In the process of understanding the objective world, human beings have finally lit up the lamp of science through thousands of years of summary and exploration; on this road from darkness to light, there are countless things that shine in the world. There are stars, some of whom shine far brighter than others. Einstein is obviously one of them, and he has a well-known saying: Imagination is more important than knowledge.

Why did he say that? Doesn't this contradict Edison's "genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration"? (Introducing a trivia fact, Edison never said that 1% of inspiration is more important. I don’t know who made this joke).

Einstein rebuilt the building of physics

First of all, we need to know that Edison is not actually a scientist. He can only be regarded as an inventor at most. Perhaps by observing him using money and power to control Tesla We should call him a capitalist instead of suppressing him. Scientists, especially theoretical physicists like Einstein, are completely different from inventors. Inventors use known theories to develop unknown technologies, while theoretical physicists develop brand-new theories. They are A group of people at the forefront of understanding the world.

So why did Einstein think imagination is more important? Because he is different from the stereotyped and boring impressions in most imaginations. He is a person with extremely rich imagination and high energy. His achievements are completely inseparable from his great imagination.

We must know that physicists in the past believed that the physical theoretical world constructed by Newton's space-time view had reached perfection. William Thomson, Baron Kelvin, once said in a speech delivered by the Royal Society: The physics edifice was complete, all that remained was some cosmetic work; now its beautiful, clear sky was obscured by two dark clouds. (Ether drift is contrary to the experimental results of constant light speed; blackbody radiation theory cannot explain "ultraviolet catastrophe")

2020 has been 120 years since this speech. Today we can proudly say - Physics There are dark clouds over the building now... (face covering)

Why is this happening? Because the two small dark clouds that everyone thought were not small at all, if you pull hard along them, what you get is not uprooting the whole building, but tilting the whole building. Only then did people realize that this building was just like waking up from a dream. The foundation was wrong from the beginning. This is like the great detective in a mystery movie who made a perfect set of reasoning. When everyone thought that the mystery was about to be revealed, the suspect suddenly gave a perfect alibi, so no matter how perfect the previous reasoning was, No matter how flawless it is, it must be demolished and started all over again.

So whoever can tear it down and start over, build a new building that can accommodate all currently known physical phenomena, can take the jewel on the crown of physics and become the greatest in history. One of the physicists, Einstein did it, so he became a god (of course he could not completely solve all the problems, otherwise there would be no dark clouds. The more you explore, the closer you are to the truth, but the new problems that arise are also more and more).

Why didn’t others do it? I would like to paraphrase a classic line from Sherlock Holmes: "When you have eliminated all impossibilities, no matter how unbelievable what remains, it is the truth."

Attack on time and space

Yes, to solve the second physics crisis, we need to start with some common sense that others regard as "rock-solid".

Here I will briefly introduce it. We all know that distance ÷ time = speed, but in experiments people found that there is an upper limit to speed, and the speed of light cannot be superimposed by any means. Einstein started from the left side of the equal sign and realized that both distance and time are "elastic". Not only that, they are inherently related. When an object has a lot of energy or mass, it will affect time and space at the same time. cause impact. This is the content of the theory of relativity, and the internally related and unified time and distance are the brand-new integrated view of space and time constructed by Einstein.

In the physics community at that time, everyone was trying to find a breakthrough in the problem through mathematical methods. Although occasionally someone wanted to attack time, everyone resisted from rationality to instinct, because time It is too unreasonable to expand and contract. (To this day, the driving force behind many opponents of the theory of relativity still cannot accept the non-Newtonian view of space and time).

One of the most interesting anecdotes about Einstein is that he was not very good at mathematics. In 1943, a little girl named Barbara wrote to him asking for advice about her difficulties in learning mathematics. In her reply, Einstein said: "Don't worry about mathematics problems. I assure you, my own The problem is even worse." This is no joke. When Einstein solved the equations of general relativity, he often needed to ask his friends and even students for help with mathematical problems.

During Einstein’s public lectures, the great mathematician David Hilbert understood the essence of Einstein’s thoughts, and he wanted to give the equations of general relativity before Einstein. , the two started racing around this pearl of physics. Although the publication time was extremely close, Einstein eventually won the competition. Hilbert, who was defeated afterward, commented on Einstein:

"Any young man on the streets of G?ttingen can He understood four-dimensional geometry better than Einstein, but it was Einstein who accomplished this great feat.

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A starry imagination

Yes, this is where Einstein is great. His knowledge may not be as good as many unknown scholars, but as a physicist, he His extremely keen intuition and imagination are unparalleled, so he can understand the mysteries of the universe in Xinghan's brilliance.

Unlike the "nerd" in the prejudice of most people, he is the greatest. Physicists are also the greatest imagineers, and their wild and active thinking is a level that ordinary people (especially civilians) cannot reach in this life.

So, Einstein would say: "Imagination." "More important than knowledge." There is no doubt that this sentence is correct. But I would like to remind ordinary people not to be complacent by applying Einstein's words casually. Think about what Jack Ma said: "I never go out. No money, no interest in money at all.

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