Einstein Manipulated Equations for an Atheist Agenda?

[Chris Connelly]

In a recent lecture, one of my professors (this is at a top 50 US university) taught that Albert Einstein was an atheist who manipulated his equations to deny that the universe had a beginning. Is anyone familiar with this claim and its validity (or lack thereof)? I also recall de Sitter being mentioned - just wanted to see if anyone had heard this particular claim before or if it's a "new one."

Chris Connelly

 

[shadron]

In a recent lecture, one of my professors (this is at a top 50 US university) taught that Albert Einstein was an atheist who manipulated his equations to deny that the universe had a beginning. Is anyone familiar with this claim and its validity (or lack thereof)? I also recall de Sitter being mentioned - just wanted to see if anyone had heard this particular claim before or if it's a "new one."

Chris Connelly

Yeah. The existance of his "cosmological constant^WP" that he threw into one of GR's formulae could be interpreted to say that the universe was expanding; the natural result of that is that everything must have come from some center of that expansion. Later he removed it from his paper, calling it his "greatest blunder". Hubble's acceleration figure has renewed interest in it. Einstein believed that the universe was static. Also see de Sitter Universe^WP.

 

[MG1962]

I dont think he had any athiest agenda, I think he simply didn't recognise the importance of what he stumbled across

 

[arthwollipot]

In a nutshell, Einstein found that his General Relativity necessarily implied that the universe was not static - it had to be either expanding or contracting. Since, as Shadron says, Einstein, along with every other serious physicist at the time, believed that the universe was static, he inserted the Cosmological Constant into the equations in order to forcibly make them describe a static universe. And yes, he later removed it.

This story could be interpreted by someone with severe right-wing evangelical Christian leanings as being due to atheist bias, but you'd have to be pretty seriously compromised to think that.

 

[Mojo]

In a recent lecture, one of my professors (this is at a top 50 US university) taught that Albert Einstein was an atheist who manipulated his equations to deny that the universe had a beginning.

Well, he was an atheist (although theists often like to pretend he wasn't), and he manipulated an equation to predict a static universe, but what is missing from that statement is that the two facts are not necessarily connected. The lecturer could have just as easily described Einstein as a patent clerk who manipulated his equations to deny that the universe had a beginning, or a Jew who manipulated his equations to deny that the universe had a beginning. He seems to be using a non sequitur to try to establish an atheist agenda.

Does the lecturer also agree with the Conservapedian view of relativity?

 

[TubbaBlubba]

Einstein was also convinced that quantum mechanics wasn't random.

Let's face it, Einstein was a genius, but he was wrong about stuff, too.

 

[Michael Mozina]

In a recent lecture, one of my professors (this is at a top 50 US university) taught that Albert Einstein was an atheist who manipulated his equations to deny that the universe had a beginning. Is anyone familiar with this claim and its validity (or lack thereof)? I also recall de Sitter being mentioned - just wanted to see if anyone had heard this particular claim before or if it's a "new one."

Chris Connelly

IMO that's not even a particularly logical premise since GR itself doesn't "deny" that that universe had a beginning, nor does it necessarily eliminate a need for a 'cause' of a bang. I don't see the connections implied by that argument. GR is used today to suggest that the universe has a "beginning" (all mass created in an event), whereas Einstein attempted at first to use GR to explain a 'static' (potentially eternal) universe, but set the constant back to zero once he realized the universe was expanding. GR can be used either way so I really don't see any 'agenda" in the formulas themselves. You might ask them to isolate the part of the GR formulas that contains his atheist agenda for you. I suspect you'll hear dead silence.

 

[Dinwar]

Or ask what the "atheist agenda" is. I've been an atheist for a number of years, and I've never seen any agenda.

Besides, the beauty of science is that if someone is wrong, we can find out that they're wrong and how. As Tubba said, we've found Einstein to be wrong a few times. He even published retractions to some of his papers, if I recall correctly (I don't have references, I'm going off of some of the books I've read--a few steps above "pop culture science", but certainly not peer-reviewed literature).

