A long time ago I purchased a small book about the theory of relativity. I ran across this book the other day while doing a cleansing of my bookshelves. I put it in the “keep” pile.
The book goes over the Simple and the General theories in a way so most people who don’t have advanced mathematics and physics degrees can understand them. I remember reading the book about three times. After I read it another three or four I will probably have a decent general understanding of both theories.
All but a small handful of people can just begin to understand many of the concepts and ideas that Einstein came up with during his storied lifetime. I would think that more people could identify Einstein from a photo than understand any of his ideas. How sad it is that many of us can only come up with one fact about Einstein – that he had bad hair (or good hair, depending on how you look at it). He probably got into trouble once in a while while he was a kid too. Perhaps he had to serve a detention on occasion.
Other people who have literally changed the world for the better probably had issues in their earlier lives as well. Jonas Salk may have received a speeding ticket. Louis Pasteur perhaps had some issues. So what. These men, and so many others did so much to help humankind that relatively small issues in their past are simply drowned out by their accomplishments.
Imagine my shock and dismay when I saw the smear campaign that our wonderful media has begun against Jeanne Assam. This woman shot the crazed gunman dead at the incidents in Colorado over the weekend. She should be honored, thanked, given the key to the city and should have had a stinking parade in her honor. Instead, we find out that she had a minor issue when she was a cop in Minneapolis, and some other completely trivial things about her.
Then the press (and the cops?) came out with a statement that the assailant killed himself with a self inflicted gunshot wound. Well, he was going to do that anyways (I assume), but thankfully the process was moved along by Ms. Assam who (bless her heart) put several leaks into the assailant’s body. As a side note, I am interested to see what she was carrying, and where she shot him. I bet she got several shots center mass.
It is the biggest day of this woman’s life, she no doubt saved the lives of perhaps hundreds of people and the media digs up some horsesh1t about her having an argument with a bus driver. And Einstein was just that hair guy.
For shame. Then again, the media has been beyond shame for a very long time.
Cross posted at LITGM.
Quite a few people seem to feel the need to belittle those who have abilities they do not themselves possess. This unpleasant characteristic seems to be particularly common among journalists. Hence, the journalist who couldn’t learn algebra wants to think of Einstein as a guy who had weird hair. And a journalist who lacks physical courage wants to find something bad in Jeanne Assam’s background.
I think the textbook example of this phenomenon would be Oskar Schindler, a life-long con man who nevertheless managed to save 1,500 jews from the heart of the Holocaust at great personal risk to himself and his wife. He never did a single unselfish worthwhile thing before or after but that one act ennobled him forever.