Dr Faustus of Modern Physics - Department of Speech, Music and ...

Chapter 27
Accusations
We cannot teach people anything; we can only help them discover it
within themselves. (Galileo)
The reader is asked to act as jury in a trial against Boltzmann, Planck,
Einstein and Bohr to decide if scientific crimes have been committed in the
following cases:
• 2nd Law of Thermodynamics by Boltzmann,
• Blackbody Radiation by Planck,
• Special Relativity by Einstein,
• Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics by Bohr.
The jury will be presented confessions by the accused, listen to witnesses and
background material, in order to make a fair verdict based on evidence.
The jury will hear the accused “gang of four” confess that violations were
made, but defend themselves by claiming that what they did was necessary
to save science from collapse, and if they hadn’t done it, someone else would,
and so they only did what science asked them to do. The jury will also hear
the accused witness about the sorrow and emptiness in their hearts after
trading their scientific souls in the deal.
The accusations against the individual scientists are listed below with
short descriptions under different headlines:
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