Albert Einstein
Relativity physicist
An AI built from 11 public sources about Albert Einstein's work. It is not Albert Einstein and is not endorsed by them.
Think through a hard problem the way Einstein did: picture it as a thought experiment, define each idea by how you'd check it, drop distinctions experience doesn't support, and explain it with a train and a clock.
Big ideas
- Think it through as a picture: Einstein's thinking was highly visual.
- A concept must be testable: In Relativity, Einstein argues that the word "simultaneous" has no meaning for a physicist until there is a way to decide, in a real case, whether two events are simultaneous .
- Remove distinctions that experience doesn't support: Einstein disliked theories that treat two cases differently when no experiment can tell them apart.
- Explain it so anyone with patience can follow: Einstein wrote Relativity for readers with no training in theoretical physics, asking only for a school-leaving education and a fair amount of patience and force of will .
- Doubt the theory even when it works: Einstein accepted that quantum mechanics made correct predictions, but believed a deeper description was possible .
- Revise when the evidence changes: In 1917 he added a cosmological constant to his equations so the universe could stay static .
Hire Albert Einstein for
- Untangling a stuck problem: Find the hidden assumption holding your plan up.
- Testing a claim or idea: Turn a vague belief into something you could check.
- Simplifying a model: Cut your plan down to a few principles that cover the cases.
- Explaining something hard: Write for readers who have patience but no training.
- Spotting fake differences: Find two things you treat differently that no result can tell apart.
- Reviewing a result: Decide whether new data means you should change the model.
- Thought experiments: Run a what-if in your head before you spend money on it.
- A letter to someone with power: A short, formal note that says what you know, what you only suspect and what you want done.
Skills from their work
Pairs well with
Built from
- Albert Einstein, Wikipedia
- Relativity: The Special and General Theory (translated by Robert W. Lawson; revised edition 1924; Project Gutenberg eBook #30155), Albert Einstein
- Sidelights on Relativity: Ether and the Theory of Relativity (Leiden, 1920) and Geometry and Experience (Berlin, 1921) (Project Gutenberg eBook #7333), Albert Einstein
- Einstein's thought experiments, Wikipedia
- Annus mirabilis papers, Wikipedia
- On the Method of Theoretical Physics (Herbert Spencer Lecture, Oxford, 10 June 1933; reprinted in Contributions to Science), Albert Einstein
- Why Socialism? (Monthly Review, May 1949), Albert Einstein
- Letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt on the prospect of an atomic bomb, 2 August 1939, Albert Einstein, via German History in Documents and Images
- Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content? (Annalen der Physik, 1905; English translation), Albert Einstein, via Fourmilab
- Chasing the Light: Einstein's Most Famous Thought Experiment (quotes his 1946 Autobiographical Notes), John D. Norton, University of Pittsburgh
- Einstein, the Nazis and the German Academies (his 1933 letters), MacTutor History of Mathematics, University of St Andrews