Everything in the world is relative.
Is this world absolute or relative? And what does he really mean? After all, it is quite possible that everything around us is only an illusion created by our consciousness. The meaning of the word “relative” carries a huge number of definitions, not only in philosophy, but also in religion, physics, and even astronomy and geometry. Can the values \u200b\u200bbe solely true or is their number always tending to infinity? To understand where this theory came from, we will have to delve into history for many thousands of years.
History of the philosophy of relativity
What does "relative" mean? The interpretation of this word can be different and much deeper than it seems at first glance. Many great thinkers have dealt with this issue since ancient times.
Relativity is a philosophical pragmatism that has been studied in prehistoric civilizations. Enlightened people of ancient Greece believed that everything in this world was abstract. So, Socrates said: “I only know that I know nothing, but many do not even know this!”
The beginning and end of being, its true meaning - all this carries a hidden secret, covered in darkness. After all, any of our statements is true only in the system in which we are. In another, it will be distorted or diametrically opposite. So, your left hand is on the one hand, and a person standing opposite is on the other. If you are asked where the left side is, you will point in opposite directions and both will be right. That is
So the illusion is created
Sometimes in abstract paintings we can see an image of the meaning of the relativity of the universe, which is visualized by an illusion.
The Dutch artist Maurice Escher created a litoraphy on which it is clear that the world is relatively located, depending on the location of objects in it.
This creates an optical illusion that deceives us because it shows the desired object from a certain angle. This is facilitated by shadows imposed in a special way, and lines passing at a certain angle. So, we see that the same face can have different interpretations of the situation, depending on the viewer's point of view, which means - with respect to him.
Absolute and relative
The illusion of absoluteness is one of the main errors of our life. Absolute is the antithesis meaning of the word "relative." It implies an unconditional correct statement of a concept or phenomenon, while the world has an unstable structure, that is, it cannot be absolute. This thesis is true only if we are talking about some kind of closed reference system.
Einstein's Theory
The theory of relativity carries a lot of useful, hidden meanings. These puzzles of the Universe tried to solve many minds of the world. Einstein was even able to reduce this law of the universe into a mathematical formula. Some still reject it. There is heated debate among scientists about whether this theory is actually true. Is it worth believing that the same system can be different, even if it moves in the same direction. Einstein argued that speed and direction are completely dependent on which system is being read. What does it mean - the points of determination behave relatively to each other. So the thesis about the non-existence of a certain time appears. It became fundamental in the theory of the existence of the universe. Time is not a constant value, but tends to infinity, like any other. Such a discovery turned the whole theory of science. It was known earlier, but it was Albert Einstein who was able to confirm this and deduce the formula famous throughout the world.
"Everything in the world is relative." Albert Einstein.
The meaning of the thesis in everyday life
In everyday life, everything is also relative. Definition what does it mean? It is easy to compose if you look at human behavior. It largely depends on where he lives and what culture he belongs to, on the traditions of the family. A lot can be said about the relativity of our being. In any system, there are rules that are dictated to us by our inner circle, country, traditions and customs, culture. We consider them correct, but for other nations it will become wildness. It is worth remembering that the principle of tolerance is based on this rule.
About religion and philosophy
Such dogmas as relativity, the philosophy of good and evil, the measure of good deeds and bad, for which we go to heaven or hell, takes place in any religion. However, each religion sets its own rules and regulations. In Christianity, the main collection of laws is the Bible.
Whereas in Islam - the Koran. Such sacred books proclaim the absolute. However, one of the religions completely rejects absolutism, adhering at its core to the dogma of relativity. In Buddhism there is no collection of rules; religion itself is not built on divine confession. Believers follow the teachings of the Buddha, who was a living person and formulated the principles of spiritual harmony. Merging with the world, meditation, searching for one's own path - all this should predetermine the path of a person who professes this religion. It is Buddhism that defines a person as an autonomous unit independent of others. The achievement of complete independence and immersion in nirvana and harmony is the goal set by the Buddha.