 

[fuelair]

Or ask what the "atheist agenda" is. I've been an atheist for a number of years, and I've never seen any agenda.

Besides, the beauty of science is that if someone is wrong, we can find out that they're wrong and how. As Tubba said, we've found Einstein to be wrong a few times. He even published retractions to some of his papers, if I recall correctly (I don't have references, I'm going off of some of the books I've read--a few steps above "pop culture science", but certainly not peer-reviewed literature).

If anybody has a spare copy of the agenda, could you forward it, please? I think I lost mine the last time we moved!!!

Thanks, fuelair

 

[Ysidro]

Or ask what the "atheist agenda" is. I've been an atheist for a number of years, and I've never seen any agenda.

Oh you know, go grocery shopping, walk a mile or two, set the DVR. It's like the Gay Agenda only less fabulous.

 

[Skwinty]

Or ask what the "atheist agenda" is. I've been an atheist for a number of years, and I've never seen any agenda.

The atheist agenda is:

Do not attend church services and do not believe in any other mumbo jumbo religious practices.

 

[GrandMasterFox]

*Sigh*
One day they say he's a theist the other they say he has an atheist agenda.

I really wish they would just make up their mind.

 

[autumn1971]

If it's a physics or math teacher, I would be genuinely concerned. Otherwise, simply point out that Newton manipulated friut to suit his occult view of the universe. Or give the prof a campus map with the math building circled.

 

[Mojo]

Or ask what the "atheist agenda" is. I've been an atheist for a number of years, and I've never seen any agenda.

1. Does anyone have any evidence for the existence of God?
2. AOB.

 

[FireGarden]

just wanted to see if anyone had heard this particular claim before or if it's a "new one."

From a thread which is much too long to read:

Einstein for one. That's why he added his fudge factor. Because it was difficult for him to accept that the universe had a definite beginning.

 

[Reality Check]

In a recent lecture, one of my professors (this is at a top 50 US university) taught that Albert Einstein was an atheist who manipulated his equations to deny that the universe had a beginning. Is anyone familiar with this claim and its validity (or lack thereof)? I also recall de Sitter being mentioned - just wanted to see if anyone had heard this particular claim before or if it's a "new one."

Chris Connelly

That is wrong in several ways
Albert Einstein views on the existence or not of a god seems to have varied during his lifetime. A quick Google will show this.
A pertinent quote is
Einstein Quotes on Atheism & Freethought: Was Einstein an Atheist, Freethinker?

I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one. You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being.
- Albert Einstein, letter to Guy H. Raner Jr., Sept. 28, 1949, quoted by Michael R. Gilmore in Skeptic, Vol. 5, No. 2

But note the date - this does not state anything about his beliefs during the formulation of GR (1905-1916).

He did not "manipulate" his equations. Einstein was mathematically correct to add the cosmological constant since it is the equivalent of the constant that you can add to integration without affecting the mathematical result.

He then assumed that this constant was non-zero to allow for solutions that included a static universe. This fitted the scientific consensus of the time that the universe was static.

Oddly enough the de Sitter soultion for GR came after Albert Einstein published his paper. So I doubt that this had amything to do with any "manipulation" of GR by Einstein.

 

[sol invictus]

In a recent lecture, one of my professors (this is at a top 50 US university) taught that Albert Einstein was an atheist who manipulated his equations to deny that the universe had a beginning. Is anyone familiar with this claim and its validity (or lack thereof)? I also recall de Sitter being mentioned - just wanted to see if anyone had heard this particular claim before or if it's a "new one."

Chris Connelly

As others pointed out above, at the time Einstein was formulating GR physicists believed the universe was static, despite the fact that this was problematic for various reasons and not supported by much evidence. I believe - although I'm not certain of this - that part of the prejudice in favor of a static universe came from the idea that the alternative implied a moment of creation and hence a creator.

