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

36.2. WILHELM WIEN 165
36.2 Wilhelm Wien
Wilhelm Wien (1864 - 1928) received the NP for Physics in 1911 for his
displacement law concerning the radiation emitted by the perfectly efficient
blackbody.
• But no Anglo-Saxon can understand relativity. (Said at a dinner in
1910, teasing Ernest Rutherford, who replied, No, they have too much
sense.)
36.3 Hannes Alfvén NP for Physics in 1970
• Many people probably felt relieved when told that the true nature of
the world could not be understood except by Einstein and a few other
geniuses who were able to think in four dimensions. They had tried to
understand science, but now it was evident that science was something
to believe in, not something which should be understood [?].
36.4 Oppenheimer
• Princeton is a madhouse and Einstein is completely cuckoo.
36.5 Ehrenfest
• Einstein I am ashamed of you...you are arguing against the new quantum
theory jsut as your opponents argue about relativity theory.
36.6 Louis Essen
The world’s leading scientist on time measurement, Louis Essen (1908-97),
Fellow of the Royal Soceity and inventor of the atomic clock (used with his
approval in relativity experiments), rejects Einstein’s relativity:
• Einstein’s theory of relativity is invalidated by its internal errors. Einstein’s
use of a thought experiment, together with his ignorance of experimental
techniques, gave a result which fooled himself and generations