Talk:Albert Einstein/Archive 10

message: The very first sentence clearly needs cleanup. It now says: Einstein "was a German-born Jewish-American Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist". What kind of spin doctor wrote this sentence that is misleading in so many ways? Einstein's  Nobel Prize certificate mentions only Germany and Switzerland, where he did all his important scientific work. He did not conduct any important science in the US. So the association "American Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist" seems funny indeed. True, he got American citizenship when he was an old man, but even then he remained Swiss. In fact, he held Swiss nationality longer than any other (oddly, Switzerland is not even mentioned in the introduction). Similarly, why call him Jewish-American but not Jewish-German, Swiss-Jewish etc? Mixing up religions and nations is making things even worse, IMHO, and although he was Jewish-born, he was not a practising Jew. Since Einstein despised patriotism, I suggest to remove all the nationalities etc. from the first paragraph. There is a reasonable section on citizenships further down. But if for some reason this proposal does not get accepted, then we will have to correct the list of nationalities by extending it. For example, it would not be wrong but cumbersome to write that Einstein was a German-born (1878), Jewish, German (1878-96, 1914-33), stateless (1896-1901), Swiss (1901-55),  American (1940-55) theoretical physicist who won a physics Nobel Prize in 1921.
Physicists 17:22, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: We went through this at some length in the now-archived sections of this talk page Opening Line: Jewish-German-Swiss-American scientist? and Jewishness. The consensus (if I read it correctly) was that he should be labeled as “German-born” (or perhaps as “German-born American” or “German-American”) for consistency with other Wikipedia bios and that he should not be labeled as “Jewish” or “Swiss.” The text that you found was not the work of any one editor but rather the result of editing drift. (BTW it’s customary to start a new topic at the bottom of the talk page.) --teb728 21:44, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: But what kind of "consensus" or "consistency" could possibly have led to the deletion of the nationality that he held until his death and longer than any other? He was Swiss during his last 55 years. He was Swiss and American during his final 15 years (but did not produce any important science during this time). Clearly his "Swissness" totally dominates the additional "Americanness" of the retirement years. Your answer seems to indicate this kind of "consistency" is distorting other Wikipedia articles as well - but then let's correct them as quickly as possible! I understand that many nations want to claim a share of Einstein, but Wikipedia is not the place to warp reality through patriotism or something. I sincerely hope this was not some sort of 40:1 majority "consensus" reflecting the fact that the Americans outnuber the Swiss 40:1!  Let facts be our guide, not wishful thinking.  Physicists 19:15, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  That opening sentence was getting so silly that I felt obliged to clean it up.  There is already a Citizenship section later in the article.  "German-born" is relevant for explaining why the German pronunciation of the name (seen just before the subject sentence) is relevant.  The parenthetical birth year after "German-born" was not needed, as it had just been given in the text immediately preceding. — DAGwyn 21:01, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. And with regard to Einstein's Swiss-ness: User:Physicists seems to confuse nationality with citizenship. As Gordon Freeman said in the archive I cited above, “he certainly did not identify with the Swiss land, its people, nor its culture and customs to the extent which would equally qualify it worth of a mention.” (If he had, he could have safely spent his last ten years in Switzerland.) --teb728 21:20, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: In some countries there may be subtle differences between nationality and citizenship, but not in Switzerland. What makes you think he did not identify with it? Here is a graphical overview of his nationalities by einstein-website.de: http://www.einstein-website.de/z_information/variousthings.html#national  Since Einstein despised patriotism, the present intro seems ok though. Physicists 15:32, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Nationalities

message: I think I found the source of the misleading statements discussed above - it is the Encarta Encyclopedia of Microsoft! See . I couldn't help smiling when I read its first sentence: "Albert Einstein (1879-1955), German-born American physicist and Nobel laureate." They simply ignored that his Nobel Prize mentions only Germany and Switzerland , that he was Swiss for most of his life, that he was an old man when he added the US citizenship to the Swiss one, and that he did not do any important physics in the US. Alas, the pride of nations! I wonder whether other Microsoft Encarta articles are similarly spin-doctored. Fortunately, in Wikipedia such reality distortions  can be undone, illustrating the superiority of Wikipedia's approach to fact finding. Physicists 20:05, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Funny Spin-Doctored Microsoft Encarta Article  

message: And his IQ was? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 200.48.226.60 (talk • contribs).
Dunno - did he take a test? I doubt it. Otherwise we'd just be guessing. And guesses don't make this page or any other. He would likely have scored very highly in certain tests though not necessarily have done very well (comparatively) on general IQ tests which often stress linguistic skills as highly as reason and mental manipulation. It would also have depended when he took his test. He would likely have scored better as a young man. In addition, accurate IQ testing is a notoriously tricky. --LiamE 22:41, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I recall long ago seeing somebody's estimate that it was around 200, but there are several things wrong with that; unless a reliable measurement of Einstein's IQ is cited, it shouldn't be inserted into the article.  IQ isn't much of a measure of anything relevant anyway, especially in the "tails" of the distribution. — DAGwyn 00:32, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: IQ