Each person, being born a personality, is absolutely free and independent. Whereas over time, he plunges himself into the framework necessary for existence in this society. What does “relative” mean for Buddhists? The theory of relativity says that absolutely correct behavior simply does not exist, since each act will be right for one person and relatively wrong for another. That is why in Buddhism there is no concept of guilt and responsibility. These concepts are not true and were imposed by society. Patience is preached in this religion, and mean values \u200b\u200bare taken to understand right or wrong actions. Striving for harmony between extremes is the main dogma. Rituals and monks allow them to get as close as possible to the desired state of immersion in the correct niche of consciousness.
“Everything is relative” is a phrase that provokes conflicting feelings. On the one hand, no one dares to challenge the famous theory of relativity, on the other hand, we perceive these words as a way to brush aside real difficulties. But to understand the relativity of a situation does not mean to ignore it or put it on a par with other problems. The word "relative" means "established by comparison, comparison with another" *. This means that we must stop considering the situation on its own and by comparing to figure out what it really is.
This is a conscious action, especially important at a time when fear is surrounding us or others. “If you look at your fears from the side, you can learn to control them,” says Elsa Godart, a philosopher and psychoanalyst. “We will more objectively see a situation that bothers us, and it will cease to cause us emotional shock.” The feeling of imminent collapse, which some of us are talking about now, is not necessarily a direct result of external events. “There are realistic fears, they help us survive by warning of danger,” emphasizes existential psychotherapist Svetlana Krivtsova, “but it is important to separate them from fears that are not related to a specific situation, but to our tendency to dramatize.”
We often demand too much from ourselves, we feel that we are not able to change everything all at once, therefore we don’t do what we can do ”
To what extent is my fear justified? What can I do to calm down? These are useful questions. By asking them, we can maintain common sense in a situation where, succumbing to emotions, we risk becoming objects of psychological and ideological manipulations.
Economics, politics, social life - in a word, everything that becomes an informational occasion gives rise to alarm in us. It should be recognized that in these areas it is rather difficult to maintain a clear view, especially when you cannot rely on the opinion of specialists: observing economic disasters, they make too conflicting opinions. Instability undermines not only the economy, but also our faith in the future, because pessimism is, in essence, a fear of the unknown: in situations of uncertainty, the same neurons are activated as in those cases when we expect to see something unpleasant ** .
When we try to look at the circumstances of our lives from the outside, the influence of the news on us weakens. For example, hearing the phrase “Russia is in a terrible situation”, everyone will think about themselves to the extent that they consider themselves to be part of this “Russia”. And vice versa, during the Olympic Games in Sochi, many of us felt joy and pride in the country ... So it should be: remembering events of history and episodes from our personal past, comparing them with the present, to see the relativity of what is happening now and thus overcome our alarming expectations . “Our personality is much more than our fears,” emphasizes Svetlana Krivtsova. “In the past, we have both good luck and experience in overcoming difficulties.” Reminding ourselves of this, we are freed from the power of anxiety of fears, we see reality more clearly and do not confuse it with rumors and speculation.
Failure to influence the situation is our unconscious choice?
Today on the Internet, in social networks, in conversations with friends, we learn a lot of gloomy news and even more gloomy forecasts ... Maybe this also explains our own gloom? “The main problem is that most people are passive about their lives,” Elsa Godard disagrees. “They do not take it into their own hands, but submit to it.”
We feel powerless in the face of the future because we ourselves choose powerlessness. Even if this happens unconsciously. “We demand too much from ourselves, we feel that we are unable to change everything all at once, and because of this we are not doing what we can do,” Svetlana Krivtsova notes. Neither prices, nor exchange rates depend on us, we can only let go of the situation and honestly admit: "I can’t do anything here." And if we want to act, then first of all we must stop making unrealistic demands on ourselves. “We should correlate our responsibility with our capabilities,” continues Svetlana Krivtsova. - We are not responsible for ensuring that all our plans with a guarantee are fulfilled, it is not in our power. But if we want to develop, take care of loved ones, live better, then in our power every time we seek new means for this. Our responsibility is to meet new situations with a measure of engagement that is relevant to our capabilities at the moment. ”
A catastrophic perception of reality has an unexpected side effect - rather a positive one. It makes us look at ourselves in a new way, understand what is really important for us, to clearly define the meaning of our life. Psychologist Victor Frankl wrote that it is extreme trials that bring our attention to given external circumstances to the forefront, make our inner, spiritual freedom the main thing ***. It is difficult to find the meaning of life in a situation of absolute comfort, while during the war people are forced to perceive reality differently. Having discovered that the horizon is closed, we overestimate what we have.