Einstein added his constant because he wanted his theory to be able to accomodate a static universe, since that was the prevailing idea at the time, and he realized that this was impossible otherwise. I don't know for sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if he too was influenced by an aversion to the idea of a moment of creation.

In the end, it was Georges Lemaitre, a physicist who happened to also be a Catholic priest, that found the expanding solutions to Einstein's equations that appear to correctly describe the universe we live in.

From our modern point of view, the big bang doesn't mark a moment of creation, but instead a time before which the known laws of physics simply break down. What came before, if anything, is a matter of speculation, but there are plenty of theoretical models in which the big bang is not the beginning of time.

 

[sol invictus]

Oddly enough the de Sitter soultion for GR came after Albert Einstein published his paper. So I doubt that this had amything to do with any "manipulation" of GR by Einstein.

de Sitter space is a solution of Einstein's equations only in the presence of a non-zero and positive cosmological constant, or - equivalently - a positive vacuum energy.

 

[Towlie]

In a recent lecture, one of my professors (this is at a top 50 US university) taught that Albert Einstein was an atheist who manipulated his equations to deny that the universe had a beginning.

I wouldn't interpret it like that. Einstein was in denial that the universe was changing in size, which could have meant either expanding or contracting. This static view should actually have been been more palatable to Christian fundamentalists who believe that the universe was magically conjured up a few thousand years ago as an afterthought and then summarized in Genesis 1:16 as "He made the stars also." The view that Einstein finally accepted is that the universe is billions of years old and expanding, and I'm sure that hardly sounds comforting to Bible-thumping Christians. They probably preferred his first model.

 

[arthwollipot]

It was difficult for Einstein to accept that the universe had a beginning. It would be ridiculous to suggest otherwise. Hardly anyone accepted that the universe had a beginning back in 1915.

 

[Mojo]

This static view should actually have been been more palatable to Christian fundamentalists who believe that the universe was magically conjured up a few thousand years ago as an afterthought and then summarized in Genesis 1:16 as "He made the stars also."

Is there anything in the Bible that can be tortured into appearing to predict an expanding universe?

And more relevant to the topic of this thread, did any Christian apologists argue, at the time that a static universe is alleged to have been part of an "atheist agenda", that the universe was expanding? If not, arguing for a static universe would have been irrelevant to any alleged "atheist agenda".

 

[kedo1981]

And by a “lecture at a top 5oth university” you mean a pamphlet you picked up at church.
Some of his theories have things wrong, so what, science is self-correcting.
To tell a bald face lie about Einstein having a part in an “atheist agenda” demonstrates the failure of faith.
Science can’t explain everything (or better, “hasn’t explained”) but religion, faith, theism, can’t seem to explain anything

 

[The Man]

If anybody has a spare copy of the agenda, could you forward it, please? I think I lost mine the last time we moved!!!

Thanks, fuelair

Here you go, but keep it under your mitre.



1. You don't talk about the atheist agenda.
2. You don't talk about the atheist agenda
3. When someone says “stop the atheist agenda”, or goes theist, even if they are just faking it, you have to say “what atheist agenda?” and keep manipulating.
4. Only two atheists to a manipulation.
5. One manipulation at a time.
6. They manipulate things without gods or spirits.
7. The agenda and manipulation goes on as long as it has to.
8. If this is your first night as an atheist, you have to manipulate something for the agenda.

 

[Dancing David]

And by a “lecture at a top 5oth university” you mean a pamphlet you picked up at church.

Evidence, data, citations?

Notre Dame?
Religion class?
Philosophy?

 

[fuelair]

*Sigh*
I really wish they would just make up their mind.

You do understand you are making a large assumption in that sentence?!

