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ScientificAmerican.com
SEPTEMBER 2015
EINS
HOW RELATIVITY
CHANGED THE RULES
OF OUR REALITY
HIS LIFE,
CRISES &
BOLDEST
DREAMS
TEIN
A BRIEF
HISTORY
OF TIME
TRAVEL
THINGS
HE GOT
WRONG
NEW QUEST
FOR A
THEORY OF
EVERYTHING
2015 Scientific American
SEPTEMBER 2015
VO L U M E 3 1 3 , N U M B E R 3
I N T RO DUC TIO N
32 Einstein
A hundred years ago Albert
Einstein published his general
theory of relativity and rewrote
the rules of our physical world.
By the Editors
THE
EINSTEIN
ISSUE
ESS AY
34 Why He Matters
Einsteins mind had an astonishing
influence on our civilization.
By Brian Greene
H I STO RY
38 How Einstein
Reinvented Reality
Amid personal troubles, political
tension and fierce competition,
a grand theory was born.
By Walter Isaacson
Also: Relativity Primer
T H OUGH T EXP ER IMENTS
46 Head Trip
Einsteins thought experiments
forged new frontiers in physics.
By Sabine Hossenfelder
COS M O LO GY
50 What Einstein Got Wrong
32
The visionary scientist repeatedly

misjudged the value of his ideas.
By Lawrence M. Krauss
A L EG ACY I N NU MBERS
56 Relativitys Reach
A map of Einsteins influence.
His quest for a theory of everything

failed, so todays physicists are
trying new strategies.
By Corey S. Powell
T H EO RY
68 A Brief History
of Time Travel
Moving forward is easy. Backward
poses a challenge. By Tim Folger
AST RO N O MY
74 The Black Hole Test

Does general relativity work in
extreme gravity? By Dimitrios
Psaltis and Sheperd S. Doeleman
A STUDY IN CONTR A STS
80 Who Was Einstein, Really?

The great scientists life
and personality.
NEUROSC IENC E
82 Genius in a Jar
Decades of picking over Einsteins
brain have brought us no closer to
understanding what made him so
smart. By Brian D. Burrell
QUA NTUM PHYS ICS
88 Is the Cosmos Random?

Einsteins claim that God does not
play dice with the universe has
been seriously misinterpreted.
By George Musser
2 Scientific American, September 2015
ON THE C OVE R
Albert Einsteins enigmatic face has captivated
the world nearly as long as his theories have.
The scientists hallmark hair and soulful eyes have
become an icon of genius. This special issue
investigates the great mans life, legacy and the
future of his ideas on the 100th anniversary of
his greatest success, his general theory of relativity.
Illustration by Daniel Adel.
Illustration by Bernard Lee
COVER PHOTO REFERENCE: GETTY IMAGES
F U N DAM E N TAL P HYSICS
60 Cleaning Up after Einstein
6 From the Editor

8 Letters
12 Science Agenda
Budget meddling by Congress could cripple
crucial Earth science programs. B
y the Editors
14 Forum
Brain researchers are overwhelmed with data.
Hackers can help. By Daniel Goodwin
16 Advances
Why Lyme disease may linger. Underwater greenhouses.
The SAT revamped. A toy car powered by evaporation.
14
29 The Science of Health

A Mediterranean-style diet in later stages of life
may slow memory loss. B
y Dina Fine Maron
31 TechnoFiles
The new breed of virtual assistant is scary smart.
By David Pogue
94 Recommended
Recent takes on Einstein. B
y Clara Moskowitz
95 Skeptic
How trustworthy are DNA and other
crime scene tests? By Michael Shermer
21
96 Anti Gravity
Birds show math skills; dogs showcase loyalty.
By Steve Mirsky
98 50, 100 & 150 Years Ago

100 Graphic Science
Populous cities are supposed to emit less carbon
per capita, but they dont always. B
y Amber Williams
ON THE WEB
General Relativity at 100
95
Take a quiz about Einstein, read about the real story

of E = mc2, explore an interactive relativity infographic,
watch a video about the theory, and more.
Go to www.ScientificAmerican.com/relativity
Scientific American (ISSN 0036-8733), Volume 313, Number 3, September 2015, published monthly by Scientific American, a division of Nature America, Inc., 1 New York Plaza, Suite 4500, New York, N.Y. 10004-1562. Periodicals
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Copyright 2015 by Scientific American, a division of Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved.
From the Editor

Mariette DiChristinais editor
in chief of Scientific American.
Follow her on Twitter @mdichristina
Editorial and Einstein
long with his article submission, the scientist

included an apologetic note to the editors:
The article is somewhat long and not quite
easy to grasp. I should, therefore, not be aston
ished if you find it unsuited
for publication in your magazine.
Despite the authors concern, the pub
lisher, Gerard Piel, and the editor in chief,
Dennis Flanagan, ran the article in S
cientific
American. They also framed the letter.
The author? Albert Einstein. His article,
On the Generalized Theory of Gravitation,
appeared in the April 1950 issue (right).
I stumbled across this charming anecdote
while paging through one of our old scrap
books, which included a clipping from the
November 19, 1961, edition of the C
hicago SunTimes, along with others about our publication of the feature
submission from Einstein.
Of course, it wasnt our first encounter with Einstein. As you
would expect from a magazine that is now celebrating its 170th
year of reporting innovation, the editorial team and our scientist
authors covered his theories as he published them. For example,
Max Planck commented about the evolution of relativity theory
in a 1910 article, The Mechanical Theory of Nature: The prin
ciple of relativity, despite its youth, appears very promising. He
mentions Einstein, who boldly generalized the principle and

proclaimed the relativity of all intervals and epochs of time.
And in 1920long before the world ever heard of crowd
sourcing, the magazine sought to rectify the paucity
of lay explanations of the physics via a global
essay contest. The editors explained:
Mr. Eugene Higgins offered, through
the Scientific American, a prize of the
extra
or
dinary amount of $5,000 for
the best popular essay on the Einstein
Theories of Relativity. The contest drew
exactly 300 essays from all parts of Eu
rope and North America, from India and
South Africa and South America. With the
agreement of the judges, Mr. L. Bolton of
London got the award, with publication of
his essay in a February 5, 1921, issue.
A century after Einsteins landmark De
cember 2, 1915, publication of Die Feldgleichungen der Gravitation (The Field Equations of Gravitation), which we cele
brate in this edition, we offer todays perspective on efforts to
grasp the nature of spacetime. Issue editor Clara Moskowitz
and the team have created a special report that is profound yet
playful and sparkles with the wonder of discoveryrather like
the great man himself. We hope you enjoy reading it as much as
we did putting it together.
BOARD OF ADVISERS
President, Wenner-Gren Foundation
for Anthropological Research
Roger Bingham
Co-Founder and Director,
The Science Network
Arthur Caplan
Director, Division of Medical Ethics,
Department of Population Health,
NYU Langone Medical Center
Vinton Cerf
Chief Internet Evangelist, Google
George M. Church
Director, Center for Computational
Genetics, Harvard Medical School
Rita Colwell
Distinguished University Professor,
University of Maryland College Park
and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School
of Public Health
Richard Dawkins
Founder and Board Chairman,
Richard Dawkins Foundation
Drew Endy
Professor of Bioengineering,
Stanford University
Edward W. Felten
Director, Center for Information
Technology Policy, Princeton University
Kaigham J. Gabriel
Lawrence M. Krauss
President and Chief Executive Officer,

Charles Stark Draper Laboratory
Director, Origins Initiative,

Arizona State University
Harold Skip Garner
Director, Medical Informatics and

Systems Division, and Professor, Virginia
Bioinformatics Institute, Virginia Tech
Michael S. Gazzaniga
Director, Sage Center for the Study of Mind,

University of California, Santa Barbara
David J. Gross
Professor of Physics and Permanent

Member, Kavli Institute for Theoretical
Physics,University of California, Santa
Barbara (Nobel Prize in Physics, 2004)
Lene Vestergaard Hau
Mallinckrodt Professor of
Physics and of Applied Physics,
Harvard University
Partner, Khosla Ventures

CSO, Allen Institute for Brain Science
Professor of Applied Economics and

Management, Cornell University
Robert S. Langer
David H. Koch Institute Professor,
Department of Chemical
Engineering, M.I.T.
Professor, Harvard Law School
Class of 1935 Distinguished Professor

of Energy, Energy and Resources Group,
and Director, Renewable and Appropriate
Energy Laboratory, University
of California, Berkeley
Christof Koch
Steven Kyle
John P. Moore
Co-chairman, Applied Minds, LLC
Vinod Khosla
Director, Hedonia: TrygFonden

Research Group, University of Oxford
and University of Aarhus
Lawrence Lessig
Danny Hillis
Daniel M. Kammen
Morten L. Kringelbach
Professor of Microbiology and

Immunology, Weill Medical
College of Cornell University
M. Granger Morgan
Professor and Head of
Engineering and Public Policy,
Carnegie Mellon University
Miguel Nicolelis
Co-director, Center for
Neuroengineering, Duke University
Martin A. Nowak
Terry Sejnowski
Robert E. Palazzo
Michael Shermer
Director, Program for Evolutionary

Dynamics, and Professor of Biology and
of Mathematics, Harvard University
Dean, University of Alabama at
Birmingham College of Arts and Sciences
Carolyn Porco
Leader, Cassini Imaging Science

Team, and Director, CICLOPS,
Space Science Institute
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
Director, Center for Brain and Cognition,

University of California, San Diego
Lisa Randall
Professor of Physics, Harvard University
Martin Rees
Astronomer Royal and Professor

of Cosmology and Astrophysics,
Institute of Astronomy, University
of Cambridge
John Reganold
Regents Professor of Soil Science

and Agroecology, Washington
State University
Jeffrey D. Sachs
Director, The Earth Institute,

Columbia University
Eugenie C. Scott
Chair, Advisory Council,

National Center for Science Education
Professor and Laboratory Head

of Computational Neurobiology Laboratory,
Salk Institute for Biological Studies
Publisher, Skeptic m
agazine
Michael Snyder
Professor of Genetics, Stanford

University School of Medicine
Michael E. Webber
Co-director, Clean Energy Incubator,

and Associate Professor,
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
University of Texas at Austin
Steven Weinberg
Director, Theory Research Group,

Department of Physics,
University of Texas at Austin
(Nobel Prize in Physics, 1979)
George M. Whitesides
Professor of Chemistry and

Chemical Biology, Harvard University
Nathan Wolfe
Director, Global Viral Forecasting Initiative
Anton Zeilinger
Professor of Quantum Optics,

Quantum Nanophysics, Quantum
Information, University of Vienna
Jonathan Zittrain
Professor of Law and of Computer

Science, Harvard University
Illustration by Nick Higgins
BEN SHAHN, COMMISSIONED BY SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, VOL. 182, NO. 4; APRIL 1950
Leslie C. Aiello
Letters
[email protected]
Californias
law mandating
vaccinations
for school-age
children is a
necessary measure.
hannah peckler u niversity of california,

san francisco, school of nursing
May 2015
VACCINATION STRATEGY
In Wooing the Fence-sitters [Science
Agenda], the editors suggest that rather

than strong-arm tactics, we should use a
more subtle social strategy of little nudges to convince parents to vaccinate their
children. But strong-arm tactics are nothing new to public health. How is a law that
mandates vaccinations for school-age children, such as the one recently passed in
California, any different from, say, fluoridating drinking water? Although forming
peer-advocacy groups and promoting provaccine interactions with providers are
part of the solution, I do not think these
strategies alone are aggressive enough for
a time-sensitive and life-threatening public health issue. Californias law is a necessary measure to shift the immunization
rate above the safety threshold.
Hannah Peckler
University of California, San Francisco,
School of Nursing
that killed dinosaurs but spared mammals, allowing our ancestors to take over.
But it wasnt so simple. Some dinosaurs
did survive: birds. Yet it is a mystery why
some (but not all) birds did so, but numerous very birdlike, feathered dinosaurs
such as Velociraptor and its kin died.
Many mammals did survive, particularly
those that were smaller and had more general diets. Yet a number of other mammals
perished. The late Cretaceous was the heyday of metatherians (living marsupials
and close relatives), but this entire group
almost went extinct when the asteroid that
triggered the dinosaurs demise hit. In the
ensuing Paleogene, it was the placental
mam
mals that took advantage of the
metatherian demise and blossomed into
the many familiar groups we know today,
including our primate forebears.
RELATIVISTIC VOYAGE
In The Glue That Binds Us, Rolf Ent,
the dinosaurs in Rise of the Tyrannosaurs. What was so vulnerable in the dinosaurs that ensured their extinction while
allowing mammals to survive and thrive?
Peter Stephen
via e-mail
Thomas Ullrich and Raju Venugopalan

state that physicists think that when protons and neutrons reach extreme speeds,
the gluons inside the protons split into
pairs of new gluons.
But that would violate special relativitys tenet that the laws of physics are the
same for all observers. Consider the perspective of a tiny physicist riding a proton
in a vacuum, surrounded by a tube that races by at ever faster speeds.Our little physicist monitors his proton from time to time
and always finds it the same. Which physicists gluons are splittingthe tiny one or
one observing from outside the tube?
Charles M. Bagley, Jr.
Seattle
BRUSATTE REPLIES: T
he end-Cretaceous
extinction is often viewed as a catastrophe
THE AUTHORS REPLY: E

insteins special
theory of relativity holds true for the quan-
DINOSAUR EXTINCTION
Stephen Brusatte refers to the extinction of
tum foam of quark-antiquark and gluon

pairs that continually pop in and out of existence inside the proton. Thus, in a proton
moving at 0.99999 times the speed of light,
the lifetime of this quantum foam is dilated
long enough that its feature of splitting
gluons is captured by an observers quarkgluon femtoscope. Conversely, the physicist
co-moving with the proton cannot observe
these quantum fluctuations, because they
are short-lived, relative to him or her. This
person is therefore impervious to the
seething cauldron of quarks and gluons
existing within the proton (and all of us).
Because the fluctuations exist in both
frames, special relativity is upheld.
PUBERTY ONSET
After reading Why Girls Are Starting Pu-
berty Early, by Dina Fine Maron [The Science of Health], I was surprised that there
was not a mention of the impactof growth
hormones in milk production. Can these
hormones bear some of the responsibility
for the early onset of puberty in girls?
Vivian Fabbro Keenan
St. Petersburg, Fla.
Although it is clear that obesity is part of
the picturefat cells secrete estrogen,
which is the major hormone involved in
puberty in girlsI was astounded that
Maron ignored what is most certainly the
cause of both obesity and early-onset puberty: a diet rich in high-fat animal products, including dairy foods, which are
themselves rich in estrogen.
Adam Dave
via e-mail
MARON REPLIES: I t is not simple to identify any one factor responsible for earlier
puberty in girls. The bulk of evidence
points to those outlined in the article (such
as obesity), yet other theories abound.
Milk does contain some substances that
have weak estrogenic effects in humans,
but they probably are not big drivers of
earlier puberty. Meanwhile although some
cows are also treated with a hormone related to human growth hormone, there is little
reason to think that it would affect humans, and according to pediatric endocrinologist Paul Kaplowitz, naturally occurring and added hormones in these products are quickly degraded in the stomach.
Letters
Instead environmental chemicals that act

like hormones after being ingested appear
to be of much greater concern.
Slashing consumption of red meat and
high-fat dairy products is a good idea for a
variety of health reasons. Yet it is hard to
discern whether a more plant-based diet
would influence puberty because that dietary change could also reduce obesity.
CELLULAR COMMUNICATION
My daughter and I were fascinated by the
gap junctionsstructures connecting cells
to one anotherdescribed by Dale W.
Laird, Paul D. Lampe and Ross G. Johnson
in Cellular Small Talk. Does cell communication via gap junctions
occur with
blood cells that are circulating through
the body? And what about unicellular organisms, especially those that colonize?
James Wurzer
Mary-Elizabeth Wurzer
Camas, Wash.
THE AUTHORS REPLY: D
eveloping blood
cells in the bone marrow make gap junctions and communicate by sharing small
molecules with their neighbors. Yet for a
long time we thought circulating blood cells
did not do so: with gap junctions, groups of
blood cells would stick together and potentially block small blood vessels. We now
know that lymphocytes activated to combat an invading bacterium can form gap
junctions with other cells. This might be
an early step in blood cells crawling out of
a vessel to fight infection.
Regarding unicellular organisms: single cells and even colonial organisms such
as Volvox primarily communicate by releasing chemical signals. Gap junctions
became necessary when cells began to develop different roles as they lived together
with other cells. For example, cells in the
coelenterate Hydra form them. Plant cells
dont have gap junctions, but they do form
connections that pass much larger molecules and complexes.
CLARIFICATION
The Search for a New Machine, by John
Pavlus, refers to Moores law as indicating
that halving transistor size doubles computing performance. It should have referred to doubling the number of transistors on a chip to increase performance.
L E T T E R S TO T H E E D I TO R
ESTABLISHED 1845
EDITOR IN CHIEF AND SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT
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EXECUTIVE EDITOR
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SENIOR EDITORS
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Josh Fischman BIOLOGY / CHEMISTRY / EARTH SCIENCES
Seth Fletcher TECHNOLOGY Christine Gorman BIOLOGY / MEDICINE
Gary Stix MIND / BRAIN Kate Wong EVOLUTION
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Letters may be edited for length and clarity.
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Post a comment on any article at
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Science Agenda by the Editors

Opinion and analysis from Scientific Americans Board of Editors
Dont Blind
nasa to
Earths Climate
Budget meddling by Congress could
cripple Earth science programs
was always supposed to look close to home as well as out
to the stars. In 1958 the U.S. Congress chartered the agency to
focus on phenomena in the atmosphere and space. Through
Earth-observing satellites, nasa has vastly improved weather
forecasting and natural disaster prediction and relief. It may
have even helped save the world when it spotted a dangerous,
growing hole in the planets protective ozone layer in the 1980s.
The data spurred the international community to ban ozonedestroying chlorofluorocarbon chemicals.
This year congressional Republicans seem to have decided
they have had too much of a good thing and have moved to decrease nasas Earth science budget. They have been egged on
by Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who has big ambitionshe announced his run for president this yearbut little respect for science. Cruz, chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Space, Science,
and Competitiveness, said in a hearing that Earth science was
not part of the agencys core mission to space and, indeed, that
it was not hard science at all. But this choice between our planet and others is a false one.
In June the House of Representatives, led by Republicans,
passed a budget of $18.5 billion (which is what the White House
had requested) but reshuffled where the money was to be spent.
It slashed Earth science funding by $260 million and added extra
money for planetary science that the agency did not ask for. For
example, nasa requested $30million for a robotic mission to Jupiters icy moon, Europa, but the House gave it $140 million. The
Senate Appropriations Committee, also pushed by the Republican majority, approved a version of nasas budget that reduced
total funding by $239 million. At press time, Congress needed to
reconcile these competing bills.
Several Republicans, such as Cruz and Representative John
Culberson of Texas, claim that funds used by the agency for gazing down at Earth would be better spent examining other worlds.
The cuts, many say, actually pare back years of Earth science largesse from the Obama administration that underfunded other
agency initiatives.
This argument is misleading. The current administration did
increase nasas Earth science budget but only to redress a nearly
40 percent cut such science suffered between 2001 and 2006,
nasa
during the George W. Bush administration. Then, as now, actions were driven in large part by antiscientific opposition to evidence that global warming has a human trigger.
Another agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, also has eyes on Earth. But neither Republicans
nor Democrats in Congress have supported noaa with much
fervor. For instance, in 2012 Democratic Senator Barbara Mikulski of Maryland tried to move several noaa satellites to nasa.
And in the Obama administrations 2016 budget, noaa requested
$30million for a study of ocean acidification, which is driven by
climate change. The House granted $8.4million, cut noaas total
budget by about 5 percent and gave nasas Europa project that
$110-million boost. Dont tell me that there isnt money available, fumed Democratic Representative Sam Farr of California
during a House debate. It is just the priority where you give it.
Are you going to save this planet or put all the money into the
moon of Jupiter?
nasa researchers have successfully placed rovers on Mars and
tracked the depletion of groundwater that is exacerbating the
current drought in the American West. Of all federal agencies,
this one is best positioned to study the heavens and the major
environmental changes that affect our lives on Earth. Political
extremists need to back off from their budgetary meddling and
let the agency do both its jobs. The clock is ticking: the new fiscal
year starts in October.
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN ONLINE
Comment on this article at S cientificAmerican.com/sep2015
Illustration by Morgan Schweitzer
Forum by Daniel Goodwin

Commentary on science in the news from the experts
Neuroscience
Needs Hackers
Brain researchers are overwhelmed
with data. Hackers can help
There was a time w
hen neuroscientists could only dream of having such a problem. Now the fantasy has come true, and they are
struggling to solve it. Brilliant new exploratory devices are overwhelming the field with an avalanche of raw data about the nervous systems inner workings. The trouble is that even starting
to make sense of this bonanza of information has become a
superhuman challenge.
Just about every branch of science is facing a similar disruption. As laboratory-bench research migrates into the digital
realm, programming is becoming an indispensable part of the
process. At the same time, previously dependable sources of
financial support are drying up. The result has been a painful
scarcity of jobs and grantswhich, in turn, is impelling far too
many gifted researchers to focus on their narrow areas of specialization rather than investing time and energy into acquiring
new, computer-age skills. In fields where data growth is especially out of control, such as neuroscience, the demand for computer
expertise is growing as quickly as the information itself.
Science urgently needs hackershackers in the original, Tech
Model Railroad Club of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology sense of the word. Their engineering and design skills will be
useful, but what is most desirable is the true hackers resourcefulness, curiosity and appetite for fresh challenges. Particularly
Daniel Goodwin is a doctoral researcher

in the Synthetic Neurobiology Group at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This
piece was written while he was a research
scientist at the Simons Center for Data
Analysis in New York City.
in a field like neuroscience, helpers could be in

valuable in exploring the daunting wilderness of
newly revealed neural networks.
A few pioneers are leading the way. One is H.
Sebastian Seung, a professor at the Neuroscience
Institute and in the department of computer science at Princeton University. A few years ago he
and his collaborators set out to map the retinas
neural connections. As they collected an overwhelming mass of electron microscopy data, the
question was how they would ever manage to
interpret it all. Seungs familiarity with stateof-the-art computing told him that no artificialintelligence algorithm in existence could possibly
handle the task alone.
The solutionthen almost unheard of in lab
sciencewas to enlist thousands of human volunteers alongside a state-of-the art AI and harness their collective
brainpower. On December 10, 2012, Seung and his team launched
the online game EyeWire, in which players score points by helping to improve a neural map. About a year and a half later the
games creators published their first discoveries in Nature, together with a note sharing coveted co-author credit with the 2,183
players who had reached the games top ranks and made the
paper possible. (Scientific American is part of Springer Nature.)
Hackers are finding their own routes into neuroscience. In
late 2013 Brooklyn, N.Y.based designers Joel Murphy and Conor
Russomanno introduced OpenBCI, an open-source brain-computer interfacebasically a home-brewed electroencephalographic device. Kits and plans are available from their Web site
for just a fraction of a standard EEGs cost, and by all accounts it
works just as well as the big-budget models. Their two-monthlong Kickstarter campaign sold nearly 1,000 units and caught
the attention of academic research labs. Its just another example
of how traditional barriers are crumbling between institutional
science and individuals with new ideas. In fact, some labs have
begun posting research challenges with cash prizes on crowdsourcing sites such as Kaggle and InnoCentive. These days if a
research entity chooses not to explore such collaborative ap
proaches, it is in danger of being left behind.
The software-design community has demonstrated over the
past 20 years that massive online collaborations can work wonders. Today the physical sciences are only beginning to discover
that potential. Established scientists would do well to recognize that true hackers are motivated by challenge and honest
pride in seeing what they can do.
Comment on this article at ScientificAmerican.com/sep2015
Illustration by Wesley Bedrosian
ADVANCES
A colorized micrograph of a black-legged tick,

which can carry up to five diseases.
F U R T H E R R E A D I N G S A N D C I TAT I O N S | SCIENTIFICAMERICAN.COM/SEP2015/ADVANCES
D I S PATC H E S FR OM T H E FR O N TIE R S O F S C IE N C E , T E C H N O LO GY A N D M E D I C IN E
IN S ID E
Airplanes face a new collision risk:

personal drones
A plot of basil flourishes
20 feet underwater
Is the sun a thief?
A toy car powered
by evaporation
HEA LTH
Lingering
Lyme
GETTY IMAGES
A new theory about long-lasting

Lyme disease symptoms
suggests treatment options
Lyme disease is a truly intractable puzzle.
Scientists used to consider the tick-borne
infection easy to conquer: patients, diagnosed by their bulls-eye rash, could be
cured with a weeks-long course of antibiotics. But in recent decades the U.S. Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention has
realized that up to one in five Lyme patients
exhibits persistent debilitating symptoms
such as fatigue and pain, known as posttreatment Lyme disease syndrome, and no
one understands why. The problem is
growing. The incidence of Lyme in the U.S.
has increased by about 70 percent over the
past decade. Today experts estimate that at
least 300,000 people in the U.S. are infected every year; in areas in the Northeast,
more than half of adult black-legged ticks
carry the Lyme bacterial spirochete, B
orrelia
burgdorferi. A
lthough the issue is far from
settled, new research lends support to the
controversial notion that the disease lingers
because these bacteria evade antibiotics
and that timing drug treatments differently
could eliminate some persistent infections.
These ideas stem from the observation
of a few rogue bacterial cells. Kim Lewis,
September 2015, ScientificAmerican.com 17
ADVANCES
of other bacterial species are removed from
a bath of antibiotics, they begin to grow
again. This fact prompted Lewis and his colleagues to try treating B
.burgdorferi w
ith
antibiotics in pulsed dosesadministering
the drugs, stopping and then administering
them againto see if they could kill the
persisters once they began to regrow. It
worked, which suggests that if persisters are
responsible for lasting infections in people,
treating patients on and off with antibiotics
could help. Lewis and his colleagues, as well
as the Johns Hopkins scientists, are also
exploring other treatment options, such as
different drugs and drug combinations.
Not everyone agrees that persister cells
play a role in Lymes lingering symptoms.
Theres been no evidence that this persister
phenomenon has any relevance for animals
or humans, says Gary Wormser, chief of the
division of infectious diseases at New York
Medical College. First, he says, lab studies of
B.burgdorferi c annot account for the potential effects of the bodys immune system,
which might be able to eliminate persisters
once the brunt of the infection has cleared.
Second, labs have yet to grow B
.burgdorferi
isolated from people treated with antibiotics,
and that raises questions about whether the
persisters are even viable
and capable of making
someone sick.
Identifying the causes
of and treatments for posttreatment Lyme disease
syndrome is one of the
highest priority research
needs in the field, said
C. Ben Beard, chief of the
bacterial diseases branch
at the cdc s Division of
Vector-Borne Diseases, at
a cdc event in May 2014. So
although it is as yet unclear
whether B
.burgdorferi persister cells drive some of
LYME ON THE RISE
these enduring symptoms,
Lyme disease is expanding its geographical reach in almost every direction
Lewis and his colleagues
from its epicenters in the Northeast and upper Midwest, according to a study
published in August by CDC scientists. The reasons remain uncertain.
will take their research to
Ongoing forest fragmentation could contribute to the problem: as people
the next levelthey will test
chop forests into smaller pieces, they unwittingly create landscapes well
whether pulse dosing helps
suited for the deer and small mammals that ticks tend to feed on.
to clear B.burgdorferi infecClimate change may also foster new suitable habitats for the arachnids
and change the timing of tick feedings in ways that make young ticks
tions in micein an attempt
and humansmore vulnerable to infection. Nearly every known tickto move one step toward a
borne disease in the U.S. has become more prevalent over the past decade.
much needed answer.
Scientists have identified four new ones since 2013, bringing the total