Everything is bad? Perhaps this means that it is time for us to reconsider our lives - thoughtless consumption, entertainment, passivity, indifference to others. Nothing prevents you from changing your behavior. “In times of crisis, we recall that life is multidimensional, and this is good for us,” says Elsa Godard. - Because if we do not know how to analyze the experience of unhappiness, illness, inconvenience, then we lose our human essence. In the old days, a man had to fight for food, territory, and so on. Today, when, whatever you say, our life is mostly convenient and safe, it’s worth fighting against defeatism, disbelief in our forces, which covers us more and more every day, and win back our life in order to give it meaning again. ” The philosopher recalls that the word "crisis" comes from the Greek kairos and means "timeliness, relevance, the most suitable moment." That is, "now or never" ...
* Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language, ed. S. Ozhegova, N. Shvedova (Alphabetbook, 2000).
** The study was conducted by specialists in the field of clinical psychology of the University of Zurich (Switzerland), published in the journal NeuroImages in 2007.
*** V. Frankl “Say Life Yes!” A psychologist in a concentration camp ”(Sense, Alpina non-fiction, 2009).
"Question mark"5/91
How is a time machine arranged?
ZIGUNENKO Stanislav Nikolaevich
Spiral or straight?
Everything in the world is relative
"Happy Newton, the happy childhood of science ... Nature was an open book for him, which he read effortlessly. The concepts that he used to organize the data of experience seem to arise spontaneously from the experience itself, from wonderful experiments ... In one person, he combined an experimenter, theorist, master ... He appeared before us strong, confident and lonely; his joy of creation and jewelry accuracy are shown in every word and every drawing. "
Having given these words credit to his predecessor, "this brilliant genius," A. Einstein nevertheless began to redraw the Universe according to his own understanding. They say that he surprised his interlocutors, admitting once that he never understood the concept of "absolute time." Of course, it was a joke in the style of Einstein - he knew about absolute time and about the absolute space of classical physics a lot. So much, "to understand the imperfection of the mechanics of Newton - Galileo.
Why does time flow everywhere the same? What sets this pace and what (or who) controls it? These "damned" questions haunted him. And he finally resolved them by creating the theory of relativity.
Behind this theory, completed by the author in 1916, the fame of the incomprehensible was established from the very beginning. At first it was said that only three people, including the author himself, understood it all over the world. Then the number of initiates increased to twelve, but the author himself, oddly enough, fell out of that dozen. Einstein joked about this: "Since mathematicians poured on the theory of relativity, I myself have ceased to understand it."
Indeed, the mathematical side of the theory is very difficult. But you can, after all, talk about the most complex things simply, explaining, as they say, on the fingers. Einstein himself, by the way, knew this way of expressing his thoughts quite well.
“Imagine two physicists,” he said. “Both have a physical laboratory equipped with every imaginable physical device. The laboratory of one of the physicists is in an open field, and the laboratory of the other is in a train carriage, rushing rapidly in a certain direction. The principle of relativity states : two physicists, using all the instruments to study the laws existing in nature - one in a stationary laboratory, the other in a car - will find that these laws are the same if the car moves uniformly and without shaking. abstract form, it looks like this: the principle of relativity the laws of nature do not depend on the translational (uniform) motion of reference systems. " Thus, Einstein in his own words retold the parable of the traveler in a locked cabin, thereby agreeing with the correctness in certain cases of the Galileo-Newton theory. Indeed, for about two hundred years this theory served faithfully to humanity, and no one complained about it. So what made Albert Einstein reconsider established positions? All the same practical necessity.
Over two centuries, much has changed in the world around us. The speeds existing in it have increased markedly. New branches of knowledge appeared - physicists, in particular, were closely engaged in the phenomena of electromagnetism. And therefore, the principle of relativity lasted should have been replaced by the principle of relativity of Einstein. He added one important axiom to the theory: the speed of light propagation (in void) is the same in all inertial reference frames.
