It is shocking to say that perhaps the most renowned scientist in history is not a scientist. But according to the Value Zodiac model, Albert Einstein was probably the scientist’s nemesis: the shaman.
Einstein was a theorist. Theorists are thinkers who use conceptualization to make educated guesses to discover the truth. Theorists often intuit an answer. They come across ideas that seem to “make sense” to them, reflecting the central value theme of harmony that the Shaman represents.
Physicists have long understood that electricity and magnetism are related. The question facing physicists in Einstein’s day was how electricity and magnetism (E&M) were related to the classical Newtonian physics of moving bodies.
The way Einstein intuited his path into history highlights Einstein’s shamanic disposition. Einstein began by using the unusual experimental tool of the thought experiment. Unlike traditional experimentation, which relies on establishing a unique set of circumstances in the physical world, controlling variables, and measuring results, thought experiment takes place entirely in the imaginative mind.
When Einstein was 16 years old, he envisioned himself trying to chase a beam of light. He realized that if he moved at the speed of light along the beam, he would see the beam as if it were in a fixed location according to his perspective. This was his first hint of what eventually became his special theory of relativity.
Einstein began developing relativity by assuming that the speed of light was constant. At the time, he had no physical evidence for this, but he inferred it from the work of another scientist named Maxwell, who had done pioneering work in the field of E&M. Assuming that the speed of light was constant, Einstein created a couple of thought experiments.
Taken to the next level, Einstein imagined himself and his wife looking at each other across an open field. Einstein was standing on a moving railroad car. His wife stood at a fixed point on the ground. If Einstein were to shoot a particle of light between two horizontal plates in his car, he would see the particle moving up and down between the plates, but his wife would see the particle bouncing up and down but along diagonal paths as the cart was moving downward. track.
If our assumption that the speed of light is constant is true, this creates a paradox because the particle that both parties see is hitting the mirrors at the same time, even though the particle appears to travel a longer distance as Einstein’s wife sees it. while traveling at the same speed.
This makes no sense. How can two things travel different distances at the same time while moving at the same speed? The answer is to examine the clocks each person uses to measure time. Einstein’s clock ticks at a slower rate than his wife’s. This is the concept of time dilation.
Einstein made this leap of logic without a shred of experimental data. He reasoned his way to this result in his head. It made it possible to derive his famous mass-energy equivalence relation.
Many of his contemporary physicists roundly condemned his findings, accusing Einstein of circular reasoning. His postulation that the speed of light was a constant made his calculations tremendously easy and elegant. But he was right!
Good theorists are rarely good experimentalists. Because they often focus on the big picture or big ideas, they often quickly get bored with the mundane exertion associated with scientific experimentation. Although Einstein published his general theory of relativity in 1915, relativity was not provided an experimental basis until Arthur Eddington and his team made observations of stars during a solar eclipse in 1919. This again illustrates how important it is to people with different life’s work approaches. together to maximize the impact of both.
Einstein was a shaman. Shamans always seek simplicity. The elegance of E = mc2 lies in its ability to condense so much complicated physics into one simple relationship. This simple relationship “made sense” to Einstein. It reflected the central value theme of harmony that is associated with the shaman.
The same sentiment that led to his greatest advancement also led him later to his greatest professional challenge after other scientists began to develop the probability-centered theory of quantum physics. Einstein famously said: “God does not play dice.” Since quantum theory made no sense to him, he rejected it despite the experimental data that emerged to support it. He worked until the end of his life trying to disprove quantum physics. In the end, Einstein was relegated to the fringes of his profession because quantum theory conflicted with his worldview. Einstein’s story only proves the central tenet of the Zodiac of Courage: that we all have unique gifts which are the worldview that helps us find tremendous insight, but if we don’t keep an open mind to other points of view, we can lose what it does. we great.