Talk:Albert Einstein/Archive 3

message: I think it would be good to include in the opening definition the fact that einstein left school with no formal qualifications other than a basic diploma and later a teaching diploma that was 'granted' to him by the same highschool. 
the mention of his 'graduation' is misleading, It is I believe, an american term for completing school, In europe it signifies the gaining of a degree, something that einstein did not do, except for perhaps honourary degrees later in life. Even his doctorate was granted once his unconventional genious was recognised, after many years of submitting papers as a totaly unqualified author, .
I mention this because Einstein is often cited as a brilliant man worth emulating, i which case the highly unconventional nature of his brilliance should be clear, if only to encourage other non-academic brilliance that may be out there.
DavidP 19:41, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  einstein and education. 

message: Why?? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Hexii (talk • contribs) 15:59, March 6, 2005  (UTC)
Can't see any reason for this classification either, so I'm removing it. --Susurrus 23:37, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Autodidactic? 

message: including: categories, interwiki, external links.
I think the article is too long.--Emes 16:46, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  I miss a part of this article 

message: Is this bagel company anywhere notable enough to be listed at the top of an article about Albert Einstein? It seems a little silly to me. --Fastfission 19:12, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Nevermind, I changed it to a more appropriate disambig link. --Fastfission 19:16, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Einstein bros. bagel company? 

message: Can we remove the hideous infobox? For one thing it's redundant; for another, why is that quote more representative than any other and who gets to choose it? - Fredrik | talk 19:33, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Infobox

message: I came across this. Is it true? If so, I think it should be mentioned in the religion part of this article.
"Pius XII’s public efforts moved Albert Einstein to write to TIME magazine in 1940 that, in face of the Nazi barbarism, "only the Church remained standing to halt the progress of Hitler's campaigns to do away with truth. In the past I never felt any interest for the Church, but now I feel great love and admiration for her, as the Church was the only one with the courage and tenacity to support intellectual truth and moral freedom. I must admit that what I once despised, I now praise unconditionally."
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by IanGM (talk • contribs) 01:39, March 14, 2005  (UTC)
* http://users.binary.net/polycarp/piusxii.html - seems to apply more to the pope's article - not about Einstein's religious views, more about but his views about the role of churches--JimWae 02:01, 2005 Mar 14 (UTC)
: This would be a remarkable quote indeed. However, it sounds unlikely for three reasons: (1) I am not aware of any quote according to which E. "despised" the Church before 1940. That's a term he reserved for nationalism, racism and the military. (2) "the church was the only one" is an incoplete statement. The only what? This does not sound like the statement of someone who thinks deeply about what he says. Could be just a bad translation, though. (2) "unconditionally" sounds unusual for someone who usually did qualify his statements, given that "[t]here was little in the way of organized resistance to the Nazis' anti-Semitic policies by any Christian group during the 1930s in Germany"* (That was the original quote. I am toning it down there because there was some organized opposition.) and that there clearly was at least some collusion between official parts of the Church with the Nazi regime. Sebastian 04:11, 2005 Mar 14 (UTC)
::I can look it up, if people are interested (it wouldn't be that difficult). That would only confirm that TIME published it, not whether the quote itself was true, of course.--Fastfission 05:36, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Began to admire the church 

message: I removed the following text as being highly suspicious:
:This connection of mass, energy and the speed of light was deduced first by Friedrich Hasenöhrl and published in Annalen der Physik, vol 15, 1904. This was the same journal that Einstein published his derivation in a year later.   He used Maxwell's equations for the pressure exerted by light applied to an evacuated container undergoing an acceleration.  The calculation was somewhat complicated, and he got a proportionality of 4/3 rather than the correct value of 1, however.
Given that most sites on the internet which mention this are crackpot "Einstein was a plaigiarist" sites, I'm going to insist on a legitimate citation before including this in an article. A full JSTOR search of "Hasenöhrl einstein" yields nothing. --Fastfission 18:20, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: E, mc2, etc

message: In the section "Work and doctorate", it says:
:That same year, he wrote four articles that provided the foundation of modern physics, without much scientific literature to which he could refer or many scientific colleagues with whom he could discuss the theories.
In the References section, it says:
:John Stachel, Einstein's Miraculous Year: Five Papers That Changed the Face of Physics, Princeton University Press, 1998,  
Which is correct?? The Wikipedia article only mentions four papers. --Susurrus 07:20, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Four or five papers?

