Einstein The Dharma Of Science

A Buddhist Thought of the Day

The belief in an external world independent of the perceiving subject is the basis of all natural science. Since, however, sense perception only gives information of this external world or of "physical reality" indirectly, we can only grasp the latter by speculative means. It follows from this that our notions of physical reality can never be final. We must always be ready to change these notions - that is to say, the axiomatic basis of physics - in order to do justice to perceived facts in the most perfect way logically.

-Einstein ...

Stephen Hawking Raises The Big Questions And Some Answers Of The Universe

A TEDBlog Stephen Hawking Asking Big Questions about the universe: on TED.com.

In keeping with the theme of TED2008, professor Stephen Hawking asks some Big Questions about our universe -- How did the universe begin? How did life begin? Are we alone? -- and discusses how we might go about answering them.(Recorded March 2008 in Monterey, California, and in Cambridge, UK.

Watch Stephen Hawking's talk on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances.

Read more about Stephen Hawking on TED.com.

The TEDBlog was also kind enough to point out that the answer was there all along

In his TEDTalk released today, physicist Stephen Hawking asks Big Questions about life, the universe and everything. His talk was recorded at Cambridge, in a borrowed classroom -- whose well-used blackboard happens to contain the Answer to life, the universe and everything. It's visible in the upper-right-hand corner of the shot above, and in this inset:



Thanks for the tip, Robert Todd!

The Last Titan, The Only Physics Superhero Still Standing Leaves Us

Today I learned from the Los Angeles Times that John Wheeler had passed away.

OBITUARIES John A. Wheeler, 96; physicist coined the term 'black hole'

The title for this post is from a quote in the New York Times obituary.

My relations to the world of physics is the same as your average couch potato to the New York Giants. I stare fascinated at the exotic worlds envisioned by the minds of physicists and cosmologists though I do not have the formal education, especially math, to fully understand.

I do, however, have a great appreciation for their intelligence and imagination. It was more though with John Wheeler. He knew and discussed with Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr the laws of the universe. He was the Princeton thesis supervisor for both Richard Feynman and Hugh Everett. There is little hesitation to title John Wheeler a patriarch of 20th century American physics but what always came across to me was his humanity. One of my favorite books was Kip Thorne's Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy. In those pages he describes John Wheeler's celebration of his own birthday in which he lit a fireworks display beneath his chair at a Physics Seminar. What was most impressive to me was the conciseness of thought combined with wonder.

Paper in white the floor of the room, and rule it off in one-foot squares. Down on one's hands and knees, write in the first square a set of equations conceived as able to govern the physics of the universe. Think more overnight. Next day put a better set of equations into square two. Invite one's most respected colleagues to contribute to other squares. At the end of these labors, one has worked oneself out into the doorway. Stand up, look back on all those equations, some perhaps more hopeful than others, raise one's finger commandingly, and give the order "Fly!" Not one of those equations will put on wings, take off, or fly. Yet the universe "flies".

John Wheeler

Professor Walter Lewin, Web Star Rocks

At 71, Physics Professor Is a Web Star - New York Times

At 71, Physics Professor Is a Web Star

"CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Walter H. G. Lewin, 71, a physics professor, has long had a cult following at M.I.T. And he has now emerged as an international Internet guru, thanks to the global classroom the institute created to spread knowledge through cyberspace."

I am one of the many who have enjoyed Professor Lewin's online lectures having gone through his Physics 8.01 and 8.02 video lectures. It was Professor Lewin who showed me the potential of the Internet as a tool for education and learning. Of course the true value is in Professor Lewin himself, the world wide web is merely a highly scalable medium for dissemination. His approach to teaching both in the class room and on the web is an inspiration of what can be created with passion, which is what Professor Lewin exhibits in every class.

"Professor Lewin delivers his lectures with the panache of Julia Child bringing French cooking to amateurs and the zany theatricality of YouTube’s greatest hits. He is part of a new generation of academic stars who hold forth in cyberspace on their college Web sites and even, without charge, on iTunes U, which went up in May on Apple’s iTunes Store."

Professor Lewin's lectures and other MIT lectures are featured in the Education web-slide found at the post Philosophy For Kids Starting Paradigm Shifts Early .

Beauty & Truth Is The Essence Of The Universe

Paradigm Pathways Science

Beauty and truth in physics: Murray Gell-Mann on TED.com

What is especially striking and remarkable is that
in fundamental physics
a beautiful or elegant theory is more likely to be right
than a theory that is inelegant.