Why You Should Not Pay Attention to Einstein

Why You Should Not Read Einstein

Time Magazine called Al one of the most important figures of the 20th Century.
If you put up a prize of $10,000 to discover the only scientist the public knows by
name – think about it for a second – yeah it’s Al. So what? Al said:

“If “A” is a success in life, then “A” equals x+y+z. Work is “x”, play is “y’, and“z” is keeping your mouth shut.” Smart or what?

Wait. Aside from other scientists (and not all of them), who can explain in plainEnglish what Al stands for? Who really knows the meaning of E=MC2? Forgettaboutit.

Edison had over a thousand patents – Al had none. We remember his light bulb,
maybe the first movies, and the first recordings. Problem: Edison was replaced
in electricity by Tesla. Who is he?

Tesla

The super scientist was not Edison but a Croatian (next door to Hungary in CentralEurope) called Nikola Tesla (1856-1943). He knocked Edison out of the electricity game by inventing Alternating Current, which left Direct Current with no market.

Now we all know you don’t have to understanding how a car motor (internal combustion) gets you from home to the dentist’s office – to successfully drive.Same with electricity, all you do is touch the light switch, right?

Inquiring Minds will remember this. It takes a rotating magnet to run
‘electric motors’, and AC beat out DC because it can raise or lower voltage
as required. DC cannot produce electricity over long distances, Tesla could.

Two last things Inquiring Minds must know: George Westinghouse hired
Tesla and gave him a piece of the action which would have made him a
billionaire. Bad-Luck Tesla said, “No-thanks, buy me out for cash upfront.”

Second, U.S. Supreme Court in 1943 ruled that Nikola Tesla (not Marconi)
invented radio. Gotta make you rich, right? Never made a dime and died that
year.

Al Einstein

Tea Baggers are great believers in “common sense”, and like all good con men
they start off with stuff their audience agrees with. Common sense works in
some things, but not others.

It was common sense that the earth was flat and if you sailed far enough your ship would fall off the end. Columbus had no common sense and won the Gold Ring by
finding the new world. Chris was no genius – he was certain he discovered China or
India, but at least he didn’t drown by falling off the edge.

Who Cares

Al said, “Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.”
Maybe next time we will not be so proud of our brilliant common sense. Al won the
Nobel Prize in 1921. He gave all the winnings to his first wife as a lump sum alimony settlement. “Cheap at twice the price”, he said.

What Else

Al once wrote, “Not everything that COUNTS can be counted, and not everything
that can be COUNTED – counts.” He went on to say – “ Imagination is more important than knowledge.” He explained that by the fact that within five-years, 90% of knowledge becomes obsolete, but imagination lives forever.

Al lived in Princeton’s Institute of Advanced Study. He arrived in 1933 stayed until 1955 when he cashed in his chips. Al left his brain for study to Princeton. He made the following comments: see if they work over a half-century later.

“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent.It takes a touch of genius and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.”

Al got U.S. President Roosevelt to invest billions during World War Two to create
an Atomic Bomb. It wiped out Hiroshima and Nagasaki – about a quarter of a million Japanese and ended the war a couple of years sooner. He was nervous
about the future of nuclear energy for weapons, which made him even more intelligent.

Intuition

Al believed in Play, recreation time. He knew that the more he played the stronger
his imagination which produced ideas through spontaneous intuition. He believed in hunches, gut-reactions and insights. Intuition is from Latin meaning to gaze at and contemplate. It is the opposite of reasoning.

He once said, “The only real valuable thing is Intuition .” He credited intuition with his theory of relativity. He did not believe in thinking about the future – “I never think about the future, it comes soon enough.”

He owned a sailboat he used on Long Island sound, took long walking tours, and tried to play golf and tennis unsuccessfully. But he Played regularly.

Philosophy

What the secret of your genius, professor?

“The important thing is to NEVER stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reasonfor existing.” What else? “Two things are INFINITE: the universe and human stupidity. And I am not certain about the universe.”

About your education?

“The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education. Education is whatremains after one has forgotten everything he has learned in school. I look at it this
way: you cannot solve problems with the same kind of thinking we used when we created them (the problems).”

Do you have a secret to put yourself in a creative mood – like Buddhist meditation ?

“No reporter has ever asked me that. Yes, and it is simple but effective. I am serious.
I chant three-words – they originate in Hebrew and mean Master-of-the Universe.
Ribono-Shel-Olam.”

How?

Do not complicate it, just chant out loud Ribono-Shel-Olam, Ribono-Shel-Olam-Ribono-Shel-Olam etc. for four minutes. It is another version of the Buddhist mantra – OM – pronounced in three sounds A-O-M.

It really works?

“No, I do it to train myself to become an Opera Singer like Caruso.”

I’ll try it.

“Do your own mind experiment and be a scientist. OM has a history of a few thousand years, and Ribono Shel Olam was used in ancient Israel to arrest
stress. I recommend both Chants for relaxation leading to intuition .”

Thank you Sir.---

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