Einstein vs Newton: Who is the Superior Physicist?

[theoristo]

Who would you choose as the superior physicist ,Einstein or Newton?(judging from their intellect and accomplishments),Russian physicist Lev Landau had a list ,in which Newton was first .Is there an intellect superior to either of them?

 

[Drakkith]

You cannot compare the two and obtain a meaningful answer. At least not in my opinion.

 

[reenmachine]

I will say Newton , just because I can.

 

[bp_psy]

Newton would win in a fistfight. I think.

 

[arildno]

Well, how should one rank people like that in a meaningful way?
Possibly, one might look at the sheer "distance" existing between the accomplishments between guy A and those of his contemporary peers, that is, how much farther ahead a person was than the rest of his time?

My personal choice in that respect would be neither of the two mentioned (but I'd go for Newton if I have to), and I end up with Archimedes instead as an all-time winner.

 

[Nugatory]

Who would you choose as the superior physicist ,Einstein or Newton?(judging from their intellect and accomplishments),Russian physicist Lev Landau had a list ,in which Newton was first .Is there an intellect superior to either of them?

You can't compare them until you've specified how you're going to parallel transport them to the same point in space-time.

 

[Pythagorean]

They're too close to each other to compare. It would be easier to compare such people to your or me in which we can safely say that either of them are far superior physicists.

But to compare them to each other would require such careful definitions of superiority that we would lose sight of the forest for the trees. They are equally large forests. A tree count may reveal one forest has slighlty more trees, but a biomass measurement may reveal the other has more mass. Any way you choose to score such differences will be at the mercy of subjectivity.

 

[lugita15]

Here's one data point: Newton and Galileo overthrew a theory that had been dominant for about two millennia. Einstein overthrew a theory that had been dominant for about two centuries.

Here's another consideration: I think the ideas that motion is relative, objects in motion tend to stay in motion, and the Earth is moving, are far more shocking to human intuition than Einstein's total reworking of the notions of space and time. The only reason we're not shocked by the former notions as much is because we've been brought up on them. Read the book "The Sleepwalkers" by Arthur Koestler to find out just how mind-blowing they were at the time, and what incredible ingenuity it took to come up with them.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Here's one data point: Newton and Galileo overthrew a theory that had been dominant for about two millennia. Einstein overthrew a theory that had been dominant for about two centuries.

Here's another consideration: I think the ideas that motion is relative, objects in motion tend to stay in motion, and the Earth is moving, are far more shocking to human intuition than Einstein's total reworking of the notions of space and time. The only reason we're not shocked by the former notions as much is because we've been brought up on them. Read the book "The Sleepwalkers" by Arthur Koestler to find out just how mind-blowing they were at the time, and what incredible ingenuity it took to come up with them.

Thanks for the recommendation. Another book that makes the same point is The Clockwork Universe, by Edward Dolnick. Newton's 'Universal Gravitation' was a more shocking idea in it's day than Relativity was in Einstein's.

 

[jim hardy]

It'd be interesting to follow Einstein's thought processes as he figured all this out.
I never got past his concept of simultaneity.

That clocks in motion slow down I can accept
but that actual time progresses at a variable rate I cannot.

So to me it's still an unsolved riddle. In my simple mind , time should be the 'universal frame of reference' he sought

All observers have so far got the same answer for speed of light
Has anybody measured it on the moon yet, or out where Pioneer spacecraft is?

Not challenging relativity
just i'd sure like to find a layman's explanation as to why time has to vary instead of c .. That'd be one less riddle on my bucket list.
Surely there's a few out there ?

old jim

 

[Evo]

It's a tough decision, I've watched a documentary on Newton and I've read Einstein for Dummies, very tough.

 

[TurtleMeister]

My vote would be for Newton. Universal gravitation must have been very profound in his time. However, my opinion means very little because even though I have a good grasp on Newton's work my understanding of Einstein's work is lacking.

 

[MathJakob]

When comparing two people like this you need to think about the possibilities that were possible at their respective times. It's so difficult to answer questions like this and usually I just avoid them but although my favorite person in history is Albert Einstein, I have to say that Newtons contributions were stronger than Einsteins.