 

[Cuddles]

Einstein was in denial that the universe was changing in size

I think that's kind of unfair to Einstein. As already noted, a static universe was simply the accepted paradigm at the time. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, Einstein simply assumed that that was correct, and since it was possible to have a version of relativity that allowed a static universe, that was what he went with.

that he threw into one of GR's formulae

Again, this is rather unfair. There are good mathematical reasons why he used a cosmological constant of that form in that place - it's basically the only thing that could possibly be added anywhere while keeping the whole thing consistent. It wasn't just a random thing thrown in to force relativity to match his beliefs, it was a perfectly valid part of the theory. In fact, generalised theories are usually preferred, so the more sensible way to look at it is that relativity without a cosmological constant is just a specific case of the more general theory in which the constant happens to be zero.

could be interpreted to say that the universe was expanding; the natural result of that is that everything must have come from some center of that expansion.

That's actually backwards. The cosmological constant was deliberately added to cause expansion in order to balance the gravitational pull, since he realised that a universe that tried to be static would just collapse in on itself. He didn't take it out because it could imply expansion, he took it out because it was found that the universe wasn't actually static after all, and therefore there wasn't any need for it. Of course, now we've found that the particular way in which it isn't static means that a cosmological constant, or something similar, probably is needed, but obviously Einstein didn't know about that.

 

[arthwollipot]

And of course, the cosmological constant has made a comeback with the discovery that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. It represents what is referred to as "dark energy".

 

[FireGarden]

Did knowing that the universe is expanding automatically lead the majority of scientists to the big bang? How popular was the steady state theory? Between Hubble's finding that the universe is expanding and discovery of the microwave background radiation, I mean.

If Einstein himself was so desperately against considering a beginning to the universe, then he would have clung to steady state. The CMBR was discovered after Einstein died. And I thought that Einstein was for the Big Bang. But I can't confirm that, so I'm not sure.

 

[Raze]

In a nutshell, Einstein found that his General Relativity necessarily implied that the universe was not static - it had to be either expanding or contracting. Since, as Shadron says, Einstein, along with every other serious physicist at the time, believed that the universe was static, he inserted the Cosmological Constant into the equations in order to forcibly make them describe a static universe. And yes, he later removed it.

This story could be interpreted by someone with severe right-wing evangelical Christian leanings as being due to atheist bias, but you'd have to be pretty seriously compromised to think that.

Yes. It seems pretty obvious to me that he was just trying to make his theory conform with what scientists of the time took for granted.

 

[W.D.Clinger]

Did knowing that the universe is expanding automatically lead the majority of scientists to the big bang?

Eventually, but this is a case of empirical evidence leading scientists to a conclusion that most of them were quite reluctant to draw.

How popular was the steady state theory? Between Hubble's finding that the universe is expanding and discovery of the microwave background radiation, I mean.

Although its popularity dwindled as countervailing evidence accumulated, the steady state theory remained fairly popular during those years.

If Einstein himself was so desperately against considering a beginning to the universe, then he would have clung to steady state. The CMBR was discovered after Einstein died. And I thought that Einstein was for the Big Bang. But I can't confirm that, so I'm not sure.

Einstein was no fool. He was caught up in the prevailing belief when he developed his static (but unstable) cosmological model, and he opposed what we now call the big bang when it was first proposed by Georges Lemaître^WP. Within seven years, however, Einstein had become a supporter of Lemaître's new idea, and continued to support the Big Bang for the rest of his life.

This is not the only example of Einstein resisting a new idea, but eventually coming around when convinced by the evidence. Although Einstein's Nobel Prize cited his discovery of the photoelectric effect, which is a quantum phenomenon, Einstein's initial opposition to the uncertainty principle and to some aspects of quantum mechanics is well known. Einstein was also skeptical of what we now refer to as black holes, and may never have changed his mind on that; he died before the discovery of several phenomena that are now generally believed to involve black holes.

 

[FireGarden]

Einstein was no fool. He was caught up in the prevailing belief when he developed his static (but unstable) cosmological model, and he opposed what we now call the big bang when it was first proposed by Georges Lemaître^WP. Within seven years, however, Einstein had become a supporter of Lemaître's new idea, and continued to support the Big Bang for the rest of his life.