Melinda Wenner Moyer
up to an estimated 16. M.W.M.
COMMENT AT
Math_Tutor_Conquer_Math_And_Science.indd 1
3/20/14 5:06 PM
GERALD C. KELLEY Science Source
director of the antimicrobial discovery center at Northeastern University, and his colleagues grew B
.burgdorferi in the laboratory,
treated them with various antibiotics and
found that whereas most of the bacteria
died within the first day, a small percentagecalled persister cellsmanaged to
survive the drug onslaught. Scientists first
discovered persister cells in 1944 in S taphylococcus aureus, t he agent of staph infections,
and Lewis and others have observed them in
other species of bacteria, toobut the
observations that B
.burgdorferi a lso form
persisters is new.
These are some of the most robust persisters weve seen, says Lewis, whose results
were published online in May in A
ntimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy. Over days, in
the presence of antibiotic, their numbers
dont decline. Researchers at Johns Hopkins
University similarly identified B
.burgdorferi
persister cells this past spring.
Persisters are not antibiotic-resistant
mutants; they are genetically identical to
their vulnerable counterparts. Instead they
are bacteria that have gone into a dormant
state, ceasing the types of cellular activities
that antibiotics typically thwart. Previous
research has shown that when persisters
PSYC H OLO GY
Fibs with
Friends
Groups spot lies more often
than individuals do
A shifty gaze, fi dgety stance or sweaty palms signal a liar in classic film noirs. In real life, however, it
is surprisingly difficult to recognize when someone
is telling a tall tale. Even among trained professionals, the lie-detection accuracy rate is only slightly
better than pure chance. And courts tend to reject
polygraph evidence because the tests lack standardized questions for determining falsehoods. For
better odds, discussions of questionable claims
appear to be the way to go. Psychologists at the
University of Chicago have found that groups of
people are consistently more reliable at rooting out
fabrications than chance or individual judges.
For the study, participants were shown videotaped statements, either by themselves or with
other people present, and then asked to guess
whether the speakers were telling the truth or
white lies. After 36rounds, the researchers found
that groups of evaluators scored just as well as
individuals in determining truths but were up to
8.5percent more accurate in exposing lies. Groups
of three or six were equally reliable at pinpointing
falsehoods. The slight edge arises as a result of
insights that emerge from conversations, says
Nadav Klein, one of the studys authors. By talking
out their observations with others, people gain
new perspectives, improving their understanding.
The results were published in June in the P
roceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA.
The scales of justice could be recalibrated
accordingly. For instance, judges could explicitly
instruct juries to evaluate witnesses for honesty, in
addition to asking them to consider the evidence
objectively, says R. Scott Tindale, a psychologist at
Loyola University Chicago. With that direction,
deliberations might be more likely to include conversations about credibility and thus to defeat
deception. No one advocates for mob mentality,
but when gauging mendacity, it is apparently wise
to compare notes.
Kat Long
Illustration by Thomas Fuchs
TECHNOLOGY
Cloudy with
a Chance
of Drones
Civilian multicopters raise
collision risks for jet airliners
AP THEORY
A near miss w
ith a personal drone forced
a Shuttle America flight to pull up while on
Advertisement
final approach to land at LaGuardia Airport
Waterwise_Waterwisdom.indd 1
6/5/15 12:06 PM
in New York City earlier this year. It wasnt
the first such incident. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration currently receives
about 60 reports from pilots every month
that represent potential drone sightings. No
one knows exactly the type or extent of
damage that a collision with a small drone
The Theories of Relativity, Special
could cause to a jet airliners engine or airRelativity, String, Steady State and
frame, but the agency plans to research
Nebula Hypothesis (Accretion) have
that possibility in the next fiscal year. Meanall been disproven. Youre invited
while technologies and policies that could
to disprove The AP Theory. So
deter such collisions remain up in the air.
confident are we that The AP Theory
The current prevention tactic is to stop
repeat offenders. The faa works with local
most logically describes the formalaw enforcement to contact drone operators
tion of water and our solar system
who carry out an unauthorized [unmanned
and how our atmosphere is being
aerial system] operation to educate them
held down without gravity in the
about flight safety regulations. The agency
most logical way that were offering
can also tack on civil penalties for careless
a $10,000.00 REWARD to the first
or reckless operation of drones.
person to disprove it. Must include
But the faa needs to do more to avert
an example in nature (on Earth) and a
collisions than educate citizens, says Ben Berdescription of a successful experiment.
man, a Boeing 737 pilot for a major U.S. airline. Most near-collision courses are going to
READ: www.aptheory.info
be misses, he explains. But if we roll the dice
COMMENT:
on near collisions with drones enough times
a year, eventually youll come up snake eyes.
[email protected]
Small dronesclassified by the faa as
no purchase necessary
weighing less than 55poundscannot carry
ASY 10/01/2015 2C 2.125W x 4.625H
*REWARD*
$10,000.00
COMMENT AT
Untitled-1.indd 1
the relatively heavy traffic collision and avoidance system used

by larger aircraft to track the locations of nearby planes. As an
alternative, Berman, a former
chief investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board,
thinks drone manufacturers
should program their craft to
avoid flying above certain altitudes or into restricted airspace.
The faa has also mentioned
such geo-fencing software updates as a potential short-term fix but does
not require them for small drone makers.
One best-selling-drone manufacturer
has already taken such steps. DJI, a company based in Shenzhen, China, makes the
worlds most popular small drones, with
its Phantom models costing about $1,000
apiece. Since 2014, DJI has pushed out
drone firmware updates to clearly show
operators the restricted airspaces around
airports, Washington, D.C., or national borders. Operators who ignore the software
warnings about restricted airspace and try
flying forward will find their drones simply
refusing to move. Its like flying into an invisible wall, DJIs Michael Perry says.
Several other tactics could be hovering
just over the horizon. In February the faa
proposed rules for small drones that include
speed and altitude restrictions and access limits to airspace where manned planes typically
fly. Such rules could be finalized as early as
2016. On the technology side, nasa has been
working with industry partners to develop an
unmanned air traffic system that could track
small drones at low altitudes. The space agency also has tested a detect-and-avoid system
for larger unmanned aircraft such as its Ikhana drone, a civilian version of the militarys
Predator drone. Such technology could eventually scale down for smaller drones.
These solutions have become more incumbent as growing numbers of drones find
their way into the hands of ordinary consumers. This year China exported 160,000 civilian
drones worth $120 million from January to
May, according to the Xinhua News Agency.
Were in the process of going from these
very niche hobby products to mass consumer products, Perry says. Many consumers
just entering this space dont know the rules
and regulations in the way that model aircraft
hobbyists used to.
Jeremy Hsu
7/23/15 9:49 AM
RICHARD NEWSTEAD Getty Images
ADVANCES
laserglow.pdf
2015-07-17
6:17 PM
AG RICU LT U R E
Sunken Strawberries
The produce aisle goes undersea
in a new approach to farming
CM
MY
CY
CMY
The air temperature inside the underwater

greenhouses stays close to a balmy 84 degrees
Fahrenheit, with a humidity of 90.5 percent.
COURTESY OF SERGIO GAMBERINI (top); OLIVIER MORIN Getty Images (middle and bottom)
In transparentplastic bubbles 20 feet

beneath the surface of the Mediterranean
Sea, an experimental garden grows. The
strawberries, basil, beans and tomatoes
within these air-filled biospheres thrive in
their submerged homes. Surrounding water
provides the constant temperature and
humidity elusive at most terrestrial farms,
and freshwater trickles down the spheres
interiors after the seawater below evaporates and then condenses.
These marine greenhouses, located off
the coast of Italy, represent a foray into underwater farming by Ocean Reef Group, a diving and scuba gear company. Company president Sergio Gamberini chose to grow his
crops hydroponically after noticing, during
an early trial, that soil brought along stowaway insect pests. He hopes to introduce this
gardening approach to coastal developing
countries with arid lands. In fact, Gamberini
has received requests for biospheres from
nations ranging from the Maldives to Saudi
Arabia. His son, Luca Gamberini, admits
a long path lies ahead: Our dream is, on
a large scale, utopic.
Sabrina Imbler
Laserglow_Your_Search_Your_Way.indd 1
7/23/15 1:42 PM
ADVANCES
E DUC AT I O N
SAT Charts
New Territory
The revamped test puts a stronger
emphasis on graphic literacy
tables, charts and graphs and to correct

text so it accurately describes data found
in accompanying figures.
Mounting evidence indicates that such
literacy is a key skill for success in college,
careers and daily life in general. In an increasingly data-rich world, graphics now pop up
routinely in formats ranging from political
campaign literature to household bills. Being
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a literate consumer of that information

is valuable regardless of your career,
says Jim Patterson, an executive director
at the College Board, the nonprofit
corporation that owns and publishes
the SAT.
Education experts agree that students in many developed nations,
including the U.S., lack experience with
visual data. Apart from basic x - a nd
y-axis graphs, educators [around the
world] dont sufficiently teach students
how to represent information graphically, says Emmanuel Manalo, a professor
of education psychology at Kyoto University in Japan. The SATs new focus
most likely will nudge educators to shift
their lesson plans accordingly. Students,
in other words, wont be the only ones
with bubble charts or scatter plots on
the mind this fallteachers will, too.

Rachel Nuwer
BIG DATA
DEMANDS
The intellectual work r equired to
interpret a graph taxes our brain
more than the effort involved in reading the same information presented
as text, according to a new study
by Manalo and two researchers at
the University of Twente in the Netherlands. The team measured neurological activity in students and found
that graphs elicited roughly 60percent more electrical activity than
text or equations and 40to 50percent more than pictures and tables.
Manalo will next examine whether
practice diminishes the amount of
tapped brainpower.
R.N.
COMMENT AT
RYAN BALDERAS Getty Images
Fortune favors the prepared mind, a s

Louis Pasteur once said. So as school revs up
this month, so do SAT prep classes. Students
might be surprised, however, at the amount
of time dedicated to visual literacy skills.
The increased focus on graphics is designed
to prepare an estimated 1.6 million collegebound pupils for the first redesign of the
standardized college admissions test in more
than a decade. Along with other updates, test
takers of the March 2016 exam will encounter graphics not only in the math section as
in past years but also in the reading and writing and language portions. Students will be
asked to interpret information presented in
A ST RO N O MY
Solar
Swindle
At the time of S
ednas discovery in
2003, it was the farthest body ever seen
in our planetary club. Its peculiar path
it never ventures near the giant planetssuggested an equally peculiar history. How did it get there? The sun may
have snatched Sedna away from another
star, new computer simulations show.
A clue to Sednas past came in 2012,
when observers spotted a second and
even smaller object with a similarly
elongated and remote orbit. Astronomers Lucie Jlkov and Simon Portegies
Zwart of Leiden Observatory in the
Netherlands and their colleagues decided to investigate whether interstellar
robbery could produce the orbits of
both Sedna and its sidekick, 2012 VP113.
We show that its possible, Jlkov
says. Moreover, the researchers reconstructed the crime scene and even the
likely properties of the victim star, which
they dubbed Star Q. In work submitted to M
onthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, t he astronomers say
Star Q was originally about 80 percent
more massive than the sun. It passed
within 34 billion kilometers of usjust
7.5 times greater than the distance from
the sun to Neptune. This proximity
means the star arose in the same stellar
group or cluster as the sun. Although
StarQ still exists, its fiercest light probably burned out long ago because of its
greater mass. As a dim white dwarf, it
will be hard to find.
The new work makes a pretty convincing case that Sedna could be captured, says astronomer Scott Kenyon of
the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for
Astrophysics. But Sedna discoverer Mike
Brown of the California Institute of Technology contends that the object most
likely is native to our solar system and got
yanked outward by the gravitational tug
of the suns siblingsa simpler scenario.
The issue may remain unresolved
Sedna
Sedna (purple) and 2012 VP113 (blue) never come close to
the orbits of the four giant planets (red) or even to Plutos
home in the Edgeworth-Kuiper belt (orange).
until more objects with odd orbits are found in

the outer reaches of our solar system. When
we have something like a dozen, I think well
probably know, Brown says. If the sun stole
these objects from Star Q, they should all

come closest to Earth on the same side of
the sun. But if their orbits differ, the sun probably is innocent of theft.
Ken Croswell
IN REASON WE TRUST
topic comes
Ifup,theacknowledge
youre an atheist.
No big deal.
Now lets talk
about something
interesting.
Photo: Brent Nicastro
SOURCE: SCOTT S. SHEPPARD C arnegie Institution for Science
The sun may have swiped

Sedna from a neighboring star
DANIEL C. DENNETT
Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy,

Tufts University
Author, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a
Natural Phenomenon
FFRF Honorary Director
Join the nations largest association of

freethinkers (atheists, agnostics) working
to keep religion out of government.
For a free sample of FFRFs newspaper,
Freethought Today, phone
1-800-335-4021
n
FFRF is a 501(c)(3) educational charity
Freedom From Religion Foundation

FFRF.ORG/reason-must-prevail
Graphic by Amanda Montaez
AN I M A L B E H AV I O R
From the
Pages of
Aesops Fables
A seven-gram bird deceives
a predator 40times its size
by crying wolf
In the classic story, a boy tries to repeatedly fool his town into believing that there
is a wolf on the prowl. This morality tale
ends poorly for the boy, but a small Australian bird can do one better. When a pied
currawong goes looking for brown thornbill
nestlings to eat, the thornbill parents call
wolfor, actually, they call hawk. The false
alarms fool the currawong into thinking
that its own predator, the brown goshawk,
is nearby. The tiny thornbill thus effectively
outsmarts its large enemy.
To explore how this sophisticated ruse
Pied currawongs
are fearsome birds
but have enemies
of their own.
works, biologist Branislav Igic, then at the

Australian National University, and his colleagues positioned a taxidermied currawong
near thornbill nests while broadcasting nestling distress calls. The thornbills sounded
their hawk alarm calls and even mimicked
the alarms of other species. Igic also tested
18 currawongs by broadcasting the sounds of
the thornbills mimetic and nonmimetic hawk
calls. He found that the playback discouraged
the currawongs from hunting. The results
were published this past spring in the P
roceedings of the Royal Society B.
The researchers think that alarm calls
from what sounds like multiple callers might

make the warning seem more reliable. Birds
can adapt some very interesting and unique
strategies to protect their young, says Igic,
who is now at the University of Akron. The
thornbills own hawk calls fooled the currawongs for 8.3 seconds on average, but
when Igic included the mimicked calls, too,
the currawongs were distracted twice as
long. That padding may provide enough
time for the nestlings to escape the nest.
Visual mimicry, exemplified by harmless
king snakes that resemble venomous coral
snakes, is well known to animal behaviorists, but vocal mimicry has remained more
mysterious. This is further evidence of the
benefits some vocal mimics gain from their
unusual vocal behavior, says University of
Cape Town ornithologist Tom Flower, who
was not involved in this study. He ultimately would like to see proof that deception
actually increases nestling survival. For
now, unlike the fabled townspeople, the
currawongs have yet to catch on to the
thornbills lies.
Jason G. Goldman
YOUR ST RY
CAN CHANGE
SOMEONE ELSES.
ADDICTION IS HOPELESS WITHOUT YOU
Share your story of recovery or message of hope with someone who needs
to hear it. Visit drugfree.org and join the Stories of Hope community.
The Partnership for a Drug-Free America, Inc.
COMMENT AT
B. G. THOMSON Science Source
ADVANCES
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

Dubai will house the first fully functional
3-D-printed building, announced the citys
Museum of the Future. A 20-foot-tall printer
will construct the 2,000-square-foot office.
I N TH E N EWS
Quick
Hits
U.S.
Google will add every
railroad crossing in the
country to its Maps
application. Visual and
audio alerts will signal
these potential hazards to
users. The Federal Railroad
Administration hasasked
Apple, TomTom and other
companies that provide
GPS services to do the same
after a large year-over-year
increase in crossing acci
dents in 2014.
For more details, visit www.Scientific
American.com/sep2015/advances
MEXICO
A deep-sea submarine discovered a
0.25-mile-long field of hydrothermal vents
along a fault in the Gulf of Californias seafloor.
At 12,500 feet, they are the deepest hightemperature vents ever found in the Pacific.
RUSSIA
Scuba divers helped an international team
of physicists install a spherical neutrino detector
more than 4,000feet below the surface of
icy Lake Baikal in Siberia.
CUBA
The World Health Organization
certified the island nation as
the first country to eliminate the
transmission of HIV and syphilis
from mother to baby.
INDONESIA
A plane dumped several
tons of cloud-seeding salt
over central Sumatra in
a government-supported
effort to induce rain and
relieve a seasonal heat
wave. The attempt failed
to produce any showers.
Adopt Me.
And change my world.

There are fewer
than 900 mountain
gorillas left on the planet.
Together we can save them.
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gorillafund.org/adopt-a-gorilla
1 (800) 851 0203
ADVANCES
E N GI N E E R I N G
Water, Water Everywhere

A toy car runs on the energy of evaporation
The first vehicle p
owered by evaporation
frequently zooms along a laboratory bench
these days at Columbia University. The
100-gram car relies on spore-coated tapes
that expand and contract like tiny muscles
could enable it to power a wide range of

technologies, including robotics systems
and generators. For now the focus is on
the small: another prototype can power
two tiny LED lights.
Maria Temming
2 Bacterial spores on plastic
1 A person wets the paper
walls of a chamber that

encloses the front half of a
rotary engine. Drops of
water evaporate, creating
a humid environment
within the chamber.
tapes inside the chamber

absorb the moisture and
expand, causing the tapes
to lengthen. Small, acrylic
blocks at the ends of
the tapes now hang
farther from the
axle than the
blocks outside
the chamber.
Acrylic block
3 The imbalance shifts
the center of mass of the

structure away from
the axis of rotation and
creates torque. The rotary
engine begins to turn.
Humid
Nanoscale cavities
Sporecovered
tape
Wet
surface
Dry
Humid
Displaced Dry
center of mass
Torque
Bacillus subtilis
spores
Dry
tape
curls
4 The engines axle is
connected to the cars

front wheels by a
rubber band so the
car moves forward.
Humid
tape
attens
Spore-covered tape
5 When the tapes inside the chamber
emerge into the dry air, their spores release

water and shrink. As a result, the tapes curl
up and pull their blocks closer to the axle
maintaining the off-kilter center of mass.
The wheels stop turning when all the water
has evaporated.
1 inch
Illustration by 5W Infographics
SOURCE: SCALING UP NANOSCALE WATER-DRIVEN ENERGY CONVERSION INTO EVAPORATION-DRIVEN ENGINES

AND GENERATORS, BY XI CHEN ET AL., IN NATURE COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 6, ARTICLE NO. 7346; JUNE 16, 2015
HOW IT
WORKS
Wall lined with

wet paper
as they move through environments of

varying humidity. It can take up to 10 minutes to cross a table at the moment, but
the biologists, chemists and engineers on
the project think upgrades to the engine
BY THE NUMBER S
Chris:
Made possible by
an organ donor
COURTESY OF CATHERINE SOUTHON AUCTIONEERS & VALUERS (top); SOURCES FOR STATISTICS: DISCOVERY AND DEVELOPMENT OF PENICILLIN, IN AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETYS INTERNATIONAL HISTORIC
CHEMICAL LANDMARKS www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/whatischemistry/landmarks/flemingpenicillin.html (f irst two items); THE REAL STORY BEHIND PENICILLIN, BY HOWARD MARKEL, IN PBS NEWSHOURS
THE RUNDOWN. PUBLISHED ONLINE SEPTEMBER 27, 2013 www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/the-real-story-behind-the-worlds-first-antibiotic ( t hird item); NEW BUSINESS MODELS FOR ANTIBIOTIC INNOVATION,
BY ANTHONY D. SO AND TEJEN A. SHAH, IN UPSALA JOURNAL OF MEDICAL SCIENCES,VOL. 119, NO. 2; MAY 2014 (fourth item); CATHERINE SOUTHON AUCTIONEERS & VALUERS (fifth item)
OLD MOLD SOLD

A small sample o f Sir Alexander Flemings
original penicillin culture (above) was put
up for sale by a London auction house in
July. In 1955 Fleming had given the fungus to a neighbor to thank him for foiling
a robbery at the famed microbiologists
home. Fleming stumbled on the antibiotic
properties of P enicillium m
old in 1928, and
over the course of the following decade
University of Oxford bacteriologists and
others expanded on his findings to develop the first antibiotic drug. Mass production of penicillin during World WarII
cured millions of people of bacterial infections that would have been fatal otherwise. Today antibiotics are considered one
of the greatest discoveries in medical historythus the auction of a crusty petri
dish that would have been thrown out
long ago. In a letter accompanying the
sample, the microbiologists housekeeper warned its recipient that the
contents were not to be confused with
Gorgonzola cheese!!!
Kat Long
$20
Cost p er 100,000 units of penicillin in 1943.

With mass production, that price fell to less
than 10 cents by 1949.
6.8 trillion
Every year, thousands of people receive a second chance at life through

organ donation. People like Chris, who became a husband, father,
athleteeven an Ironmanafter receiving his kidney transplant.
You can leave behind the gift of life. Join more than 100 million
people who have registered to be organ, eye, and tissue donors.
Units of the antibiotic produced by

U.S. companies in 1945.
Percentage o f deaths attributed

to bacterial pneumonia in World WarII,
down from 18percent in World WarI.
Imagine what you could make possible.

organdonor.gov
20+
Classes of antibiotics introduced since

penicillin became available.
4,649
Scan this code with your

smartphone for how
to sign up, more about
Chris, and other stories.
Price paid by the highest bidder

for Flemings original culture.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Health Resources and Services Administration
COMMENT AT

Untitled-3 1
7/22/15 2:38 PM
The Science of Health by Dina Fine Maron

Dina Fine Maron is an associate editor
at Scientific American. S he focuses on
medicine and health.
Brain Food
A Mediterranean-style diet may slow memory loss, even if adopted late in life
Whenever the fictional character P
opeye the Sailor Man man
aged to down a can of spinach, the results were almost instan
taneous: he gained superhuman strength. Devouring any solid
object similarly did the trick for one of the X-Men. As we age and
begin to struggle with memory problems, many of us would love
to reach for an edible mental fix. Sadly, such supernatural effects
remain fantastical. Yet making the right food choices may well
yield more modest gains.
A growing body of evidence suggests that adopting the Medi
terranean diet, or one much like it, can help slow memory loss as
people age. The diets hallmarks include lots of fruits and vegeta
bles and whole grains (as opposed to ultrarefined ones) and a
moderate intake of fish, poultry and red wine. Dining mainly on
single ingredients, such as pumpkin seeds or blueberries, howev
er, will not do the trick.
What is more, this diet approach appears to reap brain bene
fits even when adopted later in lifesometimes aiding cognition
in as little as two years. You will not be Superman or Superwom
an, says Miguel A. Martnez Gonzlez, chair of the department
of preventive medicine at the University of Navarra in Barcelona.
You can keep your cognitive abilities or even improve them
slightly, but diet is not magic. Those small gains, however, can
be meaningful in day-to-day life.
F ROM FORK TO BRAIN
Scientists long believed that altering diet could not improve

memory. But evidence to the contrary started to emerge about
10 years ago. For example, Nikolaos Scarmeas of Columbia Uni
versity and his colleagues collected information about the di

etary habits and health status of about 2,000 Medicare-eligible
New Yorkerstypically in their mid-70sover the course of four
years on average. In 2006 the investigators reported that tighter
adherence to a Mediterranean diet, which had previously been
linked to a lower risk of cardiovascular disease, was associated
with slower cognitive decline and a lower likelihood of acquir
ing Alzheimers disease. Because the researchers merely ob
served dietary patterns and did not control themas would be
the case in a clinical trialdoubts lingered, however. It was still
possible that the apparent brain benefit was the result of chance
or some other trait common to folks who consistently follow a
Mediterranean diet in the U.S., such as educational achieve
ment or particular life choices.
Seven years later researchers pinned down some answers. In
2013 Martnez Gonzlez and his colleagues published findings on
their massive PREDIMED study, an experiment that included al
most 7,500 people in Spain. (PREDIMED stands for Prevention
with Mediterranean Diet.) The investigators randomly assigned
study subjects to one of two experimental groups. In the first, par
ticipants followed the Mediterranean diet with an additional
helping of mixed nuts; in the second, they also adhered to the
Mediterranean diet but were given additional extra virgin olive
oil. (Researchers felt that providing extra nuts and oils at no cost
to participants would guarantee that certain healthy fats were
eaten in quantities large enough to have measurable effects on
the studys outcomes.) The control group, against which the re
sults of the experimental groups would be compared, was in
September 2015, ScientificAmerican.com29
Illustration by Aleks Sennwald
The Science of Health
structed generally on how to lose weight. Its members were given

advice on eating vegetables, meat and high-fat dairy products
that jibed with the Mediterranean diet, but they were discour
aged from using olive oil for cooking and from consuming nuts.
As expected, the results showed that either of the experimental
Mediterranean diet options led to significantly better cardiovascu
lar outcomes. But when the scientists tested cognition in a subset
of study members, they also discovered that individuals in either
of the Mediterranean diet groups performed better than the
weight-instruction group in a battery of widely accepted cognitive
tests. This is surprising, of course, Martnez Gonzlez says.
As intriguing as these findings are, they are still not conclu
sive; the researchers had not gathered any cognitive information
at the beginning of the study. Therefore, the possibility remains
that there was something different between the two experimental
groups and the control groupbeyond their diet interventions
that could account for the findings.
Martnez Gonzlez sought to quiet such criticisms with a
new study his team published in July in JAMA Internal Medicine. Drawing from a group of more than 300 participants who
were also part of PREDIMED but at a specific site with more fi
nancial resources, the researchers conducted baseline cognitive
measurements and compared them with that same groups results
four years later. On average, people were 67 years old at the start of
the study. The newest findings, Martnez Gonzlez says, are con
sistent with what he found in his earlier studies. These results are
also not definitive, however, because this substudy was relatively
small. Yet, he notes, it is the first time scientists have seen im
provements in cognitive function from a randomized trial of the
Mediterranean diet.
Can Americans, whose standard diet and way of life are often
substantially different from that of adults living in Spain, benefit
from the approach? That remains to be seen. The normal diet of
the people in the studys control group was still closer to a Medi
terranean diet than that of most Americans, so they already had
years of relatively healthy eating under their belts, which could
have helped their overall health. But Martnez Gonzlez believes
that the diet might provide even greater benefits for Americans
because they have so much more room for improvement. Still, nu
trition expert Martha Morris of Rush University says, only a ran
domized trial in the U.S. can truly answer the questionsome
thing she hopes to spearhead in the coming years.
B EYOND DIET
Proving that a particular cuisine a ffects cognitive health is one

thing. Getting a lot of Americans to eat more fruits, vegetables,
fish and olive oil is another matter altogether. Two major obstacles
are cost and ingrained habits. For PREDIMED, study participants
were supplied with expensive extra virgin olive oil and told how to
prepare meals. To transfer this knowledge to the American popu
lation, you cant just show them food items, Martnez Gonzlez
says. You have to show them how to shop for them, cook with
them and prepare them to keep all the nutrients in line with the
traditional Mediterranean diet. The first step in the right direc
tion, he says, would be for Americans to slash their consumption
of red meats and use poultry instead. But that still leaves a lot of
other steps to go before they are eating a Mediterranean diet.
Adhering to the exact diet laid out in PREDIMED may not be

the only way to gain cognitive benefits from food. In February,
Morris and her colleagues published online a study recommend
ing a modified diet largely consistent with the Mediterranean diet
but one cheaper to adopt in the U.S. Morriss so-called MIND diet
emphasizes green, leafy plant and whole grain consumption. Its
staples include two veggie servings a day, two berry servings a
week and, instead of the almost daily fish consumption required
in the Mediterranean diet, fish only once a week.
Morris found that even moderate adherence to the MIND diet
for an average of 4.5 years appeared to reduce Alzheimers risk
compared with the Mediterranean and another diet. She and her
colleagues judged that outcome by counting the number of cases
of clinically diagnosed Alzheimers among each group during the
study period. (The comparison diets required stricter adherence
to get the same cognitive benefit.) Better yet, the MIND diet may
be more achievable for the average persons wallet and for Ameri
can culture. In the bigger picture, this finding suggests that peo
ple improving their diet can make a difference for their memory,
says Francine Grodstein, a professor focusing on healthy aging at
Brigham and Womens Hospital in Boston and Harvard Medical
School, who was not involved with the work.
Why certain food choices might help the brain function bet
ter remains unclear. Perhaps these regimens known cardiovas
cular benefits, which promote a good flow of blood and oxygen to
the brain, are key. But other factors may be at work. Of course,
questions about when these dietary changes need to happen or
how diet stacks up against other factors, such as physical activi
ty, sleep patterns and genetics also remain unanswered.
Recently some researchers have begun broadening their focus
beyond food alone. In the European Union, a multicountry ran
domized trial beginning this year is designed to provide further
insights into how diet, exercise and better control of blood pres
sure could work together to promote brain health. (Hypertension
is a leading cause of stroke, which can seriously harm mental pro
cessing.) Although the study will not allow scientists to pinpoint
which factor offers the greatest benefit, it should give them a bet
ter understanding of how significant a role life changes can play.
There is reason to be hopeful. A pilot study published in June
in the Lancet found that making changes in diet and habits later
in life can slow the course of cognitive decline. Scandinavian re
searchers divided a group of 1,260 people in Finland either to re
ceive standard nutrition and diet advice or to follow a specified
exercise plan and eat a modified Mediterranean dietall while
their blood pressure and other health indicators were monitored
and, if necessary, treated. Subjects in the experimental group
ended up doing significantly better on standard tests of cogni
tion. We could really see that [the intervention] can protect
against or at least delay cognitive impairments, says lead study
author Miia Kivipelto, director of research and education at the
geriatric clinic at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. Unex
pectedly, she says, those changes were visible within just two
years. And best of all, superpowers are not required.
TechnoFiles by David Pogue

