Prompt Images
Two Notes to the Reader:
Good evening everyone,
Thank you for joining us tonight to hear from two of the most distinguished minds in history:
Sir Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein.
Einstein, Newton has ceded the floor to you first.
“A body in motion, with no other forces, will never come to rest”
We owe you a debt Sir Isaac, and I’ve come to pay with interest
I took time space and time, and fused them at their seams
While you were poking out your eyes, I tried to ride aside light beams
“How does gravity act?” What’s with your ambivalence?
Gravity is acceleration, how did you miss that equivalence!?
The Principia? I tried to read it. But it’s unbearable
One thousand pages of equations… Your nomenclature’s terrible
My first paper was a quick read
Beginning with the assumption that light must have a constant speed
In relativity, space, time, and gravity merge
You put space in a girdle—me? I embraced her curves
So famous in my day, Isaac, son I was greeted by street mobs,
My biographer was Walter Isaacson, the guy hired by Steve Jobs
I’m bigger than physics, like Muhammad Ali.
You’re just a nerd with an apple, sitting underneath a tree.
Thank you Herr Einstein,
Sir Newton you have the floor
Good job, Albert, that was a really nice recap
When you imagine yourself in space,
Can you hear the sound of your own clap?
Your ideas are very clever, but space and time? Man you just rented them,
I think I would know, cuz, I’m the bloke who invented them
And don’t get me started on your gravitational equations
Only you could understand them? Please,
Minkowski said your math was lazy!
I needed a new tool for my theories, so I invented the calculus at a young age
You did your work in a cushy patent office, I did mine in the Great Plague!
And another thing, Mr. Revolutionary Physicist,
What ever happened to your spooky action at a distance?
You and Bohr keep on arguing, “Is it a particle, or is it a wave?”
But 300 years ago, Huygens and I had the same debate!
You think my reputation is tarnished, because I never questioned what space is?
Man they published your diary from China, now everyone knows you’re racist!
And, also, we all know about the illegitimate child you left behind
“Einstein had a kid who disappeared,” how’s that not the headline?!
And get the f*&^ outta here, with your pacifist ploy,
You wrote the letter to Roosevelt, that brought us Fat Man and Little Boy
So trusted by the King, Albert, that I was made Master of the Mint
They said your GUT was busted, but you never took the hint!
I was the first in this game — you just continued the cycle
Ali? Al, Please. At best you are Kobe to my Michael.
Einstein, Newton has ceded the floor to you first.
“A body in motion, with no other forces, will never come to rest”
This is a paraphrasing of Newton’s First Law of Motion.
We owe you a debt Sir Isaac, and I’ve come to pay with interest
I took time space and time, and fused them at their seams
Specifically, Einstein fused space and time into a single entity referred to as spacetime.
While you were poking out your eyes, I tried to ride aside light beams
Newton often experimented on himself. In one case, he actually took a sewing needle and jammed it into his eye socket to see how it would affect his vision. Einstein, on the other hand, preferred the safety of “thought experiments.” He is said to have obsessed over the idea of trying to “catch up” to a beam of light, and he eventually realized you never could.
“How does gravity act?” What’s with your ambivalence?
Newton had an equation that described how gravity influenced the motion of various objects. But he was famously conflicted on the issue of what gravity was. He once wrote in a letter: “Gravity must be caused by an agent {acting} constantly according to certain laws, but whether this agent be material or immaterial is a question I have left to the consideration of my readers.” In other words, Newton punted on this question.
Gravity is acceleration, how did you miss that equivalence!?
Einstein’s greatest accomplishment was recognizing that in particular circumstances, it may be impossible to tell if your motion is the result of gravity pulling on you, or simply the result of your motion being caused by some other source. His entire theory of gravity (the General Theory of Relativity) is founded on this seemingly simple “equivalence” between gravity and acceleration. What’s amazing is that it’s all there in Newton’s equations. Newton could have discovered the same thing for himself.
The Principia? I read it. It’s unbearable
A reference to Newton’s most famous work, Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica
One thousand pages of equations… Your nomenclature’s terrible
During his life Newton would engage in a heated dispute with the German scientist/philosopher Goddfried Liebniz over who had first invented calculus. Most scholars think they came up with their ideas independently, but if you take a calculus class today you are more likely to use Liebniz’ nomenclature than Newton’s, as most agree his nomenclature was better.
