We love the story of the lone, eccentric genius.
We believe that the next great leap forward in human understanding must come from a single person — that all of science is waiting for the next Einstein.
Plenty of would-be Einsteins publish their theories, some in non-peer reviewed wastelands like Academia.edu and even Scribd.com, others on arxiv.org if they manage to get an endorsement, and still others in peer reviewed journals where their theories may garner a few citations.
Some email them to me.
Few who entertain such delusions of grandeur understand Einstein’s actual achievements.
Politics is said to be the art of the possible. Science is doubly so. Einstein’s achievements: Brownian motion, special and general relativity, the photoelectric effect, Bose-Einstein condensation, and so on were achievements that were made possible by what was going on around him at the time. Einstein did not set out to make some earth shattering discovery nor did he entertain some delusion about what he had achieved after the fact. Rather he exercised his imagination and curiosity to work out the principles by which the world worked.
Isaac Newton did as much as well.
It is not that they didn’t recognize the implications of their discoveries or feel pride in them — they certainly did. The issue is that neither was seeking stardom when they made their discoveries. They were seeking truth.
Einstein didn’t even enjoy the stardom that came to him. Always for him it was about what was true. How did the world work? That he chased after a grand unified theory in his old age, one that could never have anticipated the development of the Standard Model of quantum physics, wasn’t a delusion, but a continuing search for the nature of reality.
The world of theoretical physics certainly needs its next Einstein now because it is hopelessly stuck in the same way that physics was stuck in the late 19th century.
To understand what gave rise to Einstein’s achievements and thus what the next one might look like we have to look at what was going on at the time in physics.
The 19th century had been a rollercoaster ride for physics. From the 18th century’s investigations into electricity (think Benjamin Franklin’s kite) came a unified theory of electricity and magnetism through James Clerk Maxwell (perhaps the Einstein of his century). From 18th century thinking about engines came statistical mechanics, the study of how microscopic particles give rise to thermodynamics, through Gibbs and Boltzmann. By the end of the century, most of physics’ outstanding problems appeared to be solved and the rest was just some mopping up.
Then along came Max Planck with his light quanta to try to solve the problem of blackbody radiation. Along came particles of pollen in liquid that wouldn’t stop jiggling. Along came anomalies in the orbit of Mercury that defied Newton’s universal law of gravitation (untouched since the 17th century!) Along came measurements of the speed of light in vacuum which was baked into Maxwell’s own equations for the propagation of electromagnetic waves. Could you catch up to a light beam?
Einstein saw all of this in the journals and discussions of the time, but he did not look at it and say, “I will be famous for solving all of this.” Instead, he said, “why?” “How does this all fit together?”
By thinking deeply about these problems and trying to determine the principles by which they worked, Einstein was able to make discoveries that rocked the world. Using the best mathematics of the time, he turned his theories into predictions that could be tested. In effect, he wanted to know not only if his ideas made sense to him but if they would hold up against experimental testing. Why else would he spend so much time calculating predictions in his papers and not just laying out the basic principles or ideas?
Indeed, Einstein’s approach to physics was somewhat novel for the time — called an analytical approach because he used mathematics to turn theories into predictions and published these rather than making observations himself. Today we call it theoretical physics.
Even after publishing, Einstein did not believe he had solved it all. He continued searching for deeper insights, but much of science left him behind with huge inroads being made in quantum mechanics in the 1930s-50s. Einstein was left out of these discoveries, focusing instead on poking holes in quantum theory and making more predictions from his general relativity, most of which wouldn’t be confirmed for decades.
Nevertheless, without Einstein, physics wouldn’t be what it is today, and now may be the time for another hero to show us the way forward.
Here are a seven qualities I believe the next Einstein will need to have:
1 Driven by imagination and curiosity
Isaac Newton famously said about his life:
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.
I believe that Einstein shared his attitude. As I mentioned above, if you aren’t motivated by curiosity and a desire to understand how the world and the universe work, you won’t get very far. Solving tricky mathematical problems won’t help either. You have to think beyond what is known but also avoid getting lost.