message: I thought the infobox was ugly, but I wasn't prepared for this:
----
ImageSize  = width:830 height:370
PlotArea   = width:780 height:340 left:10 bottom:25
Colors     =
  id:canvas value:rgb(0.97,0.97,0.97)
  id:grid1  value:rgb(0.86,0.86,0.86)
  id:grey   value:gray(0.8)
  id:ch1    value:rgb(0.6,0.6,1)
  id:ch2    value:rgb(0.6,0.6,0.5)
BackgroundColors = canvas:canvas bars:canvas
Period     = from:1875 till:1970
TimeAxis   = orientation:horizontal format:yyyy
ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:5 start:1880 gridcolor:grid1
DateFormat = yyyy
AlignBars  = justify
BarData =
# set presentation order of bars
# text:_ means show no text on axis (I'll make this default behaviour in next version of EasyTimeline)
  bar:ereignisse text:_
  bar:e1         text:_  # only used to provide extra space
  bar:1          text:_
  bar:2          text:_
  bar:3          text:_
  bar:4          text:_
  bar:5          text:_
  bar:6          text:_
  bar:7          text:_
  bar:8          text:_
  bar:9          text:_
  bar:10         text:_
  bar:11         text:_
PlotData=
# set defaults
  width:25 fontsize:S textcolor:black anchor:from align:left shift:(0,-25)
# draw the background bar and bar descriptions
  bar:ereignisse from:start till:end color:grey
# events
  bar:ereignisse from:1879 till:1901 color:black text:"Formative years"
  bar:ereignisse from:1905 till:1916 color:ch1   text:"Period of most important work"
  bar:ereignisse from:1932 till:1955 color:ch2   text:"In the USA. Towards a general field theory"
# change defaults
  fontsize:S shift:(-2,18) align:left
  shift:(0,-8)  # shift all texts 11 pixels to left to center year figures on actual event time
                   # and 12 pixels down to put them below bar
# events, placed on consecutive (invisible) bars
  bar:1  at:1879 text:"1879 Albert Einstein born in Ulm, Germany"
  bar:2  at:1888 text:"1888 Schooling in Munich"
  bar:3  at:1895 text:"1895 Swiss canton school in Aarau"
  bar:4  at:1900 text:"1900 Consolidation of study and physics at the ETH, Zürich"
  bar:5  at:1901 text:"1901 First publication in Annalen der Physik"
  bar:6  at:1905 text:"1905 The special theory of relativity and five other papers
  bar:7  at:1916 text:"1915 General theory of relativity"
  bar:8  at:1921 text:"1921 Nobel Prize for the photoelectric effect"
  bar:9  at:1939 text:"1939 Warning to Roosevelt concerning German nuclear bomb"
  bar:10 at:1951 text:"1951 Photograph with stuck out tongue"
  bar:11 at:1955 text:"1955 Death of Einstein"
Is there any reason to include an ugly and cumbersome timeline at the bottom of the page? I don't think it helps the article out one bit. It is unbearably foul looking (nothing like poorly kerned Helvetica to ruin a page), and most of the dates added are unbearably dull (all of the ones of note are already well known and well-discussed in the article; some of them are down-right pointless, like when he was in grade school and when he stuck his tongue out for a camera—the most interesting thing about the latter is not the year in which it took place).
Just because one can do something with a computer does not mean that one should, and while timelines may have their place in other articles where it is actually useful to plot out ten different things relevant to each other, it certainly does little good here. A sure-sign that a timeline is useless is when it looks like a descending staircase; it fails at its only benefit, which is to show concurrent events, when the events follow in a linear fashion (as they usually do with someone's life, time-travellers excepted).
In the end I don't think one gains any greater insight from it, and it is, I do repeat, unbearably ugly (the fault of the software, mind you, not whoever made it, who I'm sure had good intentions). I'm going to remove it unless there is a provocative argument for its staying here.  --Fastfission 18:34, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, and it is far too wide for a low res screen - chop it. Vsmith 11:34, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  And now a timeline? 

message: Can we move the glaring Nobel template image somewhere other than before the first line? To me it is quite distracting and doesn't belong up front. Vsmith 11:34, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It’s apparently someone’s bright idea to mark the beginning of all articles on Nobel laureates (copied from the same practice on Czech Wikipedia). It probably doesn’t belong at the beginning, but I doubt it belongs better anywhere else. --teb728 23:07, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Perhaps it could go into the honors section. Q0 03:42, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

text: I don't like it in the beginning either. I think it is pretty silly. Also I have some misgivings on the copyright status. --Fastfission 03:44, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Nobel image

message: I'm a bit confused, as the section talking about the autopsy reports significant differences in the make-up of Einstein's brain and a normal brain, yet under "Speculation and controversy" it says that no significant differences have ever been found.  Can one or the other be cited, and the other removed? 69.175.66.113 12:29, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This may be moot now, but I believe that the "Speculation and controversy" section mentions the lack of brain differences in connection to his mental health. I'm not a neuroscientist, but I am fairly sure from my elementary knowledge that the lobe irregularity is interesting since Einstein was a brilliant mathematician, and that part of his brain was enlarged. And the higher number of glial cells has an effect on fundamental brain chemistry as a sort of helper cell to the neurons. Regardless, neither of these irregular aspects of Einstein's brain can be connected to a specific disorder, such as those listed in that section. Perhaps the article could say that better, but I'm not comfortable adding to an excellent featured article with information that is implied. I'm not sticking around to watch if someone else does, either. Cheers, 69.19.14.15 22:14, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, Einstein wasn't "a brilliant mathematician" but a brilliant physicist. A friend of his had to help him with the complex mathematics he needed. Maxt 08:55, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Einstein's brain 

message: I added that Einstein received poor grades in history, languages, and geography. I noticed that someone else changed "languages" to "French". However, the reference I used says languages, it does not say French. Does anyone have a reference that says it was French, and not other languages, that he received poor grades in? I can't help but wonder if "languages" is a reference to study of foreign languages, or if it a reference to the study of literature and composition of his native language. Q0 09:32, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I did find this source  that said "He studied for the entrance exam, which he took and failed. His downfall was French, chemistry, and biology, subjects he had neglected through lack of interest (Brian, 1996, 8)." Q0 07:44, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

