Brilliant Blunders: From Darwin to Einstein - Colossal Mistakes by Great Scientists That Changed Our Understanding of Life and the Universe (46 page)

“I am overawed by the whole”:
Born 1948, p. 217.

“inferior and detestable species”:
Hoyle 1994, p. 270.

one in the
New York Times: Appeared on May 24, 1952. The article in the
Christian Science Monitor
appeared on June 7, 1952.

he and his student John Shakeshaft:
Described in the
Proceedings of Meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society
886, pp. 104–6.

“glad to see that there is now”:
Gold 1955.

Bondi was also skeptical:
Bondi 1955.

“Was I being uncharitable in thinking”:
Hoyle 1994, p. 410.

The discovery of extremely active galaxies:
For an excellent popular description of the discovery of quasars, of the microwave background, and their significance see, eg, Rees 1997.

could
all
still be explained:
Hoyle 1990.

he published a book entitled:
Hoyle, Burbidge, and Narlikar 2000. Livio 2000 is a review of the book.

Narlikar suggested that Hoyle’s:
Interview with the author on March 5, 2012.

Eggleton remembered Hoyle as a person:
Interview with the author on July 1, 2011.

to describe the Victorian scholar Benjamin Jowett:
Jowett was appointed a fellow of Balliol College in Oxford at the age of twenty-one. He was satirized by:

First came I; my name is Jowett.

There’s no knowledge, but I know it.

I am the Master of this college

What I don’t know isn’t knowledge.

Faulkner admitted that he himself:
Interview with the author on August 19, 2011. See also Faulkner 2003.

Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal:
Interview with the author on September 19, 2011. See also Rees 2001.

“The problem with the scientific”:
Hoyle 1994, p. 328.

“From my very youth I despised”:
Cited, eg, in Boorstin 1983, p. 345.

Biologist Richard Dawkins labeled:
Hoyle’s original argument was against abiogenesis—the theory for the origin of life on Earth—not against Darwin’s theory of evolution. Dawkins expands on the discussion of Hoyle’s fallacy in Dawkins 2006.

Denial seldom evokes sympathy:
Kathryn Schulz gives a fascinating discussion of the sentiments involved in being wrong in Schulz 2010.

Physicist Alan Guth proposed inflation:
He described the model beautifully in his popular book, Guth 1997.

These are precisely the properties:
The relation between the steady state universe and the inflationary universe is discussed by Barrow 2005.

contributed important studies to big bang:
In particular, Hoyle and Tayler 1964 and Wagoner, Fowler, and Hoyle 1967.

Chapter 10: The “Biggest Blunder”

Einstein himself first attempted:
Einstein 1917.

Edwin Hubble confirmed unambiguously:
The definitive results were published in Hubble 1929b.

“That term is necessary
only
”:
Einstein 1917, p. 188 in the English translation.

he modified his equations in such:
For the mathematically inclined, the original equations were:
G
μν = 8π
G
T
μν, where
G
is the gravitational constant,
T
μν is the stress-energy tensor, and
G
μν is Einstein’s curvature tensor representing the geometry of space-time. The modified equations were:
G
μν – 8π
G
ρΛ
g
μν = 8π
G
T
μν, where ρΛ could be taken as an energy density associated with the cosmological constant, and
g
μν is the space-time tensor that defines distances.

Eddington was the first to point out:
Eddington 1930.

Einstein insisted that the distribution of matter:
Einstein relied here on what is known as Mach’s principle, after Austrian physicist and philosopher Ernst Mach, who suggested that motion and acceleration cannot be felt at all in an empty universe. An excellent discussion on the modern interpretation of Mach’s principle can be found in Greene 2004.

In his theory of special relativity:
There are many good popular books describing special and general relativity. Two that I found particularly engaging are Kaku 2004 and Galison 2003. Reading Einstein 2005 is always rewarding. In Tyson’s witty 2007 collection of essays, he tackles many related topics beautifully.

even for relative speeds as low:
Chou, Hume, Rosenband, and Wineland 2010.

The theory was based largely:
Einstein himself explained the principles in Einstein 1955. Hawking 2007 presents a collection of Einstein’s papers. In the scientific biography of Einstein, Pais 1982 explains the principles beautifully. Greene 2004 puts the theory in layperson’s terms in the context of modern developments.

“If a person falls freely”:
The Kyoto Lecture was delivered on December 14, 1922. It was translated into English by Y. A. Ono, from notes taken by Yon Ishiwara (
Physics Today
, August 1932).

the deviations recorded by his team:
The results were described in Dyson, Eddington, and Davidson 1920.

Experiments have confirmed this effect:
New generations of clocks continuously improve the accuracy; eg, Tino et al. 2007.

there were a few theoretical disappointments:
Earman 2001 gives a detailed, excellent (technical) discussion of Einstein’s introduction of the cosmological constant and its early history. A clear exposition is also North 1965 (see also Norton 2000).

Willem de Sitter found a solution:
de Sitter 1917.

“If there is no quasi-static world”:
Einstein’s letter to Weyl on May 23, 1923.

