Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“But what about the lurkers?”

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

It’s easier to kill a dangerous animal than a man who just happens to have different thoughts/values than one’s own.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

Fight them, without becoming them!

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Shut up, hissy kitty!

“Let’s not pretend [Trump] wants to engage in high-minded discourse.”

“Why isn’t this Snickers bar only a nickel?”

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

You cannot shame the shameless.

I desperately hope that, yet again, I am wrong.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

White supremacy is terrorism.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

The words do not have to be perfect.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself. We’re allowed to grow past that.

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

You are here: Home / Books / Who Wants to Zoom with Einstein? (sort of)

Who Wants to Zoom with Einstein? (sort of)

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While he was in Arizona, John Cole put me in touch with a work connection of his, Benyamin Cohen.  Benyamin is Einstein on social media, and he also wrote this book.  Benymin is interested in coming to talk with BJ peeps on a zoom (for sure) and is also up for doing an Ask Me Anything post (if there’s interest).

For now, let’s plan the zoom.

If you think you might be interested in joining the zoom, let me know if April 17 at 7:30 would work for you.  We’re thinking a 45-minute presentation and then questions.

This will be a fun, light-hearted, not particularly science-y talk about Einstein.

The Einstein Effect

Einstein

Benyamin gave me a .pdf copy of the book, and I enlisted kalakal to take a look at it, too, and help choose the topics we would like Ben to cover.  kalakal was kind enough to supply a casual summary of some of the three areas we’ve asked Ben if he will share with us in his presentation.

War and Peace… and Einstein.
Covers Einsteins humanitarian work and legacy, how his experiences in, and as a refugee from, Nazi Germany led him to be deeply committed to humanitarian aid work throughout the rest of his life beginning with helping fellow Jews from the Nazis the organization he founded, the International Rescue Committee, still exists, helping millions suffering from conflict and crise. Also his support for the civil rights movement.  **Special bonus Mandy Patinkin story!

Einstein and pop culture. Einstein 70 years after his death is the world’s most famous dead celebrity, he has a bigger social media following than, say, Tom Hanks. He’s the universal embodiment for science in popular culture, like say Beethoven for classical music or Sherlock Holmes for detectives. How did this come about and why, some entertaining & informative examples eg Yoda’s face and hair was based on him.

Einstein in the age of Fake News.
Einstein himself was a major target of fake news, both from the Nazis and later in the US. Both he and his work were attacked and lied about and he was under surveillance by the FBI up to his death. Discusses the phenomenon and poisonous effects of fake news generally and compares Einstein’s experiences with those of Lenny Pozner, father of one of the children murdered at Sandy Hook. How both men fought back, Einstein taught physics at black colleges to counteract the lower IQ myth, Pozner sued and won against Alex Jones.

Let us know what you think in the comments!

Reader Interactions

38Comments

  7. 7.

    WaterGirl

    @NotMax: Yeah, we could probably start as late as 8 pm Eastern if that would help the CA peeps.

    I figured that even if we made it at 8, which would be 5 for the west coast, they would still be driving home.

    We’ll work something out.

    What time is 7:30 Eastern in your neck of the woods?

  9. 9.

    WaterGirl

    @TBone: You can listen to a zoom on the phone, and you can zoom with the camera off.  You don’t do either of those?

    Either way, we will happily to an Ask Me Anything if there’s interest.

  10. 10.

    TBone

    @WaterGirl: I don’t have the technology as far as I know (to connect, don’t you need the app?)

    I mean, I have a cell phone, a laptop and video capability but never felt the need to watch someone or anyone (thank God I don’t WFH).

  11. 11.

    WaterGirl

    @TBone: You don’t need the app.  You can just zoom through a browser – that’s what I do. And if you want audio only, you can dial a number with your phone, and participate that way.

  14. 14.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Baud: Its only noticeable if you are traveling at speeds close to the speed of light. I just don’t get the fascination normies have with Einstein. Is it because he looks the part?

  15. 15.

    SiubhanDuinne

    I’d love to participate. The 17th at whatever time is fine with me. Thanks for setting this up, WG.

  17. 17.