Both were great men, both accomplished great feats and I hate comparing the two, it's like we're trying to take something away from one of them, or credit one or the other. It's like asking who was better Mike Tyson or Muhammad Ali. It just doesn't feel right.

 

[Akaisora]

Einstein; That haircut.

 

[lugita15]

I never got past his concept of simultaneity.

That clocks in motion slow down I can accept
but that actual time progresses at a variable rate I cannot.

So to me it's still an unsolved riddle. In my simple mind , time should be the 'universal frame of reference' he sought

All observers have so far got the same answer for speed of light
Has anybody measured it on the moon yet, or out where Pioneer spacecraft is?

Not challenging relativity
just i'd sure like to find a layman's explanation as to why time has to vary instead of c .. That'd be one less riddle on my bucket list.
Surely there's a few out there ?

Why don't you post a question on the relativity subforum?

 

[dkotschessaa]

Leibniz.

Oh wait...

 

[Enigman]

I end up with Archimedes instead as an all-time winner.

Now that's what I am talking about! ARCHIE ROCKS!

It'd be interesting to follow Einstein's thought processes as he figured all this out.
I never got past his concept of simultaneity.

That clocks in motion slow down I can accept
but that actual time progresses at a variable rate I cannot.

Time is what a clock shows.

So to me it's still an unsolved riddle. In my simple mind , time should be the 'universal frame of reference' he sought

Actually as far as I know universal frame of reference was supposed to be ether but that got disproved

All observers have so far got the same answer for speed of light
Has anybody measured it on the moon yet, or out where Pioneer spacecraft is?

Admittedly they haven't but if it gave a different value then it would only prove that relativity works on only Earth rather than those places; which gives Earth a some kind of mystical aura of greatness,( Laws here are special, Yippee!)

just i'd sure like to find a layman's explanation as to why time has to vary instead of c .. That'd be one less riddle on my bucket list.
Surely there's a few out there ?

It doesn't have to but it does all the same. Einstein just explained how.
BTW as for understanding his thought process is concerned I think reading his original paper on SR and then Feynman's lecture on the topic might be helpful.

 

[Enigman]

If Cox's study is anything to go by the greatest IQ at least is boasted by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Also Leibniz and Pascal have a greater IQ than Newton, who doesn't even enter the top ten.
http://www.assessmentpsychology.com/301geniuses-2.htm

 

[Evo]

Assigning IQ scores to dead people? OY. If that doesn't prove how meaningless IQ ratings are, I don't know what would.

 

[Enigman]

Well, I guess she was just bored on a Sunday...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catharine_Cox_Miles

She was a professor of clinical psychology at the Yale Medical School and affiliated with Yale's Institute of Human Relations. Earlier she worked at Stanford with Stanford-Binet creator Lewis Terman in issues related to IQ. She is also known for her historiometric study (1926) of IQ estimates of three hundred prominent figures who lived prior to IQ testing, a work which was one of the earliest attempts to apply social scientific methods to the study of genius and greatness.

 

[Enigman]

If that doesn't prove how meaningless IQ ratings are, I don't know what would.

It's only those who already have a thing say that having it is meaningless...

 

[arildno]

Only low-IQ'ers would try to assign IQ to people long gone&dead..

 

[MathJakob]

Garry Kasparov had an IQ of 190 and is one of the smartest people alive today in terms of IQ. Sure he is a chess genius and so he should do well on IQ tests anyway. While IQ doesn't accurately measure how intelligent someone is, it does give you a rough idea how smart someone is. This is not to say that someone with an IQ of 190 will be smarter than someone with an IQ or 160.

It just means that someone with an IQ of 190 should be better and faster at problem solving, finding patterns and have a better memory. What you use those abilities for is irrelevant, meaning that if Garry Kasparov had a passion for physics as a child instead of chess, he would have probably risen to the same level of excellence and genius as he did with chess.

 

[dkotschessaa]

When comparing two people like this you need to think about the possibilities that were possible at their respective times. It's so difficult to answer questions like this and usually I just avoid them but although my favorite person in history is Albert Einstein, I have to say that Newtons contributions were stronger than Einsteins.