2 Thinks outside the box
You don’t have to understand your own theory but it does have to be different.
Both Newton and Einstein famously misunderstood their own theories believing they implied things that they did not and that they precluded things that they also did not. So, a requirement for the next Einstein is not a perfect understanding of reality. Indeed, if you did perfectly understand your own theory, it probably wouldn’t be that new or it would just be an invention of your own mind with little relationship to reality. A true paradigm shift tends to leave its inventor in the dust.
3 Leaves ego out of it and trusts the evidence
The next Einstein will not be a person who sees science as a means to validate their self-worth nor as a way to become famous. That isn’t to say they will be morally pure. Newton clearly enjoyed proving his superiority to others even when it was unearned. Einstein certainly felt superior as well. But that feeling of superiority did not get in the way of exercising curiosity and wonder.
Moreover the next Einstein will not be someone who, once they have put two and two together in a way that pleases them, call their life’s mission complete and spend the rest of it trying to convince people that their theory is the right one. Nor will they believe that they can blithely dismiss the edifice of modern science as rubbish because they believe that they are right.
Rather they will be a person who approaches the laws of nature with humility and a great respect for the giants on whose shoulders they stand. They will be one who avoids “fooling themselves” as Richard Feynman said. Moreover they will be one who creatively works out the rules by which the universe works while keeping their ego at bay.
4 Climbs onto the shoulders of giants
They will be one who understands all the physics upon which their ideas rest intimately even if that physics spans multiple subfields. (For one who sticks to a subfield frequently suffers from the “every problem a nail, every tool a hammer” tunnel vision.) Both Einstein and Newton understood the physics of their time extremely well and read widely. Newton was a towering figure in mathematics as well while Einstein at least had a grasp of the mathematics he needed.
In any case, the next Einstein will have their work cut out trying to develop a global, bird’s eye view of the current state of physics. When we are all down in the trenches working on our own ideas, we tend to dig our holes deeper. To cut a new path requires making connections between disconnected ideas. That often requires climbing out of your hole and jumping into another one — or another ten.
5 Uses the best technology has to offer
The next Einstein will probably be more Einstein than Newton. Newton lived at a time when physicists, called Natural Philosophers, did all their own experiments and observations and built all their own tools. Newton was brilliant in all regards for being as competent at making telescopes and grinding lenses (sometimes referred to as 17th century software development), making nightly observations, and wielding mathematics to make it all make sense. Einstein largely left experimentation up to others and his only tools were his imagination and paper or a blackboard.
The next Einstein will certainly have computers and perhaps even artificial intelligence as their tools in addition to imagination. Trying to do things the same way people in the past did things is a mistake. The next Einstein will look at what the best physicists are doing right now and do it better.
One reason is the mathematics used in theoretical physics is vastly more complex than anything used in Einstein’s day. Einstein didn’t even have a notion of gauge theory, which featured prominently in his own theory without his understanding it. Now most of physics rests upon it. Computers are essential for solving equations that which can’t be solved any other way.
6 Seeks out mentors and collaborators
Both Einstein and Newton had their helpers. Newton had early mentors from grammar school to Cambridge where he became the Lucasian professor only after his mentor and first occupier of the position that Stephen Hawking would one day fill left for a post in London. Later Edmund Haley nursed his theories into the light of day. Without Haley, Newton’s theories might have never been published.
Einstein had friends and early mentors to help him with mathematics as well as elders, like Max Planck, willing to entertain ideas that didn’t always sound plausible to older ears.
7 Works with the system, not against it
Prejudice kept a lot of players out of the theoretical physics game in past centuries. Now anyone can become the next Einstein. It could be you, but you have to take some steps in the right direction.
With vast education available online it might seem that anyone can learn the physics they need. I agree with that up to a point, but there is no substitute for being exposed to the culture and practice of physics that you get from an advanced degree — not to mention the contacts and mentors you gain. For now, universities remain a gatekeeper that is unlikely to change soon. The next Einstein will almost certainly be affiliated with a university or some research institute.