Thanks.
I've found this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscillatory_Universe

Where it says that Einstein considered a cyclic model in 1930, which isn't long after Hubble's discovery.

I don't understand what they mean by these statements:

Albert Einstein in 1930 theorized a universe following an eternal series of oscillations, each beginning with a big bang and ending with a big crunch;

[...] Extrapolating back in time, cycles before the present one become shorter and smaller culminating again in a Big Bang and thus not replacing it.

Do they just mean that a series of Big Bangs without a 'first' big bang didn't stack up? What's special about the first one in this case?

 

[W.D.Clinger]

Thanks.
I've found this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscillatory_Universe

Where it says that Einstein considered a cyclic model in 1930, which isn't long after Hubble's discovery.

I don't understand what they mean by these statements:


Do they just mean that a series of Big Bangs without a 'first' big bang didn't stack up? What's special about the first one in this case?

That's over my head. Maybe one of the physicists can answer.

But I'll give you my interpretation of the Wikipedia article.

I think it's a special case of the general thermodynamic/entropy argument against steady-state theories: Without some kind of complete reset, which could be identified with the singularity corresponding to a big bang or crunch, the universe eventually winds down into heat death. For most cyclic models, that means increasingly longer cycles. Extrapolating backward in time, that winding down looks like a winding up, with increasingly shorter cycles as we go back in time. I think the article is saying that, extrapolating far enough into the past, those cycles would have been so short they might as well be regarded as part of a single big bang, in which case the cyclic steady state doesn't really avoid a big bang after all.

 

[FireGarden]

That's over my head.

Mine too.
I thought maybe they meant the sum of increasingly small time intervals (even an infinite sum) could add up to a finite amount of time. Kind of like 1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + ....

But that wouldn't imply a first big bang. Unless some intervals are impossibly small.

I also don't get how there can be a sequence of anything when spacetime itself is being made and, presumably, re-made in each big bang.


Anyway, on topic...
Einstein doesn't seem to have been motivated by not wanting to consider a big bang. And accepted the standard big bang model before discovery of the cosmic background radiation killed the steady state theory. (I think.)

 

[arthwollipot]

If Einstein himself was so desperately against considering a beginning to the universe, then he would have clung to steady state.

I'm pretty sure he wasn't desparately against a dynamic universe, it was more that his equations defied his default assumption.

 

[Cuddles]

And of course, the cosmological constant has made a comeback with the discovery that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. It represents what is referred to as "dark energy".

Well, not quite. A cosmological constant is just one of a few different possible explanations for dark energy. While it's the simplest one it has some pretty big problems, not least of which is the fact that predicted values differ from observed ones by over a hundred orders of magnitude.

I'm pretty sure he wasn't desparately against a dynamic universe, it was more that his equations defied his default assumption.

Indeed. Something people often seem to forget is that the first test of a theory is simply comparison with existing data. It doesn't matter how good the predictions are if it doesn't match what you already know. If you come up with a new theory of gravity, the first thing to check is if it says a dropped rock will fall to the ground. If not, it's likely there's something rather wrong with your theory and there's no point going any further until you've fixed it. Unfortunately we don't know everything yet, so sometimes what we already know actually turns out to be wrong. When enough evidence turns up suggesting that is the case, theories then change to match the new evidence, exactly as happened in this case. When it comes down to it, that's pretty much the whole point of theories. Science - it works, bitches.

The other important point to remember is that manipulating equations is not a bad thing. That's pretty much all mathematicians and theoretical physicists do. What's important is to manipulate them in ways that are allowed so that they are kept mathematically consistent, and in physics preferably kept within sensible physical limits as well. Did Einstein manipulate questions? Of course. That was his job. But equations don't care about agendas, either they're correct and can be independently verified, or they're not and someone will soon spot that.

 

[ttoyooka]

It should be noted that one of Christianity's foremost thinkers, St. Thomas Aquinas, would have been just fine with a steady-state universe.

Tak