16.556 the lone scholar in the sciences

From: Humanist Discussion Group (by way of Willard McCarty ) (willard@mccarty.me.uk)
Date: Sun Mar 16 2003 - 03:40:23 EST

  • Next message: Humanist Discussion Group (by way of Willard McCarty ): "16.557 wireless & humanities computing?"

                   Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 16, No. 556.
           Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
                       www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/
                         Submit to: humanist@princeton.edu

             Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2003 08:37:10 +0000
             From: Willard McCarty <willard@mccarty.me.uk>
             Subject: the lone scholar in the sciences

    Albert Einstein, from an address at a celebration of Max Planck's 60th
    birthday (1918), delivered before the Physical Society in Berlin; published
    in Mein Weltbild (Amsterdam: Querido Verlag, 1934); the following is from
    Albert Einstein, Ideas and Opinions, transl. Sonja Bargmann (New York:
    Three Rivers Press, 1954): 224-5.

    "In the temple of science are many mansions, and various indeed are they
    that dwell therein and the motives that have led them thither. Many take to
    science out of a joyful sense of superior intellectual power; science is
    their own special sport to which they look for vivid experience and the
    satisfaction of ambition; many others are to be found in the temple who
    have offered the products of their brains on this altar for purely
    utilitarian purposes. Were an angel of the Lord to come and drive all the
    people belonging to these two categories out of the temple, the assemblage
    would be seriously depleted, but there would still be some men, of both
    present and past times, left inside. Our Planck is one of them, and that is
    why we love him.

    "I am quite aware that we have just now light-heartedly expelled in
    imagination many excellent men who are largely, perhaps chiefly,
    responsible for the building of the temple of science; and in many cases
    our angel would find it a pretty ticklish job to decide. But of one thing I
    feel sure: if the types we have just expelled were the only types there
    were, the temple would never have come to be, any more than a forest can
    grow which consists of nothing but creepers. For these people any sphere of
    human activity will do, if it comes to a point; whether they become
    engineers, officers, tradesmen, or scientists depends on circumstances. Now
    let us have another look at those who have found favor with the angel. Most
    of them are somewhat odd, uncommunicative, solitary fellows, really less
    like each other, in spite of these common characteristics, than the hosts
    of the rejected. What has brought them to the temple? That is a difficult
    question and no single answer will cover it. To begin with, I believe with
    Schopenhauer that one of the strongest motives that leads men to art and
    science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless
    dreariness, from the fetters of one's own ever shifting desires. A finely
    tempered nature longs to escape from personal life into the world of
    objective perception and thought; this desire may be compared with the
    townsman's irresistible longing to escape from his noisy, cramped
    surroundings into the silence of high mountains, where the eye ranges
    freely through the still, pure air and fondly traces out the restful
    contours apparently built for eternity."

    Yours,
    WM

    Dr Willard McCarty | Senior Lecturer | Centre for Computing in the
    Humanities | King's College London | Strand | London WC2R 2LS || +44 (0)20
    7848-2784 fax: -2980 || willard.mccarty@kcl.ac.uk
    www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/wlm/

    Dr Willard McCarty | Senior Lecturer | Centre for Computing in the
    Humanities | King's College London | Strand | London WC2R 2LS || +44 (0)20
    7848-2784 fax: -2980 || willard.mccarty@kcl.ac.uk
    www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/wlm/



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sun Mar 16 2003 - 03:41:30 EST