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

Chapter 40
Nobel Prize: Einstein + Bohr
In 1922 the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Bohr and at the same time
with a one-year delay the 1921 Prize was given to Einstein. The pressure to
give Einstein the Prize had mounted in the aftermath of the First World War
with Einstein rising as a symbol for German-British reconciliation, but relativity
theory skeptics had been dominating the Nobel Committee, until in two of them
(Hasselberg and Granquist) passed away and were replaced by a strong proponent
of modern physics Oseen and Siegbahn. The 1922 Prize came out from a battle
between to following key actors:
• Gullstrand (against Einstein),
• Arrhenius (against Einstein),
• Oseen (for Einstein), new member of the Committee 1922.
Gullstrand had consistently blocked giving the Prize to Einstein despite many
nominations during 1910-21, including one by Bohr in 1920, based on his harsh
criticism: of Einstein’s relativity theory:
• Time and space can be described variously, but even if absolute time cannot
be measured, thereof one cannot deduce that that time in its essence is
relative, or even that it is advantageous to describe time a relative.
• .(Einstein’s thought experiments concern)...relativity that lies entirely outside
the realm of experience and can therefore only be embraced by belief.
• Relativity theory has the character of an article of faith rather than a scientific
hypothesis, and in accordance with the doctrine’s own needs Nature is
rearranged so that any falsification is unthinkable.
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