text: My understanding is that the only grades that were misinterpretted were his math grades, and that it is true that he still received poor grades in other subjects. Q0 22:04, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  French 

message: I know that this site is not supposed to be used as a forum, but I thought that this was the only place that I might be able to find adaquate answers.
I was wondering if anyone besides myself has ever heard anything about squeaky science and what it relates to in Einsteins field of expertiece.--Reedaltman 12:18, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Squeaky Science 

message: In light of the recent expanded discussion of Einstein's work in this area in the classical unified field theories article, I updated the subject section (now titled "Unified field theory"). I also integrated the small remaining bit from the "Institute for Advanced Studies" section into the earlier mention of the IAS.
DAGwyn 21:24, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  tweaks made to "generalized theory of gravitation" section 

message: The segment dealing with Einstein's participation in the December 2nd, 1948 NYT ad regarding Menachem Begin's Freedom Party is highly misleading as it currently stands:
He also purchased a full-page ad in the New York Times condemning early Zionists for their treatment of the indigenous Arabs, especially at Deir Yassin (New York Times ad).
For one, Einstein didn't purchase the ad; he just signed it, along with many other notables of the time, including Hannah Arendt and Rabbi Cardozo. Moreover, it's quite overly broad to suggest that the petitioners condemned the early Zionists as a whole for their supposed mistreatment of the indigenous popuation, since the text of the letter makes quite clear that its animus is specifically directed at Begin and the Freedom Party.
In fact, it also discusses the dangers the paramilitary groups which were the party's predecessors posed to the Jewish community in Palestine as well:
During the last years of sporadic anti-British violence, the IZL and
Stern groups inaugurated a reign of terror in the Palestine Jewish
community.  Teachers were beaten up for speaking against them, adults
were shot for not letting their children join them.  By gangster
methods, beatings, window-smashing, and wide-spread robberies, the
terrorists intimidated the population and exacted a heavy tribute.''
There's no evidence the authors of the ad believed the early Zionists were abusing the local Arab populations on a general basis.
Kamandi 22:41 16 August 2006
:Is this what you wanted? “He also signed an open letter to the New York Times condemning Revisionist Zionists for their treatment of the indigenous Arabs, especially at Deir Yassin .”
:BTW if you wanted your second block quote to be all italics, leave out the line breaks. If you wanted quotation marks instead of italics, use quotation marks instead of double apostrophes. (Double apostrophes are wikicode for italics.) --teb728 06:34, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, how about? “He also signed an open letter to the New York Times condemning Menachem Begin and his nationalistic Herut party, especially for the treatment of the indigenous Arabs at Deir Yassin by Herut’s predecessor Irgun.” --teb728 05:54, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  NY Times ad 

message: The Brandeis article says he had his name dropped befoe cutting ties with the University. I'm confused. --Gbleem 18:57, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Brandeis naming 

message: What I hear being said is; if there is going to be a world war 3, how unimaginable as it would be regarding how intelligent we are, but if it must be; it also is unimaginable how we will carry this out.  Although (but) as to say, may I but in and say:  It would be wise to pay attention to 2000 years of lessons, knowing this, and with all the technology at our hands, why are we continuing this course.  Handle this thought and realize; it dose not have to be, and whoever understands this also understands we are not just talking anymore.Kisida 06:38, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Run that past me again.... --LiamE 22:55, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Re-Misquote / typo 

message: I am looking for information from experience WP editors on the problem of keeping good editors on Wiki.  See the page here User:Dbuckner/Expert rebellion
This is no more than a list of people who have left Wikipedia, or thinking of leaving, or generally cheesed off, for the reason (1) what I will unpolitely call 'cranks', i.e. people engaged in a persistenta and determined campaign to portray their highly idiosyncratic (and dubious) personal opinion as well-established mainstream scientific or historical fact, or 'crank subculture' i.e. fairly sizeable subcultures which adhere strongly to various anti-scientific conspiracy theories (e.g. Free energy suppression) or anti-scientific political movements (e.g. Intelligent design) masquerading as "scholarship".  (2) the problem of edit creep, i.e. the tendency of piecemeal editing to make articles worse over time, rather than better. 
If you are in this category, leave a link to your user page there.  If you can, put something on your user page that indicates reason for discontent.  
There is a more general discussion of this issue on Lina Mishima's page.  User:LinaMishima/Experts Problem  Note I am not in agreement with her title as it is not in my view a problem about experts, but more of adherence to scholarly standards, ability to put polished and balanced articles together. But her idea is good.
I'm putting this message on the Einstein page because I know there are all sorts of, well, cranky theories on the man (I noted the 'speculation and controversy' section, but this doesn't really mention the mad stuff).  As I don't know the first thing about physics, would be grateful for a list of any other physics subjects that are 'crank magnets'.  Even better, cut and paste this message on those pages.  I'm going round the obvious places like intelligent design, Goedel, Cantor and so forth, but there must be many such.  Dbuckner 14:50, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "Theories of everything" abound in crank physics literature; in "Fads & Fallacies: in the Name of Science" Martin Gardner described several, including one based on "energy vortices".  Usually these are full of neologisms and short on precise definitions or formulas that could be used to test the predictions.  Another perpetual favorite for cranks is perpetual motion. — DAGwyn 21:12, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Crank magnet articles 

message: Why was I reverted without comment ?
  The quotes I used were nearly the same as 
  what was already there... only the intros changed.
  Jeff Relf 05:36, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Frankly Jeff it's more of the same thing you've been trying to add for some time now, with your same fairly irrelevant citations. I'm not sure how many comments were needed since they would be essentially what was said before. It's not the same thing as the original text at all, but you're so embedded in your own personal way of reading Einstein that you can't see it. Personally I think the whole section needs to be scrapped — a list of quotes is not helpful, and nobody seems to be willing to do an honest synthesis of secondary literature. The entire section—both yours and the one before it—is unclear, is full of junk, and is not encycopedic. --Fastfission 13:33, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