David Pogueis the anchor columnist for Yahoo Tech
and host of several NOVA miniseries on PBS.
Super Siri
A new breed of virtual assistant
is almost here. And it is scary smart
Virtual voice-controlled assistants such as Siri, Cortana and
Google Now are magical. You can say things such as Will I
need an umbrella in Dallas this weekend? or What flights are
overhead?or even jokey things like Is Santa Claus real?
Each time, you get an accurate (or witty) answer.
Behind the scenes, though, all their responses were scripted
in advance by writers and programmers. (In fact, Apple employs
a team of comedy writers exclusively for drafting Siris wise
cracks.) Their underlying software is still, in essence, a passel of
if/then statements.
Soon, though, your voice assistant will be much, much smarter.
After leaving Apple, three of Siris creatorsDag Kittlaus, Adam
Cheyer and Chris Brighamstarted a company called Viv Labs.
Whereas a Siri or a Cortana might know how to handle re
quests about weather, sports and about 20 other areas, Vivs
knowledge and vocabulary will be extensible and unlimited.
They will tap into the databases of thousands of online services
stores, flight-booking sites, car-sharing services, flight trackers,
restaurants, florists, dating sitesand understand how every
thing all fits together.
You can ask Siri, Where does my sister live? and Whats
the weather in Boston? Cheyer explained to me, but you cant
say, Whats the weather where my sister lives? because that
integration hasnt been written by a human. But Viv will weave
things together.
Viv will also learn a huge portfolio about youyour prefer
ences, credit-card numbers, addresses, and so on (with your per
mission, of course). As a result, Viv can answer queries such as
Book me an appointment with a French-speaking optometrist
whose office is on my way home from work, Find me a good
place to go take my kids to the Caribbean in the last week of Feb
ruary, and I want to pick up a great bottle of wine on the way to
my brothers housesomething that goes well with lasagna.
In that last example, Viv consults one Web service that knows
the inventory of the wine in various stores, one that plots the
route to your brothers home and one that knows the ingredients
of lasagna. And in the case of the Caribbean trip, Viv can suggest
a resort package for you, which you can book on the spotno
searching required.
It would be convenient for the consumer. And a boon for Viv.
Every time that you confirm one of Vivs proposed purchases,
the corresponding service (say, Uber, Hotels.com or Orbitz) will
pay Viv a cut.
Will this system level the playing field for smaller companies
that Francophone optometristor further cement the dominance

of the worlds Amazons and Ubers? Will Vivs product selections
be the final nail in the coffin of browsing and serendipity?
And just how smart will Viv be? When you book a flight, will
it take into account how bad traffic will be on your way to the air
port that time of day? Will it know that a layover at Chicagos
OHare airport during the holidays is a fate worse than death?
And what about jobs? What happens to all the travel agents, flo
rists and sommeliers that AI assistants such as Viv will displace?
Historically the economy adapts, Kittlaus replies. Most of
the U.S. population used to work on farmsnow its a tiny minor
ity. Its only when peoples skills cant keep up with the rate of
change that you run into trouble.
The user interface isnt done yet, so the company hasnt re
leased pictures or videos. But Viv works well, even now. Kittlaus
demoed Viv with a bunch of commands (for example: Send my
mom a dozen roses and Book me two first-class seats on the
first flight from SFO to JFK, returning Tuesday). Each time, Viv
presented a list of options, ranked by price or rating; Kittlaus
could execute the transaction with one more tap.
Viv is a year away from public release. But Vivs competitors
arent sitting still; in the past few months Microsoft, Google and
Apple all announced upgrades to the intelligence of their exist
ing voice assistants. And SoundHounds Hound is still in beta
but already beating out the big dogs in complex voice searches
and ultraspecific transaction requests. Although they dont quite
approach the sophistication and integration of Vivs smarts, the
direction these voice apps are taking is already clear: theyre
growing smarter, faster and more disruptive every day.
10 ways to streamline Siri commands: ScientificAmerican.com/sep2015/pogue
Illustration by Peter and Maria Hoey
CLEANING UP
AFTER EINSTEIN
page 60
EINS
HOW EINSTEIN
REINVENTED
REALITY
page 38
WHAT EINSTEIN
GOT WRONG
page 50
HEAD TRIP
page 46
RELATIVITYS
REACH
page 56
WHY
HE MATTERS
page 34
100 YEARS OF
GENERAL RELATIVITY
Everyone knows what gravity is. A baby at three months will express sur-
prise if a box does not topple as expected; a one-year-old knows whether a precarious object will
fall or not depending on its shape. Scientists came to think of gravity as a pull to Earth and later, in
a more generalized way, as a force of attraction between any two masses.
Then came Albert Einstein. In 1915 he revealed in his general theory of relativity that gravity is
not a force so much as the by-product of a curving universe. In other words, what we think we know
about gravity from everyday experience is wrong.
The publication of Die Feldgleichungen der Gravitation (The Field Equations of Gravitation) on December 2, 1915, at first got little notice beyond academe. A few years later a solar eclipse
expedition led by Sir Arthur Eddington made an observation that vaulted the theory to fame overnight. Starlight, as Einstein predicted, appeared to bend as it passed the sun, and Eddington con-
STEIN
GENIUS IN
A JAR
page 82
THE BLACK
HOLE TEST
page 74
A BRIEF
HISTORY OF
TIME TRAVEL
page 68
WHO WAS
EINSTEIN, REALLY?
page 80
IS THE COSMOS
RANDOM?
page 88
firmed this bending firsthand. The New York Times f amously declared: Men of Science More or
Less Agog over Results of Eclipse Observations.
They were right to be agog. It would be hard to overstate how disruptive the idea of general
relativity was a century ago to prevailing notions of the universe and our physical world. All of a
sudden, space and time were no longer a mere backdrop to the real action of the cosmos. Spacetime, rather, had its own geometry, and its curvature dictated the movements of the heavenly
bodies and kept our feet planted firmly on the ground. Even light, the theory suggested, had to follow its contours.
The relativity revolution went on to shape much of the 20th century. It influenced philosophy,
art, politics and pop culture. Its inventors name became synonymous with genius and inaugurated
Einstein as the worlds greatest scientific celebrity. He used his stature to play a major role in global
eventshe famously advocated for the development of the atomic bomb and then spent decades
bemoaning the mistake. He lobbied for the protection of the Jewish people and was an outspoken
critic of racism and an activist for civil rights. Even more, the fame surrounding Einstein and his
great idea marked a turning point in the public perception of science, establishing the 20th century
as the scientific age and ushering in a technological transformation that we are still living through.
The 100th anniversary of general relativity provides an opportunity to survey the incredible
pace of science and its effect on society. In the following pages we look back at what we learned from
WHY
ES S AY
HE MATTERS
The fruits of one mind shaped civilization
more than seems possible
By Brian Greene
Albert Einstein once said that there are only two things
that might be infinite: the universe and human stupidity. And, he confessed,
he wasnt sure about the universe.
When we hear that, we chuckle. Or at least we smile. We do not take offense.
The reason is that the name Einstein conjures an image of a warm-hearted,
avuncular sage of an earlier era. We see the good-natured, wild-haired scientific
genius whose iconic portraitsriding a bike, sticking out his tongue, staring at us
with those penetrating eyesare emblazoned in our collective cultural memory.
Einstein has come to symbolize the purity and power of intellectual exploration.
Einstein shot to fame within the scientific community in 1905, a year christened as his annus mirabilis. While working eight hours days, six days a week
at the Swiss patent office in Bern, he wrote four papers in his spare time that
changed the course of physics. In March of that year he argued that light, long
described as a wave, is actually composed of particles, called photons, an observation that launched quantum mechanics. Two months later, in May, Einsteins calculations provided testable predictions of the atomic hypothesis, later confirmed experimentally, cinching the case that matter is made of atoms.
In June he completed the special theory of relativity, revealing that space and
time behave in astonishing ways no one had ever anticipatedin short, that
IN BRIEF
Einsteins first major achievements came in 1905,

when he published four groundbreaking papers,
including his completion of special relativity.
Ten years later h e expanded that theory to
include gravity, creating general relativity. The
idea toppled Isaac Newtons physics and rede-
fined our notion of space and time. It launched

new strands of research that scientists are still
pursuing and made its creator a star.
Over the past century E insteins ideas have intermingled with culture and art and shaped our
world in infinite, indelible ways.
Illustration by Mario Wagner
GETTY IMAGES (Einstein photograph)
Einsteins achievement and forward to

the secrets it may yet reveal. An illuminating graphic shows the multitude of
new fields of research the theory has
spawned (page 56). We examine the first
moment of inspiration that led the
genius on the path to relativity (page 38)
and celebrate his ability to expose such
truths through the power of pure thought
(page 46). Even Einsteins mistakes often
proved fruitful (page 50), and we see that
what is commonly thought to be one of
his greatest faultshis perceived intolerance of quantum mechanicsis misunderstood (page 88). And we explore our
obsession with genius by investigating
the misguided attempts to locate the
source of Einsteins brilliance in his brain
anatomy (page 82).
The passage of 100 years of general
relativity is also important because of
what the idea still has not done: unite
with the other forces of nature to build a
unified theory of everything. Einstein
spent his last years questing for a deeper
set of rules that would reign not just over
the realm of the cosmosgeneral relativitys domainbut also the world inside
the atom, where quantum mechanics
rules. He thought this dream was in
reach, but a century of toil by generations of physicists has not accomplished
a single theory of nature. Relativity and
quantum mechanics are just as incompatible as they ever were.
Lately scientists have begun to take a
new tack, probing some of the mysteries of
the universe that have popped up since
Einsteins age, such as dark matter and
dark energy, in hopes that these paths will
eventually lead to the realization of Einsteins dream (page 60). Other researchers
are attempting to poke holes in general
relativity by testing it in the extreme realm
of black holes (page 74). And one of relativitys weirdest consequencesthe possibilities it introduces for time travelmay
also offer an avenue for uncovering deeper
secrets of nature (page 68).
Ultimately it is clear that no other scientific theory has been more important in
shaping the course of 20th-century physics, and no other scientists legacy looms
larger over the 21st century than Einsteins.
At this milestone anniversary, physics is
waiting for the next general relativity. We
could use another Einstein. The Editors
Brian Greene is a professor of physics and mathematics

at Columbia University who researches superstring theory.
He is author of numerous books and co-founder and
chairman of the board of the World Science Festival.
EINSTEINS FAMOUS EQUATION, E = mc2, c an be seen

in his own handwriting from a later paper, published in 1946.
applaud me because everybody understands me, and they applaud you because no one understands you. It was a role Einstein wore well. And the wider public, weary from World War I,
embraced him wholeheartedly.
As Einstein glided through society, his ideas about relativity,
at least the version broadly reported, seemed to resonate with
other cultural upheavals. James Joyce and T. S. Eliot were splintering the sentence. Pablo Picasso and Marcel Duchamp were
cleaving the canvas. Arnold Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky
were shattering the scale. Einstein was unshackling space and
time from outmoded models of reality.
Some have gone further, portraying Einstein as the central inspiration for the avant-garde movement of the 20th century, the
scientific wellspring that necessitated a cultural rethink. Its romantic to believe that natures truths set off a tidal wave that
swept away the dusty vestiges of an entrenched culture. But Ive
never seen convincing evidence pinning these upheavals to Einsteins science. A widespread misinterpretation of relativity
that it eliminated objective truthis responsible for many unjustified invocations of Einsteins theories in the realm of culture.
Curiously, Einstein himself had conventional tastes: he preferred
Bach and Mozart to modern composers and refused a gift of new
Bauhaus furniture in favor of the well-worn traditional decor he
already owned.
It is fair to say that many revolutionary ideas were wafting
through the early 20th century, and they surely commingled.
And just as surely, Einstein was a prime example of how breaking from long-held assumptions could uncover breathtaking
new landscapes.
A century later the landscapes Einstein revealed remain remarkably vibrant and fertile. General relativity gave birth in the
1920s to modern cosmology, the study of the origin and evolution
ALBERT EINSTEIN ARCHIVES, HEBREW UNIVERSITY OF JERUSALEM
distances, speeds and durations are all relative depending on

the observer. And to cap it off, in September 1905 Einstein derived a consequence of special relativity, an equation that would
become the worlds most famous: E =
mc2.
Science usually progresses incrementally. Few and far be
tween are contributions that sound the scientific alert that a radical upheaval is at hand. But here one man in one year rang the
bell four times, an astonishing outpouring of creative insight. Almost immediately, the scientific establishment could sense that
reverberations of Einsteins work were shifting the bedrock understanding of reality. For the wider public, however, Einstein
had not yet become Einstein.
That would change on November 6, 1919.
In special relativity, Einstein established that nothing can
travel faster than the speed of light. This set the stage for a confrontation with Newtons theory of gravity, in which gravity exerts its influence across space instantaneously. Driven by this
looming contradiction, Einstein brazenly sought to rewrite the
centuries-old rules of Newtonian gravity, a daunting task that
even his ardent supporters considered quixotic. Max Planck, the
dean of German science, intoned, As an older friend, I must advise you against it.... You will not succeed, and even if you succeed, no one will believe you. Never one to yield to authority,
Einstein pressed on. And on. For nearly a decade.
Finally, in 1915, Einstein announced his general theory of relativity, which offered a profound recasting of gravity in terms of
a startling new idea: warps and curves in space and time. Instead of Earth grabbing hold of a teacup that slips from your
hand and pulling it to an untimely demise on the floor, general
relativity says that the planet dents the surrounding environment, causing the cup to slide along a spacetime chute that directs it to the floor. Gravity, Einstein declared, is imprinted in
the geometry of the universe.
During the 100 years since Einstein proposed the theory,
physicists and historians have pieced together a coherent, if
complex, story of its genesis [see How Einstein Reinvented Reality, by Walter Isaacson, on page 38]. In some of my own general-level writings, Ive had the pleasure of retracing Einsteins
climb, from elegant maneuvers to p
ieds en canard t o his final
summit. Far from demystifying Einsteins creative leaps, however, perusing his process only adds luster to the astonishing
novelty and overwhelming beauty of the proposal.
On November 6, 1919, four years after Einstein completed the
general theory of relativity, newspapers the world over trumpeted just released astronomical measurements establishing that
the positions of stars in the heavens were slightly different than
what Newtons laws would have us expect, just as Einstein had
predicted. The results triumphantly confirmed Einsteins theory
and rocketed him to icon status overnight. He became the man
who had toppled Newton and who, in the process, had ushered
our species one giant step closer to natures eternal truths.
To top it off, Einstein made for great copy. While squinting in
the limelight and paying lip service to an ardent desire for solitude, he knew how to entice the worlds interest in his mysterious but momentous dominion. He would throw out clever quips
(I am a militant pacifist) and gleefully play the public part of
the bemused genius of geniuses. At the premiere of C
ity Lights,
while the cameras on the red carpet flashed, Charlie Chaplin
whispered to Einstein something along the lines of, The people
of the entire universe. Russian mathematician Aleksandr Friedmann and, independently, Belgian physicist and priest Georges
Lematre used Einsteins equations to show that space should
be expanding. Einstein resisted this conclusion and even modified the equations by inserting the infamous cosmological constant to ensure a static universe. But subsequent observations
by Edwin Hubble showing that distant galaxies are all rushing
away convinced Einstein to return to his original equations and
accept that space is stretching. An expanding universe today
means an ever smaller universe in the past, implying that the
cosmos emanated from the swelling of a primordial
speck, a primeval atom as Lematre called it. The
big bang theory was born.
In the decades since, the big bang theory has been
substantially developed (today the most widely held
version is inflationary theory) and, through various refinements, has aced a spectrum of observational tests.
One such observation, which received the 2011 Nobel
Prize in Physics, revealed that for the past seven billion
years not only has space been expanding, but the rate
of expansion has been speeding up. The best explanation? The big bang theory augmented by a version of
Einsteins long-ago-discarded cosmological constant.
The lesson? If you wait long enough, even some of Einsteins wrong ideas turn out to be right [see What Einstein Got Wrong, by Lawrence M. Krauss, on page 50].
An even earlier insight from general relativity originated in
an analysis carried out by German astronomer Karl Schwarz
schild during his stint at the Russian front in the midst of
World War I. Taking a break from calculating artillery trajectories, Schwarzschild derived the first exact solution of Einsteins
equations, giving a precise description of the warped spacetime
produced by a spherical body like the sun. As a by-product,
Schwarzschilds result revealed something peculiar. Compress
any object to a sufficiently small sizethe sun, say, to three
miles acrossand the resulting spacetime warp will be so severe that anything approaching too closely, including light itself, will be trapped. In modern language, Schwarzschild had revealed the possibility of black holes.
At the time, black holes seemed far-fetched, a mathematical
oddity that many expected to have no relevance to reality. But
observation, not expectation, dictates what is right, and astronomical data have now established that black holes are real and
plentiful. They are too far away for direct exploration at the moment, but as theoretical laboratories, black holes are indispensable. Beginning with Stephen Hawkings influential calculations
in the 1970s, physicists have become increasingly convinced
that the extreme nature of black holes makes them an ideal
proving ground for attempts to push general relativity forward
and, most notably, to meld it with quantum mechanics [see
The Black Hole Test, by Dimitrios Psaltis and Sheperd S. Doeleman, on page 74]. Indeed, one of todays most hotly debated issues concerns how quantum processes may affect our understanding of the outer edge of a black holeits event horizonas
well as the nature of a black holes interior.
Which is all just to say that the centenary of general relativity
is a far cry from a backward glance of historical interest. Einsteins general relativity is tightly woven into the tapestry of todays leading-edge research.
How, then, did Einstein do it? How did he contribute so

much of such lasting importance? Whereas we can dismiss Einstein as the source of Cubism or atonal music, he is why we
imagine that someone can, in the privacy of his or her own
mind, think hard and reveal cosmic truths. Einstein was social
as a scientist, but his big breakthroughs were solitary aha! moments. Did those insights emerge because his brain had an unusual architecture? Because of a nonconformist perspective?
Because of a tenacious and uncompromising ability to focus?
Maybe. Yes. Probably. The reality, of course, is that no one
The centenary of general relativity

is a far cry from a backward
glance of historical interest.
Einsteins general relativity is
tightly woven into the tapestry of
todays leading-edge research.
knows. We can tell stories of why someone may have had this or
that idea, but the bottom line is that thought and insight are
shaped by influences too numerous to analyze.
Eschewing hyperbole, the best we can say is that Einstein
had the right mind at the right moment to crack a collection of
deep problems of physics. And what a moment it was. His numerous but comparatively modest contributions in the decades
after the discovery of general relativity suggest that the timeliness of the particular intellectual nexus he brought to bear on
physics had passed.
With all that he accomplished, and the continuing legacy he
spawned, theres an urge to ask another speculative question:
Could there be another Einstein? If one means another ber genius who will powerfully push science forward, then the answer
is surely yes. In the past half a century since Einsteins death,
there have indeed been such scientists. But if one means an ber
genius to whom the world will look not because of accomplishments in sports or entertainment but as a thrilling example of
what the human mind can accomplish, well, that question speaks
to usto what we as a civilization will deem precious.
M O R E TO E X P L O R E
E = mc 2 : A Biography of the Worlds Most Famous Equation. David Bodanis.

Penguin, 2000.
The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time and the Texture of Reality. Brian Greene.
Knopf, 2004.
The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein. P rinceton University Press.
http://einsteinpapers.press.princeton.edu
FROM OUR ARCHIVES
The Future of String Theory: A Conversation with Brian Greene. B rian Greene;
November 2003.
s c i e n t i f i c a m e r i c a n . c o m /m a g a z i n e /s a
HOW EINSTEIN
REINVENTED
REALITY
H I STO R Y
Albert Einstein created his most famous

theory amid personal strife, political tension
and a scientific rivalry that almost cost him
the glory of his discovery
By Walter Isaacson
thought. It was late 1907, two years after the miracle year in which Albert
Einstein had produced his special theory of relativity and his theory of light
quanta, but he was still an examiner in the Swiss patent office. The physics
world had not yet caught up with his genius. While sitting in his office in Bern,
a thought startled him, he recalled: If a person falls freely, he will not feel
his own weight. He would later call it the happiest thought in my life.
The tale of the falling man has become an iconic one, and in some accounts
it actually involves a painter who fell from the roof of an apartment building
near the patent office. Like other great tales of gravitational discoveryGalileo dropping objects from the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the apple falling on
Isaac Newtons headit was embellished in popular lore. Despite Einsteins
propensity to focus on science rather than the merely personal, even he was
not likely to watch a real human plunging off a roof and think of gravitational
theory, much less call it the happiest thought in his life.
Einstein soon refined his thought experiment so that the falling man was
in an enclosed chamber, such as an elevator, in free fall. In the chamber, he
would feel weightless. Any objects he dropped would float alongside him.
There would be no way for him to tellno experiment he could do to determineif the chamber was falling at an accelerated rate or was floating in a
gravity-free region of outer space.
GETTY IMAGES
The general theory of relativity began with a sudden
Then Einstein imagined that the man was in the same

chamber way out in space, where there was no perceptible
gravity, and a constant force was pulling the chamber up at an
accelerated rate. He would feel his feet pressed to the floor. If
he dropped an object, it would fall to the floor at an accelerated
ratejust as if he stood on Earth. There was no way to make a
distinction between the effects of gravity and the effects of
being accelerated.
Einstein dubbed this the equivalence principle. The local
effects of gravity and of acceleration are equivalent. Therefore,
they must be manifestations of the same phenomenon, some
cosmic field that accounts for both acceleration and gravity.
It would take another eight years for Einstein to turn his
falling-man thought experiment into the most beautiful theory
in the history of physics. He would go from his sedate life as a
married father working at the Swiss patent office to living alone
as a professor in Berlin, estranged from his family and increasingly alienated from his Prussian Academy of Sciences colleagues there by the rise of anti-Semitism. The decision last
year by the California Institute of Technology and Princeton
University to put an archive of Einsteins papers online for free
permits a glimpse of him juggling the cosmic and the personal
throughout this period. We can relish his
excitement in late 1907 as he scribbled down
what he called a novel consideration, based
on the principle of relativity, on acceleration
and gravitation. Then we can sense his
grumpy boredom, a week later, as he rejected an electric companys patent application
for an alternating-current machine, calling
the claim incorrectly, imprecisely and
unclearly prepared. The coming years
would be full of human drama, as Einstein
raced against a rival to give mathematical
expression to relativity while struggling
with his estranged wife over money and his
right to visit his two young boys. But by 1915 his work climaxed
in a completed theory that would change our understanding of
the universe forever.
Walter Isaacson is CEO of the Aspen Institute.