message: There is evidence he may of been a Deist.  Since he did not come out and flat say he was a pantheist.  I think this conjecture should be noted —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.166.5.13 (talk • contribs) 06:51, April 17, 2005  (UTC)
; Pantheist, Deist, and more?
:Einstein believed in as he put it "Spinoza's god who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists." Spinoza is the founder of Pantheism. Deism is the polar opposite of pantheism, because Deism is a form of dualism - not monism - and believes in a transcendant clockmaker god... not in a pantheistic immanent God - <ProgressivePantheist, May 25>
Just because he comments favorably on Spinoza a few times, does not mean he is not a Deist. The quote in article uses much of the terminology of Deism & uses a lot of language that suggests a god that is a separately identifiable entity. Deism has often been criticized for its pantheism, as pantheism has often been for its near atheism -- also see pandeism & panentheism & panendeism--JimWae 17:29, 2005 May 26 (UTC)
=== Pantheist Only ===
This quote clearly shows he is only a pantheist: "It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly.  If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."
Pandeism is just a synonym for pantheism that, as a term, has no purpose of existing, and panedeism is different from pantheism since it believes in a god that is transcendant and immanent. Pantheists believe in a wholly immanent God. Pantheists will describe God as the perfection of the universe, or as einstein said "the structure of our world". He said nothing of believing in a transcendant God. Maybe some deists say the same things, but they would be miscategorizing themselves if they do. 
Deism still promotes the belief in Heaven and Souls, and anthropomorphizes god. Hence why the Deism wikipedia page refers to God as a "He" and gives him the human characteristics. Here is one example from that page "In this view, the reason God does not intervene in the world (via miracles) is not simply that he does not care, but rather that he has already created the best of all possible worlds and any intervention could not improve it." Einstein would not make baseless assumptions like this and is therefore a pantheist, and believes exactly what he stated and nothing remotely like the quote above. The fact that Einstein mentions Spinoza specifically should've given you enough of a clue though
Again one more quote from the einstein page to prove my point: Victor J. Stenger, author of Has Science Found God? (2001), wrote of Einstein's presumed pantheism, "Both deism and traditional Judeo-Christian-Islamic theism must also be contrasted with pantheism, the notion attributed to Baruch Spinoza that the deity is associated with the order of nature or the universe itself." This means that pantheism is at odds with the judeo-christian view and also at odds with deism. This supports my claim that deism is the polar opposite of pantheism.
ProgressivePantheist 22:55, May 27, 2005 (UTC)
:Those arguments are interesting, but he was still described as both a Deist and a Pantheist, regardless of whether you think they are the polar opposites of each other.  Please stop removing attested facts from the article. Jayjg (talk) 00:10, 28 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It seemed to be more pushing a POV than helping with clarity.  Let Einstein speak for himself, please, before your promote your own favoured view. Jayjg (talk) 19:31, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

text: Your POV is fascinating, as always.  However, please stop trying to promote your own POV on the article page itself. Jayjg (talk) 20:27, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

text: Please review the WP:NPOV policy; Wikipedia doesn't attempt to decide what is "undeniable fact"; instead it presents properly cited POVs on what the facts are. Jayjg (talk) 23:53, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

text: If you cannot understand why that is irrelevant to both my statements and this article, then I cannot help you. Jayjg (talk) 15:25, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Einstein's religious beliefs 

