more
than ordinary people.
Einstein's General Theory of Relativity introduced a revolutionary
concept in cosmology known as 'space-time', where the structure of space and
time undergoes changes. This led to a profound understanding of the creation
and evolution of the universe. The theory established the foundation of black
hole theory. Today, any discussion about the general structure of the universe
inevitably includes the concept of black holes, without which the modern
understanding of the universe is incomplete. There are many black holes in our
galaxy, and even at the centre of most known galaxies, there exist black holes.
The concept of a black hole did not arise suddenly. In 1783, the English
astronomer John Michell first proposed the idea of a black hole. Stars orbit
around black holes at tremendous speeds due to intense gravitational forces.
Freeman Dyson likened this scenario to moths circling a fire. Like moths, stars
rotate around black holes, and occasionally, every ten thousand years or so, a
star falls into a black hole and dies. Most of the star's energy is emitted
from the black hole as a very small part of the X-ray or energetic radiation. These
small portions of energy are more powerful than a hundred atomic bombs.
Space-time or spacetime inside a black hole. Since there is no separate
existence of time there, so time doesn't exist there, the order is always kept
out and ready. Einstein's General Theory of Relativity's greatest and most
reliable proof is this black hole. Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose proved
through their General Theory of Relativity that space-time becomes uniform
inside a black hole.
Now, if someone says that a black hole cannot exist, can we accept that?
Certainly not. However, if Einstein himself said that a black hole cannot
exist, then? Even if we don't want to believe it, the truth is that Einstein
never accepted the concept of a black hole. This was his opposition. In 1939,
in the 40th issue of Annals of Mathematics, pages 922-936, Einstein attempted
to prove in his article "Stationary Systems with Spherical Symmetry
Consisting of Many Gravitating Masses" that black holes cannot exist. He
created a mathematical black hole model and showed that such a model is
impossible due to the gravitational forces among many masses. Because the
particles inside a black hole would have to escape at speeds greater than the
speed of light, which is not possible in any case. Therefore, black holes
cannot exist. However, the main flaw in Einstein's model was elsewhere. He
assumed that the black hole is static - or stationary. But no black hole is
static; all are dynamic or in motion. The creation of dynamic black holes is
due to the gravitational collapse of massive objects.
Did Einstein not understand this matter, or did he choose not to
understand it? If he wanted to understand it, people would not necessarily
comprehend it. He did not want to understand it. He believed that black holes
could not exist, so he assumed that they would not exist. Even if they did
exist, he would not accept it, just as he never accepted quantum mechanics. He
never wanted to discuss the subject of black holes either. In 1939, when he
published a paper opposing black holes, that same year Robert Oppenheimer and
Hartland Snyder explained in detail in a research paper how a collapsing star
gradually emits radiation and eventually ends up as a black hole. This research
paper used Einstein's General Theory of Relativity for its majority of proof.
Einstein did not comment on this matter. Not only that - a few years later,
Oppenheimer joined the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University,
where Einstein was working. They were often seen together. However, they never
discussed black holes between themselves. Should we conclude that Einstein
anchored himself with his science at times - times when he did not want to
transgress it himself?
References:
1. Albert Einstein, The Einstein Reader, Citadel Press, New York, 2006
2. Freeman Dyson, in Einstein Hundred years of relativity, ed, Andrew
Robinson, ABC Books, Sydney, 2005
3. Stephen Hawking, in Einstein Hundred years of relativity, ed, Andrew
Robinson, ABC Books, Sydney, 2005