He was chairman of CNN and managing editor
of Time m
agazine. Isaacson is author of numerous
books, including Steve Jobs (Simon & Schuster, 2011).
chamber thought experiment indicated that gravity would

bend light. Imagine that the chamber is being accelerated
upward. A light beam comes in through a pinhole on one wall.
By the time it reaches the opposite wall, the light is a little closer to the floor because the chamber has shot upward. And if
you could plot the beams trajectory across the chamber, it
would be curved because of the upward acceleration. The
equivalence principle says that this effect should be the same
whether the chamber is accelerating upward or is resting still
in a gravitational field. In other words, light should bend when
passing through a gravitational field.
In 1912 Einstein asked an old classmate to help him with the
Einstein faced two ticking clocks:

he could sense that Hilbert was closing
in on the correct equations, and he
had agreed to give a series of four
formal Thursday lectures on his theory.
BENDING LIGHT
For almost four years a fter positing that gravity and acceleration were equivalent, Einstein did little with the idea. Instead
he focused on quantum theory. But in 1911, when he had finally
breached the walls of academia and become a professor at the
German Charles-Ferdinand University in Prague, he turned his
attention back to coming up with a theory of gravity that would
help him generalize special relativitythe relation between
space and time that he defined in 1905.
As Einstein developed his equivalence principle, he realized
that it had some surprising ramifications. For example, his
complicated mathematics that might describe a curved and

warped four-dimensional spacetime. Until then, his success
had been based on his talent for sniffing out the underlying
physical principles of nature. He had left to others the task of
finding the best mathematical expressions of those principles.
But now Einstein realized that math could be a tool for discoveringand not merely describingnatures laws.
Einsteins goal as he pursued his general theory of relativity
was to find the mathematical equations describing two interwoven processes: how a gravitational field acts on matter, telling it how to move, and how matter generates gravitational
fields in spacetime, telling spacetime how to curve.
For three more years Einstein wrestled with drafts and outlines that turned out to have flaws. Then, beginning in the summer of 1915, the math and the physics began to come together.
IN BRIEF
Einsteins realization that gravity and

acceleration are equivalent put him on
an eight-year path to generalize his special theory of relativity.
He raced to discover t he correct mathematical formulas for his theory before a

rival, mathematician David Hilbert, could
do so first. Einstein simultaneously strug-
gled on the home front, as he went

through a divorce from his first wife and a
separation from his sons while he courted a cousin whom he would later marry.
Despite these challenges, E instein triumphed and delivered one of the worlds
supreme scientific works in his general
theory of relativity.
1907
Einstein realizes that a

person falling freely would
not feel his weightan
insight that set him on the
path to general relativity
1914
Einstein and his first wife, Mileva

Mari
c, separate. She moves from
Berlin, where they had been living,
to Zurich with their two sons
Road to
Relativity
GETTY IMAGES
Einstein faced
difficulties, both
scientific and personal,
while formulating
general relativity
1911
Now a professor at the

German Charles-Ferdinand
University in Prague, Einstein
starts working to expand his
special theory of relativity to
include gravity
1912
The physicist begins an affair

with his cousin, Elsa Lwenthal,
whom he later marries
PERSONAL UNRAVELING
A RIVALRY
By then, he had moved to Berlin to become a professor and

member of the Prussian Academy. But he found himself working pretty much without support. Anti-Semitism was rising,
and he formed no coterie of colleagues around him. He split
with his wife, Mileva Maric, a fellow physicist who had been his
sounding board in formulating special relativity in 1905, and
she moved back to Zurich with their two sons, ages 10 and four.
He was having an affair with his cousin Elsa, whom he would
later marry, but he lived by himself in a sparsely furnished
apartment in central Berlin, where he ate intermittently, slept
randomly, played his violin and waged his solitary struggle.
Throughout 1915 his personal life began to unravel. Some
friends were pressing him to get a divorce and marry Elsa; others were warning that he should not be seen with her or let her
come near his two boys. Maric repeatedly sent letters requesting money, and at one point Einstein replied with unbridled
bitterness. I find such a demand beyond discussion, he re
sponded. I find your constant attempts to lay hold of everything that is in my possession absolutely disgraceful. He tried
hard to maintain a correspondence with his sons, but they rarely wrote back, and he accused Maric of not delivering his letters
to them.
Yet amid this personal turmoil, Einstein was able to devise,
by late June 1915, many elements of general relativity. He gave a
weeklong series of lectures at the end of that month on his
evolving ideas at the University of Gttingen in Germany, the
worlds preeminent center for mathematics. Foremost among
the geniuses there was David Hilbert, and Einstein was particularly eagerperhaps too eager, it would turn outto explain
all the intricacies of relativity to him.
The visit to Gttingen was a triumph. A

few weeks later Einstein reported to a scientist friend that he was able to convince
Hilbert of the general theory of relativity. In a letter to another
colleague, he was even more effusive: I am quite enchanted
with Hilbert!
Hilbert was likewise enchanted with Einstein and with his
theory, so much so that he soon set out to see if he could do
what Einstein had so far not accomplished: produce the mathematical equations that would complete the formulation of
general relativity.
Einstein began hearing Hilberts footsteps in early October
1915, just as he realized that his current version of the theory
which was based on an E
ntwurf, or outline, he had been refining for two yearshad serious flaws. His equations did not
account properly for rotating motion. In addition, he realized
that his equations were not generally covariant, meaning that
they did not really make all forms of accelerated and nonuniform motion relative, nor did they fully explain an anomaly
that astronomers had observed in the orbit of the planet Mercury. Mercurys perihelionits point of closest approach to the
sunhad been gradually shifting in a way not accounted for by
Newtonian physics or by Einsteins then current version of his
own theory.
Einstein faced two ticking clocks: he could sense that Hilbert was closing in on the correct equations, and he had agreed
to give a series of four formal Thursday lectures on his theory
in November to the members of the Prussian Academy. The
result was an exhausting monthlong whirlwind during which
Einstein wrestled with a succession of equations, corrections
and updates that he rushed to complete.
JUNE 1915
Mathematician David Hilbert

attends a lecture where Einstein
describes his ideas about
general relativity. Hilbert begins
to race Einstein to devise the
mathematics of the theory
NOVEMBER 1915
During his fourth lecture that

month at the Prussian State
Library, Einstein finally delivers
a paper reporting his field
equations for general relativity
SUMMER AND
FALL OF 1915
Einstein lives alone, eats

and sleeps intermittently,
and consoles himself with his
violin while he struggles to
produce equations to formalize
general relativity
esterday I received your dear little letter and was

Y
delighted with it. I was already afraid you didnt want to
write me at all anymore.... I shall press for our being
together for a month every year so that you see that you
have a father who is attached to you and loves you. You
can learn a lot of fine and good things from me as well

that no one else can offer you so easily.... In the last few
days I completed one of the finest papers of my life; when
you are older, I will tell you about it.
He ended with a small apology for seeming so distracted.
I am often so engrossed in my work that I forget to eat lunch,
he wrote.
Einstein also engaged in an awkward interaction with Hilbert. He had been informed that the Gttingen mathematician
had spotted the flaws in the Entwurf equations. Worried about
being scooped, he wrote Hilbert a letter saying that he himself
had discovered the flaws, and he sent along a copy of his November 4 lecture.
In his second lecture, delivered on November 11, Einstein
imposed new coordinate conditions that allowed his equations
to be generally covariant. As it turned out, the change did not
greatly improve matters. He was close to the final answer but
making little headway. Once again, he sent his paper off to Hilbert and asked him how his own quest was going. My own
curiosity is interfering with my work! he wrote.
Hilbert sent him a reply that must have unnerved Einstein.
GETTY IMAGES
Even as he arrived at the grand hall of the

Prussian State Library on November 4 to deliver
the first of his lectures, Einstein was still wrestling with his theory. For the last four years, he
began, I have tried to establish a general theory
of relativity. With great candor, he detailed the
problems he had encountered and admitted that
he still had not come up with equations that fully
worked.
Einstein was in the throes of the one of the most concentrated frenzies of scientific creativity in history. At the same time,
he was dealing with personal crises within his family. Letters
continued to arrive from his estranged wife that pressed him
for money and discussed the guidelines for his contact with
their two sons. Through a mutual friend, she demanded that he
not ask that his children come visit him in Berlin where they
might discover his affair. Einstein assured the friend that in
Berlin he was living alone and that his desolate apartment
had an almost churchlike atmosphere. The friend replied,
referring to Einsteins work on general relativity, Justifiably so,
for unusual divine powers are at work in there.
On the very day that he presented his first paper, he wrote
a painfully poignant letter to his elder son, Hans Albert, who
was living in Switzerland:
He said he had a solution to your great problem, and he invited Einstein to come to Gttingen on November 16 and have the
dubious pleasure of hearing it. Since you are so interested, I
would like to lay out my theory in very complete detail this
coming Tuesday, Hilbert wrote. My wife and I would be very
pleased if you stayed with us. Then, after signing his name,
Hilbert felt compelled to add a tantalizing and disconcerting
postscript. As far as I understand your new paper, the solution
given by you is entirely different from mine.
COMING TO A HEAD
Einstein wrote four letters o

n November 15, a Monday, that
give a glimpse into his intertwined personal and professional
dramas. To Hans Albert, he suggested that he would like to
travel to Switzerland at Christmas to visit him. Maybe it would
be better if we were alone somewhere, such as at a secluded
inn, he said to his son. What do you think?
He then wrote his estranged wife a conciliatory letter that
thanked her for her willingness not to undermine my relations
with the boys. And he reported to a friend, I have modified
the theory of gravity, having realized that my earlier proofs had
a gap.... I shall be glad to come to Switzerland at the turn of
the year to see my dear boy.
He also replied to Hilbert and declined his invitation to visit
Gttingen the next day. His letter did not hide his anxiety: The
hints you gave in your messages awaken the greatest of expectations. Nevertheless, I must refrain from traveling to Gttingen.... I am tired out and plagued by stomach pains. ... If possible, please send me a
correction proof of your study to mitigate
my impatience.
As he hurriedly rushed to come up with
the precise formulation of his theory, Einstein made a breakthrough that turned his
anxiety into elation. He tested a set of
revised equations to see if they would yield
the correct results for the anomalous shift
in Mercurys orbit. The answer came out
right: his equations predicted the perihelion
should drift by about 43 arc seconds per
century. He was so thrilled that he had heart
palpitations. I was beside myself with joy and excitement for
days, he told a colleague. To another physicist, he exulted,
The results of Mercurys perihelion movement fill me with
great satisfaction. How helpful to us is astronomys pedantic
accuracy, which I used to secretly ridicule!
The morning of his third lecture, November 18, Einstein
received Hilberts new paper and was dismayed by how similar
it was to his own work. His response to Hilbert was terse and
clearly designed to assert priority. The system you furnish
agreesas far as I can seeexactly with what I found in the last
few weeks and have presented to the Academy, he wrote.
Today I am presenting to the Academy a paper in which I
derive quantitatively out of general relativity, without any guiding hypothesis, the perihelion motion of Mercury. No gravitational theory has achieved this until now.
Hilbert responded kindly and generously the following day,
claiming no priority for himself. Cordial congratulations on
conquering perihelion motion, he wrote. If I could calculate
as rapidly as you, in my equations the electron would have to

capitulate, and the hydrogen atom would have to produce its
note of apology about why it does not radiate. The next day,
however, Hilbert sent a paper to a Gttingen science journal
describing his own version of the equations for general relativity. The title he picked for his piece was not a modest one: The
Foundations of Physics, he called it.
It is not clear how carefully Einstein read Hilberts paper or
if it affected his thinking as he prepared his climactic fourth
lecture at the Prussian Academy. Regardless, he produced in
time for his final lecture on November 25entitled The Field
Equations of Gravitationa set of covariant equations that
described a general theory of relativity.
It was not nearly as vivid to the layperson as, say, E = mc2.
Yet using the condensed notations of tensors, in which sprawling mathematical complexities can be compressed into little
subscripts, the crux of the final Einstein field equation is compact enough to be emblazoned on T-shirts worn by physics
geeks. In one of its many variations, it can be written as:
R - gR = -8 G T
The left side of the equationwhich is now known as the
Einstein tensor and can be written simply as Gdescribes
how the geometry of spacetime is warped and curved by massive objects. The right side describes the movement of matter
in the gravitational field. The interplay between the two sides
Einstein was in the throes of the one

of the most concentrated frenzies
of scientific creativity in history.
At the same time, he was dealing
with personal crises within his family.
shows how objects curve spacetime and how, in turn, this curvature affects the motion of objects.
Both at the time and to this day, there has been a priority
dispute over which elements of the mathematical equations of
general relativity were discovered first by Hilbert rather than
by Einstein. Whatever the case, it was Einsteins theory that
was being formalized by these equations, one that he had
explained to Hilbert during their time together in Gttingen
that summer of 1915. Hilbert graciously noted this in the final
version of his paper: The differential equations of gravitation
that result are, as it seems to me, in agreement with the magnificent theory of general relativity established by Einstein.
As he later summed it up, Einstein did the work and not the
mathematicians.
Within a few weeks Einstein and Hilbert were repairing their
relationship. Hilbert proposed Einstein for membership in the
Royal Society of Sciences in Gttingen, and Einstein wrote back
with an amiable letter saying how two men who had glimpsed
transcendent theories should not be diminished by earthly emotions. There has been a certain ill-feeling between us, the cause of
which I do not want to analyze, Einstein wrote. I have struggled
against the feeling of bitterness attached to it, and this with complete success. I think of you again with unmixed geniality and
ask you to try to do the same with me. Objectively it is a shame
when two real fellows who have extricated themselves from this
shabby world do not afford each other mutual pleasure.
THE BOLDEST DREAMS
Einsteins pride was understandable. At age 36, he had p

roduced
a dramatic revision of our concept of the universe. His general
theory of relativity was not merely the interpretation of some
experimental data or the discovery of a more accurate set of
laws. It was a whole new way of regarding reality.
With his special theory of relativity, Einstein had shown
that space and time did not have independent existences but
instead formed a fabric of spacetime. Now, with his general version of the theory, this fabric of spacetime became not merely a
container for objects and events. Instead it had its own dynamics that were determined by, and in turn helped to determine,
the motion of objects within itlike the way that the fabric of a
trampoline will curve as a bowling ball and some billiard balls
roll across it and in turn that the dynamic curving of the trampoline fabric will determine the path of the rolling balls and
cause the billiard balls to move toward the bowling ball.
The curving and rippling fabric of spacetime explained
gravity, its equivalence to acceleration and the general relativity of all forms of motion. In the opinion of Paul Dirac, the Nobel
laureate pioneer of quantum mechanics, it was probably the
greatest scientific discovery ever made. And Max Born, another giant of 20th-century physics, called it the greatest feat of
human thinking about nature, the most amazing combination
of philosophical penetration, physical intuition and mathematical skill.
The entire process had exhausted Einstein. His marriage
had collapsed, and war was ravaging Europe. But he was as
happy as he would ever be. The boldest dreams have now been
fulfilled, he exulted to his best friend, engineer Michele Besso.
General c ovariance. Mercurys perihelion motion wonderfully
precise. He signed himself contented but quite worn-out.
Years later, when his younger son, Eduard, asked why he
was so famous, Einstein replied by using a simple image to
describe his fundamental insight that gravity was the curving
of the fabric of spacetime. When a blind beetle crawls over the
surface of a curved branch, it doesnt notice that the track it has
covered is indeed curved, he said. I was lucky enough to
notice what the beetle didnt notice.
THE BASICS
Relativity Primer
General relativity redefined t he concept of gravityrather
than a force pulling masses together, the theory exposed it as
a simple consequence of the geometry of space and time. The
notion grew out of a revelation from the more limited special
theory of relativity, which Albert Einstein conceived 10 years
earlier. This theory established space and time as a single
entity, spacetime (below). In his general theory of relativity,
Einstein described what happens when mass is present in
spacetime (top right), causing it to curve and forcing objects
traveling through it to follow a bent path. If enough mass is
packed into a very small region, spacetime becomes infinitely
curved, creating a black hole (bottom right).
Spacetime without Mass

The special theory of relativity first established that
the universe as we know it has four dimensions
three of space and one of time. In the absence of mass,
spacetime is essentially a grid, and the shortest path for
an object to travel through it is a straight line. Because we
cannot portray four dimensions on this two-dimensional
page, we show a simplified diagram of the three spatial
dimensions with the position of an object at various
times standing in for the missing fourth dimension.
The Field Equations of Gravitation. A

. Einstein in P reussische Akademie der
Wissenschaften, Sitzungsberichte, p ages 844847; December 2, 1915.
Einstein: His Life and Universe. W
alter Isaacson. Simon & Schuster, 2007.
FROM OUR ARCHIVES
On the Generalized Theory of Gravitation. A

lbert Einstein; April 1950.
An Interview with Einstein. I . Bernard Cohen; July 1955.
Illustration by Nigel Holmes
Spacetime with Mass

When massbe it a star, a planet or a human beingis present,
spacetime bends around it so that an object traveling nearby must
follow a rounded trajectory that takes it closer to the mass. Just
as it is impossible to move in a straight line on the surface of a
sphere, it is likewise impossible to move in a straight line through
curved spacetime. This effect produces gravity, which we observe
as an attraction between two masses. On the left is a simplified
two-dimensional diagram of spacetime curvature, and below is an
approximation of the same situation in three dimensions.
Spacetime with Extreme Mass

One of the most startling consequences of general relativity is
the idea of black holes. These occur when mass is dense enough to
form a so-called singularitya point where spacetime is infinitely
curved. The black hole defines the region around the singularity where
gravity is so strong that nothing that enters can exit again. Physicists
now think that black holes are ubiquitous in the universe, often
resulting from the death of stars. The drawing at the right shows a
simplified picture of a black hole in a two-dimensional slice of space
with an objects trajectory as it falls in; an approximation of the same
situation in three dimensions of space appears below.
HEAD
TRIP
THOUGHT
EXPERIMENTS
Einsteins thought experiments left a long and

somewhat mixed legacy of their own
By Sabine Hossenfelder
Gedankenexperiment, German for thought experiment, was Albert Einsteins

famous name for the imaginings that led to his greatest breakthroughs in physics. He
traced his realization of lights finite speedthe core idea of special relativityto his
teenage daydreams about riding beams of light. General relativity, his monumental
theory of gravitation, has its origins in his musings about riding up and down in an
elevator. In both cases, Einstein crafted new theories about the natural world by
using his minds eye to push beyond the limitations of laboratory measurements.
Einstein was neither the first nor the last theorist to
do this, but his remarkable achievements were pivotal
in establishing the gedankenexperiment as a cornerstone of modern theoretical physics. Today physicists
regularly use thought experiments to craft new theories and to seek out inconsistencies or novel effects
within existing ones.
But the modern embrace of thought experiments
raises some uncomfortable questions. In the search for
a grand unified theory that would wed the small-scale
world of quantum mechanics with Einsteins relativistic
description of the universe at large, the most popular
current ideas are bereft of observational support from
actual experiments. Can thought alone sustain them?
How far can we trust logical deduction? Where is the
line between scientific intuition and fantasy? Einsteins
legacy offers no certain answers: On one hand, his reli-
ance on the power of thought was a spectacular success.

On the other, many of his best known thought experiments were based on data from real experimentation,
such as the classic Michelson-Morley experiment that
first measured the constancy of the speed of light. Moreover, Einsteins fixation on that which can be measured
at times blinded him to deeper layers of realityalthough even his mistakes in thought experiments contributed to later breakthroughs.
Here we will walk through some of Einsteins most
iconic thought experiments, highlighting how they succeeded, where they failed and how they remain vital to
questions now at the frontiers of theoretical physics.
THE WINDOWLESS ELEVATOR
In his thought experiments, E

insteins genius was in realizing which aspects of experience were essential and
Illustration by Sam Falconer
which could be discarded. Consider his most famous one: the elevator thought experiment, which he began devising in 1907. Einstein argued that inside a windowless elevator, a person cannot
tell whether the elevator is at rest in a gravitational field or is instead being hauled up with constant acceleration. He then conjectured that the laws of physics themselves must be identical in both
situations. According to this principle of equivalence, locally (in the elevator), the effects of gravitation are
the same as that of acceleration in the absence of
gravity. Converted into mathematical equations, this principle became the basis for general relativity. In other words, the elevator
thought experiment motivated Einstein to
make the daring intellectual leap that ultimately led to his greatest achievement,
his geometric description of gravity.
SPOOKY ACTION
Later in his career, E

instein fought hard
against the tenets of quantum mechanics,
particularly the uncertainty principle, which
dictates that the more you know about one aspect
of a fundamental particle, such as its position, the less
you can know about another related aspect of that particle,
such as its momentumand vice versa. Einstein thought that
the uncertainty principle was a sign that quantum theory was
deeply flawed.
During a years-long exchange with Danish quantum theorist
Niels Bohr, Einstein conceived of a series of thought experiments meant to demonstrate that it is possible to violate the uncertainty principle, but Bohr dissected every one of them. This
exchange bolstered Bohrs conviction that quantum uncertainty
was a fundamental aspect of nature. If not even the great Einstein could devise a way to precisely measure both the position
and the momentum of a particle, then certainly there must be
something to the uncertainty principle!
In 1935, along with his colleagues Boris Podolsky and Nathan
Rosen, Einstein published what was meant to be his most potent critique of the uncertainty principle. Perhaps because Podolsky, not Einstein, drafted the actual text of the paper, this
Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) thought experiment was presented not as an easy-to-imagine scenario of boxes, clocks and
light beams but as an abstract series of equations describing interactions between two generalized quantum systems.
The simplest version of the EPR experiment studies the paradoxical behavior of entangled particlespairs of particles
that share a common quantum state. It unfolds as follows:
imagine an unstable particle with a spin of zero decaying into
two daughter particles, which speed off in opposite directions.
(Spin is a measure of a particles angular momentum, but counterintuitively, it has little to do with a particles rate of rotation.)
Conservation laws dictate that the spins of those two daughter
Sabine Hossenfelder is an assistant professor at Nordita,

the Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics, in Stockholm.
She works on quantum gravity and physics beyond the
Standard Model. More of her writing can be found at her
blog, Backreaction (http://backreaction.blogspot.com).
particles must add up to zero; one particle,

then, could possess a spin value of up, and
the other could have a spin value of down.
The laws of quantum mechanics dictate
that in the absence of measurement, neither of the particles possesses a definite
spin until one of the two speeding entangled particles is measured. Once a measurement of one particle is made, the
state of the other changes i nstantaneously, e ven if the particles are separated by
vast distances!
Einstein believed this spooky action at a
distance was nonsense. His own special theory of
relativity held that nothing could travel faster than
light, so there was no way for two particles to communicate with
each other instantaneously from opposite sides of the universe.
He suggested instead that the measurement outcomes must be
determined prior to measurement by hidden variables that
quantum mechanics failed to account for. Decades of discussion
followed until 1964, when physicist John Stewart Bell developed
a theorem quantifying exactly how the information shared between entangled particles differs from the information that Einstein postulated would be shared through hidden variables.
Since the 1970s lab experiments with entangled quantum systems have repeatedly confirmed that Einstein was wrong, that
quantum particles indeed share mutual information that cannot be accounted for by hidden variables. Spooky action at a distance is real, but experiments have demonstrated that it cannot
be used to transmit information faster than light, making it perfectly consistent with Einsteins special relativity. This counterintuitive truth remains one of the most mysterious conundrums
in all of physics, and it was Einsteins stubborn, mistaken opposition that proved crucial to confirming it.
ALICE AND BOB
Today some of the most significant thought experiments in physics explore how to reconcile Einsteins clockwork, relativistic universe with the fuzzy uncertainties inherent to quantum particles.
Consider, for instance, the widely discussed black hole information paradox. If you combine general relativity and quantum field theory, then you find that black holes evaporate, slowly radiating away their mass because of quantum effects. You
also find that this process is not reversible: regardless of what
IN BRIEF
One of Einsteins enduring contributions to physics was his use of gedankenexperiments, or thought experiments.
His intuition about falling elevators,

for example, led to his greatest achievement, the general theory of relativity.
Today some of the most important

questions in theoretical physics involve
thought experiments about black holes.
Yet there is a problem: these thought

experiments may be so far removed from
empirical data as to be untestable.
Illustrations by Nigel Holmes
formed the black hole, the evaporating black hole always produces the same featureless bath of radiation from which no information about its contents can be retrieved. But such a process is prohibited in quantum theory, which states that any occurrence can, in principle, be reversed in time. For instance,
according to the laws of quantum mechanics, the leftovers of a
burned book still contain all the information necessary to reassemble that book even though this information is not easily accessible. Not so for evaporating black holes. And so we arrive at
a paradox, a logical inconsistency. A union of quantum mechanics and general relativity tells us that black holes must evaporate, but we conclude that the result is incompatible with quantum mechanics. We must be making some mistakebut where?
The thought experiments created to explore
this paradox typically ask us to imagine
a pair of observers, Bob and Alice,
who share a pair of entangled
particlesthose spooky entities
from the EPR experiment. Alice jumps into the black hole,
carrying her particle with her,
whereas Bob stays outside
and far away with his. Without Alice, Bobs particle is just
typical, with a spin that might
measure up or downthe information that it once shared
with its entangled partner is lost,
along with Alice.
Bob and Alice play a central role in
one of the most popular proposed solutions
to the paradox, called black hole complementarity. Proposed in
1993 by Leonard Susskind, Lrus Thorlacius and John Uglum, all
then at Stanford University, black hole complementarity rests on
Einsteins golden rule for a gedankenexperiment: a strict focus
on that which can be measured. Susskind and his colleagues postulated that the information falling in with Alice must come out
later with the evaporating black holes radiation. This scenario
would usually create another inconsistency because quantum
mechanics allows only pair-wise entanglement with one partner
at a time, a property called monogamy of entanglement. That is,
if Bobs particle is entangled with Alices, it cannot be entangled
with anything else. But black hole complementarity requires that
Bobs particle be entangled with Alices and with the radiation
the black hole later emits even though this violates monogamy.
At first sight, then, black hole complementarity seems to exchange one inconsistency with another.
But like a perfect crime, if no one actually witnesses this inconsistency, perhaps it can subvert natures otherwise strict
laws. Black hole complementarity relies on the argument that it
is physically impossible for any observer to see Alice and Bobs
entangled particles breaking the rules.
To envision how this perfect quantum-mechanical crime
could unfold, imagine a third observer, Charlie, hovering near
the black hole, keeping an eye on Alice and Bob. He watches as
Bob stays outside and as Alice falls in, measuring the black holes
emitted radiation all the while. In theory, information encoded
in that radiation could tip off Charlie that Bob and Alice had violated the monogamy of their entanglement. To know for certain,
however, Charlie would have to

compare his observations not only
with Bobs measurement but
also with Alicesinside the
black hole. So he must hover at
the horizon, measure the emitted radiation, then jump in to
tell Alice what he has found.
Amazingly enough, Susskind
and Thorlacius showed that no
matter how hard Charlie tries,
it is impossible for him to enter
the black hole and compare his information with Alices before they are
both torn apart by tidal forces. Their
grisly fate suggests no violations of
quantum mechanics can ever be measured by
anybody around a black hole, and so theorists can
commit this crime against nature with impunity.
Suffice it to say, not all theorists are convinced
that this argument is valid. One criticism of black
hole complementarity is that it might violate Einsteins equivalence principlethe one that grew
out of his elevator thought experiment. Einsteins
general relativity predicts that just as the elevators passenger cannot distinguish between gravity and acceleration, an observer crossing a black
holes horizon should not notice anything unusual;
there is no way an observer can tell that he or she has
slipped past the point of no return.
Now let us return to the entanglement of Alice and Bob. If
the radiation that Bob sees from far outside the hole contains
all the information that we thought vanished with Alice behind
the horizon, then this radiation must have been emitted with
an extremely high energy; otherwise, it would not have escaped the strong gravitational pull near the horizon. This energy is high enough to vaporize any infalling observer before he
or she slips past the black holes horizon. In other words, black
hole complementarity implies that black holes have a firewall
just outside the horizonand yet the firewall directly contradicts the predictions of Einsteins equivalence principle.
At this point, we have ventured deep into the realm of theory. Indeed, we might never know the solutions to these puzzles.
But because those solutions could lead to an understanding of
the quantum nature of space and time, these puzzles are, for
better or worse, some of the most vibrant areas of research in
theoretical physics. And it all goes back to Einsteins musings
about falling elevators.
Einsteins Dice and Schrdingers Cat: How Two Great Minds Battled Quantum
Randomness to Create a Unified Theory of Physics. P aul Halpern. Basic Books, 2015.
FROM OUR ARCHIVES
Black Holes and the Information Paradox. Leonard Susskind; April 1997.
A Quantum Threat to Special Relativity. David Z Albert and Rivka Galchen; March 2009.
Burning Rings of Fire. J oseph Polchinski; April 2015.
WHAT
EINSTEIN
GOT
WRONG
COSMOLOGY
Everyone makes mistakes. But those

