OT: The Geno Auriemma of Theoretical Physics

[Gus Mahler]

As you have probably heard, today is Albert Einstein's birthday. Seems appropriate to mention this here as he had a historic run of his own in 1905 involving the number four. He published six papers that year, four of which are among the most famous in the annals of science. (It was really three plus an addendum to one of them. It contained an equation you may have heard of.) And none of that was even about his Theory of General Relativity, thought by many to be the greatest intellectual achievement by any one person ever. As in ever.

You may have seen in the news lately that scientists think they've discovered gravitational waves. As I understand it, which really I don't, these would validate the last big prediction of his Theory of General Relativity heretofore not demonstrated. Even if these findings don't hold up, the Theory will remain one of the more successful ones in all of physics.

Happy Birthday, Al. Ya done good.

 

[UcMiami]

A truly remarkable mind, and a humanist as well as a scientist.
(Had the pleasure of using one of his file cabinets which somehow had found it's way into the Theater Collection at the Princeton Univ. library - still had the big combination lock the government had installed in the late 30s. It at that point contained only documents from the Bailey Circus relating to their merger with P. T. Barnum.)

 

[j66kicker]

Fitting that Princeton got in the tourney today

 

[JordyG]

Although some may argue Tesla or Ramanujan were greater minds, none may argue Einsteins great effect on scientific theory, everyday application and western culture. Happy birthday Herr Professor.

 

[UcMiami]

I don't think you can argue that his work fundamentally changed and shaped the 20th and 21st century century understanding of the physical world and the universe around us in more profound ways than anyone else.

You can pick out other moments of breakthrough through history - Newton jumps to mind - but I don't think we can yet identify such a moment since Einstein. I say yet, because there may have been something published already that we as a species will look back on 100 years from now and see as a new 'moment' that we have yet to recognize.

And you can certainly look at individual leaps - Turing, Salk, Currie, Crick and Watson, etc. that altered the human condition in fundamental ways - but they generally were solutions to problems many were working toward and not alterations in the fundamental way we thought about our world. They altered how we live more than how we thought.

 

[pacific 44]

Then there was Gilligan who was practically on an island of his own.

 

[JordyG]

I don't think you can argue that his work fundamentally changed and shaped the 20th and 21st century century understanding of the physical world and the universe around us in more profound ways than anyone else.

You can pick out other moments of breakthrough through history - Newton jumps to mind - but I don't think we can yet identify such a moment since Einstein. I say yet, because there may have been something published already that we as a species will look back on 100 years from now and see as a new 'moment' that we have yet to recognize.

And you can certainly look at individual leaps - Turing, Salk, Currie, Crick and Watson, etc. that altered the human condition in fundamental ways - but they generally were solutions to problems many were working toward and not alterations in the fundamental way we thought about our world. They altered how we live more than how we thought.

Absolutely. However the work of Ramanujan may yet be even more transcendent though perhaps not as elegant. I actually have my fingers crossed.

 

[lne001]

The headline would be more accurate if it referred to Geno as the 'Albert Einstein of Women's Basketball Coaches'.