message: This quote clearly shows he is only a pantheist: "It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly.  If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."
Pandeism is just a synonym for pantheism that, as a term, has no purpose of existing, and panedeism is different from pantheism since it believes in a god that is transcendant and immanent. Pantheists believe in a wholly immanent God. Pantheists will describe God as the perfection of the universe, or as einstein said "the structure of our world". He said nothing of believing in a transcendant God. Maybe some deists say the same things, but they would be miscategorizing themselves if they do. 
Deism still promotes the belief in Heaven and Souls, and anthropomorphizes god. Hence why the Deism wikipedia page refers to God as a "He" and gives him the human characteristics. Here is one example from that page "In this view, the reason God does not intervene in the world (via miracles) is not simply that he does not care, but rather that he has already created the best of all possible worlds and any intervention could not improve it." Einstein would not make baseless assumptions like this and is therefore a pantheist, and believes exactly what he stated and nothing remotely like the quote above. The fact that Einstein mentions Spinoza specifically should've given you enough of a clue though
Again one more quote from the einstein page to prove my point: Victor J. Stenger, author of Has Science Found God? (2001), wrote of Einstein's presumed pantheism, "Both deism and traditional Judeo-Christian-Islamic theism must also be contrasted with pantheism, the notion attributed to Baruch Spinoza that the deity is associated with the order of nature or the universe itself." This means that pantheism is at odds with the judeo-christian view and also at odds with deism. This supports my claim that deism is the polar opposite of pantheism.
ProgressivePantheist 22:55, May 27, 2005 (UTC)
:Those arguments are interesting, but he was still described as both a Deist and a Pantheist, regardless of whether you think they are the polar opposites of each other.  Please stop removing attested facts from the article. Jayjg (talk) 00:10, 28 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It seemed to be more pushing a POV than helping with clarity.  Let Einstein speak for himself, please, before your promote your own favoured view. Jayjg (talk) 19:31, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

text: Your POV is fascinating, as always.  However, please stop trying to promote your own POV on the article page itself. Jayjg (talk) 20:27, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

text: Please review the WP:NPOV policy; Wikipedia doesn't attempt to decide what is "undeniable fact"; instead it presents properly cited POVs on what the facts are. Jayjg (talk) 23:53, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

text: If you cannot understand why that is irrelevant to both my statements and this article, then I cannot help you. Jayjg (talk) 15:25, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pantheist Only 

message: Re the third pg, who registered his name as a trademark? Did he in say 1904, or did someone else do it last year? -SV|t 01:34, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It's an interesting question; I e-mailed the company to see if I could get a response. I'll let you know if they get back to me. --Fastfission 16:36, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The head of the Roger Richman Agency referred me to this article as a source of information on the topic. However it doesn't seem to have much on the history of it. As for its "use" -- it depends on how they have legally set it up. It is possible to trademark "celebrity" (i.e. Bela Lugosi's "I vant to suck your blaauudd") but it can be very tricky in court, and I'm not sure how it works after the celebrity in question has died (usually such things are held as forms of intellectual property because the persona has been "developed", however Einstein simply was Einstein, and it is hard to know how would could legally "develop" a personality of "being yourself" which extended indefinitely beyond one's grave!). Ah, this would be a wonderful and sexy little history paper to write... --Fastfission 01:40, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  TM 

message: Perhaps Einstein should have the last word?  He famously remarked, "if relativity is proved right the Germans will call me a German, the Swiss call me a Swiss citizen, and the French will call me a great scientist. If relativity is proved wrong the French will call me a Swiss, the Swiss will call me a German, and the Germans will call me a Jew."  --RobertG ♬ talk 11:45, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Swiss/German? 

message: I've removed this section from the page.  It duplicates the Wikiquote in much less detail and without citation.  Any objections?  S.N. Hillbrand 18:45, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Einstein's Quotes

message: His position seems to be similar to that of the last great alchemists relative to chemistry:  he helped discover it but did not ever really believe it.
--David R. Ingham 21:31, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Einstein and quantum mechanics