of the legendary physicist are
particularly illuminating
By Lawrence M. Krauss
Like all people, Albert Einstein made mistakes, and like many physicists he
sometimes published them. For most of us, the times when we go astray are happily
forgettable. In Einsteins case, even the mistakes are noteworthy. They offer insight
into the evolution of his thinking and with it the surrounding shifts in scientific conceptions of the universe. Einsteins errors also lay bare the challenges of discovery at
the leading edge. When pushing the limits of understanding, it is difficult to know
whether ideas written down on paper correspond to real phenomena and whether a
radically new idea will lead to profound insights or will fizzle out.
Over the years Einsteinthe man who brazenly redefined the meaning of space and
timeunderestimated his discoveries and second-guessed himself surprisingly often.
Today three whole flourishing areas of cosmology are built on ideas he misjudged: gravitational lensing, gravitational waves and the accelerating expansion of our universe.
IN BRIEF
Despite his immense powers o f perception, Einstein repeatedly failed to

grasp the meaning of some of his own
most significant ideas or else overlooked their importance.
As a result, he dismissed the importance of gravitational lensing, initially

doubted the reality of gravitational
waves and failed to anticipate the discovery of the expanding universe.
Examining Einsteins errors offers insight into his thought process, as well
as a new perspective on the history
behind three of the most exciting areas of modern cosmology.
Illustrations by John Cuneo
EINSTEINS DISTORTED LENS
In the case of gravitational lensing, Einsteins crucial error was

to downplay one of his most famous results: his prediction that
light bends in a gravitational field. In December 1936 he published a short paper in the journal S
cience, w
ith the title LensLike Action of a Star by the Deviation of Light in the Gravitational Field. It began with a kind of innocence that would be
impossible to find in modern academic literature: Some time
ago, R. W. Mandl [a Czech engineer] paid me a visit and asked
me to publish the results of a little calculation which I had made
at his request. This note complies with his wish.
The little calculation examined the possibility of extreme de
flections of light caused by gravity. It was a simple matter for Einstein to show that given a massive enough intervening object and
a sufficiently close approach, light rays originating from well behind the object would be bent so strongly by gravity that they
could converge, producing a magnified image or multiple images
of the distant sourceakin to the bending of light through a lens,
hence the name gravitational lensing. Lensing has developed into
one of the most important observational tools in modern cosmology because it offers a way to deduce the distribution of mass in
the universe even in places where the matter is invisible.
Einstein did not recognize either the magnitude or the importance of the lensing effect, however. Rather he concluded in his
1936 paper that the splitting of images caused by light passing a
nearby star would be so small as to be essentially immeasurable,
which undoubtedly explains the self-deprecating nature of the introduction to his paper. He was technically correct, but apparently it did not occur to him that stars are not the only objects that
could produce such bending.
Einsteins obliviousness is all the more surprising given the
huge impact of gravitational lensing on his scientific reputation.
Deflection of light by a massive object was a key observational
prediction of general relativity. In 1919 an expedition led by physicist Arthur Eddington observed a solar eclipse and determined
that starlight passing by the sun bent just as Einstein expected.
News of the confirmation appeared on the front pages of newspapers around the world, with the drama of a British expedition confirming the work of a German scientist right at the end of World
War I no doubt contributing to the publics fascination. Einstein
rapidly attained a level of scientific fame unequaled ever since.
There is a further twist to the story. Einstein had done the
same light-bending calculation years earlier, in 1912. He had not
recognized the cosmological importance of his result then, either.
Even worse, he had made a near-disastrous mathematical error:
he performed his calculation using an early version of general relativity that predicted a light deflection by gravity half as big as
the true value. An expedition had been planned to search for the
bending of starlight by the sun during a 1914 solar eclipse, but it
was preempted by the outbreak of World War I. Einstein was
lucky that the observation never happened. If it had, the first prediction of Einsteins emerging theory of gravity would have disagreed with the data. How that would have affected his life, and
the subsequent history of science, is anyones guess.
After the 1936 article was published, Einstein wrote to the editor with a charmingly incorrect assessment of his research: Let
me also thank you for your cooperation with the little publication, which Mister Mandl squeezed out of me. It is of little value,
but it makes the poor guy happy.
Lawrence Krauss is director of the Origins Project at Arizona

State University and also Foundation Professor in the School
of Earth and Space Exploration and the physics department
there. He is author of nine books (including best sellers The
Physics of Star Trek and A Universe from Nothing) and a producer
of The Unbelievers, a documentary film on science and reason.
What Einstein missedas the irascible but brilliant California

Institute of Technology astronomer Fritz Zwicky pointedly argued in a paper he submitted to the Physical Review within
months of Einsteins publicationwas that stars combine to form
galaxies. Individual stars might produce unobservably small lensing effects, Zwicky noted, but lensing by massive galaxies, containing perhaps 100 billion stars, might be observable.
Zwickys one-page paper, published in 1937, was remarkable.
In it he proposed three uses for gravitational lensing that presage almost all the applications that astronomers have managed
to achieve in the intervening decades: testing general relativity,
using lensing by galaxies to magnify more distant objects that
would otherwise be unobservable, and using lensing to measure
the masses of the largest structures in the universe. Zwicky
missed a fourth application that has turned out to be equally
important, using the lensing by galaxies to probe the geometry
and evolution of the universe on its largest scales.
It is hard to imagine a larger underestimation of the significance of any calculation in physics.
STYMIED BY IMAGINARY SINGULARITIES
In the case of gravitational wavesripples in spacetimeEinstein understood early on that they were implied by his theory
but for a time backtracked from his original, correct claims for
their existence. Today the detection of gravitational waves from
colliding black holes and exploding stars or from the inflationary era (an epoch of hyperfast expansion immediately after the
big bang) promises to open a vast new window on the universe.
Einstein first predicted gravitational waves shortly after he
finalized his general theory of relativity in 1916. Although the
mathematics behind the waves is complex, the line of reasoning
he employed is not. According to the laws of electromagnetism,
if we move an electrical charge back and forth, we generate an
oscillating disturbance that manifests itself as an electromagnetic wave such as light. Likewise, if we move a pebble back and
forth across the surface of a pond, we generate a pattern of water waves. Einstein had demonstrated that matter curves space,
so matter in motion should produce an analogous, oscillating
disturbance of space. But then he started to doubt whether such
disturbances were physically real.
Einstein announced this change of heart in a 1936 paper submitted to Physical Review (the same prestigious American journal that published Zwickys lensing paper). The tale of how he
made the error and later discovered his mistake is almost comically twisted. He had moved to the U.S. from Germany three
years earlier, and clearly he was still not used to the way things
were done in the new world. Around the time he submitted his
paper, entitled Do Gravitational Waves Exist? Einstein wrote a
letter to his colleague Max Born, stating, Together with a young
collaborator, I arrived at the interesting result that gravitational
waves do not exist, though they had been assumed a certainty to
the first approximation. This shows us that the non-linear general relativistic field equations can tell us more or, rather, limit us
more than we have believed up to now.
The paper that Einstein sent to the P
hysical Review n
o longer exists because it was never published there. Following normal procedure, the editor of the journal had sent his paper (coauthored with Nathan Rosen, then Einsteins research assistant
at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J.) out for
peer review. A critical report came back from an anonymous referee and was forwarded to Einstein for a response. He was
stunned to have had his work subject to review, given that this
policy was not the norm in the German publications he previously had submitted to.
In response, Einstein wrote a haughty letter to the editor:
We (Mr. Rosen and I) had sent you our manuscript for publication and had not authorized you to show it to specialists before it
is printed. I see no reason to address thein any case erroneouscomments of your anonymous expert. On the basis of this
incident I prefer to publish the paper elsewhere. H
e never again
submitted a paper to the Physical Review. A
pparently he also
never read the referees report, written by the distinguished U.S.
cosmologist Howard Percy Robertson, which correctly explained the crucial error in his thinking.
Einstein and Rosen had tried to write a formula for gravitational plane waves (flat, evenly spaced waves, analogous to pond
ripples from a rock that was dropped extremely far away), but in
doing so they encountered a singularitya place where quanti-
ties become infinitely large. That nonsensical result led them to

infer that such waves could not exist. In reality, Einstein misunderstood the mathematics of his own theory. General relativity
tells us that nature is independent of the particular way that scientists choose to define coordinates in space; many seemingly bizarre results that come out of solving relativitys equations are
now understood as mere artifacts of using the wrong coordinate
system. For example, around a black hole there is a radius, called
the event horizon, inside of which one can never escape the pull
of the black hole. When writing down the geometry around a
black hole, many quantitiesincluding distance and timeseem
to blow up at the event horizon. These infinities are unphysical,
however. In another set of coordinates, defined by the way that
light moves through space, they disappear. The same is true for
gravitational waves. There is no single coordinate system in
which planar gravitational waves can be described without apparent singularities, but these are not real. By using two different,
overlapping coordinates, the singularities disappear.
Still convinced of his argument, Einstein resubmitted his paper to the J ournal of the Franklin Institute, b
ut before it could be
published, he, too, realized his mistake and informed the editors
he had discovered errors. The final published form, retitled On
Gravitational Waves, presents a solution to the general relativity
equations that use a different coordinate systemone appropriate
for cylindrical rather than planar gravitational wavesin which
no singularities appear, just as Robertson had suggested.
How did Einstein come to the correct conclusion in the end?
According to his later assistant, Leopold Infeld, Robertson sought
out Infeld and kindly explained to him both the error in the original paper and the possible resolution, which Infeld related to Einstein. Robertson apparently never revealed that he was the papers referee, nor did Einstein ever mention the original referees
report. The upshot is that Einstein never published
his erroneous claim disputing the existence of gravitational waves, but only thanks to the intervention
of a particularly diligent peer reviewer.
Einstein did not fare as well with regard to
black holes. He remained confused by the unphysical singularity at the event horizon and assumed
that nature must prohibit it somehow. He argued
that conservation of angular momentum would
cause particles in a collapsing object to stabilize in
orbits of finite radius, making it impossible for an
event horizon to form. He never accepted black
holes as physically real objects.
A BRILLIANT BLUNDER?
The most famous of Einstein s errors is his modification of general relativity to allow a universe that
is not expanding. It became widely known because
he reportedly denounced it himself as a blunder.
When he completed general relativity in 1915, the
prevailing wisdom held that our galaxy, the Milky
Way, was surrounded by an infinite void that was
both static and eternal. But Einstein recognized
that the gravitational force caused by matter in general relativity (as in Newtons theory) is universally
attractive, making a static solution impossible.
Gravity should cause the matter to collapse inward.
CASE STUDIE S
Einsteins Blunders
In three major cases, E
instein shockingly underestimated the value of his findings or decided that a valid discovery was incorrect.
His discarded ideas have proved crucial to modern cosmology. Gravitational lensing is used to map galaxy clusters; gravitational
waves offer insights into the first moments of the big bang; the cosmological constant may regulate the evolution of the universe.
Gravitational Lensing
When Einstein published his 1936 paper
on gravitational lensingbending of light
by gravityhe mistakenly concluded that
the phenomenon would be unobservable.
He thought only about lensing of stars by
other stars, not the more pronounced
lensing of galaxies by other galaxies,
which is why he did not publish his results
earlier. It is a good thing, too: The first
time Einstein calculated the lensing effect,
in 1912, he used an early form of his
theory, and his estimate of the bending
was too small. Had he published the
erroneous prediction, it might have
affected the ultimate acceptance of
general relativityand that would have
been a big mistake.
Observed distant galaxy position
Observed
distant
star position
True distant galaxy position
True distant
star position
Near star
Lensing angle
from a single
star is very small
Lensing angle from a

galaxy is far greater;
measuring how the
light is bent can
reveal the mass and
structure of the
intervening galaxy
Near galaxy
Earth
Gravitational Waves
Cylindrical wave,
whose plane
of oscillation
rotates as the
wave moves
Planar wave,
oscillating in
constant direction
Cosmological Constant
In 1917 Einstein added a term, called the
cosmological constant, to the equations of
general relativity as a mathematical way
of keeping the universe static. When he
learned that the universe is expanding, he
discarded the constant. What he did not
realize is that such a term is a natural part
of the theory. Scientists now recognize
that the cosmological constant corre
sponds to an energy within empty space;
that energy may explain the accelerating
expansion of the universe.
General relativity implied the existence of

gravitational waves, ripples in spacetime, but
Einstein initially rejected his own prediction. He
was saved from publishing this faulty assertion
by another mistake: regarding peer review as
an insult. After withdrawing a paper in anger
over a reviewers critique, he realized his error:
he had tried to find a solution for waves oscil
lating in a constant direction as they move. He
subsequently derived the correct expression for
waves whose direction of oscillation rotates as
they move. Gravitational waves have since been
well confirmed, albeit indirectly.
Einsteins Field Equation
R and g describe
the structure
of spacetime
(lambda),
the cosmological
constant, is a term
that can describe
a repulsive force
throughout space
G is the
gravitational
constant
c is the
speed of light
T represents
the energy
density of
matter and
radiation
Illustrations by Jen Christiansen
In a 1917 paper, Cosmological Considerations in the General

Theory of Relativity, Einstein therefore introduced an additional, constant term in his equations for general relativity to
ensure a static universe. The cosmological term would provide a
counteracting gravitational repulsion throughout all of space,
holding back gravity as Einstein hoped. There was no physical
justification for this term, other than staving off collapse.
Within a decade after the introduction of the cosmological
constant, evidence began to mount that the universe wasnt
static after all. At first, Einstein was resistant. Belgian physicist
and Catholic priest Georges Lematre developed a model of an
expanding universe, complete with a kind of big bang, in 1927,
which was two years before Edwin Hubble published his landmark paper documenting the recession of galaxies. Lematre
later recalled being admonished by Einstein, Your calculations
are correct, but your physics is abominable!
Eventually Einstein came around. He went to visit Hubble
and looked through his telescope at Mount Wilson Observa
tory near Pasadena, Calif., and in 1933 Einstein reportedly
praised Lematres cosmological theory: This is the most beautiful and satisfactory explanation of creation to which I have
ever listened.
It was not lost on Einstein that in an expanding universe
there was no longer any need for a cosmological constant to keep
things static. Even in 1919 he wrote that the constant was gravely detrimental to the formal beauty of the theory. And in an oftquoted reference in George Gamows book, M
y World Line: An
Informal Autobiography, Gamow related the following anecdote: Much later, when I was discussing cosmological problems
with Einstein, he remarked that the introduction of the cosmological term was the biggest blunder he ever made in his life.
In retrospect, Einstein was completely mistaken in thinking
that the cosmological constant was worthless, but his introduction of it was a blunder, for two reasons. Had he had the courage
of his convictions, he would have recognized that general relativitys inconsistency with a static universe was a p
rediction. A
t a
time when no one expected that the universe was dynamic on
large scales, Einstein could have predicted cosmic expansion instead of having to grudgingly accept it later.
The introduction of the cosmological constant was also a
blunder in a more fundamental way. Simply put, the constant
could not work the way he intended: it would not allow the kind
of static universe that he was trying to match. That error arose in
part because once again Einstein used the wrong coordinate
frame for his calculations. But his conception was wrong from a
physical perspective as well. Although it is possible to briefly balance the gravitational attraction of matter with the repulsion
from a cosmological constant, the smallest perturbation will produce runaway expansion or collapse. With or without the cosmological constant, the universe must be dynamic.
The cosmological constant ultimately proved far more durable than the limited astronomical knowledge that inspired it.
Although the constant was an ad hoc addition to his equations,
physicists now understand that when viewed through the lens
of quantum theory, it corresponds to a possible energy residing
in empty space. In fact, quantum physics requires the presence
of such a cosmological term. Moreover, the energy content of
empty space is not just a theoretical concept. In one of the most
astonishing measurements in recent history, two groups in
1998 observed that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, driven outward by something that seems to act just like a
cosmological constant. In this instance, one might say that Einstein actually blundered twice: by introducing the cosmological
constant for the wrong reason and again by throwing it out instead of exploring its implications.
THE ERROR HE NEVER ADMITTED
Einstein s errors were intellectually fertile because they were

all rooted in grand, provocative ideas about how physics works.
That is true even of what is generally regarded as his greatest error of all: his refusal to accept quantum mechanics as a fundamental theory of nature.
Although Einstein had created the basis for quantum mechanics with his theory of the photoelectric effect (for which he
later won the Nobel Prize), he never completely shed the mindset of classical physics. The idea that the location of a particle is a
matter of probability or that one particle can instantaneously influence another one from a great distance struck him as absurd,
although his views on the quandaries of quantum theory were
more nuanced than he is usually given credit for [see Is the Cosmos Random? by George Musser, on page 88]. He spent most of
his later years attempting to merge the equations of gravity and
electromagnetism within a classical framework, into a so-called
unified field theory.
As part of that effort, Einstein became fascinated by a speculation introduced by German mathematician Theodor Kaluza in
1921 and later elaborated on by Swedish physicist Oskar Klein.
They suggested that if the universe contains five dimensions
three of familiar space, one of time and a fifth dimension curled
up so as to be invisibleit would be possible to create a single,
combined description of electromagnetism and gravity. For Einstein, one of the attractive facets of the theory was that it was
purely classical. Klein had shown that, in the model, the apparent
quantization of electrical charge could be a consequence of electromagnetism reflecting the geometry of the closed, circular
shape of the fifth dimension.
Einsteins effort to construct a unified field theory ultimately
went nowhere, but his flawed ideas once again led to important
breakthroughs. In calling attention to the extra dimensions of
Kaluza and Klein, Einstein may have helped inspire the higherdimensional mathematics of modern string theory, a currently
popular proposal for incorporating general relativity into quantum mechanics. Einstein probably would have been repelled by
the idea of having general relativity arise out of a quantum landscape rather than the other way around. But as we have seen, he
was anything but infallible.
The Origin of Gravitational Lensing: A Postscript to Einsteins 1936 Science

Paper. J urgen Renn, Tilman Sauer and John Stachel in S cience, Vol. 275, pages 184
186; January 10, 1997.
Einstein versus the Physical Review. Daniel Kennefick in P hysics Today, Vol. 58, No. 9,
pages 4348; September 2005.
FROM OUR ARCHIVES
A Cosmic Conundrum. L awrence M. Krauss and Michael S. Turner; September 2004.

The Right Way to Get It Wrong. D
avid Kaiser and Angela N. H. Creager; June 2012.
A LEGACY IN
NUMBERS
R E L AT I V I T YS
REACH
A visualization of recent physics terms affirms the
enduring influence of Einsteins 100-year-old masterpiece
The outer limits of 21st-century phys-
ics involve arcane pursuits with strange and

wonderful names like M-theory and de
Sitter universes. Many of these endeavors
rely heavily on Albert Einsteins explanation
of how gravity emerges from the bending of
space and time.
With the assistance of the Office for Crea
tive Research (OCR), a New York City data
visualization firm, Scientific American de
cided to look for some measure of how often
recent scientific papers in relevant areas
of physics still lean on Einsteins 100-yearold achievement.
OCR examined a years worth of the physics literature for references to general relativity or its conceptual offshoots. Specific
ally, OCR processed 2,435 abstracts of 2014
physics papers from the arXiv.org repos
itory through a powerful text-analysis program incorporated into IBMs Watson AI
system. The software ex
tracted keywords
that turned up repeatedly in abstracts from
a section of arXiv on general relativity and
quantum cosmology. We then edited this

list down to 61 keywords, each of which represents a research topic that has grown out
of general relativity. The arXivs relativity
section was scanned to discover which of
the 61words were turning up most often in
the research reports.
The data visualization here is the result.
Each incandescent colored dot stands for a
paper that touches on at least one element of
general relativity or its spin-offs [see following three pages for details on how to interpret the visualization]. For an interactive
version, go to www.ScientificAmerican.
com/sep2015/relativity-infographic.
It is apparent at a glance that Einsteins
ideas are still going strong. Thousands of
papers published every year make reference
to his progeny. General relativity seems certain to continue to be a cornerstone of physics in decades to come. When we redo this
data visualization 100 years from now, we
are betting that it will yield the same pointillist explosion of color.
The Editors
BOUQUETS OF LIGHT: In this view of the three-dimensional visualization, clusters of colored dots represent groupings
of research papers that cite particular keywords related to new areas of physics that have emerged from Einsteins theory.
To the right, for example, one cluster corresponds to the keywords black hole and event horizon.
Graphics by the Office for Creative Research
Top View
Each dot equals one

article from arXivs
2014 general rela
tivity and quantum
cosmology database
(2,435 total, some
are obscured).
Article dots are

positioned near key
words (diamonds).
If the text has multiple
keywords, the dot is
placed between terms,
such as the article with
special relativity and
Noethers theorem.
Some keywords are
linked with red lines.
The size of the

dot is based on how
often the 2014
article has been
cited since publication through the
middle of this year.
The dot outline

indicates publication
status. Many physi
cists put their papers
in arXiv before they
are published.
1 author
2 authors
3 authors
No citations
Currently
published
4 authors
5849 authors
85 citations
Non-euclidean geometry
Non-Euclidean
Antimatter
The color of the

dot indicates
number of authors.
Awaiting peer
review/publication
850+ authors
Kerr metric
Wormhole
Accelerating universe
Time travel
Gravitation
Closed timelike curve
Quantum Hall eect
Noethers theorem
Exotic
matter
Gravitational
singularity
Frame dragging
Schwarzschild metric
Special relativity
Symmetry
Hubbles law
Big bang
Cosmic microwave
background radiation
De Sitter space
Time
Spacetime
De Sitter
sitter universe
Minkowski space
Dark energy
Lambda-CDM model
Physical cosmology
Binary star
Pulsar
Gravitational wave
Multiverse
Dark matter
Neutron star
White dwarf
Cosmological constant
Standard model
Supernova
Vacuum energy
Cosmic ination
Riemannian manifold
Hawking radiation
Supersymmetry
Cosmology
String theory
Quantum gravity
Gauge theories
M-theory
Theory of everything
Accretion disk
disc
Black hole
thermodynamics
Hilbert space
Gravitational constant
Knot theory
Equivalence principle
Black holes
Event horizon
Black hole
Black hole
information paradox
Loop quantum gravity

Euclidean space
Schwarzschild
radius
Gravitation
String theory
Physical cosmology
Spacetime
Black hole
When a lot of articles include

the same keyword, the word is
depicted as being higher.
Side View
Red lines descend and converge from
the brilliantly colored surface of the
visualization. Each line stands for an
abstract with at least one of the 61 most
frequently used keywords for general
relativity (not all are shown). The lines
terminate at a point indicating the
number of articles that mention the
listed keyword. Shorter lines correspond
to more frequent mentions.
Number of Articles
Containing a Keyword
500
Black hole
400
Physical cosmology
String theory
Gravitation
300
Dark matter
Spacetime
200
Special relativity
Time
DATA SOURCE: ARXIV.ORG
Quantum gravity
Gravitational wave
Big bang
100
Standard Model
Hawking radiation
Dark energy
Symmetry
FUNDAMENTAL
P H YS I C S
CLEANING
AFTER
UPEINSTEIN
A new generation of physicists hope
to succeed where Einstein failed
By Corey S. Powell
Leslie Rosenbergs attempt to understand the universe resem-
bles a makeshift home hot-water heater tank, capped with some wires and shoved into
a large, underground refrigerator. The experiment, housed in a laboratory adjacent to
his office at the University of Washington, is a supercooled, magnetized vacuum chamber equipped with a sensitive detector that listens for the microwave ping of passing
particles called axions. These particles are invisible and, so far, entirely hypothetical.
Rosenberg has been on the trail of this particle ever since he was a postdoctoral
researcher at the University of Chicago in the early 1990s. In that time he has performed experiment after experiment, achieving ever greater precision and yet always the same old empty results, hoping for the positive detection that could rescue Albert Einsteins biggestand most star-crossedidea.
Physicists call it the unified field theory, but it is more popularly and evocatively
known as the theory of everything. The idea has been to devise a single formulation
that sums up the behavior of all the known forces of physics. Einstein started this
quest nine decades ago. It bothered the great theorist that the two fundamental
forces guiding the behavior of the universegravity and electromagnetismappeared to play by different rules. He wanted to demonstrate that all types of matter
and energy are governed by the same logic.
IN BRIEF
At the end o f his life, Einstein tried

to create a theory of everything,
governing all forces in the cosmos.
He failed, in part because two of

those forces, the weak and strong,
had yet to be discovered.
Physicists are making the attempt

again, starting with data on new
types of particles and fields.
Photograph by Timothy Archibald
PARTICLE SEEKERS
location: University
of Washington, Seattle
project: The ADMX detector,
inside a supercooled, magne

tized vacuum chamber, listens
for a microwave ping of
passing particles called axions.
The hypothetical particles
may account for the dark
matter that is supposed to
vastly outweigh visible matter.
who is doing it (back row, from
left): Ciera Cox, Nick Posey,

James Sloan, Clifford Plesha,
Richard Ottens, Josh Povick
and Kerkira Stockton;
(front row, from left): Hannah
LeTourneau, Leslie Rosenberg,
Xavier Frost, Ana Malagon,
Kiva Ramundo and Jacob Herr
Rolling up the universe into a single formula was a formidable ambition, even for Einstein. I want to know how God created this world, he wrote in an oft-cited 1920 letter to a German physics student. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to
know his thoughts. The rest are details.
But as the Yiddish proverb goes, Man plans and God
laughs. Einstein pursued Gods thoughts for three decades to
no avail, running down one blind alley after another. When he
died, in 1955, he left behind a set of unsolved unified field equations scrawled on his blackboard.
The task of unification has fallen to subsequent generations
of physicists, who have broken the problem into myriad parts.
What started as the grand vision of a singular genius has
morphed into slow, grinding labor carried out by different
teams of physicists, each trying to solve a small piece of a vast
cosmic puzzle. Rosenberg, for instance, does not obsess over an
all-encompassing theory of everything. He is focused on his one
vexing and specific problem: the axion. It has theoretical properties that could wipe away the need to modify Einsteins
equations of gravity. Well see what the data say, Rosenberg notes. I dont want to look into the mind of God.
Despite their narrow focus, Rosenberg and his compatriots have not taken their eyes off the prize. They are engaged in a broader effort to hammer out flaws in the theoretical edifice that Einstein created and to build a more
complete model of particle physics from the ground up,
rather than from the top down. They seek to push the science forward by finding out how nature really behaves,
not how scientists think it should (an approach that
Rosenberg dismisses as navel gazing). Other researchers are designing experiments to reveal a hidden aspect
of physics called dark energy or to detect two-dimensional quantum units that could be building blocks of our apparently three-dimensional existence. Their hard data
may be just what todays physicists need to succeed where
Einstein failed.
We could actually test some of these crazy ideas
about the evolution of the universe, says physicist Joshua Frieman of the University of Chicago. Almost certainly, he believes, physicists will not get to a theory of everything without them.
Corey S. Powell is a science writer, blogger

and editor living in Brooklyn, N.Y. He is a visiting
scholar at New York Universitys Science, Health
and Environmental Reporting Program. Follow
him on Twitter @coreyspowell
perhaps the universe contains an unknown class of particles that

are invisible to all our telescopes.
Possibility number one is shunned by the vast majority of
physicists because it is ad hoc, and it is also difficult to reconcile with measurements of how galaxies move. The scientific
mainstream has therefore lined up behind possibility number
two, instigating dozens of crafty efforts to unmask the unseen
dark particles. Which is where ADMX comes in.
Axions nicely match the inferred properties of dark matter, so
DARK SIDE OF THE UNIVERSE
A look at Rosenbergs Axion Dark Matter eXperiment

