Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Toto · 02-16-2003, 11:37 AM

Einstein was of Jewish background. He used the word "God" as a playful metaphor for the forces of nature, but clearly did not believe in a personal God.

zwi · 02-16-2003, 01:34 PM

Toto

Come back to Kansas

Quote:

Einstein was of Jewish background. He used the word "God" as a playful metaphor for the forces of nature, but clearly did not believe in a personal God.

Two mysteries

What do you mean by a personal God?

What do you mean of Jewish background ?

He was Jewish enough to be the focus of the Nazi idea of Jewish science and to leave Germany in 1933

To me the definition of Jewish is simple. If the antiSemites, old or modern think you are Jewish you are.

It does not matter if you believe in a Jewish God

But really, what is a personal God?

Zwi

Toto · 02-16-2003, 02:10 PM

I don't want to get into the whole question of what is a Jew, or can you be a Jewish atheist. Hitler's definition of Jew was based on the scientifically invalid notion that there is a Jewish genotype or race, so that even conversion to Christianity would not change one's Jewishness.

But in the context of religion, Jewish has a certain meaning, and Einstein did not qualify. He did not engage in Jewish rituals or pray to a Jewish God.

I say he did not believe in a personal God because he used that term. It was a phrase that was bandied about in those days - a person who believed in a personal God would pray to God or expect God to intervene in history. A person who did not believe in a personal God was a virtual Deist, who thought that there might have been a God who created the universe, but then retired to allow the laws of nature to work themselves out.

The executors of Einstein's estate tended to muddy the water as to what exactly he did believe (because in the 50's everyone had to believe in something...), but he made his views clear.

http://atheisme.ca/citations/cit_en_Einstein.html

Quote:

"From the standpoint of a Jesuit priest I am, of course, and have always been an atheist.... It is always misleading to use anthropomorphical concepts in dealing with things outside the human sphere - childish analogies."
From a letter dated July 2nd, 1945

"I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one. You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being."
From a letter dated September 28th, 1949

"I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings."
1950

02-16-2003, 02:12 PM

Quote:

To me the definition of Jewish is simple. If the antiSemites, old or modern think you are Jewish you are.

The people who hate you define what you are? I think you should rethink your definition. By that definition, a neo nazi can declare a black homosexual buddhist from Russia a jew...

02-16-2003, 02:31 PM

Maybe Judaism came to an end for both Spinoza and Einstein after the convergence of their twian mind.

lpetrich · 02-16-2003, 03:14 PM

zwi:
Is there any meaning to distances smaller than the Planck length?

According to straightforward quantum gravity, it is difficult to assign much meaning to such distances. Here is why.

According to GR and GR-like theories of gravity, the closest one can approach a massive object without inevitably falling in is where one's escape velocity is approximately the speed of light in a vacuum, c. Or

c^2 ~ (GM)/l_grav

or

l_grav ~ (GM)/(c^2)

However, according to quantum mechanics, an object's uncertainty is related to its typical momentum:

l_quant ~ h/p

For an object traveling near c, p becomes Mc, or

l_quant ~ h/(Mc)

The l_grav and l_quant curves will cross at a certain value of mass -- the Planck mass:

M ~ sqrt((hc)/G)

And the crossover point's length scale, the Planck length, is

l_grav = l_quant ~ sqrt((hG)/(c^3))

In other words the answer to the question "what is the smallest distance between two points?" is the Planck Length.

What happens at that point is that attempted distance measurements get too fuzzy; they always have an uncertainty of at least the Planck length. Which makes quantum gravity a BIG headache.

At my school they tried to tell me the answer was "a straight line" But I cannot see how a line is a distance

That's the path between two points.

zwi · 02-17-2003, 07:34 PM

Toto

Quote:

I don't want to get into the whole question of what is a Jew, or can you be a Jewish atheist. Hitler's definition of Jew was based on the scientifically invalid notion that there is a Jewish genotype or race, so that even conversion to Christianity would not change one's Jewishness.

I am delighted with your reply, & have read your referred site

I guess that I knew more of Einstein's theory than his philosophy, which is very close to mine

I grew up in South Africa during WW2

My family has been Jewish for many generations. We were not at all religiously observant.

I discovered antiSemitism in the sixth grade when I asked the teacher

"Sir, what is a Juniper?" For those who dont know its a tree or plant of sorts, with berries

He replied "You are!"

