What Would You Ask Einstein if He Were Here Now?

[Erdem]

if Einstein sits in front of you now, what would you like to ask him?

for example: what do you think about experimental success of bose-einstein condensation. certainly he will not believe me.

 

[FZ+]

I'll ask him if he withdraws his objection to QM, his problem child, now that we have successfully refuted his proposed disproofs. (eg. EPR)

 

[Nereid]

How long do we have him for?

If it's a few days, I'd point him to the seminal papers on String Theory, LQG, etc, and ask him what he makes of them. It may be that the math is too exotic, even for Einstein to take in, in just a few days, in which case I'd call in the PF posters who are far, far, far more au fait with the concepts than I (e.g. SelfAdjoint, marcus, Tom, jeff, Ambitwistor) and ask them to give ol' Albert a one hour overview, and then let the debate begin!

 

[slyboy]

The string theory/quantum gravity question is a good one, but I would ask him if he thinks it is possible to build a quantum computer and, if so, could he give me a hand with designing one please?

Secondly, I would ask what he makes of the current state of the foundations of quantum mechanics, particularly whether he approves of hidden variable theories. They are motivated in part by the EPR paper after all.

 

[selfAdjoint]

I firmly believe he was trying to build support for his idea of a rational quantum mechanics, free of subjective and uncertainty ideas, in his last work on his so-called unified field theory. I would ask him which of the modern theories best instantiates that project. I don't think he would have much use for Bohm, since he didn't have much use for de Broglie.

 

[pelastration]

Originally posted by Erdem
if Einstein sits in front of you now, what would you like to ask him?

"Uncle Albert .. is it ok we continue our conversation about prior-geometry tomorrow ? "

 

[JohnBarchak]

Originally posted by FZ+
I'll ask him if he withdraws his objection to QM, his problem child, now that we have successfully refuted his proposed disproofs. (eg. EPR)

Per David Deutsch and Patrick Hayden:
"All information in quantum systems is, notwithstanding Bell's theorem, localised. Measuring or otherwise interacting with a quantum system S has no effect on distant systems from which S is dynamically isolated, even if they are entangled with S. Using the Heisenberg picture to analyse quantum information processing makes this locality explicit, and reveals that under some circumstances (in particular, in Einstein-Podolski-Rosen experiments and in quantum teleportation) quantum information is transmitted through 'classical' (i.e. decoherent) information channels."
http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9906007

 

[hanserd]

Sir, what is GRAVITY

Can you tell me what gravity is besides the text we have now in 2003.
If you don't know I could tell you.

 

[Ilja]

Originally posted by FZ+
I'll ask him if he withdraws his objection to QM, his problem child, now that we have successfully refuted his proposed disproofs. (eg. EPR)

I disagree that EPR has been refuted.

Einstein has tried to find a contradiction between Einstein causality, realism and quantum theory. This search has been
successful with Bells theorem.

The question is, of course, interesting what Einstein would give up today. It´s quite obvious that he would have accepted the experimental support of the violation of Bell´s inequality.
But this is only part of the question. The other part is what to give up: realism or Einstein causality.

Here I believe that Einstein would have given up Einstein causality
instead of realism.

 

[Ilja]

Originally posted by selfAdjoint
I firmly believe he was trying to build support for his idea of a rational quantum mechanics, free of subjective and uncertainty ideas, in his last work on his so-called unified field theory. I would ask him which of the modern theories best instantiates that project. I don't think he would have much use for Bohm, since he didn't have much use for de Broglie.

A reasonable guess. But I would tell him about the violation of
Bells´s inequality. Then there would be an interesting conversation
about realism vs. Einstein causality. I would think in such a situation - giving up realism as the only alternative - he would prefer to give up Einstein causality.

After this, accepting such a theory like Bohmian mechanics which needs a preferred frame would be much easier for him.

 

[suyver]

I'd propably ask him if there is a God and if so, if he plays dice. After all, after being dead for over 30 years, I am sure Einstein must have some unique insights in these matters...

Regarding physics: I'd probably start by showing him the immense experimental succeses of QED, QCD and general relativity. I'm sure we'd quickly move from me explaining him how these theories work to him explaining me how these theories work and how they may be improved. Where we go from there... [?] Anyway, it'd be fun!

 

[TillEulenspiegel]

Um Whats with that hair dude?

 

[einsteinian77]

Originally posted by Erdem
if Einstein sits in front of you now, what would you like to ask him?

Can I see your time machine?

 

[Mk]

I would ask him what the last thing he said was before he died. There was a nurse in but she didn't understand german so we don't know what he said.

 

[alexsok]

I'd probably ask him if he persists disaffirming Quantum Mechanics, despite the immense success (both theoretical & experimental) QCD, QED and others enjoyed over the years, and then ask someone to translate his answer for me to plain english :)