For a long time, it was believed that the speed of light is generally equal to infinity. For example, Heron of Alexandria reasoned as follows: "Raise your head to the sky at night. You will see the stars. Close your eyes - the stars will disappear. Open them again - the stars will appear immediately. Since there is no gap between the moment of opening your eyes and seeing the stars, the light spreads instantly."
But Galileo, already known to us, had a different opinion about this. He suggested doing an experiment to measure the speed of light. Let two people, equipped with signal lights, get farther apart, he reasoned. One of them opens his lantern. The second does the same as soon as it sees the light of the first lamp. And let the observer, standing next to the first lantern, measure the period of time that elapses between the moment when the first lantern opens the light of his lantern and the instant that the observer sees the light of the second lantern.
Galileo even tried to conduct such an experiment in practice, but he soon became convinced that the speed of light was too high to be measured manually.
The experiments according to the Galileo scheme were carried out in the XVII and XIX centuries. First, in 1675, the Danish astronomer Olaf Christensen Roemer made observations during an eclipse of the moons of Jupiter discovered by Galileo. It was first confirmed that the speed of light has a finite value. And then the experiment of Galileo was carried out in laboratory conditions by the French experimenter Hippolytus Fizeau in 1849 using the simple mechanical device constructed by him.
A beam of light, passing through the gap between the gear teeth, spread over a certain distance (in his experiments, Fizeau reached a distance of 9 km). At this distance, there is a mirror, reflected. From which the light beam goes back. If the gear is motionless, this beam will reach the observer’s eye through the same gap between the teeth. But if the wheel rotates, then depending on the speed of rotation, the light beam will either hit the tooth, or - with a further increase in speed - in the next interval
Knowing the distance to the mirror and the speed of rotation of the wheel, you can calculate the speed of light propagation. Fizeau received in his experiments the value of the speed of light, equal to 313 thousand km / s. (For comparison, we note that in modern experiments carried out using an atomic clock, this value is 299 799 456 m / s with an error of * + 0.2 m / s.)
So, developing his theory of relativity, Einstein came to the conclusion that the speed of light in vacuum, vacuum is absolute. It is approximately 300 thousand km / s, and nothing can move faster than light.
Einstein came to this conclusion on the basis of logical reasoning, 4 based on experiments known to him related to the study of electromagnetic processes. The great theoretician particularly appreciated the experiment of the Dutch astronomer de Sitter, based on observations of binary stars. His studies showed that the speed of light does not depend on the speed of movement of the star emitting this light. Then the same fact was repeatedly confirmed in other experiments.
So, the speed of light is constant. So what is changing in this changing world? A lot of things, including speed ... the passage of time!
To understand how this can be, let's follow Einstein with a thought experiment. Let's go back to the two laboratories? one of which is located in a clean field, and the other in a carriage of a moving train.
Let the front and rear walls of the car have a light bulb. A physicist-observer of a moving laboratory is located in the middle of the car, just between the bulbs, at an equal distance from each light source.
The experiment is designed so that the flashes of light from these bulbs reach the “train” and “field” physicists strictly at the same time, namely at the moment when they equal each other. What conclusions should each of the experimenters draw from this observation?
A physicist in a carriage can reason like this: "" Since the signals were sent by sources that were at equal distances from me and came at the same time, it means that they were emitted strictly simultaneously. "
The physicist in the field laboratory has every right to comment on the described event in a slightly different way: “When the middle of the car came up to me, both bulbs were at the same distance from me. But the light was emitted a little earlier than when it reached me - after all
“As light beams have a huge, but finite-speed. Hence it is logical to assume that at the time of the light's kaniya the front wall of the car was closer to me, the back. And since the light from both sources propagates at the same speed, it turns out that the bulb on the back wall flashed earlier than on the front ... "
As a result, after our physicists, we will have to come to the conclusion: a certain event happened simultaneously or non-simultaneously, depends on what point of view we will consider them. If from the point of view of a moving physicist, then the bulbs flashed at the same time; if from the point of view of a physicist who was motionless, then no.
And this, in turn, inexorably leads us to a certain logical paradox (at least it seems to be at first glance): time in different "reference frames does not flow differently. Time turns out to depend on speed! It is not absolute, but relative ... From the point of view of the theory of relativity, one cannot simply say “now is that much time.” It is necessary to add in which particular coordinate system.