Both were great men, both accomplished great feats and I hate comparing the two, it's like we're trying to take something away from one of them, or credit one or the other. It's like asking who was better Mike Tyson or Muhammad Ali. It just doesn't feel right.

I am sure the OP is aware that the question can't be answered directly. But isn't it a great conversation starter?

As far as historical personages I've always felt more attuned to Einstein, who I perceive as somewhat more humble, imaginative, witty, irreverent, and whose genius I feel is a product of hard work more than "innate" talent. I find that very inspiring. But he is also historically more recent and thus, perhaps, easier to relate to.

As a historical personage, Newton was an arrogant fundamentalist that spent a great deal of his time doing pseudo-science. But what's amazing is the amount he accomplished despite spending so much of his time doing the wrong thing. What if he hadn't? What would he have accomplished then? I can't even conceive of it. Huge brain (metaphorically speaking).

-Dave K

 

[Enigman]

'Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night:
God said, Let Newton be! and all was light.' -Alexander Pope
' It could not last; the Devil shouting "Ho!
Let Einstein be!" restored the status quo.' -J.C.Squire

 

[Caveat]

Newton.

 

[UltrafastPED]

Newton was great in many fields:

Optics - theory and experiment; designed and built the first reflector
Physics - systematized the laws of motion, and worked out the Universal Law of Gravitation
Wrote three volumes on the derivations and applications of mechanics & gravitation to real problems
Chemistry - spent a lot of time on chemistry, making his own stuff.

Mathematics - invented the calculus, and developed many useful theorems - didn't publish much because people would steal his ideas, and take credit for them.

Government - served as Master of the Mint, and reduced counterfeiting

In comparison, Einstein was a great theoretical physicist, with a number of accomplishments. But he was not an experimentalist, nor was he a mathematician. Was his work more important than Newton's? Was it better than Clerk-Maxwell's?

 

[zoobyshoe]

As a historical personage, Newton was an arrogant fundamentalist that spent a great deal of his time doing pseudo-science. But what's amazing is the amount he accomplished despite spending so much of his time doing the wrong thing. What if he hadn't? What would he have accomplished then? I can't even conceive of it. Huge brain (metaphorically speaking)

The big discovery that came out when they re-examined all the reams of writing he left is that the greater part of it was religious writings. And not about ethics, but about things like Bible codes, obscure messages he saw woven into the text. Also, in Opticks there is included a long passage of completely crazy stream of consciousness about light. He dropped all pretense of rigor and let loose with a new age sounding jumble of exited dreaming about light.

Learning these things, and let's not forget his extensive work in alchemy, I get a sense of Newton as a thorough lunatic who, unlike most lunatics, discovered he could hold himself together when needed by a strict adherence to rigor and logic.

 

[dkotschessaa]

The big discovery that came out when they re-examined all the reams of writing he left is that the greater part of it was religious writings. And not about ethics, but about things like Bible codes, obscure messages he saw woven into the text. Also, in Opticks there is included a long passage of completely crazy stream of consciousness about light. He dropped all pretense of rigor and let loose with a new age sounding jumble of exited dreaming about light.

Learning these things, and let's not forget his extensive work in alchemy, I get a sense of Newton as a thorough lunatic who, unlike most lunatics, discovered he could hold himself together when needed by a strict adherence to rigor and logic.

And that's what blows my mind. It's as if his full time job was being a total nutter, and he just happened to invent calculus and physics in his "spare time."

This raises interesting questions. My first notion was "he would have done even more if he dropped the nutty stuff." But now I question that. Perhaps his irrational/stream of consciousness work was just part of a total creative flow that allowed him to make the logical leaps necessary for the development of his more successful work.

-Dave K

 

[SW VandeCarr]

Now that's what I am talking about! ARCHIE ROCKS!

Yeah, Archie was good, but I'm a fan of Eratosthenes myself. Newton had Kepler and Galileo. Einstein had Poincare and Lorentz. Erastothenes had Aristotle. Case closed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes

 

[Pythagorean]

I was going to post the epic rap battle for Einstein and Newton, but it did not pass initial review.