text: See previous discussions of the matter.  You're a crank.  We know it, you don't.  Please go away.  --Michael C. Price talk 20:07, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Nice try, but the question really is "why do you continue to push your neologisms and terminology onto Wikpedia?" -- as has been extensively discussed previously.  --Michael C. Price talk 23:34, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Please stop inserting your special-interest point of view into the Einstein article.  I am quite familiar with what Einstein's technical writings — and he did not mention "block time" nor "pseudorandomness" (which term you are misapplying, by the way, as others have told you).  While you might think you know ideas from other sources that Einstein would agree with, an encyclopedia article about Einstein's ideas needs to limit itself to what Einstein verifiably said himself.  Further, the place where you inserted the block-time note (re. determinism) disrupted the flow of the surrounding context.  It brought in a bunch of ideas "out of the blue" and thereby raised more questions than it provided answers. — DAGwyn 22:17, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Moreover, articles may not contain any new analysis or synthesis of published arguments, concepts, data, ideas, or statements that serves to advance a position.
That includes neologisms: see Wikipedia:Avoid neologisms.  --Michael C. Price talk 22:01, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

text: The reasons have been explained to you, Jeff.  Until you understand them, you should not even think about reinserting the text that so many others are objecting to — is it not clear to you that that text is your point of view, and has not been shown to be Einstein's?  It's certainly clear to us.  Note that some of us have worked in this technical area and do not agree that your addition is either correct or helpful to the general reader of the article.  Why it is a "hot potato" is that it damages the article, which is too important to allow that to happen. — DAGwyn 00:45, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: IMHO it is a mistake to try to reason with Jeff: See the latest archive of this talk page for previous attempts to do so. But thanks for your help in reverting his nonsense. Oh, and Jeff, thanks for your moratorium from 10 July to 4 September on entering the nonsense. --teb728 01:48, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Your addition to the Einstein article is a fraud, because you claim that it is Einstein's point of view without any documentary evidence to back up that specific claim.  And being merely somebody else's ideas about space-time or randomness, it certainly does not belong in the article about Einstein.  It also damages the coherence of the discussion about determinism to insert a bunch of alien references and neologisms there.  Further, we have answered your legitimate questions several times; we didn't respond to the query about evolution because it was based on false premises and is not relevant to the matter at hand.  I would match my intelligence, rationality, credentials, and depth of understanding of (and support for) relativity theory against yours any day.  What you need to do, but seem uninclined to do, is to critically examine your own motives in repeatedly vandalizing the Einstein article.  If you think it is about promoting truth or enhancing the value of the Wikipedia, think again. — DAGwyn 19:47, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

text:  Obviously several other editors disagree with you on the appropriateness of the change you keep trying to make.  Since there is no consensus for the change, and no pressing need for any change in that area, the appropriate default action is to leave the previous text the way it is.  It isn't even important to debate the truth of the insertion, just to understand that this particular change is not acceptable.  You especially should not try to guess about our motivations (which you're getting completely wrong), which we have explained already but which really don't matter when it comes to the advisability of the editing.  If the editing made something (which was relevant and undisputed by other experts) clearer to the general reader, then it would be a good idea and we would presumably be all for it.  Your attempt did not satisfy that criterion. — DAGwyn 18:02, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Jeff, Wikipedia's content is determined by the consensus of editors. Individual editors who persist on "setting the record straight" against the will of others are highly frowned upon. We have a few core content policies which govern what can appear on pages, one of the clearest is that no original research or analysis is allowed. What you are doing is putting a highly idiosyncratic and personalized interpretation of Einstein's views into the article, and this is against our policies. Either start citing some sources which actually purport to discuss Einstein's philosophical views (and not in passing, but directly) or you might as well take your one-man Einstein show back to Usenet. --Fastfission 20:18, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reverted without comment 

message: In other articles, it has been noted that citations to webpages should be expanded as footnotes that include the author/group, title, and date of a reference, so in case the webpage expires in a few months, the reference can still be hunted by title or author, perhaps found on other webpages or in print journals.  The problem caused by expanding most citations to have author/title/date is that the citations can become huge within a sentence and clutter the text of the article, unless formatted to avoid the "mass-of-text" appearance.  I have found that ref-tag footnotes can be indented (with restrictions), similar to a block-structured programming language, to improve readability of all the added details, without totally obscuring the original sentence with a "mass of text" about the cited author/webpage/publication.  The following is an example of an indented ref-tag (where "ref-tag" will be "ref" in the actual citation):
<ref-tag>
:: John Authore, "Title of Topic Story," MyOrganization, May 10, 2006,
:: webpage: [http: //www.sourcewebsite.org XXX-Story].
</ref>
The main restriction is to never split a bracketed link "[xx yy]" across 2 lines using a carriage-return newline (or the link could appear as unlinked text); however, each separate text line (after carriage-return) can be indented (such as by 5 spaces), similar to a computer programming language where each line has a carriage-return.  Also, the lead ref-tag cannot be separated by a blank line from the prior sentence phrase, or the Wiki-formatted line will split.  There is no reason to impose a standard indentation: it could vary, throughout an article, such as indenting the author name by 5 spaces, or 7, with no strict limit.  Indented ref-tags can make it bearable to have a dozen footnotes in a paragraph without appearing, internally, as a complex mass of text.  -Wikid77 06:53, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Indent citations 