To the question, A. Einstein said: Everything is relative, M. Plank corrected: And the relative is relative ... So what happens is Absolute? set by the author Evgeniy ########## the best answer is I quote the lines of Bernard Verber:
"Everything is in one (Abraham).
Everything is love (Jesus Christ).
Everything is sex (Sigmund Freud).
Everything is economics (Karl Marx).
Everything is relative (Albert Einstein).
So what is next? "
And then ... that's it, every time we ask such a question, it is absolute.))
Source: Hello, Eugene!
Answer from 22 answers[guru]
Hello! Here is a selection of topics with the answers to your question: A. Einstein said: Everything is relative, M. Plank corrected: And the relative is relative ... So what happens is Absolute?
Answer from European[guru]
Absolute zero is an absolute concept ..
Answer from Petitioner[guru]
The speed of light in a vacuum.
Answer from Apricot[guru]
in a world where everything is relative, there is no absolute.
God Himself is the Absolute.
i also think that nature itself is absolute, but man makes it relative.
Answer from Bee[guru]
Human idiocy))
Answer from Elena Vladimirovna[guru]
Yes, the speed of light is absolute. Einshane never said "everything is relative." He introduced an absolute constant in physics - the speed of light.
Answer from Cerdalik ??[guru]
Absolute relativity ... in development, cognition and determination ....
Answer from Ё OTHER[guru]
Max Planck, Albert Einstein ... The greatest minds.
I have no reason not to believe them.
Answer from Yury[guru]
When they say that EVERYTHING is relative, it follows from this that not all
relative, and relativity itself is then absolute, and if it is
absolute, then not everything is relative.
It’s better to consider that everything in the world is relative and absolutely
at the same time, depending on what relation we are considering
one phenomenon to another.
Answer from Yolnyshkova_Ya.[guru]
As an option, for everything EVERYTHING in question is EVERYTHING exists in the world through symmetry, and it is precisely the interaction of the antipodes that is the condition for the existence of everything.
This implies, firstly, that the relative and absolute are a kind of antipodes, and secondly, that symmetry itself is an example of the absolute.
Answer from MARINA \u003d ballerina \u003d MARUSICHKA-OLD[guru]
I think - ZERO!
Answer from Atmanam viddhi[guru]
The question, of course, is interesting.))
First, with your permission, I will quote Wikipedia.))
Absolute - in religion and idealistic philosophy - God or the original cause of all phenomena, the unconditional perfect beginning of being, which lies at the heart of the world, free from any relations and conditions.
Naturally, this refers more to metaphysics than to physics.
But after all, it is just philosophy, not natural sciences, that is engaged in the search for answers to such questions.))
So it turns out that the Absolute is either an immutable Object, not limited by any framework and categories, like Shiva in the philosophy of advaita-vedanta, or just an abstract concept that operates with our consciousness.
On May 11, 1916, Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity was first introduced..
It is said that Albert Einstein - this ingenious mind of the 20th century, came up with his theory in the tram. It was there that he thought about the conclusions that various observers can draw when they are in different reference frames. Even such unshakable values \u200b\u200bas duration, time and distance will depend on the location in space and time occupied by the observer.
Traveling peacefully on the Bernese tram, the scientist came to the conclusion that if you accelerate the tram to near light speeds, the time in it will flow more slowly, and then completely stop.
Such an interesting theory required mathematical confirmation. Einstein had at his disposal hundreds of inexplicable facts, which at that time were accumulated by experimental physics. All of them required a scientific explanation. These effects were partially described by a special theory of relativity, developed and published by Einstein in 1905. The rigorous mathematical justification of the new theory came after eleven years of hard work, and the general was presented in wide scientific circles. The general theory of relativity looks much more complicated, and applies to all reference frames. GR makes the world amazing - to three familiar coordinates, it adds a fourth - time. The space-time continuum is curved under the influence of gravitational forces. All this was new and unusual for generations of scientists who perceived the world according to the laws of classical mechanics. But sound mathematical scientific calculations did their job, and all the leading physicists of the world accepted the theory.
Time after time, scientists confirm the validity of general relativity, and on its basis make new discoveries.
And recently, there are versions about the contribution of the first wife of Einstein Mileva Marich to the theory of relativity.
