Blog 16

                In part five of the book Albert Einstein: Ideas and Opinions all of Einstein’s major contributions to science were discussed, both through his research and through his activism in science. All of the compilations in the sections were passages taken from publications, radio conferences, or lectures that Einstein gave throughout his years. This allows for Einstein’s character and passion towards science to be understood by the reader which gives great depth and appreciation for what he did. Even though most of the contributions mentioned were things such as the theory of relativity and E=MC^2 and they were highly intellectual, the section that astounded me the most was a short part about the language of science. At first I wondered why such a scientifically intellectual person such as Einstein would be talking about language. Yet, his account of how scientific language is an international language that conveys to others concepts and data in a precise manner was inspired. One can see the inspiration in the second to last paragraph where he discusses that the scientific language, or in other words the scientific method, would not exist without the passions that scientists have had to gain a clearer understanding of the world around them. The scientific method therefore is only a tool for scientists to use based on the goals they desire to obtain. This is similar to what Aristotle talked about when he said that people need to employ both internal and external goods, which in this case is the scientific method, in order to reach closer to the end goal of one’s practice, which for science is the discovery of natural truths and the satisfaction of curiosity. Even though most scientists today have this same end goal and use the scientific method to achieve it, it will be important for them to reflect on what Einstein said and remember that we need to always use the scientific method to not only reach the end goal of science but also to then be able to convey newly discovered concepts to others well.

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