message: Why is he under category: vegitarians. I am well within my right to ask for a reference. Thanks.nids(♂) 18:07, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I added a short description about his vegetarianism to the article with a reference . It appears that Einstein was a vegetarian for the last 18 months of his life but that he might have been a non-practicing supporter of of vegetarianism for a while before that. Q0 01:46, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Whether he is in a category for it or not, it is not important enough an aspect of his life to warrant an entire section in the article. --Fastfission 03:10, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: But how is the article going to provide a reference that Einstein belongs in the vegetarianism categories? Even if Einstein's vegetarianism does not deserve an entire section, doesn't it at least deserve a sentence or two? Q0 03:23, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Inasmuch as nids seems to have doubted he was a vegetarian, it was appropriate to provide a reference on this talk page. But I see no need to provide a reference for every category in the article. Similarly the fact that someone added Einstein to the Fellows of Christ Church, Oxford category doesn’t necessitate a description of that detail of his life. --teb728 07:36, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: People have asked for a reference for Einstein's vegetarianism before. After this talk page is archived, I expect someone else to ask again for a reference. The vegetarian category has a tendancy to get challenged a lot on articles in general and then it gets removed and added like a yo-yo. It seems like there should be a perminant place to keep a reference so that people don't have to keep asking about it. Q0 10:00, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, i guess it will be correct to keep the reference on the article. And if he was an ardent supporter of the vegetarianism, this can also be mentioned on the article. Just like it has been done on Hitler's article.nids(♂) 10:19, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: He was not an ardent supporter of vegetarianism — he mentioned it once or twice in a few letters at the end of his life. In any case there are ways we can indicate his vegetarianism with an HTML comment which are less obtrusive. --Fastfission 13:31, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It is a bit more than that. I recall a letter from 1930 where Einstein expressed support of a vegetarian diet but said that external circumstances prevented him from practicing an entirely vegetarian diet. Q0 10:18, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I didn't think that intention made someone a vegetarian, if they still ate meat. ;-) --Fastfission 12:40, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I did not mean to argue that Einstein was a vegetarian in 1930. I meant that his support of vegetarianism appears to be more than at the last 18 months of his life. Q0 13:59, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

text: I second the opinion that this should be briefly mentioned in the current article.nids(♂) 10:44, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  vegetarian? 

message: Is there a reason that "On the Quantum Mechanics of Radiation" ("Zur Quantentheorie der Strahlung," Physkalische Zeitschrift 18) is not included in Works by Albert Einstein? Kaldari 23:57, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It looks like there are many other works missing from the list, most notably several of the non-scientific books that Einstein wrote. Can someone proof this list, and add the works that are missing? Kaldari 00:27, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Works missing from [[Works by Albert Einstein]] 

message: Although he maintained that the only source of knowledge is experience, he also believed that scientific theories are the free creations of a finely tuned physical intuition and that the premises on which theories are based cannot be connected logically to experiment. A good theory, therefore, is one in which a minimum number of postulates is required to account for the physical evidence. This sparseness of postulates, a feature of all Einstein’s work, was what made his work so difficult for colleagues to comprehend, let alone support. 
Perhaps someone could add this information to the section on his scientific philosophy. --68.224.247.234 21:52, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Although that's a nice paragraph, unfortunately it is taken from Encarta and presumably cannot be used in the Wikipedia due to copyright considerations. — DAGwyn 00:31, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Good Theories

message: thumb|right|215px|The Albert Einstein Memorial, Washington DC (more photos)at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC.
//Betacommand (talk • contribs • Bot) 15:46, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  I found this in commented out text  

message: Einstein? Newton? Galileo? Archimedes? Someone else? The intro of the article on Isaac Newton says: The mathematician and mathematical physicist Joseph Louis Lagrange (1736–1813) often said that Newton was the greatest genius that ever existed, and once added "and the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Well, Lagrange didn't know Einstein, and of course one can always find a famous guy saying something positive about another famous guy.  For symmetry reasons, similar praise by more recent luminaries could be added to the Einstein intro. For example, this Einstein site  of Jürgen Schmidhuber quotes Nobel laureates Paul Dirac and Max Born:  The former called General Relativity "probably the greatest scientific discovery ever made". The latter called it the "greatest feat of human thinking about nature".  IMO these statements could nicely round off the Einstein  intro in a way similar to Newton's. Physicists 16:01, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I added this right before the statement about popular culture. Physicists 16:53, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  And the Greatest was? 

message: The list of honors presently starts with a rather dubious one: "In 1992, he was ranked #10 on Michael H. Hart's list of the most influential figures in history." On further inspection it turns out that this strange and biased list (how did it possibly make it into Wikipedia?) places Newton in second place. I say: by Einstein's standards, any rank below Newton is not an honor. Let's remove this. (In fact, the entire list should be deleted, being an extreme case of POV that does not meet the goals and standards of Wikipedia.) Other lists such as the BBC list of greatest physicists  (topped by Einstein) are more appropriate for an article on Einstein. Physicists 19:42, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Remove Dubious Honor 

message: Thanks.
:Done; sorry that the page is semi-protected right now; there has been quite a bit of vandalism here today... Schutz 12:25, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Please add: oc:Albert Einstein

message: I've started an approach that may apply to Wikipedia's Core Biography articles: creating a branching list page based on in popular culture information.  I started that last year while I raised Joan of Arc to featured article when I created Cultural depictions of Joan of Arc, which has become a featured list.  Recently I also created Cultural depictions of Alexander the Great out of material that had been deleted from the biography article.  Since cultural references sometimes get deleted without discussion, I'd like to suggest this approach as a model for the editors here.  Regards, Durova 15:25, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There is certainly the material for such an article in Einstein's case.  Shall I begin migration of the relevant material? -Fsotrain09 01:52, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Cultural depictions of Albert Einstein]] 