(ADMX) reveals the power of the small-is-beautiful approach. In its seemingly modest search for just one particle and one new set of physics rules, ADMX could also refute concerns about general relativity and solve a major
cosmology puzzle in the process.
That puzzle dates back to the 1930s, when astronomers
began to realize that the universe appeared to be full of
some unseen component that makes its presence known
only by its gravitational pull on the visible stars. The discovery turned even stranger in the 1980s, when new models of the big bang showed that the invisible (or dark)
stuffwhatever it iscould not consist of ordinary atoms.
That left two unsettling possibilities. Perhaps gravity does
not work the way Einstein thought it did at large scales, or
Photograph by Sandy Nicholson
if Rosenberg and his ADMX team detect them, they would pro- odd duck out, Rosenberg admits cheerily. Then the various
vide a more complete picture of how galaxies have formed and WIMP detectors kept getting better and better, without finding
evolved. They would also do away with the need to make ugly anything. The watershed moment came last year, when an ultramodifications to some of Einsteins gravity equations. Above all, sensitive WIMP finder called Large Underground Xenon (LUX),
axions would force a revision of the Stanbeneath the hills of South Dakota, switched
dard Model of particle physics. That model
on. So far it, too, has come up empty.
is a comprehensive, yet clearly incomplete,
Now is the make-or-break moment for
HOLOGRAM HUNTERS
theory of fundamental particles and fields.
Rosenberg to prove that axions are the anFinding the axion would validate a much deswer and to shore up general relativity
location: Fermi National
bated elaboration of the Standard Model,
Einsteins idea that gravity comes from a
Accelerator Laboratory
(Fermilab), Batavia, Ill.
bringing physicists one step closer to a true
curvature of spacetimein the process. The
theory of everything.
concept behind ADMX is deliciously straight
project: The Holometer
Until recently, axions were considered a
forward. If dark matter really consists of
experiment will look for
long shot in the search for dark matter. Most
particles, there must be a continuous wind
tiny changes in a laser beam
sent down two perpendicular
of Rosenbergs colleagues were focusing
of them blowing through the earth and evpathways that suggest space
their attention on another class of particles
erything on it (including you) all the time.
and time are made of funda
called WIMPs (weakly interacting massive
And if those particles are axions, theoretimental quantum units
particles), which were considered more thecally they will very occasionally decay. The
a theory known as the
oretically attractive. I was always a little
particles themselves are invisible, but in
holographic principle.
who is doing it (from left):
Sam Waldman, Ohkyung

Kwon, Robert Lanza,
Aaron Chou, Craig Hogan,
Ray Tomlin, Stephen Meyer,
Brittany Kamai, Lee McCuller,
Jonathan Richardson, Chris
Stoughton, Rainier Weiss
and Richard Gustafson
STRING THEORISTS
location: Stanford University,
Stanford, Calif.
project: String theorists attempt
to unify all of natures forces into

a single framework by thinking
of both particles and forces as
vibrations of loops of string.
Some versions of the theory
make predictions about the
beginning of the universe that
might manifest in imprints in the
radiation we can observe from
the far reaches of the cosmos.
that rare decay process, they should

turn into microwaves, which would
produce a weak but detectable sigwho is doing it (from left):
nal. Straightforward, yes, but diffiAndrei Linde, Renata Kallosh,
cult to execute in practice.
Ahmed Almheiri, Leonard
We have a cavity the size of an oil
Susskind, Shamit Kachru,
drum, Rosenberg says, and its
Patrick Hayden and
Lampros Lamprou
cooled to 100 millikelvins, which is
0.1 degree above absolute zero. The
extremely low temperature ensures
that the detector itself produces almost no microwave noise. Next the cavity is magnetized to stimulate the decay of axions. Then a small, pencil-shaped probe listens in for some microwaves that should not be there. Adding to
the challenge, nobody knows exactly what kind of microwaves to
listen for; the frequency of the signal depends on the mass of the
axion, which is of course unknown.
The only way around this problem is to hop through the microwave band frequency by frequency; the entire ADMX endeavor is essentially a process of flipping channels on a CB radio.
Rosenberg lights up when I offer that analogy: Ive always had
this interest in radio electronics. I played with the radio as a kid,
bouncing signals off the moon. Now were looking at signals using receivers so sensitive they could get four bars of cell-phone
reception on Mars! He is also proud that ADMX, unlike Einsteins endless explorations of the unified field theory, is guaranteed to yield a concrete answer.
By 2018 we will have completely covered the definitive
search region for the axion, Rosenberg says. At that point, its
either there, or it isnt. In other words, we will have either a big
Photograph by Timothy Archibald
tom-built camera strapped to the Blanco four-meter telescope

atop Cerro Tololo, a towering peak in Chile rising more than two
kilometers above sea level. The idea is to gather a vast number of
pictures of distant galaxies. Each image from the camera contains 570 megapixels, a huge amount of data, and it will collect
about 400 images a night, 105 nights a year, over five years total.
The project is callednot surprisinglythe Dark Energy Survey,
and when it is complete in February 2018, the survey will have
examined 300 million galaxies and about 4,000 supernova explosions. (For comparison, a state-of-the-art automated supernova search conducted at the University of California, Berkeley,
from 1998 to 2000 turned up a grand total of 96.)
Like Rosenberg, Frieman used to work as a theorist but got
pulled over to the observational side by the idea of designing
actual tests. Now he has to confront the realities of the task.
Taking the data is hard, he says. Processing the data is hard.
Frieman and his team pick apart observations from the survey four different ways, each one designed to capture a specific
aspect of how dark energy behaves. One analysis zeroes in on a
class of exploding stars called type Ia supernovae, which act as
mile markers in space. Their brightness indicates their distance,
and their color indicates how quickly they are moving away from
us. Put together a bunch of those mile markers, and you get a
sense of how the expansion of the universe has been changing
over time. The other three kinds of analyses explore various patterns of how galaxies cluster. Gravity tends to pull everything together, and dark energy tends to push everything apart. Map-
Weird as they are, dark matter

and dark energy can be thought
of as garnishes atop a reality that
Einstein would have recognized.
But what if that reality needs
adjustment to make progress?
new clue about how to build a theory of everything or one more
idea to scratch off the list.
ENERGY OF EMPTY SPACE
While Rosenberg whittles away a t the problem of dark matter,

other researchers are working toward a complete picture of
physics by going after the other major unseen aspect of the universe: dark energy. It is the opposite of dark matter in its effect,
producing a repulsive force rather than a gravitational attraction. Because dark energy counters the action of gravity, it has
direct implications for how to interpret the equations of general relativity. More profoundly, dark energy cannot be explained
within the current model of particle physics. It therefore provides a critical test for any would-be theory of everything.
One such test is being run by Chicagos Frieman. It uses a cus-
ping how galaxy clusters change over cosmic time therefore reveals the intensity of the dark energy effect.
In the simplest models of dark energy, it is an unchanging
and ubiquitous feature of empty space. It turns out that the standard theories of particle physics can account for the existence of
such an energy; they just predict a value 10120 times too large. (It
is sometimes called the worst prediction in all of physics.) Accounting for the real, drastically smaller value of dark energy is
one of the most important tests for a prospective theory of everything. Astronomers also do not know yet whether dark energy is
truly constant. If Frieman finds that it changes over time, that is
another thing that a theory of everything must explain.
Before we reach that point, though, there is a more basic issue to settle. Our assumption is that dark energy is whats
driving the accelerated expansion, but we dont know that for
sure. It could be that on the largest scales, general relativity just

isnt the correct theory, Frieman says. A modified version of
relativity could potentially mimic the dark energy effect, something that he will be investigating closely. One way or another,
there must be a theory that goes beyond Einsteins, and the
Dark Energy Survey will help find it.
IS LIFE A HOLOGRAM?
Weird as they are, d

ark matter and dark energy can still be
thought of as garnishes on the universe as we know it: an icing
of additional particles or fields atop the kind of reality that Einstein would have readily recognized. But what if that reality
needs adjustment to make progress toward a more sweeping
theory? What if spacetime itself has new, undetected properties
that are not described by general relativity?
Craig Hogan, director of the Center for Particle Astrophysics
at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, is exploring that
head-scratcher with an experiment he calls the Holometer. His
quest is to find out whether space and time are constructed out
of fundamental units: a universe inherently built around ticks
of time and marks on the ruler. In this alternative view, our
sense of living in a three-dimensional universe is an illusion. If
you could magnify space sufficientlydown to 10 trillion trillion times as small as an atomyou would see two-dimensional
pixels that look three-dimensional only when viewed from a
large-scale perspective, like the dots on a television screen.
Each of those units would follow quantum rules, such as
having an amount of built-in uncertainty about its location. At
large scales, space would appear continuous, as Einstein believed, but it would have an underlying quantum structure. In
this way, a pixelated universe would force quantum mechanics
into relativity, removing a key obstacle to creating a unified
theory of physics.
The idea of the apparent 3-D universe emerging from a 2-D
reality is known as the holographic principle, hence the name
of Hogans experiment. Holometer is also something of a pun,
riffing on the name of a 16th-century precision surveying device. Hogans instrument, now collecting data at Fermilab, is
similarly designed to measure the lay of the land with unprecedented accuracy. It consists of a laser beam that is split in two,
sent down different tunnels, bounced off a mirror and then recombined. If space has a quantum structure, the uncertainty of
the location associated with each pixel should create a jitter
within the device; that jitter would shift the two halves of the
beam and knock them out of sync. In principle, the Holometer
can measure movements at the attometer scale: 1018 meter!
That may not be small enough, however. Any underlying quantum structure of space could be even more minuscule, far too subtle to detect experimentally, some of Hogans colleagues have
warned him. He took their skepticism as a dare. As we talk, he
seems especially tickled by how acutely his experiment irks Leonard Susskind of Stanford University, one of the primary developers of the holographic universe concept. Lenny has an idea of
how the holographic principle works, and this isnt it. Hes pretty
sure that were not going to see anything. We were at a conference last year, and he said that he would slit his throat if we saw
this effect, Hogan recalls.
Their dispute should be settled soon. After collecting one
hour of data, the Holometer is approaching Planck sensitivity,
the scale at which Hogan thinks the graininess of space might show up. A full answer
could come within a year,, he predicts, and
then something will happenhe is just not
sure what: If we dont see something, or we
do see something, either way its going to constrain peoples ideas. Nobody knows what the
hell to expect.
EINSTEINS DREAM, CONTINUED
After Hogans comments, I was eager to speak

with Susskind to hear his take. Contrary to the
stereotype of the pensive, math-obsessed theorist, Susskind quickly launches into a discussion about testable concepts. People
bitch about theoretical physicists being frivolous with their ideas because
COSMIC CRUSADERS
they dont face the issues of falsifiability. Thats nonsense. We all are
location: Perimeter Institute
very concerned about falsifiability,
for Theoretical Physics,
he says. But if there is a laboratory
Waterloo, Ontario
test, he contends, the Holometer is
project: Theorists are explor
not how to do it.
ing other ways to understand
A better bet, Susskind says, is to
the whole universe within a
look to the edge of the observable
single framework. One idea
is that Einsteins relativity of
universe for behavior that supports
time can be replaced by a
string theory. In this theory, all parrelativity of size, leading to
ticles and forces are different modes
a reformulation of general
of vibrations in wiggling strings of
relativity in which time and
energy, which makes it a unified ex
shape are meaningful but
pla
nation for all of them. (These
size is not.
strings are different from
cosmic
who is doing it (back row,
strings, which may be defects in
from right): Daniel Carrasco
spacetime.) It also makes predicGuariento, Gabriel Herczeg,
tions about physical conditions at
Flavio Mercati, Sean Gryb
the time of the big bang. More reand Hamish Forbes;
markable, some versionsthe ones
(front row, from right): Niall
Murchadha, Henrique Gomes,
Susskind works onmake predicAndrea Napoletano, Julian
tions about conditions at an even
Barbour and Lee Smolin
earlier stage, before our universe
was born. Susskind believes astronomers might be able to identify evidence of that prior existence imprinted on radiation from the far reaches of our universe.
More likely, though, he believes the next strides toward the
unification of physics will come not from experiment or observation but from intense mathematical explorations of black
holes and space and time. Important things are going to happen over the next five to 10 years, Susskind predicts. I dont
say were going to have a complete theory of everything; were
not even close. But there are going to be major insights into the
connection between gravity and quantum mechanics.
When that connection is revealed, Susskindlike most of todays theoristsexpects that quantum mechanics will come out
on top, with gravity and general relativity forced to live within its
framework. But because Einstein was the one who started us
down this path, it seems only fair to give the final word to one of
todays leading Einsteinians, physicist Lee Smolin of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Ontario.
Smolin is convinced that many of his quantum-obsessed colleagues are literally thinking too small in their pursuit of an ultimate theory. Quantum mechanics is only sensible as a theory of
a subsystem, he says, but general relativity is not a description
of subsystems. It is a description of the universe as a closed system. If you want to understand the universe as a whole, then
you have to think of it as Einstein did, in relativistic terms.
That approach has led Smolin to the startling hypothesis that
the laws of physics may evolve over time and that the universe
has a memory of its own historywhat he calls the principle of
precedence. In this way, he envisions moving beyond specific,
unexplained details of quantum mechanics (the strength of this
particular field or the mass of that particular particle) and regarding them all as developmental aspects of the single, closedsystem universe. He even has a notion of how to test his idea.
If we could evolve a system that is large and complex but still
described by a pure quantum state, we would force nature to invent some novel systematics. We could imagine doing that with
quantum devices, Smolin says. After creating the same system
over and over in the lab, nature might start to develop a preference for a certain quantum state. It would be hard to distinguish
from the noises of experimental practice. But not impossible.
Smolin does not intend to sound mystical, but in some way he

seems to be talking not about the physical universe but about the
spirit of Einstein. One century ago a single man revealed a novel
way to think about the universe. Sixty years ago that life was
snuffed out, as all human lives are sooner or later. But the mind
of Einstein still leaves a distinct imprint on todays researchers.
They run new experiments in the service of an old ideal. The impulse seems unstoppable, as they keep recapitulating his search
for a deeper truth, a higher enlightenment.
Search for Hidden Sector Photons with ADMX Detector. A

. Wagner et al. in
Physical Review Letters, V
ol. 105, No. 17, Article No. 171801; October 19, 2010.
Time Reborn: From the Crisis in Physics to the Future of the Universe. L ee Smolin.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013.
Mass and Galaxy Distributions of Four Massive Galaxy Clusters from Dark
Energy Survey Science Verification Data. P . Melchior et al. in M
onthly Notices
of the Royal Astronomical Society, V
ol. 449, No. 3, pages 22192238; May 21, 2015.
FROM OUR ARCHIVES
On the Generalized Theory of Gravitation. A

lbert Einstein; April 1950.
Photograph by Sandy Nicholson
TIME
TRAVEL
THEORY
A BRIEF
HISTORY OF
We already have the means to skip ahead in time,

but going backward is a different wormhole
By Tim Folger
I found myself engulfed

in a turbulent wormhole.
Luckily I was able to find a way out ...
... And to my relief came upon

the spacecraft I had left behind.
I drifted closer
to the window,
hoping to see
the face of
my commander.
?!
But instead found a younger version

of myself staring back at me!
Illustration by Asaf Hanuka
Tim Folger writes for National Geographic, Discover a nd

other national publications. He is also the series editor for
The Best American Science and Nature Writing, an annual
anthology published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
H. G. Wells published h is first novel, T he Time

Machine, in 1895, just a few years before Queen Victorias six-decade reign over the U.K. ended. An even
more durable dynasty was also drawing to a close: the
200-year-old Newtonian era of physics. In 1905 Albert
Einstein published his special theory of relativity,
which upset Isaac Newtons applecart and, to Wellss
presumed delight, allowed something that had been
impossible under Newtons laws: time travel into the
future. In Newtons universe, time was steady everywhere and everywhen; it never sped up or slowed
down. But for Einstein, time was relative.
Time travel is not only possible, it has already happened,
though not exactly as Wells imagined. The biggest time traveler to
date is Sergei K. Krikalev, according to J. Richard Gott, an astrophysicist at Princeton University. Over the course of his
long career, which began in 1985, the Russian cosmonaut spent a little over 803 days in space.
As Einstein proved, time passes more slowly for objects in motion than for those
at rest, so as Krikalev hurtled along at
17,000 miles an hour onboard the
Mir s pace station, time did not flow
at the same rate for him as it did
on Earth. While Krikalev was in
orbit, he aged 148 of a second less
than his fellow earthlings. From
another perspective, he traveled
1 of a second into the future.
48
The time-travel effect is much
easier to see with longer distances
and higher speeds. If Krikalev left
Earth in 2015 and made a round-trip to
Betelgeusea star that is about 520 light-years

from Earthat 99.995 percent the speed of light,
by the time he returned to Earth he would be
only 10 years older. Sadly, everyone he knew
would be long dead because 1,000 years would
have passed on Earth; it would be the year 3015.
Time travel to the future, we know we can do, Gott says. Its
just a matter of money and engineering!
Jumping a few nanosecondsor centuriesinto the future
is relatively straightforward, despite practical challenges. But going backward in time is harder.
Einsteins special theory of relativity forbade it. After another decade of work,
Einstein unveiled his general theory of
relativity, which finally lifted that restriction. How someone would actually travel back in time, however, is
a vexing problem because the
equations of general relativity
have many solutions. Different solutions assign different qualities
to the universeand only s ome o
f
the solutions create conditions that
permit time travel into the past.
Whether any of those solutions
describes our own universe is an open
question, which raises even more pro-
IN BRIEF
Traveling very fast a llows you to go forward in time. Traveling backward in time
is much harder, but mathematics says it
is possible through geometric structures
called closed timelike curves.
A wormhole is one such curve. You

would enter it through a spherical opening. Once inside, everything you observed in space would be normal and so
would the passage of time.
Closed timelike curves are useful for

testing theories about the cosmos. For
example, if one were present at the start
of our universe, it could have allowed the
universe to create itself.
Quantum mechanicsand indeed, the

nature of the universe itselfmight forbid wormholes and therefore prevent
backward time travel. Physicists just do
not know yet if this is the case.
Illustrations by Nigel Holmes
found investigations: Just how much tweaking of fundamental

physics would it take to allow backward time travel? Does the
universe itself somehow prevent such journeys even if Einsteins equations do not rule them out? Physicists continue to
speculate, not because they imagine time travel will ever be
practical but because thinking about the possibility has led to
some surprising insights about the nature of the universe we inhabit, including, perhaps, how it came to be in the first place.
A NEW WAY OF LOOKING AT TIME
With his special theory o

f relativity, Einstein made time malleable in a way that must have pleased Wells, who presciently believed that we inhabit a universe in which three-dimensional
space and time are knit together into a four-dimensional whole.
Einstein arrived at his revolutionary results by exploring the implications of two fundamental ideas. First, he argued that even
though all motion is relative, the laws of physics must look the
same for everyone anywhere in the universe. Second, he
realized that the speed of light must be similarly
unchanging from all perspectives: if everyone
sees the same laws of physics operating,
they must also arrive at the same result
when measuring the speed of light.
To make light a universal speed
limit, Einstein had to jettison two
commonsense notions: that all observers would agree on the measurement of a given length and that
they would also agree on the duration of times passage. He showed
that a clock in motion, whizzing past
someone at rest, would tick more slowly than a stationary clock at the persons
side. And the length of a ruler moving
swiftly by would shorten. Yet for anyone who
was traveling at the same speed as the clock and
ruler, the passage of time and the length of the ruler would appear normal.
At ordinary speeds, the time-and-space-distorting effects of special relativity are negligible.
But for anything moving at a hefty fraction of the
speed of light, they are very real. For example,
many experiments have confirmed that the decay
rate of unstable particles called muons slows by
an order of magnitude when they are traveling at
close to the speed of light. The speeding muons,
in effect, are minuscule time travelerssubatomic Krikalevshopping a few nanoseconds into
the future.
ticians of the 20th centuryand one of the oddest. His many

foibles included a diet of baby food and laxatives.
Gdel presented this model universe as a gift to Einstein on
his 70th birthday. The universe Gdel described to his skeptical
friend had two unique properties: It rotated, which provided
centrifugal force that prevented gravity from crunching together all the matter in the cosmos, creating the stability Einstein
demanded of any cosmic model. But it also allowed for time
travel into the past, which made Einstein deeply uneasy. In
Gdels cosmos, space travelers could set out and eventually
reach a point in their own past, as if the travelers had completed a circuit around the surface of a giant cylinder. Physicists call
these trajectories in spacetime closed timelike curves.
A closed timelike curve is any path through spacetime that
loops back on itself. In Gdels rotating cosmos, such a curve
would circle around the entire universe, like a latitude line on
Earths surface. Physicists have concocted a number of different
types of closed timelike curves, all of which allow travel to
the past, at least in theory. A journey along any of
them would be disappointingly ordinary, however: Through the portholes of your spaceship, you would see stars and planetsall
the usual sights of deep space. More important, timeas measured by your
own clockswould tick forward in
the usual way; the hands of a clock
would not start spinning backward
even though you would be traveling
to a location in spacetime that existed
in your past.
Einstein was already aware of the
possibility of closed timelike curves
back in 1914, says Julian Barbour, an independent theoretical physicist who lives
near Oxford, England. As Barbour recalls,
GETTY IMAGES
GDELS STRANGE UNIVERSE
Those speedy clocks a nd rulers and muons are all

racing forward in time. Can they be thrown into
reverse? The first person to use general relativity
to describe a universe that permits time travel
into the past was Kurt Gdel, the famed creator
of the incompleteness theorems, which set limits
on the scope of what mathematics can and cannot prove. He was one of the towering mathema-
TIME FOR LUNCH: After more than 803 days hurtling through space,
Sergei K. Krikalev (left) had traveled 148 of a second into the future.
Einstein said, My intuition strives most vehemently against

this. The curves existence would create all kinds of problems
with causalityhow can the past be changed if it has already
happened? And there is the hoary grandfather paradox: What
happens to a time traveler who kills his or her grandfather before the grandfather meets the grandmother? Would the demented traveler ever be born?
Fortunately for fans of causality, astronomers have found no
evidence that the universe is rotating. Gdel himself apparently
pored over catalogs of galaxies, looking for clues that his theory
might be true. Gdel might not have devised a realistic model of
the universe, but he did prove that closed timelike curves are
completely consistent with the equations of general relativity.
The laws of physics do not rule out traveling to the past.
AN ANNOYING POSSIBILITY
Over the past few decades cosmologists have used Einsteins equations to construct a variety of closed timelike curves. Gdel
conjured an entire universe that allowed them, but
more recent enthusiasts have warped spacetime only within parts of our universe.
In general relativity, planets, stars,
galaxies and other massive bodies warp
spacetime. Warped spacetime, in turn,
guides the motions of those massive
bodies. As the late physicist John
Wheeler put it, Spacetime tells matter how to move; matter tells spacetime how to curve. In extreme cases,
spacetime might bend enough to
create a path from the present back to
the past.
Physicists have proposed some exotic
mechanisms to create such paths. In a 1991
paper, Gott showed how cosmic stringsinfinitely long structures thinner than an atom that may have
formed in the early universewould allow closed timelike
curves where two strings intersected. In 1983 Kip S. Thorne, a
physicist at the California Institute of Technology, began to explore the possibility that a type of closed timelike curve called a
wormholea kind of tunnel joining two different locations in
spacetimemight allow for time travel into the past. In general
relativity, if you connect two different regions of space, youre
also connecting two different regions of time, says Sean M. Carroll, a colleague of Thornes at Caltech.
The entrance into a wormhole would be sphericala threedimensional entrance into a four-dimensional tunnel in spacetime. As is the case with all closed timelike curves, a trip through
a wormhole would be like any other journey, Carroll says. Its
not that you disappear and are reassembled at some other moment of time. There is no respectable theory where that kind of
science-fiction time travel is possible. For all travelers, he adds,
no matter what they do, time flows forward at one second per
second. Its just that your local version of forward might be
globally out of sync with the rest of the universe.
Although physicists can write equations that describe wormholes and other closed timelike curves, all the models have serious problems. Just to get a wormhole in the first place, you
need negative energy, Carroll says. Negative energy is when the
energy in a volume of space spontaneously fluctuates to less

than zero. Without negative energy, a wormholes spherical entrance and four-dimensional tunnel would instantaneously implode. But a wormhole held open by negative energy seems to
be hard, probably impossible, Carroll says. Negative energies
seem to be a bad thing in physics.
Even if negative energy kept a wormhole open, just when
you would be on the verge of turning that into a time machine,
particles would be moving through the wormhole, and every
particle would loop back around an infinite number of times,
Carroll says. That leads to an infinite amount of energy. Because energy deforms spacetime, the entire thing would collapse into a black holean infinitely dense point in spacetime.
Were not 100 percent sure that that happens, Carroll says.
But it seems to be a reasonable possibility that the universe is
actually preventing you from making a time machine by making a black hole instead.
Unlike black holes, which are a natural consequence of
general relativity, wormholes and closed timelike
curves in general are completely artificial constructsa way of testing the bounds of the
theory. Black holes are hard to avoid,
Carroll says. Closed timelike curves are
very hard to make.
Even if wormholes are physically
implausible, it is significant that they
fit in with the general theory of relativity. Its very curious that we can
come so close to ruling out the possibility of time travel, yet we just cant
do it. I also think that its annoying,
Carroll says, exasperated that Einsteins
beautiful theory might allow for something
so seemingly implausible. But by contemplating that annoying possibility, physicists may gain
a better understanding of the kind of universe we live
in. And it may be that if the universe did not permit backward
time travel, it never would have come into existence.
DID THE UNIVERSE CREATE ITSELF?
General relativity describes the universe on the largest scales.