 

[DennisN]

I'm always reluctant to compare different persons at different times in history, since they belong to different historical contexts. So there will be no vote on this from me .

That clocks in motion slow down I can accept
but that actual time progresses at a variable rate I cannot. So to me it's still an unsolved riddle. In my simple mind, time should be the 'universal frame of reference' he sought [...] just i'd sure like to find a layman's explanation as to why time has to vary instead of c .. That'd be one less riddle on my bucket list.
Surely there's a few out there?

Suggestion: Try questioning the idea of a universal clock which governs everything (absolute time). That was the final nail in the coffin for the Newtonian me.

Absolute, true and mathematical time, of itself, and from its own nature flows equably without regard to anything external, [...] (Newton, Principia, p.77)

Try question if this idea is really motivated, and, as said by someone else before, you could start a thread in the relativity forum about it (if you haven't already).

 

[WannabeNewton]

I've always wondered what the fascination is of the laypeople with Einstein. There have been tons of threads on this before. Einstein is nothing compared to Newton, as far as contributions to science go; Einstein is extremely overrated in the public sphere. There are so many scientists who have come and gone who deserve so much of the needless attention that is given to Einstein by laypeople. Not only that, but all these discussions always seem to revolve around Einstein the relativist, but Einstein's contributions to statistical mechanics/thermodynamics are what illuminate his true glory.

 

[DennisN]

I've always wondered what the fascination is of the laypeople with Einstein. There have been tons of threads on this before.

Fame, I presume, and that he is historically pretty close to us in time. That's my guess. What also bothers me is that when giants like these are compared, a lot of other important scientists tend to be forgotten .

 

[ZombieFeynman]

Fame, I presume, and that he is historically pretty close to us in time. That's my guess. What also bothers me is that when giants like these are compared, a lot of other important scientists tend to be forgotten .

I think this is the key point. All of these people's work is incomparable.

Why don't people rave about Gibbs? His contributions to science were incredible!

Or what about Bardeen? Laughlin? Landau? Anderson? Wilson?

Not as famous, certainly, but who is to judge?

The problem as I see it with people so eagerly proclaiming Newton as king is that once he had his laws of motion and universal gravitation, no one else could invent them. Science is cumulative, you can only progress on the shoulders of others, giants or otherwise.

 

[Pythagorean]

What's impressive to me about Einstein is that he did research from Brownian motion to photoelectric effect, laser states, solid state energies, to relativity (both special and general) and conceived of the thought experiment that suggests gravity perturbations should travel near the speed of light. He was all over the place.. maybe that was common for the time, I don't know.

It's true that it's not a huge step mathematically from some of the stuff developed at the time (like the retarded potential) to relativity, but Einstein was also very eloquent and philosophical in his discussions and he was popular for his humanitarian views too. They all put his scientific mind into context.

My picture of Newton is an uptight wig that tortured people on the rack for disagreeing with him. I can imagine Newton thrusting his mind into mathematics like priest whips themselves for atonement, self-punishing, monstrous work, abandoned by mother, angry and burying.

I'm not saying that my characterization of either is completely true, but I think this more subjective qualities go along way in forming opinions on seemingly irrelevant merits.

 

[DennisN]

What's impressive to me about Einstein is that he did research from Brownian motion to photoelectric effect, laser states, solid state energies, to relativity (both special and general) and conceived of the thought experiment that suggests gravity perturbations should travel near the speed of light. He was all over the place.. maybe that was common for the time, I don't know.

Yes, I agree, of course he was impressive.

My picture of Newton is an uptight wig that tortured people on the rack for disagreeing with him. I can imagine Newton thrusting his mind into mathematics like priest whips themselves for atonement, self-punishing, monstrous work, abandoned by mother, angry and burying.

Newton the Inquisitor. Nobody expects the Newtonian Inquisition!

 

[atyy]

Landau famously ranked Newton 0 and Einsten 0.5 on a log scale http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lev_Landau#Landau.27s_List

I vote Clausius #2 for his discovery of entropy.