message: *Keep.   It's standard to bio infoboxes.SuperGirl 02:14, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Born

message: *Keep.   It's standard to bio infoboxes.SuperGirl 02:14, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Died

message: *Delete. He’s dead; he doesn’t have a residence. --teb728 00:17, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *Comment. Not significant either, but just to be comprehensive, you forgot to mention Italy (1895–). Schutz 06:51, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Residence

message: *Keep. Say “Theoretical Physicist.” --teb728 00:17, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Field

message: *KeepNeutral. List the Swiss Patent Office and the University of Berlin but perhaps not the University of Zurich, Karl Ferdinand University, or ETH —and certainly not the Institute for Advanced Study, where he did no notable science. --teb728 00:17, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Institution

message: *Keep. Say “See main article.” He attended ETH, but his degree was from the University of Zurich. (Hopefully also change the caption to “PhD from” or something to that effect.) --teb728 00:17, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Reply. That's fine of course Harald88 22:51, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Alma Mater

message: *Delete. Trivia. --Fastfission 00:36, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *Response Check this out: , where you'll see it is there by consensus to navigate scientific genealogy. This is exactly the sort of thing an infobox is ideal for. SuperGirl 08:42, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *Response-to-response I think that scientific genealogy project is a good idea, but in the context of an infobox its rather unwieldy.  Probably a better way of compiling such a system is with a set of articles.  The infobox should be for quickie-reference information.  "When did he die?" "What award/s did he win?"  A "family tree" of intellectual development going back centuries is a valuable and fascinating subject, but using infoboxes as the hook into such a project is like using postage stamps to pay your mortage.  Geeman 20:45, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *Reply This is a non sequitor. There is no family tree in the infobox. It's just the advisor and any students with a wiki article. This provides quick and handy links primarily to these related articles so the reader can then easily check for themselves how significant or trivial these influences were. Then a secondary effect is that the reader can then crawl up or down the tree via successive infoboxes. This is no different to a succession infobox in many other articles out there.SuperGirl 22:19, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *Clarification My comment was regarding "a 'family tree' of intellectual development" not an actual geneological family tree. :) I support the idea behind the project--a series of links connecting up the mentor to student relationship throughout the centuries, showing the development of ideas and scholarly work.  That's a good idea.  However, it would be better portrayed in actual article pages in which the whole "tree" could be written out, and/or the process could be given its due attention.  Using infoboxes to create a series of links is unwieldy because it doesn't show a whole lot of information at once, requires the reader/browser to make the "family tree" leaps himself (as in, it presents these people as being related without any actual explanation of how) and because it is rather a hamfisted use of the infobox system. Geeman 02:44, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

text: *Response. Sure....making trees and putting them on pages is a good idea and some editors are already doing that, for example see: . No problem!  However, this in no way replaces the idea of having quick links to the immediate supervisor and students in the infobox. I can see there is room for both on wikipedia and they can co-exist in harmony. As I said before, what you are seeing with this infobox is no different to succession boxes for  monarchs or politicians. SuperGirl 08:18, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

text: *Response to Reply Well, I think it should replace the idea of having quick links to the immediate supervisor in the infobox mostly because I don't think supervisor/student is the kind of information that is signficant enough to belong in an infobox.  Who is going to look for quick reference information regarding Einstein's doctoral advisor? I can see someone wanting quick reference to his DOB, DOD, the major theories he is credited with, etc. but are people really going to want quick reference to the people he studied with? What's more, the infobox format isn't the right way to display such data.  The succession of boxes used for monarchs and politicians is a much better way of portraying such data--at the bottom of the page where such links belong (for format's sake and because it really is rather tangential information.)  It'd be more in line with the method you describe for politicians and monarchs and a better presentation of the idea (tracking the chain of scholarly learning) in a more obvious and meaningful way. Geeman 20:33, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

text: *Reply. Many people would be curious to click on the links in the infobox and explore. Your assertion that no one is interested in Einstein's advisor is false. Have you read the article on Alfred Kleiner yourself to see that it is in fact interesting? Also what you are saying about succession boxes being at the bottom of the page is false too. Check out Bill Clinton, for example, where you'll see the succession of presidents is done at the top of the page in the infobox. The fact is that different ways of displaying succession do peacefully coexist on wikipedia. If it ain't broke why fix it? If you seriously wanna change over 200 templates, are you offering to do all the work?  I'm not! If you are serious about this change go ahead and do it yourself. The correct way to start is not here (because this is specifically for Einstein)--you need to start a discussion at the talk page of the infobox and raise a concensus here: . May the force be with you and watch out for grumpy bitches like me. SuperGirl 21:23, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *Some More Clarification First, I have not asserted that no one is interested in Einstein's advisor, and I think I've been pretty clear that I think the project is a good idea....  (Honestly, where did that come from?)  That said, I actually would assert that there there is a pretty big difference between the infoboxes of politicians listing their predecessors and successors in office and a more abstract concept like a mentor and student relationship.  That's the kind of information someone might want a quick reference to.  Who succeeded Polk or preceded Taylor?  People ask those kind of questions all the time about those sorts of people.  Very few people have the same question about the educational development of Max Planck or even of Einstein....  Do people need quick reference to that right at the top of the page?  In this case, using the infobox as a method of relating information about the history of scholarly development for centuries is an odd way of trying to relate that information and outside the scope of what that little portion of the page is meant for.  Second, there are other tools that can be used, ones that suit the situation better.  The "succession box" at the bottom of many bio pages (like those of U.S. Presidents) would be more appropriate.  If you take a look at the bios of Presidents (like Bill Clinton's) you'll see that there is the "Preceded by" and "Succeeded by" entries in the infobox, but the succession box is the one at the bottom of the page that has a more complete list (and that's where such a concept would be more appropriately placed.) --Geeman 08:46, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