But quantum mechanics provides the operating manual for the
atomic scale, and it offers another possible venue for closed
timelike curvesone that gets at the origin of the universe.
On a very small scale1030 centimeteryou might expect
the topology of spacetime to fluctuate, and random fluctuations
might give you closed timelike curves if nothing fundamental
prevents them, says John Friedman, a physicist at the University of WisconsinMilwaukee. Could those quantum fluctuations
somehow be magnified and harnessed as time machines?
Theres certainly no formal proof that you c ant h
ave macroscopic closed timelike curves, Friedman says. But the community of people who have looked at these general questions would
bet pretty heavily against it.
There is no doubt that the creation of a loop in spacetime on
either a quantum scale or a cosmic one would require some very
extreme physics. And the most likely place to expect extreme
physics, Gott says, is at the very beginning of the universe.
In 1998 Gott and Li-Xin Li, an astrophysicist now at Peking
University in China, published a paper in which they argued

that closed timelike curves were not merely possible but essential to explain the origin of the universe. We investigated the
possibility of whether the universe could be its own mother
whether a time loop at the beginning of the universe would allow the universe to create itself, Gott says.
Gott and Lis universe starts with a bout of inflationjust
as in standard big bang cosmology, where an all-pervasive energy field drove the universes initial expansion. Many cosmologists now believe that inflation gave rise to countless other
universes besides our own. Inflation is very hard to stop once
it gets started, Gott says. It makes an infinitely branching
tree. Were one of the branches. But you have to ask yourself,
Where did the trunk come from? Li-Xin Li and I said it could
be that one of the branches just loops around and grows up to
be the trunk.
A simple two-dimensional sketch of Gott and Lis self-starting universe looks like the number 6, with the spacetime loop
at the bottom and our present-era universe as the top
stem. A burst of inflation, Gott and Li theorized,
allowed the universe to escape from the time
loop and expand into the cosmos we inhabit today.
It is difficult to contemplate the
model, but its main appeal, Gott says,
is that it eliminates the need for creating a universe out of nothing. Yet
Alexander Vilenkin of Tufts University, Stephen Hawking of the University of Cambridge and James
Hartle of the University of California,
Santa Barbara, have proposed models
in which the universe does indeed arise
out of nothing. According to the laws of
quantum mechanics, empty space is not really empty but is filled with virtual particles
that spontaneously pop into and out of existence.
Hawking and his colleagues theorized that the universe
burst into being from the same quantum-vacuum stew. But in
Gotts view, the universe is not made out of nothing; it is made
out of somethingitself.
A COSMIC CHESS GAME
For now, there is no way t o test whether any of those theories

might actually explain the origin of the universe. The famed
physicist Richard Feynman compared the universe to a great
chess game being played by the gods. Scientists, he said, are
trying to understand the game without knowing the rules. We
watch as the gods move a pawn one space forward, and we learn a rule: pawns always move one space forward. But
what if we never saw the opening of a game, when a pawn
can move two spaces forward? We might also assume, mistakenly, that pawns
always remain pawnsthat
they never change their
identityuntil we see a pawn
transformed into a queen.You would say thats against the

rules, Gott says. You cant change your pawn into a queen.
Well, yes, you can! You just never saw a game that extreme before. Time-travel research is like that. Were testing the laws of
physics by looking at extreme conditions. Theres nothing logically impossible about time travel to the past; its just not the
universe were used to. Turning a pawn into a queen could be
part of the rules of relativity.
Such wildly speculative ideas may be closer to philosophy
than to physics. But for now, quantum mechanics and general
relativitypowerful, counterintuitive theoriesare all we have
to figure out the universe. As soon as people start trying to
bring quantum theory and general relativity into this, the first
thing to say is that they really have no idea what theyre doing,
says Tim Maudlin, a philosopher of science at New York University. Its not really rigorous mathematics. Its one piece of
mathematics that sort of looks like general relativity and another little piece of mathematics that sort of looks like quantum theory, mixed together in some not entirely coherent way. But this is what people have to do
because they honestly dont know how to go
forward in a way that makes sense.
Will some future theory eliminate
the possibility of time travel into the
past? Or will the universe again turn
out to be far stranger than we imagine? Physics has advanced tremendously since Einstein redefined our
understanding of time. Time travel,
which existed only in the realm
of fiction for Wells, is now a proved
reality, at least in one direction. Is it
too hard to believe that some kind of
symmetry exists in the universe, allowing us to travel backward in time? When I
put the question to Gott, he replies with
an anecdote:
Theres a story where Einstein was talking to a guy. The
guy pulled a notebook out and scribbled something down. Einstein says, Whats that? The guy says, A notebook. Whenever I
have a good idea, I write it down. Einstein says, Ive never had
any need for a notebook; Ive only had three good ideas.
Gott concludes: I think were waiting for a new good idea.
Rules for Time Travelers. S ean Carroll. Published online May 14, 2009.
www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2009/05/14/rules-for-time-travelers
Time Travel and Modern Physics. R evised. Frank Arntzenius and Tim Maudlin
in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. P ublished online December 23, 2009.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/time-travel-phys
Make a Cosmic Ray Detector at Home and Test Relativity! E volutionEvidence.org
in F rom Quarks to Quasars. Published online April 20, 2014. w
ww.fromquarks
toquasars.com/make-a-cosmic-ray-detector-at-home-and-test-relativity
When Einstein Met H. G. Wells: Encounters in the Fourth Dimension. E than
Siegel in M
edium. Published online January 13, 2015. h ttps://medium.com/
starts-with-a-bang/when-einstein-met-h-g-wells-425372d21821
FROM OUR ARCHIVES
How to Build a Time Machine. P aul Davies; September 2002.

General relativity has never been tested

in places where the effects of gravity become
truly extremefor example, at the edge
of a black hole. That will soon change
By Dimitrios Psaltis and Sheperd S. Doeleman
THE
BLACK
HOLETEST
A ST R O N O M Y
MATTER FALLING i nto a black

hole, as shown in this simulation,
should create observable pheno
mena that can be used to test
Einsteins theory of gravity.
IN BRIEF
Einsteins general theory of relativity

has stood firm for a century, but it has
never been tested in places where
gravity is extremely strong, such as
the edge of a black hole.
The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), a

global network of radio telescopes,
will perform such tests by resolving the
event horizon of Sagittarius A*, the black
hole at the center of the Milky Way.
These observations will explore whether Sagittarius A* is a black hole or an

exotic object such as a naked singularity. If it is a black hole, does it behave the
way general relativity says it should?
If the EHT detects deviations from

Einsteins predictions, other instruments that come online in the next
several years will be able to inde
pendently check those results.
cessfully to poke holes in Albert Einsteins

general theory of relativity for a full century.
So far, however, Einsteins theory has had
it easy. Every assessment to date has been
conducted in rather weak gravitational fields.
To put general relativity to its greatest test, we
need to see whether it holds up where gravity
is extremely strong. And nowhere in the
universe today is gravity stronger than at the
edge of a black holeat the event horizon, the
boundary beyond which gravity is so overwhelming that light and matter that pass
through can never escape.
The interior of a black hole is unobservable, but the gravitational field surrounding these objects causes matter close to the
horizon to produce huge amounts of electromagnetic radiation
that telescopes can detect. Near the black hole, the crushing
force of gravity compresses inflowing matter, known as the accretion flow, into ever smaller volumes. This causes the infalling
matter to reach temperatures of billions of degreeswhich, ironically, makes the vicinity immediately surrounding a black hole
one of the brightest spots in the cosmos.
If we could observe a black hole with a telescope with enough
magnifying power to resolve the event horizon, we could follow
matter as it spirals down toward the point of no return and see
whether it behaves as general relativity says it should. There is,
of course, a catch: developing a telescope that can resolve a
black hole horizon poses several challenges. Notably we have to
contend with the black holes tiny size when viewed from Earth.
Even the supermassive black holes now thought to inhabit the
centers of most galaxies, which weigh in at millions or billions
of our suns mass and in some cases have diameters larger than
our solar system, are so far away from Earth that they subtend
incredibly tiny angles on the sky. The nearest example is Sagittarius A*, the four-million-solar-mass black hole at the center of
the Milky Way; its event horizon would appear to be only 50 microarcseconds across, or roughly the size of a DVD seen on the
moon. To resolve an object so small, a telescope must have an
angular resolution more than 2,000 times finer than that
achieved by the Hubble Space Telescope.
What is more, such black holes are obscured from our view in
two ways. First, they occur at the very centers of galaxies, deep
within dense clouds of gas and dust that block most of the electromagnetic spectrum. Second, even material that emits the
light we want to detectthat glowing whirlpool of crushed matter spiraling in toward the horizonis itself opaque to most
wavelengths of light. Consequently, there are only a few wavelengths of light that can escape from the black holes edge to be
observed by us on Earth.
The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) project is an international effort to overcome these hurdles and perform detailed observations of a black hole. To achieve the highest angular resolu-
Dimitrios Psaltis is a professor of astronomy and

physics at the University of Arizona. He has pioneered
the development of tests of Einsteins general theory
of relativity in strong gravitational fields using
observations of black holes and neutron stars in the
electromagnetic spectrum.
Sheperd S. Doeleman is an astronomer at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the HarvardSmithsonian Center for Astrophysics, where he leads teams
that make ultrahigh-resolution observations of black holes.
He coordinates the Event Horizon Telescope project.
tions possible from the surface of Earth, the EHT exploits a technique known as very long baseline interferometry (VLBI), in
which astronomers at radio dishes across the globe observe the
same target simultaneously, record the data they collect on hard
drives, and then later combine all those data using a supercomputer to form a single image. By doing so, many telescopes located on different continents can form one virtual Earth-sized telescope. The resolving power of a telescope is given by the ratio of
the wavelength of light it observes to its size, and so VLBI routinely makes images of the radio sky with detail that far surpasses the magnifying power of any optical telescope.
By advancing the technologies used in VLBI so that observations can be made at the shortest radio wavelengths, the EHT
will soon be able to meet all the challenges of black hole imaging.
At these wavelengths (close to one millimeter in size), the Milky
Way is largely transparent, enabling the EHT to observe Sagittarius A* with a minimum of blurring from the intervening gas.
These same wavelengths are also able to pierce the matter falling
toward the black hole, allowing access to the innermost regions
surrounding Sagittarius A*s event horizon. And in a true Goldilocks coincidence, the magnifying power of a globe-spanning
VLBI array at millimeter wavelengths is well suited to resolving
the event horizons of the nearest supermassive black holes.
In a parallel development, theoretical astrophysicists have
developed mathematical models and computer simulations to
explore a wide range of possible outcomes of these observations
and to develop tools to interpret them. Using novel supercomputer algorithms, they have simulated the churn of matter just
outside the black holes event horizon, and in all simulations
they have found that the black hole casts a shadow on the
light coming off the accretion flow.
University of Washington physicist James Bardeen predicted
the existence of a black hole shadow in 1973. By definition, any
light that crosses the event horizon can never return. Bardeen
identified the point outside the horizon where a photon will orbit the black hole. If a light ray crosses this orbit heading inward, it is caught forever and spirals inward to the event horizon. Light rays originating between the event horizon and this
orbit can escape, but they have to be pointed almost radially
outward, or they, too, risk being caught by the black holes gravity and having their trajectories bent backward toward the event
horizon. We call this boundary the photon orbit.
As far as light is concerned, the black hole acts like an opaque
PRECEDING PAGES: COURTESY OF CHI-KWAN CHAN University of Arizona
Scientists have been trying u nsuc-
BASICS
object, with the photon orbit defining its
boundary. The contrast between the
bright ring of the photon orbit and the
dimmer interior is what is known as the
shadow. The apparent size of this shadow
At least nine radio telescopes a
nd arrays around the globe will together form
as seen by observers on Earth is actually
the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). Every telescope is located at high altitude
predicted to be quite a bit larger than the
to minimize the absorption of the signals in Earths atmosphere. By spanning
photon orbit. This occurs because the inthe globe and operating at millimeter wavelengths, the array will achieve
tense gravitational field surrounding the
an effective angular resolution that is comparable to a few millionths of an arc
black hole magnifies the shadow
secondgood enough to spot a DVD on the moon.
through gravitational lensing. [For more
on gravitational lensing, see box in What
Einstein Got Wrong, by Lawrence M.
IRAM
SMT
30-meter
LMT
Krauss, on page 54.]
telescope
The EHT is now poised to observe this
IRAM Plateau
SMA,
shadow and other features of black holes.
de Bure
JCMT
interferometer
In 2007 and 2009 observations verified that
APEX,
the technological approach was sound
ALMA
and that the ultimate science goal was
APEX,
within reachby targeting Sagittarius A*
ALMA
and another supermassive black hole at the
heart of the galaxy Virgo A (also known as
M87). These early observations linked toSPT
SPT
gether sites in Hawaii, Arizona and California to successfully measure the extent of radio emission at a 1.3-millimeter wavelength
from both sources. In both cases, the measurements matched the expected size of the black hole shadow.
up to reveal the singularity within; others describe black holes
Observations planned with the full, planet-spanning web of that have no event horizon.
dishes will yield enough data to allow us to construct complete
Naked singularities, unlike black holes, remain highly theoimages of these black holes. An additional, equally important set retical: nobody has come up with a real-world recipe that would
of observations will use VLBI data to search for and trace the lead to their formation. Every astrophysically plausible computtrajectories of localized active regions (hotspots) as they circle er simulation of the gravitational collapse of a star leads to the
the black hole. Because general relativity predicts both what formation of a black hole with a horizon. Indeed, in 1969 Roger
these black holes should look like and how matter should orbit Penrose introduced the cosmic censorship hypothesis: the idea
them, these observations will allow us to perform a series of that physics somehow censors the nakedness of singularities by
tests of Einsteins theory of relativity in the place where its most always enshrouding them with a horizon.
extreme predictions become manifest.
In September 1991 California Institute of Technology physicists John Preskill and Kip Thorne made a bet with University of
CHECKING COSMIC CENSORSHIP
Cambridge physicist Stephen Hawking that the cosmic censorThe EHT will enable us t o answer a basic question: Is Sagittarius ship hypothesis is false and that naked singularities do exist. Two
A* a black hole? All available evidence suggests that the answer is and a half decades later the bet is still standing, begging for an
yes, but no one has ever directly observed a black hole, and other experiment that will settle it. Proving that Sagittarius A* has an
possibilities are consistent with general relativity. For example, event horizon would not conclusively disprove the existence of
Sagittarius A* could be something called a naked singularity.
naked singularities elsewhere. Yet determining that the black
A singularity in physics is a place where the solution to an hole in the center of our Milky Way is a naked singularity would
equation is undefined and where the laws of nature as we un- allow us to directly observe phenomena at conditions where
derstand them no longer operate. General relativity predicts modern physics breaks down.
that the universe began in a singularityan initial moment
LOOKING FOR HAIR
when all the contents of the cosmos were concentrated into a
ould not be a death blow to gensingle point of infinite density. The theory also tells us that a sin- Discrediting cosmic censorship w
gularity, where gravity becomes infinite and matter is com- eral relativity; after all, its equations allow for naked singularities.
Yet we also expect the EHT to test a long-standing idea about
pressed to infinite density, lies at the center of every black hole.
In a black hole, the event horizon hides the singularity from black holes called the no-hair theorem. And if the no-hair theorem
our universe. General relativity does not require all singularities is false, general relativity will, at minimum, have to be modified;
to be clothed by a horizon, however. There are an infinite the mathematical proof of this theorem leaves no wiggle room.
The theorem says that any black hole that is surrounded by an
number of solutions to Einsteins equations in which the singularities are naked. Some of these solutions describe normal event horizon can be completely described using just three propblack holes spinning so fast that their horizons have opened erties: mass, spin and electrical charge. In other words, any two
A Telescope the Size of Earth
Maps by Terra Carta
METHODS
Astrophysicists h
ave created sophisticated models based on Einsteins general
theory of relativity that predict how matter should behave in the vicinity of a
black hole. Soon, Event Horizon Telescope observations of the black hole in
the center of the Milky Way will tell us
whether reality matches those predictions. If it does not, Einsteins theory may
need to be modified.
Tracking Closure Phase

Black holes sometimes flare up, and one
explanation is that the normal steady
accretion flow may be disrupted by hot
spots, regions of increased temperature
that orbit the black hole before dissipating.
The EHT will use trios of telescopes to mea
sure the difference in time of arrival of light
emitted by hotspots; with these data, it is
possible to triangulate the position of hot
spots. The simulation at the right shows
such a signal (called closure phase) based on
data from two different triangles. The orbit
of the hotspot creates a heartbeat pat
terna time signature in closure phase.
Measuring these signals will make it possi
ble to map the spacetime of the black hole
and test the predictions of Einsteins theory.
The Shape of the Shadow
A black hole casts a shadow on the emission from the hot matter surrounding it. The shape and size
of the shadow depend, in principle, on how fast the black hole is spinning, on the amount that light
rays are gravitationally bent in its vicinity, and on the orientation of the observer. Because of a lucky
coincidence, all three effects conspire to make the shadow nearly circular for all black holes and
observers a . This coincidence, however, occurs only if Einsteins theory is correct and the no-hair
theoremwhich states that a black hole can be completely described by its mass, spin and
chargeis satisfied. If observations reveal an elliptical shadow, as shown in images b and c ,
then Einsteins theory will not pass this test.
Normal accretion flow
SMT
Hawaii
Orbiting hotspot
Closure
phase
100
ALMA
SMT
LMT
0
100
ALMA
0.5
1
1.5
Time (hours elapsed)
Simulating a Complex Reality

Scientists affiliated with the EHT are using
supercomputers to perform elaborate numer
ical simulations of accreting black holes that
exhibit the expected complexities of astro
physical objects. The right image depicts a
black hole in a fairly quiet state of emission; on
the left is a magnetically active region during
a flare. With these simulations, scientists have
developed algorithms that will allow them to
extract the properties of black hole shadows
from real-world observational data.
black holes with the same mass, spin and electrical charge are entirely identical, just as any two electrons are indistinguishable.
Black holes, the theorem states, have no hairno geometric irregularities or distinguishing characteristics.
When we first started to think about imaging black holes using VLBI, we thought we could use the shapes and sizes of black
hole shadows to learn the spins and orientations of the black
holes that produced them. But our simulations presented us

with an unexpected and, ultimately, very pleasant surprise. No
matter how fast we let the black holes spin in our simulations,
and no matter where we placed our mock observers, the black
hole shadows always appeared nearly circular with an apparent
size equal to about five times the radius of the event horizon. Because of some lucky coincidenceand if there is a deep physical
COURTESY OF AVERY E. BRODERICK University of Waterloo and Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics ( a , b, c and top four images
in Tracking Closure Phase); COURTESY OF CHI-KWAN CHAN University of Arizona ( b ottom two images); TERRA CARTA (globes)
Testing Einstein
with Black Holes
reason for this, we still have not uncovered itno matter how
we alter the parameters in our models, the size and shape of the
black hole shadow remain practically unchanged. This coincidence is excellent news if our goal is to test Einsteins theory because it happens only if the general theory of relativity holds up
[see box on opposite page]. If Sagittarius A* has an event horizon, and if the size or the shape of its shadow deviates from our
predictions, that would constitute a violation of the no-hair theoremand, thus, of general relativity.
TRACING ORBITS AND MORE
EHT observations w
ill generate a great deal more data than are
used to make images. The antennas will record the full polarization of the radiation emitted by the black hole, which will enable
us to create maps of the magnetic fields near the event horizon.
Such maps could help us understand the physics behind the
powerful jets emanating from the centers of galaxies such as
M87beams of extraordinarily energetic matter traveling near
the speed of light for up to thousands of light-years. Astrophysicists believe that magnetic fields near the event horizon of supermassive black holes power these jets; mapping the magnetic
fields could help us test that hypothesis.
We can learn other things by watching the motion of matter
around a black hole. The accretion flows around the black holes
are expected to be highly turbulent and variable. Computer simulations often show the presence of localized, short-lived, magnetically active regions in themhotspots similar to magnetic eruptions on the surface of the sun. These hotspots, which may explain
the brightness variations that are often seen in Sagittarius A*,
would circle the black hole at nearly the speed of light, along with
the underlying accretion flow, completing full orbits in less than
half an hour. In some cases, they become gravitationally lensed as
they move behind the black hole and generate nearly complete
Einstein ringsbright, gravitationally warped circles of light just
like those the Hubble Space Telescope has detected from distant
quasars. In other cases, they orbit around the black hole a few
times before they lose their energy and dissipate.
Hotspots could complicate the process of making an image
because the VLBI technique uses telescopes much like a timelapse camera, leaving the virtual shutter open for the full duration of the observation and using the natural rotation of Earth
to get as many different angles on the black hole as possible. If a
bright spot in the accretion flow orbits the black hole, its appearance will be smeared, just as a photograph of a sprinter will
be blurry if the camera shutter is left open too long.
Yet hotspots could also enable us to perform an entirely different test of general relativity. The EHT can trace the orbits of
hotspots using a technique that goes by the fancy name of closure phase variability tracking. The method involves measuring
the delays between the time of arrival of light from the hotspot
at three telescopes and then using basic triangulation to infer
the position of the hotspot in the sky. Orbiting hotspots will produce distinctive signatures in the raw data collected by the telescopes. And in much the same way that Einsteins equations
predict the size and shape of the black hole shadow, they also
disclose everything we need to know about the orbits that
hotspots should trace. This hotspot model is somewhat schematic, and reality may be more complex. Nevertheless, at full
sensitivity the EHT will be able to monitor structure in the ac-
cretion flow as it orbits the black hole, and that could provide
yet another way of checking to see whether the predictions of
general relativity hold up near the edge of a black hole.
EXTRAORDINARY EVIDENCE
What happens if our observations appear to disagree with Einsteins theory? To use an expression popularized by Carl Sagan,
extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. In the natural sciences, extraordinary evidence often means one or more verifications of any claim by independent methods. In the coming
years, powerful optical and radio telescopes, as well as spacebased gravitational-wave detectors, may provide such verification
by monitoring the orbits of stars, neutron starstiny, incredibly
dense objects produced by the gravitational collapse of massive
starsand other objects around supermassive black holes.
The optical interferometer GRAVITY, which is being built
for use on the European Southern Observatorys Very Large
Telescope (VLT) in Chile, as well as next-generation 30-meterclass optical telescopes, will track the orbits of stars in our galaxy that lie fairly close to Sagittarius A*s event horizonat a
distance only a few hundred times the radius of the black hole.
Once completed, the Square Kilometer Array (SKA), a radio interferometer under construction in South Africa and in Australia, will begin monitoring the orbits of rapidly spinning neutron stars, called pulsars, around the same black hole. And the
evolved Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (eLISA) will detect gravitational waves emitted as small compact objects orbit
around supermassive black holes in nearby galaxies.
Because of the very strong gravitational fields of the black
holes, the elliptical orbits of these objects will shift (precess) rapidly; this effect is so pronounced that the points of maximum distance from the black holes should trace a complete circle in only
a few orbits. At the same time, the black holes will drag spacetime around with them, causing the orbital planes of objects
within those spacetimes to precess as well. Measuring the rates
of orbital precession for objects at different distances from a
black hole will lead to a complete three-dimensional reconstruction of spacetime around a black hole, providing many tests of
general relativity in the presence of extremely strong gravity.
Together all these instruments will help decide whether Einsteins general theory of relativityin particular, its predictions
about black holeswill survive intact for another century or be
sacrificed on the altar of scientific progress.
Detecting Flaring Structures in Sagittarius A* with High-Frequency VLBI.

Sheperd S. Doeleman et al. in Astrophysical Journal, V
ol. 695, No. 1, pages 5974;
April 10, 2009.
Testing the No-Hair Theorem with Observations in the Electromagnetic Spectrum. II. Black Hole Images. Tim Johannsen and Dimitrios Psaltis in A strophysical
Journal, Vol. 718, No. 1, pages 446454; July 20, 2010.
Jet-Launching Structure Resolved Near the Supermassive Black Hole in M87.
Sheperd S. Doeleman et al. in Science, Vol. 338, pages 355358; October 19, 2012.
The Power of Imaging: Constraining the Plasma Properties of GRMHD Simulations
using EHT Observations of Sgr A*. Chi-Kwan Chan et al. in A strophysical Journal,
Vol. 799, No. 1, Article No. 1; January 20, 2015.
FROM OUR ARCHIVES
Portrait of a Black Hole. Avery E. Broderick and Abraham Loeb; December 2009.
Illustrations by Scott Menchin
Einstein was an outspoken

progressive whose views
sometimes provoked
a backlash.
WO R L D
CITIZE N
That my bedroom and study

are kept neat, and especially that
my desk is left for my use only.
That I will receive my three

meals regularly in my room.
That my clothes and laundry

are kept in good order.
The Nazis championed the notion that

Einsteins relativity was a Jewish theory,
mired in foggy thinking. Two German Nobel
Prize winners promulgated the idea of
Aryan physics, which, unlike Einsteins
theory, did not attempt to destroy
the world view of German man.
SCIENCE OF THE JEWS
To punish me for my contempt

of authority, fate has made me
an authority myself, in a message
to a friend, 1930.
The physicist, according to one survey,
is considered the greatest hero of all
time, ahead of Mother Teresa, Gandhi
and Martin Luther King.
In a written contract to his estranged

wife, he suggested that they could
continue to live together if she
met certain conditions, among them:
ICONOCLAST
HERO OF HEROES
Einstein often rejected the publics

urge to place him on a pedestal.
He bucked the status quo and was
viewed as an enemy by the Nazis,
not least because he was a Jew.
A celebrity in his own lifetime,

Einstein was arguably the first
theoretical physicist to have groupies.
On a visit to New York City in the
1920s, he drew large crowds.
R O C K S TA R
ANTIFEMINIST
He may have been the greatest

scientist of them all, but Einstein
was also socially inept (by his
own admission) and, at times,
boorish, particularly to the
women in his life.
C UR M U D G E ON
Sure, he was pretty good at science. But science isnt everything
REBEL
REALLY?
WHO WAS
EINSTEIN,
A ST U DY I N
C O N T R A STS
CORBIS (Martin Luther King, Jr., a nd Marian Anderson); GETTY IMAGES (Paul Robeson, Einstein leaning on hand, Mother Teresa, Gandhi and
Einstein sticking out tongue); BEN MEYER C altech Archives (E instein on bike); SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN (Einstein bobblehead); THE PICTURE DESK (Yoda)
RIGHT-WING TARGET
He was friends with Marian Anderson

and Paul Robeson and called racism
a disease of white people.
CIVIL-RIGHTS ADVOCATE
At present we are far from possessing any

supranational organization competent to
render verdicts of incontestable authority
and enforce absolute submission to
the execution of its verdicts.
CHAMPION OF WORLD GOVERNMENT
A reactionary womens organization sent

a letter to the State Department in 1932
recommending that Einstein be denied
a visa because not even Stalin himself
is affiliated with so many anarchoCommunist international groups.
Einstein derided science fiction.
NOT A TREKKIE
In rejecting the offer of the presidency

of Israel, he said that he lacked the natural
aptitude and the experience to deal
properly with people.
SOCIAL INEPTITUDE
His second son had schizophrenia.

