From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.science.mathematics.categories/3121 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Robert J. MacG. Dawson" Newsgroups: gmane.science.mathematics.categories Subject: Re: cracks and pots Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 10:54:38 -0400 Message-ID: <44197C2E.2090300@cs.stmarys.ca> NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1241019106 7328 80.91.229.2 (29 Apr 2009 15:31:46 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2009 15:31:46 +0000 (UTC) To: categories@mta.ca Original-X-From: rrosebru@mta.ca Thu Mar 16 20:30:03 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 20:30:03 -0400 Original-Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.52) id 1FK2pl-0007br-9E for categories-list@mta.ca; Thu, 16 Mar 2006 20:28:49 -0400 Original-Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk X-Keywords: X-UID: 67 Original-Lines: 48 Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.science.mathematics.categories:3121 Archived-At: Eduardo wrote: > Well, Einstein was not "trying to", he was using it, and presented this > use as an accomplished fact. He didn't just wake up one morning with the whole thing in finished form. Moreover, it was some time before it was experimentally verified; some details, such as the presence or absence of a cosmological constant, took some time to settle; some predictions (black holes, Big Bang) were not generally accepted for some time; and even now it is known *not* to be a good description of the universe at a very small scale. > Also, you forgot to mention that he flunk a high-school exam or something > of the sort proving by this very fact that a lot of people were stupid, > just as they are those which have doubts about the real value of some > applications of category theory to physics ! I did not "forget" to, it never occurred to me to do so, for two good reasons. Firstly, I don't see the relevance. Are you suggesting that (1) Einstein must have been stupid to flunk an exam, or that (2) his teacher and N-1 unspecified others were stupid because (2a) an exam was set that Einstein could flunk, or (2b) Einstein having flunked the exam, they did not recognize his future genius & change the grade? None of these conclusions seem justified to me... as my records at Dalhousie and Cambridge will show, people can flunk exams on bad days; I don't *think* I'm stupid, and I know the instructors who set the exams were not. But, secondly and more to the point, recent research suggests that the story of Einstein's failing grades is apocryphal. What seems to have happened is that his school changed over from a grading scheme with 1 high and 6 low to one with 6 high and 1 low, and a surviving report card had been misinterpreted. See for instance: http://www.abc.net.au/science/k2/moments/s1115185.htm -Robert