text: *Reply Where did it come from? It was when you said its inclusion wasn't "significant." Maybe I was hormonal and overeacted. You are right about a succession box being at the bottom of the the US president page. However, note: (i) succession is also in the infobox and the two coexist, (ii) in the US prez case, the bottom succession box is necessary because there is more than one type of office to describe. In our case we only have one item and that is "advisors"...so it is much neater and more visible in the infobox. (iii) Who said anything about "centuries?"  (Honestly, where did that come from?). No. The infobox only has the predecessor and successor only. Period.  The "centuries" thing _may_ happen as a side-effect one day when enough biographies are there to form a "chain." But that is nothing that needs concern you. That is something that naturally happens via a self-organization process as the number of biographies increases. The idea is to let that effect evolve by itself. SuperGirl 09:40, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *Yet more Clarification Well, I'm going to leap to my own defense once more to say that I think the academic geneology project is a good idea.  I just don't think the infobox is the appropriate place for such information.  There exist better methods already extant on WP that are more apt.  My comments that advisor/students isn't right for the infobox is quite different from asserting that nobody is interested in such information, so please be more careful when attributing statements to others.  Heck, I'm interested in it myself.  I look forward to spending some time checking it out.  However, the issue is not whether that information can coexist in the infobox and in a succession box at the bottom of the page, but if it is appropriate for the infobox in the first place.  For an infobox on politicians or regents it makes sense to have "Preceded by" and "Succeeded by" because that's the kind of information that people might want quickly.  Students memorize the succession of presidents all the time, for example, and lots of people might want to quickly reference that kind of thing.  The connection between advisor and student, however, is more abstract.  In certain cases the connections are even debatable, not just factually but whether that relationship was, in fact, significant.  The whole concept is less concrete than DOB, DOD, countries that someone held citizenship in, or the order of office holders, and as such doesn't belong in what should be a brief list of definite facts about an individual. Now, as for where "centuries" came from, according to the link you provided above for the academic geneology projects one of them (the Mathematics Genealogy Project) "attempts to go back to the time of Leibnitz."  Since Gottfried Leibnitz died nearly 300 years ago that'd put the project's timeline in the centuries.  The "Genealogy of theoretical physicists" page goes back even further.  Again, it's a good idea and a fascinating subject, but I don't see the infobox as being the proper place to put it for the reasons already described. --Geeman 13:08, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

text: * Reply. Again, I'll repeat that the "centuries" factor is nothing that concerns us here. We are only taking about immediate succession and precession. If several boxes happen to link together and go back centuries, then that is a nice side-effect. It is not something we have to consciously aim for. That takes care of itself as the wikipedia grows. Whilst I agree that succession connections can sometimes be debated, I disagree that monarchs etc are more clear cut. There are contested monarchs. And look at the succession of Popes. Lot's of controversy there! That's why we have Antipopes. Advisor/student relationships are much easier to handle than Popes. Sure you can put a succession box at the bottom of the page. Nobody is going to stop you! As I said before, here is not the correct place to discuss that. The correct proceedure is to just go ahead and do it. Then once you've populated all the bios, start a discussion on the Infobox Scientist talk page suggesting the Advisor and Students then be removed from the infobox. You need to do the work first, to ensure that the information is not buried. I will support your proposed removal once I see your succession box nicely populated throughout the bios, and not before! SuperGirl 01:49, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: * Response I'm probably not going to have time to populate several hundred succession boxes myself, but I'm going to make the suggestion that that be the format on the appropriate page and see if we can get that method used by people contributing rather than the infobox.  Thanks for the input. --Geeman 07:11, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

text: * Reply. It would help acceptance of your idea if you put together a succession box and created a working example. Then populate it on (say) 6 pages so people can take a look at how it works and get the idea. Test run in on the lineage of Carl Friedrich Gauss, as that is a very exciting academic ancestry example. I will be happy to offer a constructive critique if you alert me. SuperGirl 08:48, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: * Thanks. I'll get on that as soon as practicable. I'm running into a lot of those pesky real world demands on my time lately... hence, the tardiness of this response :) I appreciate the discussion and your pointing me in the direction of that particular project, though, so thanks.  -- Geeman 07:09, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Doctoral Advisor

message: *Delete. Not notable for Einstein. --teb728 00:17, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *Response My same reply to you in the "Doctoral Advisor" field applies here by symmetry. The concensus for this field was obtained here: .SuperGirl 08:46, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Doctoral Students

message: *Strong Keep This field is needed. The general public think it is "relativity" only, and need to quickly see that there are other key areas of impact.SuperGirl 02:14, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Known for

message: *Keep. Goes without saying that his Nobel needs to go here. As it is his most notable prize, there is no need to list any others.SuperGirl 02:14, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Notable Prizes

message: *Strong Delete. No entry at all—not even “See main article” --teb728 00:17, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *Comment This is a non sequitur. "Einstein's complex thinking on religion was of tremendous personal importance, therefore it should be summarized in an infobox." –Joke 15:51, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

text: *Response It is the criteria printed above, viz., "Only use it where they have strong religious views which related to their scientific achievement."  Einstein's religious views related to both his scientific and political courses. Robert K S 16:24, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *Reply.  Simply because the science biography readership is very interested in the religious position of scientists. The dialog between religion and science is a notable area of both public and scholarly interest. SuperGirl 06:29, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Religion

message: Vote: Assuming that we accept the infobox, do we agree to include flags in this article's infobox or not?
*  No flags: apart of being against Einstein's philosophy it's ugly, useless and distracting Harald88 22:58, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Vote to Keep/Delete Flags in Infobox

