Einstein: The Myth of the Lone Genius – Joseph Henrich

[DwarkeshPatel]

This is an excerpt from my conversation with anthropologist and evolutionary biologist, Joseph Henrish, and a small part of a larger argument he's making about the evolution of our collective brain.

My favorite part of the podcast is Henrich’s explanation of how the Catholic Church unintentionally instigated the Industrial Revolution through the dismantling of intensive kinship systems in medieval Europe. Check it out if you like conversations about history and science!

[IsaacOrd]

as a scientist myself, i cant tell you how often we are working on something only to have someone else beat us to the punch. usually they don't even know we exist and vise versa.

[williammcguigan]

This is the sociology of science. Knowledge is produced by a culture, not a person.

[DocOverlord]

Thank you, I am so sick of writers and producers in Hollywood constantly portraying scientists as lone wizards working all by themselves on theories so incomprehensible no one else in the world can understand them. The myth around Einstein certainly helped fuel this ongoing misperception (not that Hollywood is always known for doing research for accuracy)

[ShoobaDooba-ns]

Einstein wasn't "failing" academically, he just got a job after university. Btw his job as a patent clerk wasn't something anyone could do, he was cross referencing engine design which required advanced engineering, math and physics knowledge.

[davidhouseman]

This is a classic trope, talk in depth about one point, and expand it without detail.
Special Relitivity is widely accepted as inevitable, Einstein just got there first. General relativity is considered a whole different ball game, a genius level leap. That's the bit you need detail on.

[stephencindrich]

Henri Poincaré was super brilliant; his equation is called the Poincaré distribution.

[neko]

It's almost like he stood on the shoulders of giants

[DigSamurai]

No one who's ever done anything difficult thinks that great things are done alone. Hollywood May portray it that way because it's good storytelling but everyone bounces ideas off of others who help them formulate and refine their thinking.

[СлободанВулетић]

Mileva Maric. Postoje dokazi! Njihova pisama! Pavijane.

[Egilhelmson]

Special Relativity was almost trivial to work out in 1905. *General* Relativity was something that only Einstein thought up.

[IRACEMABABU]

It wasn't about the maths, it was about the interpretation and the deep understanding, who later led to general relativity. And what people generalyy don't know is that Einstein, at age 14, 10/11 years before, already was asking himself the following question : "what would happen if i could be seating on top of a light ray and travel with it ?"

[acasualviewer]

Einstein did a great job of bringing several ideas together. But he was also later pushed by people like Minkowski that helped formalize special relativity and pushed Einstein to have to learn more math to be able to get to general relativity.

[Xmeromotu]

The 1905 paper acknowledges the assistance of his friend, I believe it was Michele Besso. Everyone just needs to read the papers. They’re amazing and the math isn’t hard.

[pvaldespino]

Started the first minutes of the conversation and it's very intriguing so far. Looking forward to watching it in its entirety. Thanks...

[Drgoldthumb]

Albert was the one who scooped it up first. Not only that, he made it look good when he did it

[edwardmitchell]

I’ve been thinking a lot about how we aren’t taught this. This needs to be a children’s book.

[Pine_Gap_Island]

For some reason this reminds me of 1960s rock n roll and pop music with everyone from The Beatles to The Doors to Pink Floyd all pioneering the boundaries of recorded music.

[stringtheory]

This is why Isaac Newton is just a one in 50 trillion type of person

[robotaholic]

You can't minimize how revolutionary his discovery was