The class roarded. Later my Mom explained thar he was punning on Jew - nipper (Nipper being slang for brat) Then I saw the joke, but it certainly didn't feel comfortable. I guess that phrase is similar to being called a nigger

It wasnt long before I came to realise that Jews were objects of hatred and were despised

Thats why my enemies have defined me I know what anti Semistism is and what sophistry is

I still dont believe in a personal God, & do not undertake religious observances

zwi · 02-17-2003, 07:38 PM

To himynameisPwn

Your reply is sophistry

To LPetrich

Thank you very much Your reply is most satisfying

Regards to all

Zwi

Shake · 02-18-2003, 10:47 AM

Quote:

Superstrings like to live in 10 space-time dimensions, and 6 of them are expected to form a tiny ball not much bigger than the Planck Length ("compactification"). But why a 4 + 6 split? Why not a 6 + 4 or a 2 + 8 or an 8 + 2 split? Or all or none? And that's only the beginning of our troubles; the topology of the ball indicates what sort of elementary particle fields are observable at familiar length scales, and there are numerous possible topologies.
(bold added)

I'm certainly no expert, but might it not have something to do with the 4-dimensional spacetime in which we inhabit? The extra 6 being out of our realm of comprhension? Just a thought.

lpetrich · 02-18-2003, 11:27 PM

The split is into the familiar 4 space-time dimensions and 6 space dimensions curled up into a tiny ball with a size of somewhere around 10^-34 m (the quantum-gravity (Planck) length). Which is far beyond the reach of our particle accelerators, which can probe distances only as small as a few times 10^-18 m.

That distance is h/p, where p is a particle's momentum. For highly relativistic ones (traveling near c), p = (total energy)/c. And the greatest particle energies now produced are around 100-300 GeV.

Which is MUCH less than the Planck energy scale of 10^19 GeV.

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02-16-2003, 11:37 AM	#11
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	Einstein was of Jewish background. He used the word "God" as a playful metaphor for the forces of nature, but clearly did not believe in a personal God.

02-16-2003, 02:31 PM	#15
Amos Guest Posts: n/a	Maybe Judaism came to an end for both Spinoza and Einstein after the convergence of their twian mind.

02-16-2003, 03:14 PM	#16
lpetrich Contributor Join Date: Jul 2000 Location: Lebanon, OR, USA Posts: 16,829	zwi: Is there any meaning to distances smaller than the Planck length? According to straightforward quantum gravity, it is difficult to assign much meaning to such distances. Here is why. According to GR and GR-like theories of gravity, the closest one can approach a massive object without inevitably falling in is where one's escape velocity is approximately the speed of light in a vacuum, c. Or c^2 ~ (GM)/l_grav or l_grav ~ (GM)/(c^2) However, according to quantum mechanics, an object's uncertainty is related to its typical momentum: l_quant ~ h/p For an object traveling near c, p becomes Mc, or l_quant ~ h/(Mc) The l_grav and l_quant curves will cross at a certain value of mass -- the Planck mass: M ~ sqrt((hc)/G) And the crossover point's length scale, the Planck length, is l_grav = l_quant ~ sqrt((hG)/(c^3)) In other words the answer to the question "what is the smallest distance between two points?" is the Planck Length. What happens at that point is that attempted distance measurements get too fuzzy; they always have an uncertainty of at least the Planck length. Which makes quantum gravity a BIG headache. At my school they tried to tell me the answer was "a straight line" But I cannot see how a line is a distance That's the path between two points.

02-17-2003, 07:38 PM	#18
zwi Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Sarasota FL Posts: 60	To himynameisPwn Your reply is sophistry To LPetrich Thank you very much Your reply is most satisfying Regards to all Zwi

02-18-2003, 11:27 PM	#20
lpetrich Contributor Join Date: Jul 2000 Location: Lebanon, OR, USA Posts: 16,829	The split is into the familiar 4 space-time dimensions and 6 space dimensions curled up into a tiny ball with a size of somewhere around 10^-34 m (the quantum-gravity (Planck) length). Which is far beyond the reach of our particle accelerators, which can probe distances only as small as a few times 10^-18 m. That distance is h/p, where p is a particle's momentum. For highly relativistic ones (traveling near c), p = (total energy)/c. And the greatest particle energies now produced are around 100-300 GeV. Which is MUCH less than the Planck energy scale of 10^19 GeV.

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