    Michael Bersin

    Since the last total solar eclipse in our neck of the woods in 2017 I’ve been planning for this April 8th with friends (two who are retired photography professors).

    We’ve planned an expedition south into Arkansas on April 8th.

    The preparations have included practice with cameras, lenses, filters, and laptop software. And we’re all planning on packing our vehicles for an expedition and calculating maximum out and back fuel range.

    I went to a local hardware last week for some supplies for the adventure. I still do wear a mask in public. I realized in the moment that it didn’t look good at the checkout when I presented my purchases – 100 feet of clothesline, 50 heavy zip ties, and electrical tape. One of my friends later quipped, “At least you didn’t have plastic sheeting in the pile.”

    We’ve planned for a location (including paying for a place to  set down – $25 per vehicle), but I’m starting to worry about the weather forecast. The longer (and less accurate) forecasts are calling for cloud cover and rain over a wide area, including all of our alternate sites. We can only drive so far in the amount of available time. At this point, we’re still a go for the experience, but are reconciled to the prospect of few or no solar photos.

    At least half the fun is in getting there, even if it’s a washout. I’ll keep telling myself that.

    Everybody talks about the weather, nobody does anything about it

  19. 19.

    schrodingers_cat

    To elaborate on my earlier comment. There are other twentieth century physicists whose work is comparable to Einstein but no one outside of the physics community has even heard of them.

    Hans Bethe, P. A. M. Dirac, John Von Neumann to name a few.

    Einstein the archetype of a mad scientist. He did his best work in the early aughts and teens of the twentieth century. He was not on board with quantum mechanics which changed how we understand the world

    But to most people when you say physicist or even a scientist Einstein is the image that comes to mind. I wonder why.

  20. 20.

    NotMax

    @TBone

    As mentioned above, you don’t need the app and can go through your regular browser, which will get you into a sort of stripped down version. But the app is free and a snap to install.

    Mom, age 96, uses Zoom on her computer frequently to view and listen to presentations provided by libraries in her area. She doesn’t have a camera and doesn’t even bother with connecting a mic.

  23. 23.

    ColoradoGuy

    I was fascinated to discover he had attended ETH in Zurich, as well as working in the Swiss Patent Office afterward. The Swiss are NOT big fans of German nationalism or Teutonic discipline. They may share the same language and much of the German/Swiss technology base, but the mental and social attitudes are very, very different. Above all else, the Swiss are independent, and nobody tells them what to do.

    I’m sure that affected Einstein when he moved to Berlin … he was probably disgusted by the mindless Prussian militarism all around him.

  24. 24.

    NotMax

    @ColoradoGuy

    The Swiss Air Force had business hours, with time off for lunch, until 2020.

    Calls for greater readiness on the part of the air force have existed for years, but they became front-page news in 2014 when a hijacked Ethiopian Airlines passenger plane landed in Geneva at about 6am.

    While Italian and French military aircraft were scrambled to accompany the plane, Switzerland couldn’t deploy any jets and intervene because the air force only worked during office hours (8am-12pm and 1.30pm-5pm). Source

  27. 27.

    TBone

    @NotMax: Hubby has the laptop borked somehow that it won’t install Zoom or any other video messaging dealio.  I dunno, maybe Microsoft did it when I let him set up that laptop by himself, but we couldn’t even video conference with his doctor either on their website or app or whatever.  We’ve attempted to install several times leading only to much consternation and verbal assault towards the computer.  But thank you for that link, I’ll see if it’s doable soon.

  28. 28.

    Ruckus

    @schrodingers_cat:

    I’ve known of the second and third you mention P. A. M. Dirac and  John Von Neumann. OK I looked up Hans Bethe and yes I have studied him as well, the name just didn’t stick.

  32. 32.

    FelonyGovt

    I would be interested and that date would probably work for me, at 7:30 or 8 EST, doesn’t much matter.

  36. 36.

    SW

    It’s been over a hundred years now yet we still haven’t digested the fundamental insight of relativity.

  37. 37.

    Quadrillipede

    I’m tentatively interested — 4:30pm, but I WFH, so nobody would miss me for 45 minutes unless something is actively on fire at the time. (Commenting email should be able to receive a Zoom invite…)

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