Your tributes to Einstein’s feats

The man behind the equations
Ron Tully, Mountain Lakes, N.J.: "Einstein personifies the ultimate scholar, reflected in his bridging of both the liberal arts and the pure sciences. His real achievement was in taking the best of human thought from the great philosophers of the ancient world, the Renaissance and the Enlightenment period, and blending that with the scientific thought of both ancient and modern times. ... We often talk of people who can think outside the box. Einstein is that perfect intellect capable of distilling knowledge within the box of human understanding and comprehending that the box actually is not a box at all, but a collection of electrons designed by nature to fulfill a specific purpose. Now that's genius!"

K.S. Gopal, Singapore: "He spoke, people listened."

M. Cole, St. Louis, Mo.: "Co-authoring with Leo Szilard and signing the letter to President Roosevelt in 1939 recommending that the United States begin development of an atomic weapon program."

Michael Vergara, Miami, Fla.: "I believe [his most influential achievement was] coming to the USA and informing the policy holders that we should look into a construction of a nuclear bomb. If that had not happened, the Nazis could have killed him and maybe would have made the bomb first, or would have made him make it for Germany. Think about it. How would life be now if Hitler made the first nuclear bomb."

Josh Hager, Las Vegas: "Let's skip 'influential,' as that will simply be an argumentative miasma. Instead, I'll promote his 'coolest' achievement, the relativistic effect of 'time dilation.' Simply put, if you travel faster than your surroundings, time will pass more slowly for you than for your surroundings. (Think of the jealous, uglier twin who rockets off in a spaceship, only to return in a decade to find that her previously gorgeous sister has aged by 25 years! Plastic surgery will never be the same.) ..."

Michael Yundt, Montgomery, Ala.: "I see his most influential achievement being the departure from the idea of fields. He refused to accept the convenient notion of a field being the cause of gravity or electromagnetism or any of the other unexplainable forces in nature. The fields were convenient ways of saying 'I don't know.' Instead, he allowed an entirely different view of the world (literally, of the universe) to describe and explain nature. Despite the complex field equations, his theories of space-time and relativity were and are so beautiful and so simple."

Brad, Blasdell, N.Y.: "I believe that Einstein's greatest achievement wasn't E=mc² or his theory of relativity, it was his challenge of the norm. You have to remember that he was not a hero or or even very well-liked, for that matter, for most of his life with his colleagues. He never really had a home (country) of his own, but he still went after what he believed to be as truth. He gave the world the idea not to accept the word 'impossible' and to show God what our humanity is capable of. We have made more advances, in all fields of study, in the last century than all the others combined. Who else in history can say that they have had a hand in that?"

O. Gould, California: "Aside from his many scientific achievements, I think that Einstein's most influential achievement was his humanity. He was a man who believed in peace and civil rights. Two things he believed in so strongly, that he urged the scientific community to use science to create world peace and freedom. Einstein did not want the bomb to be used, he wanted mankind to seek peace and tolerance."

John White, Anchorage, Alaska: "Albert Einstein forced conventional science to think outside the box, and presented the evidence to force them to do it. He never proclaimed 'I am right' — he suggested, 'I might be right, you might be wrong — and here is why.' And his reasoning was so brilliant it required conventional thinkers to consider it. He showed that the power of the brain could challenge the greatest instruments of experimental science by asking the question 'what if.'  Empirical evidence could be challenged by the 'thought experiment.' He forced science to stretch itself beyond the physical to question — and in a perfect world — even validate the spiritual."

Robert D. La Gesse, Castle Hills, Texas: "I think the greatest contribution is the legacy of achievability he has left our new young scientists. If Einstein could change the world with the meager tools he had at his disposal then, what might our new young scientists achieve today? I believe Einstein is probably still one of the greatest forces pulling people into science fields today."

Bill Rhinesmith, Newport Beach, Calif.: "Einstein woke us up! He woke us all up. Not just academia — but at the most elemental level of civilized societies, he alerted us to the possibilities. For the 'mathematically impaired' — while we still didn't understand the actual mechanics of what he was exposing, we did understand that these things, these 'theories,' were real and that they could be harnessed to achieve real things that were formerly thought of as almost black magic."

Mari Dickson, Oconomowoc, Wis.: "When asked what Einstein thought was his greatest discovery, he replied, 'That I can wear shoes without socks.' The man had a marvelous sense of humor, or was it modesty? I am one of his greatest admirers."

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