"Mileva Maric (1875 - 1948) was born in Titel, Vojvodina, in the north of ex-Yugoslavia. At the age of 21 she entered the Zurich Polytechnic, in the same year as Albert Einstein, who was three and a half years younger. She was the only student on the course. The Zurich Polytechnic was then something like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, so Mileva had to be a very competent student, especially considering that she was a woman.Having met, Albert and Mileva fell in love.
In one of the letters to Mileva, Einstein wrote: "How happy and proud I will be when we finally achieve the successful completion of our work on the relative movement (Theory of Relativity - author's comment)." John Steichel notes in his book Einstein and Ether Drift experiments (1987): “This commentary makes us wonder at what kind of involvement Marich was in developing the theory.”
Mileva spent the winter semester of 1897-1898 in Heidelberg (Germany). In one of her letters to Einstein, she talked about the great interest that she arouses in reading materials on the ratio of the speed of movement of molecules and the distance between their collisions, a topic that has become one of the fundamental aspects of Einstein's study of Brownian motion. Einstein admired Mileva’s calm independence and intellectual ambitions. He believed that he was very lucky when he met her: "A creature equal to me is just as strong and independent." Later, when Einstein worked on the electrodynamics of moving bodies, he repeatedly wrote to Mileva about the Theory of Relativity: "our work on relative motion." "our theory."
Mileva became pregnant. In 1902, her daughter Lieserl was born, about whom nothing is known. Maria Dokmanovich, translator of letters from Mileva, conducted an investigation, trying to find out the fate of Lieserl. Most likely, the girl was given for adoption a few weeks after birth, in 1902, in order to avoid the scandal associated with birth outside of marriage. In connection with these events, Mileva could not pass the diploma exam at the institute.
Albert and Mileva were married on January 6, 1903 (why not a few months earlier, so that there was no need to abandon their daughter?). In marriage, Mileva had two sons - Albert and Edward. Mileva completely subordinated her professional plans to the professional success of her husband, working as his assistant. This work did not give her the opportunity to complete her own graduation project, while Albert satisfactorily defended himself.
The biography of Mileva Marich Im Schatten Albert Einsteins: Das tragische Leben der Mileva Einstein-Maric (In the shadow of Albert Einstein: the tragic life of Mileva Einstein-Marich) says: "Russian physicist AF Ioffe, in his Memoirs of Albert Einstein" notes that the manuscripts of works published in 1905 were signed as “Einstein-Maric.” Joffe, being an assistant to V.K. Roentgen, was able to see manuscripts that were sent to him by the publisher Annalen der Physik for review, and which were subsequently lost. " Mileva was listed as a co-author in the original manuscript of an article on The Theory of Relativity in 1905.
In fact, Ioffe said of the manuscript: “Its author was Einstein-Marity” and added, believing that it was the name of Albert Einstein: “an unknown person from the Berne Patent Office”. Joffe did not know that by that time Mileva had changed the Serbian surname Marich to the Hungarian version of Mariti. Thus, Ioffe could argue that the manuscript was signed by Einstein-Marity only if he himself saw it, since Einstein did not speak out on this subject in any of his biographies.
After the publication of The Theory of Relativity, Einstein repeatedly demonstrated that his knowledge of experiments Michelson-Morley (the purpose of the experiments conducted from 1881 to 1887 by Michelson and Morley was to determine the speed of the Earth relative to the theoretical substance known as the luminiferous ether) and the works of H.A. Lorentz were quite limited. Meanwhile, knowledge of these works and experiments was fundamental and necessary to create the Theory of Relativity. There are no records of Einstein regarding these works, except for his letters to Mileva, as if this was an exclusively private topic for conversation with her. Einstein’s lack of familiarity with the experiments of Michelson-Morley and Lorenz makes it quite logical to assume that it was Mileva Marich who was an expert in this field, and that she supplied her husband with the necessary information, which means that she, like her husband, could be an author Theories of Relativity.
Christopher Bjerkness in the book "Albert Einstein - INCORPORABLE PLAGIATOR" (2002) says:
“It is clear that Albert Einstein was not the sole author of the 1905 manuscript on the“ relativities of relativity. ”His wife, Mileva Maric, could be a co-author or sole author of the work. Although the work was presented at the beginning either as a co-authorship of Mileva Einstein-Marity and Albert Einstein , or as the work of Mileva Einstein-Marity, Albert’s name became the only one under which the work was eventually published.