message: I am not an expert on Albert Einstein, so maybe I am incorrect, but from what I had heard about Einstein he had difficulty with mathematics and always needed  help from a mathematician when he was working mathematical equations out, but this article says he was brilliant at math from an early age.
FDR  |  MyTalk  20:29:25 October 21, 2006 (UTC)
:What you heard is wrong. Einstein was rather good with math. That does not mean that he did not confer with others on difficult topics (notably Hilbert on general relativity), but that's just the normal process of science. --Stephan Schulz 21:12, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See User:Samsara/Debunking an urban myth: Einstein at school. I have a book with a copy of his final high-school certificate, and he got top marks in all mathematical related branches. I should probably scan it and add it to the article, since it is such a widespread myth. Of course, being good at math in high-school does not mean being good at "higher maths", but at least we know he was indeed brilliant from an early age, as you say. Schutz 07:31, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

text: I was under the impression that it was not because he was poor at maths, but rather whilst developing his theories he found occasionally he had to learn some new (to him) elements of mathematics to help explain and/or develop his theories. I am 90% sure that is the angle Kip Thorne uses in "Einstein's outrageous legacy:Black holes and warped spacetime" but I admit I do not have the book to hand at the moment. Desdinova 23:14, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mathematics 

message: This section needs a little work. It has some excessive quoting, for one thing, and does not really explain any of it in simple terms. Additionally, when it says "In the Schilpp book", does it just mean, "In EPR, which is in the Schilpp book"? I can't tell though I guess I could pull out EPR and see if that is what the text is from. There is a general problem with talking about EPR in the way which is done here, mainly that Einstein didn't himself write EPR — it was written by Podolsky based on conversations with Einstein and Rosen. Einstein himself didn't like the way it was formulated at all — he thought it was unclear. Though one can use EPR as an example of Einstein's thinking on incompleteness, the quotes in it cannot be directly attributed to Einstein individually (if at all directly). Maybe someone can go over this and fix it up a bit. --Fastfission 01:17, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: "Incompleteness and Realism"

message: Where did the info about his head come from? And why is it included. Its interesting but not entirely needed. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 208.108.223.7 (talk) 15:07, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Head Sise? 

message: :I removed the following from the list of quotations on religion. The webpage cited does not provide a source for the alleged quote, which is described as spurious in Wikiquote. I don't think it should be allowed in the article unless and until a proper source to the works of Einstein can be provided. 
: 
--Dannyno 21:33, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd say we should delete the whole section anyway, since quotations belong to wikiquote; in Wikipedia, we should just have a summary of his beliefs, backed by references to the actual quotations, not by the quotations themselves. Schutz 22:33, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Better than that would be a synthesis based on secondary sources, not quotes isolated from their context. At the moment I think the quotations on religion and his "scientific philosophy" are totally worthless and totally against Wikipedia policy. --Fastfission 04:45, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Fair enough; either way, the quotes should go away. Schutz 06:45, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Spurious quotation on Buddhism 

message: I see that the wikiproject notices at the top of this page have been severely trimmed. I'm unsure if this is a good or bad thing, and am tempted to suggest that instead of being removed they get put into a section at the top of the page - so that the most important ones appear at the top, then the TOC, then the less important ones. What do people here think? Mike Peel 12:18, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps the templates should be moved to a subpage of the talk page, such as Talk:Albert Einstein/WP templates. Q0 23:08, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removal of WP templates 

message: I think that there should be an extrapolation on his cosmological constant, such as his reasoning behind it and its resurfacing in modern theoretical physics, such as an explanation for the accelerated expansion of the Universe, as well as its connection to the Higgs field.  
:The general policy seems to be that detailed discussions of the various physical theories are conducted in their own articles, not in the general Einstein article (which includes just enough about them to orient the reader).  For example, the cosmological constant has its own article.  Actually Einstein was not personally involved with either the accelerated expansion of the universe nor the Higgs field. — DAGwyn 08:23, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: General relativity has its own article.  Einstein was not personally involved with black holes, either, and I rather doubt that he would have approved of the way that theory has developed.  Actually, all classical theories conflict with quantum theory.  The problem of constructing a consistent quantum theory of gravitation is quite apart from anything Einstein did. — DAGwyn 08:23, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

text: I still think that the coverage of that topic in the cosmological constant article is sufficient, and that it would be too much detail for the Einstein article, which is already way too long.  Note also the Schrödinger section of the classical unified field theories article, where it is observed that in his formulation the cosmological term arises automatically.  That article also notes that Eddington thought that there was a natural role for the cosmological constant.  If somebody searches for the phrase he should turn up hits on these.  I'm especially concerned that we don't give the impression that Einstein approved of black holes nor of modern cosmological ideas. — DAGwyn 22:14, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Cosmological Constant and GR's Substrates 

message: The following statement has been inserted by someone into the Speculation and Controversy section which obviously needs removed. (I am new to wikipedia and tried to use the edit feature however the text in question didn't appear for some reason) I would be grateful if someone could assist with its removal. Statement in question as follows:
"The world needs to know, 2=1. It is proven. A new revolution is upon us. type 1=2 in google and you will find it. Mathematics as we know it is over. Amarvir rules."
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.71.208.27 (talk) 
:Hi 84.71.208.27, Welcome to Wikipedia. The text that you mention is an instance of vandalism, which happens all too frequent at Wikipedia—this article in particular gets hit by it about 10 times a day. Fortunately a lot of editors watch changes on this page; so such garbage is usually reverted quickly. This instance survived for over 3 hours, which is unusual. (By the way, please sign your posts on talk pages by adding ~~~~.) --teb728 08:29, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Random Text Added To Speculation & Controversy Section