Monday, December 8, 2014

Einstein = Many Curious Clicks

Princeton University has now put famed physicist Albert Einstein's papers online, meaning anyone who wants to can go to the link and read them.

Understanding them, of course, is not nearly so easy. Take, for example, Document 7 from the English translation supplement volume 3, The Swiss Years: Writings 1909-1911, which is entitled "On a Theorem of the Probability Calculus and Its Application in the Theory of Radiation." I'm already lost and we haven't even gotten to the part with the equations yet. And I'm not even going to touch the links to the original documents, which are in German. There is no subject in the world so complicated that it can't be made harder to understand by fitting it into the German language.

While physicists and other folks who study Einstein will benefit greatly from the availability of these documents, I think a lot of the mainstream internet usage will center on referencing the papers' existence and links thereunto, for the purpose of making the writer look smarter.

Which proves that I can't even get that right, either.

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