Mileva and Albert used to be co-authors in scientific works, and Albert then highly appreciated the cooperation of Mileva. Ms. Senta Trömel-Plötz presented extensive written sources that show both Albert’s shameless misappropriation of Mileva’s work and her silent submission. "
In letters to friends, Einstein boasted: "I treat my wife as a servant I cannot drive away." In a letter to Milev dated 1914, Einstein sets out to her his conditions for family life:
"1. You will ensure that
- my underwear and bedding was clean and kept in order
- I was served food three times a day in my office
- my bedroom and study were kept clean and tidy so that no one except me touched my desk
2. You will refuse any connection with me, except the one that must be maintained in public. In particular, you will not pretend that I
- stayed with you at home
- accompanied you on trips
3. You will have to solemnly promise that
- you will not wait on my part for any feelings and you will not reproach me for their absence
- you will answer me as soon as I turn to you
- unquestioningly leave both my bedroom and my office upon my first request
- You will not denigrate me in front of children, neither word nor deed "
(published at Le Monde on November 18, 1986)
By the time this letter was written, Einstein was already in connection with his cousin Elsa, who was younger than Mileva.
Mileva and Albert began to live separately from 1914, and divorced in 1919, when Albert married Elsa Einstein Lowenthal.
Mileva was awarded custody of the children. A clause was added to the divorce agreement that Einstein would pay Mileva the amount of any Nobel Prize that could be awarded to him in the future. This agreement was kept secret by Einstein for a long time. One can imagine how Mileva, fed up with lies and submission, says to her ex-husband: "Either you give the children and me money that you will receive as a bonus, but you will leave the glory for yourself, or I will tell everyone the truth."
After the divorce, Einstein completely stopped communicating with his son, Edward, a patient with schizophrenia. Mileva alone took care of him throughout her life. When she was near death, Einstein instructed the eldest of his sons, Albert, to write "his insane mother" that "she would not worry about anything. Including, about Edward." After the death of Mileva, Einstein put his youngest son in a psychiatric hospital, where he died. Father never visited him once.
The years spent in marriage with Mileva were Einstein's most fruitful years. After 1914, his physics became conservative, research on scientific literature stopped, and innovative ideas like the Theory of Relativity ran out. Researchers believe that creative ideas belonged to Mileva, and that when she disappeared from Einstein's life, his genius also disappeared. Physicist Evan Harris Lorent believes that Mileva was the author of the main points of the theory of relativity.
In 1987, Einstein's letters to Mileva were published. Most of them belonged to the last period of their relationship, many letters relating to the beginning of their relationship were destroyed by Einstein. In 13 of the 43 letters of Einstein to his wife, she speaks of her work or co-authored work. Einstein never explained how the idea of \u200b\u200bthe Theory of Relativity came to his mind: “The secret of creativity is the ability not to divulge your sources” (A. Einstein).
The consequences of the fact that a woman, rather than a man, may turn out to be a recognized author of the modern physical and mathematical concept of the structure of the universe, are significant. Einstein is an archetype of male genius. His image became a household name of an absent-minded scientist, too busy with his creative inner world, which should not be disturbed by his wife and children, completely unable to understand his transcendental task. We can imagine millions of women sacrificed for the triumph of their husbands. Researchers, artists, women philosophers, women authors of scientific and literary works, who first become co-authors, then helpers, and then even former wives, forgotten and deceived by the men to whom they dedicated their lives. How ridiculous it seems to us the stereotype of a man proud of his accomplishments, to whom his wife scratches equations from between dirty plates and diapers on a piece of paper, which he will subsequently flaunt before the world.
***
I want to dedicate this book to Mileva, all the Miles of the past, present and future, with the hope that they will discover new concepts of the universe and be recognized, loved and respected by their patrons.
I must admit that at one time I chose natural-scientific activity in order to understand the Theory of Relativity, perhaps in imitation of Einstein. Now I understand that in reality I would like to imitate Mileva, but Mileva another, future happy and equal world "