In a paper published in 1931:
Einstein 1931.

in a paper Einstein published together:
Einstein and de Sitter 1932.

In an article entitled “The Evolutionary Universe”:
Gamow 1956.

in his autobiographical book:
Gamow 1970, p. 44.

“Einstein would meet me in his study”:
Gamow 1970, p. 149.

in his book
Ordinary Geniuses: Segrè 2011, p. 155.

Albrecht Fölsing, who wrote one:
Fölsing 1997.

he inquired with the army:
The entire episode is described in Brunauer 1986.

Gamow asked for Einstein’s opinion:
Letter written on September 24, 1946. Document 11-331 in the Albert Einstein Archives.

Gamow attached his paper:
Letter written on July 9, 1948. Documents 11-333 and 11-334 in the Albert Einstein Archives.

Einstein replied politely to Gamow’s:
Eg., on August 4, 1948. Document 11-335 in the Albert Einstein Archives.

Einstein’s letter of August 4, 1946:
Document 70-960 in the Albert Einstein Archives.

any other of his more intimate friends and colleagues:
The Physics Department at Princeton University held a symposium on relativity in honor of Einstein’s seventieth birthday. Gamow was among the many who were invited. (A letter from Assistant to the Chairman at Princeton Paul Busse on March 15, 1949, informs him of travel arrangements.) However, Gamow’s name does not appear on the list of people accepting the invitation, from March 17, 1949.

“The introduction of the ‘cosmological member
’
”:
Einstein 1955, p. 127.

“If Hubble’s expansion had been discovered”:
Einstein 1955, p. 127.

included a supplementary footnote:
Pauli 1958, p. 220.

“Our experience up to date”:
Einstein 1934, p. 167.

He articulated his feelings in a letter:
Letter written on September 26, 1947. Document 15-085.1 in the Albert Einstein Archives.

This was a reply to a letter:
In his letter to Einstein on July 30, 1947, Lemaître says that he is making “some effort to modify” Einstein’s attitude against the cosmological constant. Document 15-084.1 in the Albert Einstein Archives.

“Since I have introduced this term”:
Einstein’s letter to Lemaître from September 26, 1947. Document 15-085.1 in the Albert Einstein Archives.

Did he think then that this was:
Laloë and Pecker 1990 also did not think that Einstein had used this language, but the evidence they presented was much weaker.

The laws of physics thus resemble:
This comparison was used also by Weinberg 2005.

University of Manchester astronomer:
Leahy 2001.

Einstein has become the embodiment:
Among the many biographies of Einstein, I want to mention in particular Isaacson 2007, Fölsing 1997, and a book that presents other aspects of his personality beautifully: Overbye 2000.

Physicist Richard C. Tolman:
Letter on September 14, 1931. Document 23-031 in the Albert Einstein Archives.

a universe with a cosmological constant:
Lemaître’s ideas about galaxy formation were expressed, eg, in Lemaître 1931b, 1934.

While this particular idea was shown:
Brecher and Silk 1969.

“Return to the earlier view”:
Eddington 1952, p. 24.

“There are only two ways”:
Eddington 1952, p. 25.

The
inflationary model:
Described beautifully in Guth 1997.

he distinguished presciently between:
McCrea 1971.

Chapter 11: Out of Empty Space

Newton was the first to consider:
Calder and Lahav 2008 discuss how Newton’s work alludes at least to some aspects of the effects of “dark energy.”

If one attempts to calculate:
Norton 1999 discusses this problem in detail.

a few physicists attempted:
In particular, von Seeliger 1895 and Neumann 1896. Einstein may have been partially inspired by their work in introducing the cosmological constant.

if the size of the universe somehow:
This model was suggested by Petrosian, Salpeter, and Szekeres 1967. However, a few years later, Petrosian showed that the model also predicted a decline in the brightness of more distant quasars, contrary to observations.

When he introduced the cosmological constant:
Again, for the mathematically inclined, the new equation read:
G
μν – 8π
G
ρΛ
g
μν = 8π
G
T
μν, where ρΛ is the energy density associated with the cosmological constant.

if one moves this term to the right-hand side:
The equation now reads:
G
μν = 8π
G
(
T
μν + ρΛ
g
μν).

This is an entirely different
physical: For excellent popular explanations of the cosmological constant as representing the energy of the vacuum see Krauss and Turner 2004, Randall 2011, and Greene 2011. Davies 2011 is also a short, accessible article. Theories of time, and their relations to cosmic expansion, are fascinatingly explained by Carroll 2001, and Frank 2011.

Einstein proposed in 1919:
Einstein 1919.

short note on the subject:
Einstein 1927.

The practitioners of quantum mechanics:
Described in Enz and Thellung 1960.

“Everything happens as though”:
Lemaître 1934.

Zeldovich made the first genuine:
Zeldovich 1967.

when particle physicists carried out:
Excellent technical discussions of the cosmological constant problems can be found, eg, in Weinberg 1989, Peebles and Ratra 2003, and Carroll 2001 (updated regularly).

two teams of astronomers:
The results were published by Riess et al. 1998 and Perlmutter et al. 1999. Overbye 1998 wrote a wonderful description of the discovery.