My first paper was a quick read
Beginning with the assumption that light must have a constant speed
In relativity, space, time and gravity merge
You put space in a girdle — me? I embraced her curves
For Newton, “space” is fixed and immutable. It’s the backdrop for all motion, but doesn’t cause motion itself. Mathematicians say his space is Euclidean. Einstein decided that, because of gravity, space (and time) could curve and warp, and this curving and warping would in turn affect the motion of any objects traveling through space.
So famous in my day, Isaac, that I was greeted by street mobs,
My biographer was Walter Isaacson, the same guy hired by Steve Jobs
I’m bigger than physics, like Muhammed Ali.
You’re just a nerd with an apple, sitting underneath a tree.
Thank you Herr Einstein,
Sir Newton you have the floor
Good job, Albert, that was a really nice recap
When you imagine yourself in space, can you hear the sound of your own clap?
Einstein discovered the equivalence between gravity and acceleration by imagining a person falling in an elevator through space. He realized from inside the elevator the person would not know if their motion was due to gravity or to someone yanking on the elevator.
Your ideas are very clever, but space and time? Man you just rented them,
I think I would know, cuz, I’m the bloke who invented them
Newton didn’t actually invent the concepts of space and time. But he did clarify their role in a physical theory of the universe. In his most famous work, The Principia, he begins “Hitherto I have laid down the definitions of such words as are less known, and explained the sense in which I would have them to be understood in the following discourse…” and devotes 3,000 more words to defining space, time, and related concepts.
And don’t get me started on your gravitational equations
Only you could understand them? Please,
Unlike Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity, which could be mastered with high school algebra, his General Theory of Relativity was—due to its reliance on highly abstract mathematics— believed too difficult for all but a few people to understand. In fact, someone once asked the distinguished physicist Arthur Edington, a contemporary of Einstein’s, “Professor Eddington, you must be one of three persons in the world who understands general relativity.” Supposedly Eddington, after hesitating to respond for a few moments, responded, “I am trying to think who the third person is.”
Minkowski said your math was lazy!
Hermann Minkowski was an imminent mathematician who once taught Einstein. When he learned of Einstein’s discovery of relativity, he apparently told someone “It came as a tremendous surprise, for in his student days Einstein had been a lazy dog.”
I needed a new tool for my theories, so I invented the calculus at a young age
He was 24 when he invented calculus.
You did your work in a cushy patent office, I did mine in the Great Plague!
Newton did some of his greatest work while quarantining himself during the Great Plague of 1665.
And another thing, Mr. Revolutionary Physicist,
What ever happened to your spooky action at a distance?
Einstein famously argued that nothing could travel faster than light. But upon examining quantum mechanics, he found situations where the theory seemed to suggest information might somehow travel instantaneously, even across the length of the entire universe. In trying to explain this absurdity of quantum mechanics, he used the phrase “spooky action at a distance.”
You and Bohr keep on arguing, “Is it a particle, or is it a wave?”
A reference to the famous particle-wave duality at the heart of quantum mechanics.
But 300 years ago, Huygens and I had the same debate!
Christopher Huygens was a physicist who put forward a wave theory of light, while Newton argued for a theory in which light was made of tiny “corpuscules” (little particles).
You think my reputation is tarnished, because I never questioned what space is?
A reference to the idea that Einstein thought about the very concept of space more deeply than Newton.
Man they published your diary from China, now everyone knows you’re racist!
Apparently Einstein could be xenophobic too.
And, also, we all know about the illegitimate child you left behind
No one even realized Einstein had an illegitimate kid with his first wife (before they were married), until they found evidence in his collected papers 30 years after the fact.
“Einstein had a kid who disappeared,” how’s that not the headline?!
And get the f*&^ outta here, with your pacifist ploy,
You wrote the letter to Roosevelt, that brought us Fat Man and Little Boy
Einstein, in consultation with other physicists, wrote a letter to Roosevelt during WWII that suggested the Germans might be trying to develop an atomic bomb, and recommended the U.S. try to beat them to it. The bombs that were eventually dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nicknamed Fat Man and Little Boy.
So trusted by the King, Albert, that I was made Master of the Mint
He spent 30 years in that role, including a period when he tracked down one of the most notorious counterfeiters at the time.
They said your GUT was busted, but you never took the hint!
Einstein spent the last decades of his life working on a grand unified theory (GUT) of physics that would connect his theory of gravity with electricity and magnetism. But none of his contemporaries thought his theory was any good.
Also, Einstein eventually died from an abdominal aneurysm.
I was the first in this game — you just continued the cycle
Ali? Please. At best you are Kobe to my Michael.