 

[dkotschessaa]

Fame, I presume, and that he is historically pretty close to us in time. That's my guess. What also bothers me is that when giants like these are compared, a lot of other important scientists tend to be forgotten .

I've conjectured that we probably have Newtons and Einsteins all over the place, but we have so many of them that nobody takes notice. I don't believe, as some popular theories suggest, that genius is a thing of the past.

 

[Pythagorean]

My personal favorite is Poincare (whom Einstein seemingly considered a pioneer of relativity).

 

[Enigman]

ARCHIE AND THE TWO LEOs ROCK!
-----------------------------------
(Leonardo da vinci &Galileo I mean)[/size]

 

[WannabeNewton]

It's true that it's not a huge step mathematically from some of the stuff developed at the time (like the retarded potential) to relativity, but Einstein was also very eloquent and philosophical in his discussions and he was popular for his humanitarian views too. They all put his scientific mind into context.

He was also stubborn in his philosophical and scientific beliefs and more than once proven wrong. Newton at least had the godly status to warrant his nature.

 

[SW VandeCarr]

My personal favorite is Poincare (whom Einstein seemingly considered a pioneer of relativity).

For SR, Poincare was a pioneer, along with Lorentz. As far as GR goes, David Hilbert could have claimed priority or at least parity with Einstein. And don't forget Bose in Einstein-Bose statistics or Rosen and Podolsky in EPR. The photoelectric effect however was all Einstein's afaik, and it was for this that he won the Nobel in 1921.

 

[Enigman]

He was also stubborn in his philosophical and scientific beliefs and more than once proven wrong. Newton at least had the godly status to warrant his nature.

Abstract

Newton grew up with a vulnerable and eccentric character besides having a low self-esteem, and he was someone who only uncommonly developed any close relationships. On review it is argued that his distrust and suspicions of others, and the fear that he might be harmed by criticism and his discoveries stolen, followed from his mother's separation from him in childhood and not, as has been claimed, from the developmental disorder of Asperger's syndrome. It is further firmly argued that his ‘madness’ of 1692 and 1693 was due to mercury poisoning from his alchemical experiments and not to clinical depression.

http://rsnr.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/62/3/289.full

 

[DennisN]

Science is cumulative, you can only progress on the shoulders of others, giants or otherwise.

I agree. Here's another giant AND pioneer: Antoine Lavoisier. How often do we hear about him?

 

[ZombieFeynman]

He was also stubborn in his philosophical and scientific beliefs and more than once proven wrong. Newton at least had the godly status to warrant his nature.

Einstein's stubbornness and unwillingness to accept quantum mechanics led to many experiments and ideas that greatly solidified the foundations of quantum mechanics. You should read about the EPR paradox, Bell's Inequality, and Alain Aspect's experiments. Although he was proven wrong, his objections to the early quantum theory served the theory well in the end.

We are reminded often of Arthur C Clarke's first "law" of predictions:

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

Also, WBN, your hero worship of Newton seems to be as much of a caricature as others' worship of Einstein.

 

[WannabeNewton]

Einstein's stubbornness and unwillingness to accept quantum mechanics led to many experiments and ideas that greatly solidified the foundations of quantum mechanics.

Did I say his faults were necessary restricted to QM? I don't recall ever saying that. I don't know why you assumed such a thing. He was wrong about certain philosophical aspects of GR as well as cosmological models. I can think of many scientists who deserve way more attention than him e.g. the great Michael Faraday. As I said earlier, Newton had a great many faults but his achievements more than dwarf them.

 

[Enigman]

I don't remember Einstein ever being stubborn in his (non-scientific) philosophical believes. The amount of logical clarity he brought to the topic was astonishing- even when the topic was something as personal as Why Do They Hate The Jews.

 

[Enigman]

I've always wondered what the fascination is of the laypeople with Einstein.

Einstein didn't get it either...

Isn't it strange that I who have written only unpopular books should be such a popular fellow?
--

 

[Caveat]

It's cause Einstein was Jewish. Not to mention his prediction of that eclipse was front page News in the 30's or something.