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From: gjphw@iham1.UUCP (wyant)
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Re: Re: meta-physics
Message-ID: <428@iham1.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 15-Aug-85 11:05:07 EDT
Article-I.D.: iham1.428
Posted: Thu Aug 15 11:05:07 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 18-Aug-85 01:25:25 EDT
References: <476@sri-arpa.ARPA> <529@utastro.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 29

> > I saw some references to Einstein saying though
> > he was "adventurous" in his thoughts, others could verify his
> > arguments.  Not so.  His ideas were rejected by the "scientific community"
> > for years before they accepted them.  None the less, he continued.  
> 
> This is historically inaccurate.  Einstein's theories, published in 
> 1905, attracted attention quite early.
>                                             Bill Jefferys

 I would like to amplify what Bill Jefferys said about A. Einstein.  There
 was no time, to my knowledge, when Albert or his ideas/theories were
 considered crank or dismissed by the scientific community.  Albert always
 dwelt with the major issues in physics at the turn of the century.

 Einstein's difficulties with the scientific community stemmed not from
 his physics but from his personality.  As a young man, Albert was almost
 insufferably arrogant.  In the small academic community of 1900, the
 reputation and character of any aspiring university professor would be
 well known to most established departments.  His arrogance was in part
 to blame for Albert's inability to land a university position right out
 of college (which, with some help, led to the patent office job, which
 allowed Albert ample spare time without pressure to consider the grand
 design and operation of the universe, which produced papers on the 
 photoelectric effect, special relativity, and some of the concepts toward
 general relativity).

                            Patrick Wyant
                            AT&T Bell Laboratories (Naperville, IL)
                            *!iham1!gjphw