154 The Poetry of Physics and The Physics of Poetry
incompatible with Einsteinian physics since, as we saw earlier, that the
relativistic effects disappear as the velocities involved become very small
compared with the velocity of light. While it is true that the formulae
become identical in the limit of small velocities, the interpretation of
space and time still remains radically different for the Newtonian and the
Einsteinian physicist.
Because of the fact that the new theory always incorporates the valid
results of the old theory, science continues to make progress by
definition. Kuhn claims that the progress made by science arises from the
fact that the range of phenomena explained is continually increasing,
not because the Einsteinian point of view is superior to the Newtonian
point of view. There are no absolute truths for Kuhn. In this sense, his
ideas have been influenced by Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. Kuhn
points out that scientific revolutions are often fomented by those who are
new to the field and/or those who do not belong to the scientific
establishment. No one could provide a better example of this viewpoint
than Einstein as the following brief sketch of his life reveals.
Einstein was born in Bavaria in 1879 to a middle class Jewish family.
He was a slow learner as a child. His parents feared that he was retarded
because he was so late in learning how to speak. He was never a good
student since he was given to daydreaming. At the age of fifteen, he
dropped out of school and traveled in Italy. He finally settled down,
applied for admission to university, and failed the entrance exam. He
went back to secondary school for a year and passed the entrance exam
to the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich. He was not a model
student in university, either. He passed his exams by cramming his
friends’ notes. He preferred reading on his own to attending lectures. He
found the whole experience of higher education appalling as the
following remarks penned some years later reflect:
... after I had passed the final examination, I found the
consideration of any scientific problem distasteful to me for an
entire year. It is little short of a miracle that modern methods
of instruction have not already completely strangled the holy
curiosity of inquiry, because what this delicate little plant
needs most, apart from initial stimulation, is freedom; without
that it is surely destroyed ... I believe that one could even
deprive healthy beast of prey of its voraciousness, if one could
force it with a whip to eat continuously whether it were hungry
or not ...