Although he helped pay for his care, Einstein
never saw him after 1933.
BAD DAD
He disliked games and anything

recreational that required mental
agility. When I get through with work,
I dont want anything that requires
the working of the mind.
Had he known that the Germans were not

close to getting the A-bomb, he said, he
would never have made his influential
personal appeal to F.D.R. to move ahead
with the Manhattan Project.
PUTTING THE MIND ON HOLD
ARDENT PACIFIST
A 2002 book by science writer and

editor Corey S. PowellGod in the
Equationsuggested that Einstein
might be a prophet of sorts.
DO YOU BELIEVE IN ALBERT?
Artist Stuart Freeborn took

Einstein as inspiration for the
character Yoda in S tar Wars.
RECKLESS IS HE
A Kickstarter campaign has raised

money to create a font based on
Einsteins handwriting.
IN THE BEGINNING WAS

THE WORD
He didnt have to build his

own personal brand. It
created itself. Rights to use
Einsteins likeness in
bobbleheads and other
knickknacks must be
procured from the same
company (Corbis Enter
tainment) that manages
rights for Steve McQueen,
Muhammad Ali, Charlie
Chaplin, Thomas Edison,
Johnny Cash, the Wright
brothers and
Martin Luther King.
EINSTEIN THE BRAND
I have no special talent,

Im only passionately curious,
in a note to his biographer in 1952.
EVERYMAN
He rejected numerous attempts to

equate his ideas about space, time and
gravity with the zeitgeist of the
20th centurythe upheavals taking place
in art, music and philosophy. The theory of
relativity had nothing to do, he said, with
the growing subjectivityrelativism
evident in the arts and philosophy.
IM NOT A CUBIST
EINSTEINS BRAINwas meticulously mapped by pathologist Thomas Harvey, who also supervised the dissection of the specimen. In defiance of hospital protocol, Harvey took the tissues into his own possession and controlled access to them for decades.
GENIUS
IN A JAR
NEUROSCIENCE
The bizarre journey of Einsteins brain

illustrates the pitfalls in sciences search
for the origins of brilliance
By Brian D. Burrell
On April 18, 1955,

Albert Einstein died at Princeton Hospital of a ruptured
aortic aneurysm. Within hours the pathologist on call, Thomas Harvey, acting on his
own initiative, removed the famed physicists brain without the familys permission. He
then preserved the organ, counter to Einsteins stated wish to be cremated. Harvey
managed to secure a retroactive blessing from Einsteins son Hans Albert, with the stipulation that the brain would be used only for scientific purposes. But Harvey himself
lacked the expertise needed to analyze the organ, so he began to seek out specialists to
help him. It would take him 30years to find one. The quest changed the course of Harveys life and consigned his precious specimen to a fate that is at once strange, sad and
fraught with ethical complications.
IN BRIEF
Scientists have long s ought the ana

tomical roots of genius in the brains of
renowned thinkers.
When Einstein died, p athologist Thom
as Harvey removed his brain without

permission and took possession of it for
decades while he sought out experts to
conduct all manner of analyses on it.
None of the studies of Einsteins brain

or any of the other elite brains have
been able to conclusively pinpoint the
source of mental greatness.
Researchers have yet to demonstrate

that extraordinary intellectual achieve
ment stems purely from nature rather
than nurture.
Photographs by Plamen Petkov
Einstein was not the first renowned thinker to have his brain
scrutinized in the name of science. The past is littered with similar
examples. I found myself drawn into the curious history of these
so-called elite brain studies around 15years ago, when I heard my
frustrated calculus students complaining that the Einsteins of the
world have a neuroanatomical advantage over mere mortals such
as themselves. I found this idea dismayingmost peoples brains
are fully equipped to learn college-level calculusbut it prompted
me to investigate the scientific literature to see exactly what, if
anything, brain research has revealed about the source of mathematical ability in particular and exceptional intellect in general. In
so doing, I found that, despite enthusiastic efforts
over the past two centuries to discern the anatomy
of talent or genius, scientists are not much closer to
finding it now than they were in the 1800s.
The case of Einsteins brain is perhaps the
most prominent example of how profound this
failure has been. As of this writing, half a dozen
reports on his brain, each highlighting a different
anatomical feature as the possible fount of his
brilliance, have come forthall to great media
fanfare. None has revealed a credible anatomical
basis for the mans aptitude. Instead they simply
add to the pile of flawed brain studies that have
collectively spawned what one critic has ruefully
termed a neuromythology of genius.
Brian D. Burrellis a lecturer in mathematics at the University

of Massachusetts Amherst. He explored the neuroscience
tradition of studying brains of famous intellectuals in Postcards
from the Brain Museum (Broadway, 2005). His latest book,
with Harvard University neurologist Allan H. Ropper,
is Reaching Down the Rabbit Hole (St. Martins Press, 2014).
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN AND ST. MARTINS PRESS ARE AFFILIATES
BRAIN EQUALS MIND?
The long and checkered tradition of studying the

brains of gifted people began 100 years before Einsteins death with the passing in 1855 of German
mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss, the Einstein
of his day. Gausss University of Gttingen colleagues presided over his autopsy and removed his
brain. One of them, an anatomist named Rudolph
Wagner, then preserved the whole brain in an alcohol solution and later convinced Gausss son to allow him to keep it for research. Wagner obtained
HARVEYS PHOTOGRAPHS s how the right lateral view (left)
the organ to bolster his firmly held belief in Ren
and frontal view (right) of Einsteins brain prior to dissection.
Descartess philosophy of dualism: the idea of the
mind as something more than the sum of the
brains physical functions. Are human beings merely sophisticated machines, or are they endowed by God with a soul yond brain anatomy altogether. Perhaps it derived, as Wagner
substance? This question was the hot-button issue of the era. Ei- hoped, from the divine element, the ghost in the machine.
Scientific materialists of that era, unhappy with Wagners
ther brain equals mind, or it doesnt. For Wagner, the very exisfindings, took the audacious step of founding brain-donation
tence of God hung on the answer.
Acquiring the brain of a celebrated genius opened the door to societies in hopes of identifying the physical underpinnings of
more acquisitions, and within seven years Wagner published exceptional talent. Membership hinged on the promise to betwo detailed studies of the comparative anatomy of primate queath ones brain to ones fellows. By the end of the 19th cenbrains. His data set included measurements of 964 brains from tury, as science began to usurp the role of religion, bestowing
people of all walks of lifeEnglish poet Lord Byron and French ones brain became a positively fashionable thing to do. Enthunaturalist Georges Cuvier, among them. Wagner found nothing siasm peaked at the founding of the brain societies, however,
to dispel his dualistic view of the mind. Neither brain weight nor and quickly waned in the absence of any substantiated findsurface convolution patterns seemed to correspond with intel- ings. By the dawn of the 20th century the specimens had piled
lectual prowess. Cuviers brain was huge, but so was the brain of up, but most went unstudied or were lost to neglect.
Exactly what fueled Harveys obsession with Einsteins brain
a manual laborer. Gausss brain had an intricate pattern of
grooves, or sulci, in the cerebral surface, but so did a washer- is unknown. He was aware of the historical precedents, of the
womans. Thus, the crucial difference between a genius and an many collections of celebrated brains. He may have simply been
average Joe, it seemed, had to lie below the surface or even be- overcome by curiosity. But the political atmosphere of the 1950s
may have motivated him, too. Harvey knew that in the 1920s, the
search for the anatomy of genius had moved on to the cellular
level. Soviet scientists, having amassed a pantheon of celebrated
brains, including those of Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin, established a secretive research program to map the cortical layers
of the brains hemispheres based on neuronal patterns, a specialty known as cytoarchitectonics. Outsiders were denied access to
the specimens, and the Soviets always seemed poised to announce a great discovery, although they never did. It was in this
atmosphere of cold war competitiveness and paranoia that Harvey decided to appropriate Einsteins brain.
SLICED AND DICED
By all accounts, Harvey was an eccentric man but scrupulous.

Once he acquired his hallowed relic, he approached it as methodically as any crime scene investigator. He photographed the cortical surface from every angle, inserting a scale bar so that measurements could be made from the images. He then took the specimen
to the pathology laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania and
entrusted it to a gifted technician, Marta Keller. Under Harveys
exacting instructions, while using the best practices at the time
for neurological tissue preparation, Keller spent the next eight
months dissecting portions of the cortex, embedding 240 numbered chunks of it in blocks of a clear plastic material called celloidin and mounting 12sets of microscope slides with stained tissue
slices. Harvey sent slide sets to several of his peers. None of them
found anything unusual in the slides, but they did find something
strange about Harveys obsessive control over the brain.
Pathologists generally have the latitude of removing, preserving and studying organs, explains Umberto De Girolami, a neu-
ropathologist at Bostons Brigham and Womens Hospital. But

all tissues removed, as authorized to be retained by written permission, are under the custody of the hospital and are never considered the personal property of the attending pathologist. In
defiance of protocol and his employers demands, Harvey refused
to relinquish his precious specimen and was eventually fired in
1960. He packed his belongings and left for the Midwest, bringing with him two jars. One contained the sugar-cube-size, celloidin-embedded chunks Keller had so carefully prepared; the other held the undissected portions of Einsteins brain. He stowed
the jars in a beer cooler along with the remaining sets of slides
and the calibrated photographs.
Harvey suffered several downward turns after
the hospital terminated him. His marriage fell
apart, and he lost his medical license. He then
took a job in a plastics-extrusion factory. He
moved frequently, at one point becoming a neighbor and drinking companion of writer William S.
Burroughs. But he never lost interest in the brain,
and eventually, three decades after he removed it
from Einsteins corpse, Harvey found a neuroscientist to study it. Or rather she found him.
In 1985 Marian C. Diamond of the University
of California, Berkeley, requested four of Harveys tissue blocks. She was interested in studying Einsteins glial cells. Glial cells act as a support system for neurons. In Diamonds previous
work with mice, she found that exposure to a
sensory-enriched environment produces a higher ratio of glial cells to neurons than does a nonstimulating environment. She suspected that
Einstein might have possessed a high ratio of glial cells to neurons in portions of his cortex associated with higher neural functions such as mental imagery, memory and attention.
When Diamond examined the material Harvey sent, she found what she was looking for in
one of the four tissue blocks and concluded that
the higher proportion of glial cells she observed
resulted from Einsteins enhanced use of this tissue. In the ensuing media frenzy around her
study, however, journalists gave the impression that this surfeit
was not the product of his deep thinking but the cause of it.
It was not long before scientists themselves began to search
for anatomical explanations for Einsteins intellectual prowess.
Studies in the 1990s by Britt Anderson, then at the University
of Alabama at Birmingham, and psychologist Sandra Witelson
of McMaster University in Ontario attributed it to other distinctive aspects of his brain. Anderson called attention to the
high density of cells in his prefrontal cortex. For her part, Wit
elson focused on the atypical absence of the so-called parietal
operculum, part of a fissure that divides the parietal lobe. As a
result, she claimed, Einstein had an expanded cortical region
associated with visuospatial and mathematical abilities.
The ensuing decade saw the publication of many interesting
studies on anatomical anomalies in the brains of professional
musicians and London taxi drivers but nothing on Einstein.
Then, in 2007, just around the time of Harveys death, neuroophthalmologist Frederick E. Lepore of what is now the Rutgers
DESPITE HARVEYS CONSIDERABLE EFFORTS to prepare Einsteins brain for study, the source of the physicists genius
remains unknown. Today his brain is scattered in several locations. Harveys personal collection of drawings, photographs and tissue slides (above) is housed at the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Silver Spring, Md.
Robert Wood Johnson Medical School discovered a previously

unreported cache of Harveys calibrated photographs of Einsteins brain. He shared these with Dean Falk, a paleoanthropologist at Florida State University who works primarily on
brain evolution. Falk noticed some odd features in the topography of the brain, including a knob on the cortex known as the
Omega sign that had previously been linked to musical talent.
It is interesting to contemplate,
she wrote, that [Einsteins] extraordinary abilities may, to some
degree, have been associated with
the unusual gross anatomy of his
cerebral cortex.
In the most recent of the Einstein brain studies, published online in 2013, Falk and Weiwei Men
of East China Normal University
in Shanghai claimed to find another anatomical explanation for
the physicists prodigious powers
of thought: in addition to his
unique cortical structure and cytoarchitectonics, Einstein had
enhanced communication routes
between at least some parts of his
two cerebral hemispheres, they
claimed. They based their conjecture on measurements of the
cross-sectional area of the corpus callosum, the fiber bundle
connecting the left and right hemispheres, of Einsteins brain as
compared with a control group.
As compelling as these proposed explanations for Einsteins
achievements are at first glance, they all suffer from similar
methodological defects. Terence Hines, a psychologist at Pace
University, has been their most persistent critic. Hines observes
that, among other scientific sins, the architects of these studies
have tended to favor findings that support their preconceptions, downplaying aspects of Einsteins brain that are either
within normal limits or even deficient. Poorly chosen comparative samples have further confused matters. Anderson, for instance, measured Einsteins brain against only five other brains
in her studyhardly enough to capture the range of human
variation and generate statistically significant conclusions.
Perhaps most troubling of all is the post hoc fallacy that
haunts almost every claim to have pinpointed the anatomical
substrate of genius: when you begin with the assumption that
geniuses are different from everyone else, the culprit would logically be any anatomical anomaly that you happen to come
across. And if you make enough measurements of anyones
brain, you will find something that sets it apart.
guards the material closely. Harveys personal collection of

some 500 slides, as well as his calibrated photographs, went to
the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Silver Spring,
Md. Other slides and bits and pieces are distributed among a
dozen museums and university researchers. And speculation
about the source of Einsteins brilliance continues.
Would science, and neuroscience in particular, be better off
if Einsteins brain had been cremated with his body? The point is
now moot, but the question deserves some consideration. In
1906, more than a century before
Men and Falk did their research,
American anatomist Edward Anthony Spitzka thought he had
found the key to mental acuity in
the cross-sectional area of the corpus callosum. In his report he
suggested that men of genius
were capable of their great efforts of the intellect . . . as it were,
without taking pains. Authors
of subsequent elite brain studies,
including those focused on Einstein, have echoed his suggestion
that mental greatness is purely a
trick of nature. Yet none has shown it to be true.
To my mind, this failure is ultimately a good thing because
the discovery of substrates of talentor lack thereofin the
brain would have troubling practical and ethical implications.
If medical imaging could reveal anatomical correlates of talent,
would parents then start screening children and directing
them to training regimens that accord with their neuroanatomy? Would they deny physics club or music lessons to a kid
who lacks the Omega sign?
To a student who laments not being born with a math brain,
I would point out that Einstein might not have been either. We
dont know, and it doesnt matter. Behind the great achievements of a Gauss or an Einstein is in all cases a life devoted to
contemplation, curiosity, collaboration and, perhaps most of
all, hard work.
When you begin with the

assumption that geniuses
are different from
everyone else, the culprit
would logically be any
anatomical anomaly you
happen to come across.
NATURE VS. NURTURE
Today, some 60 years after H

arveys fateful decision, Einsteins
brain is scattered in several locations. Harvey returned the bulk
of it170 of the original 240 pieces embedded in celloidin,
along with the cerebellum and brain stemto Princeton Hospital (since replaced with the University Medical Center of Prince
ton at Plainsboro) shortly before his death a decade ago. That
material is now in the care of pathologist Elliot Krauss of the
Princeton medical center, who holds Harveys old job and who
On the Brain of a Scientist: Albert Einstein. Marian C. Diamond et al. in

Experimental Neurology, Vol. 88, No. 1, pages 198204; April 1985.
Alterations in Cortical Thickness and Neuronal Density in the Frontal Cortex
of Albert Einstein. B ritt Anderson and Thomas Harvey in Neuroscience Letters,
Vol. 210, No. 3, pages 161164; June 7, 1996.
The Exceptional Brain of Albert Einstein. S andra F. Witelson et al. in Lancet, Vol. 353,
No. 9170, pages 21492153; June 19, 1999.
The Corpus Callosum of Albert Einsteins Brain: Another Clue to His High Intelligence? W
eiwei Men et al. in Brain. Published online September 24, 2013.
The Cerebral Cortex of Albert Einstein: A Description and Preliminary Analysis
of Unpublished Photographs. D
ean Falk, Frederick E. Lepore and Adrianne Noe
in Brain, Vol. 136, No. 4, pages 13041327; April 1, 2013.
FROM OUR ARCHIVES
High-Aptitude Minds. C hristian Hoppe and Jelena Stojanovic; Scientific American

Mind, August/September 2008.
QUANTUM
P H YS I C S
RANDOM?
IS THE
COSMOS
Einsteins assertion that God

does not play dice with the universe
has been misinterpreted
By George Musser
Few of Albert Einsteins sayings h ave been as widely quot-
ed as his remark that God does not play dice with the universe. People
have naturally taken his quip as proof that he was dogmatically opposed
to quantum mechanics, which views randomness as a built-in feature of
the physical world. When a radioactive nucleus decays, it does so spontaneously; no rule will tell you when or why. When a particle of light strikes
a half-silvered mirror, it either reflects off it or passes through; the outcome is open until the moment it occurs. You do not need to visit a laboratory to see these processes: lots of Web sites display streams of random
digits generated by Geiger counters or quantum optics. Being unpredictable even in principle, such numbers are ideal for cryptography, statistics
and online poker.
Einstein, so the standard tale goes, refused to accept that some things
are indeterministicthey just happen, and there is not a darned thing
anyone can do to figure out why. Almost alone among his peers, he clung
to the clockwork universe of classical physics, ticking mechanistically,
each moment dictating the next. The dice-playing line became emblematic of the B side of his life: the tragedy of a revolutionary turned reactionary who upended physics with relativity theory but was, as Niels Bohr put
it, out to lunch on quantum theory.
Over the years, though, many historians, philosophers and physicists
have challenged this story line. Diving into what Einstein actually said,
they have found that his thinking about indeterminism was far more radical and nuanced than is commonly portrayed. It becomes a kind of a mission to get the story right, says Don A. Howard, a historian at the University of Notre Dame. Its amazing when you dig into the archives and see
the disparity from the common narrative. As he and others have shown,
Einstein accepted that quantum mechanics was indeterministicas well
he might, because he was the one who had d
iscovered its indeterminism.
What he did not accept was that this indeterminism was fundamental to
nature. It gave every indication of arising from a deeper level of reality
that the theory was failing to capture. His critique was not mystical but focused on specific scientific problems that remain unsolved to this day.
The question of whether the universe is a clockwork or a craps table
strikes at the heart of what we suppose physics to be: a search for simple
rules that underlie the wondrous diversity of nature. If some things happen for no reason, they mark the limits of rational inquiry. Fundamental
indeterminism would mean an end to science, worries Andrew S. Friedman, a cosmologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. And yet
philosophers throughout history have supposed that indeterminism is
a prerequisite for human free will. Either we are all gears in the clock-
Illustration by Shout
WHAT EINSTEIN OBJECTED TO
How Einstein ever got tagged as antiquantum is almost as big a

mystery as quantum mechanics itself. The very notion of quantaof discrete units of energywas his brainchild in 1905, and
for a decade and a half he stood practically alone in its defense.
Einstein came up with most of what physicists now recognize
as the essential features of quantum physics, such as lights peculiar ability to act as both particle and wave, and it was his
thinking about wave physics that Erwin Schrdinger built on
to develop the most widely used formulation of quantum theory in the 1920s. Nor was Einstein antirandomness. In 1916 he
showed that when atoms emit photons, the timing and direction of emission are random. This goes against the popular
image of Einstein as an adversary to probability, says philosopher Jan von Plato of the University of Helsinki.
But Einstein and his contemporaries faced a serious problem. Quantum phenomena are random, but quantum theory
is not. The Schrdinger equation is 100 percent deterministic.
It describes a particle or system of particles using a so-called
wave function, which expresses particles wave nature and
accounts for the undulating patterns that collections of particles can form. The equation predicts what happens to the wave
function at every moment with complete certainty. In many
ways, the equation is more d
eterministic than Newtons laws
George Musser is a contributing editor at Scientific

American a nd author of the book S pooky Action at
a Distance, to be published by Scientific American/
Farrar, Straus and Giroux in November.
of motion: it does not lead to muddles such as singularities

(where quantities become infinite and thus indescribable) or
chaos (where motion becomes unpredictable).
The tricky part is that determinism of the Schrdinger equation is the determinism of the wave function, a nd the wave
function is not directly observable, as the positions and velocities of particles are. Instead the wave function specifies the
quantities that can be observed and the likelihood of each eventuality. The theory leaves open what exactly the wave function
is and whether it should be taken literally as a real wave out
there in the world. Thus, it also leaves open whether observed
randomness is instrinsic to nature or just a facade. People say
that quantum mechanics is indeterministic, but thats too
quick, says philosopher Christian Wthrich of the University
of Geneva in Switzerland.
Werner Heisenberg, another early pioneer of quantum theory, envisioned the wave function as a haze of potential existence.
If it fails to pinpoint unequivocally where a particle is located,
that is because the particle is not, in fact, located anywhere. Only
when you observe the particle does it materialize somewhere.
The wave function might have been spread out over a huge region of space, but at the instant the observation is made, it
abruptly collapses to a narrow spike at a single position, and the
particle pops up there. When you so much as look at a particle
bam!it stops behaving deterministically and leaps to an end result like a kid grabbing a seat in musical chairs. No law governs
collapse. There is no equation for it. It just happens.
Collapse became a core ingredient of the Copenhagen interpretation, the view of quantum mechanics named for the city
where Bohr had his institute and Heisenberg did much of his
early work. (Ironically, Bohr himself never accepted wave function collapse.) Copenhagen takes the observed randomness of
quantum physics at face value, incapable of further explanation.
Most physicists accepted it, if only because of a psychological
anchoring effect: it was a good enough story, and it was the first.
Although Einstein was not antiquantum, he was definitely
antiCopenhagen interpretation. He recoiled from the idea
that the act of measurement should cause a break in the continuous evolution of a physical system, and that was the con-
IN BRIEF
I, at any rate, a m convinced that He is

not playing at dice, Albert Einstein wrote
to a colleague in 1926. Repeated over the
years, his sound bite became the quin
tessential put-down of quantum me
chanics and its embrace of randomness.
Closer examination, though, reveals

that Einstein did not reject quantum
mechanics or its indeterminism, al
though he did thinkfor solid scientific
reasonsthat the randomness could
not be a fundamental feature of nature.
Today many philosophers a rgue that

physics is b oth indeterministic and de
terministic, depending on the level of
reality being considered.
This view dissolves the much debated
dilemma between determinism and
free will. Even if everything that parti

cles do is preordained, the choices we
make can be completely open because
the low-level laws governing particles
are not the same as the high-level laws
governing human consciousness.
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN AND FARRAR, STRAUS AND GIROUX ARE AFFILIATES
work, so that everything we do is preordained, or we are the

agents of our own destiny, in which case the universe must not
be deterministic after all. This dichotomy has had very real
consequences for how society holds people responsible for
their actions. Assumptions about free will suffuse our legal system; to be culpable, an offender must have acted with intent.
The courts continually wrestle with whether people are innocent by reason of insanity, adolescent impulsiveness or rotten
social background.
Whenever people talk about a dichotomy, though, they usually aim to expose it as false. Indeed, many philosophers think it
is meaningless to say whether the universe is deterministic or
indeterministic. It can be either, depending on how big or complex your object of study is: particles, atoms, molecules, cells, organisms, minds, communities. The distinction between determinism and indeterminism is a level-specific distinction, says
Christian List, a philosopher at the London School of Economics
and Political Science. If you have determinism at one particular
level, it is fully compatible with indeterminism, both at higher
levels and at lower levels. The atoms in our brain can behave in
a completely deterministic way while still giving us freedom of
action because atoms and agency operate on different levels.
Likewise, Einstein sought a deterministic subquantum level
without denying that the quantum level was probabilistic.
text in which he began to complain about divine dice rolling.

Its that, specifically, that Einstein is lamenting in 1926 and not
a blanket metaphysical assertion of determinism as an absolutely necessary condition, Howard says. Hes specifically in
the thick of these arguments about whether or not wave function collapse introduces discontinuities.
Collapse could not be a real process, Einstein reasoned. It
would require instantaneous action at a distancea mysterious
mechanism ensuring that, say, the left side and right side of a
wave function both collapse to the same narrow spike even when
no force is coordinating them. Not just Einstein but every physicist of his day thought such a process impossible; it would operate faster than light, in apparent violation of relativity theory. In
effect, quantum mechanics does not just give you dice to play
with. It gives you pairs of dice that always come up doubles, even
if you roll one in Vegas and the other on Vega. For Einstein, it
seemed obvious that the dice must be loadedpossessing hidden attributes that fix their outcome in advance. But Copenhagen denied any such thing, implying the dice really do affect
each other instantly across the vastness of space.
Einstein was further troubled by the power that Copenhagen
accorded to measurement. What is a measurement, anyway? Is
it something that only conscious beings or tenured professors
can do? Heisenberg and other Copenhagenists failed to elaborate. Some suggested that we create reality in the act of observing itan idea that sounds poetic, perhaps a little too poetic.
Einstein also thought it took a lot of chutzpah for Copenhagen
ists to claim that quantum mechanics was complete, a final theory never to be superseded. He regarded all theories, including
his own, as stepping-stones to something greater.
In fact, Howard argues that Einstein would have been happy
to entertain indeterminism as long as his concerns were addressedif, for example, someone could spell out what a measurement was and how particles could stay in sync without
acting at a distance. As a sign that Einstein considered indeterminism a secondary concern, he made the same demands of de
terministic alternatives to Copenhagen and rejected them, too.
Another historian, Arthur Fine of the University of Washington,
thinks Howard overstates Einsteins receptiveness to indeterminism but agrees that the mans thinking was more solidly
grounded than the dice-playing sound bite has led generations
of physicists to assume.
RANDOM THOUGHTS
If you tug on Copenhagens loose ends, Einstein thought, you

should find that quantum randomness is like every other type
of randomness in physics: the product of deeper goings-on. The
dancing of a dust mote in a shaft of sunlight betrays the complex motions of unseen air molecules, and the emission of a
photon or radioactive decay of a nucleus is analogous, Einstein
figured. In his estimation, quantum mechanics is a broadbrush theory that expresses the overall behavior of natures
building blocks but lacks the resolution to capture individual
cases. A deeper, more complete theory would explain the motion in full without any mysterious jumps.
In this view, the wave function is a collective description,
like saying that a fair die, repeatedly tossed, will land roughly
the same number of times on each side. Wave function collapse
is not a physical process but the acquisition of knowledge. If
you roll a six-sided die and it lands on, say, four, the range of
one to six collapses to the actual outcome of four. A godlike
demon, able to track all the atomic details affecting the die
the exact way your hand sends the cube tumbling across the tablewould never speak of collapse.
Einsteins intuitions were backed up by his early work on
the collective effects of molecular motionstudied by the
branch of physics known as statistical mechanicsin which
he had demonstrated that physics could be probabilistic even
Einstein was trying

to explain randomness,
not explain it away.
when the underlying reality was deterministic. In 1935 Einstein
wrote to philosopher Karl Popper, I do not believe that you
are right in your thesis that it is impossible to derive statistical conclusions from a deterministic theory. Only think of classical statistical mechanics (gas theory, or the theory of Brownian movement).
The probabilities in Einsteins way of thinking were just as
objective as those in the Copenhagen interpretation. Although
they did not appear in the fundamental laws of motion, they expressed other features of the world; they were not merely artifacts of human ignorance. Einstein gave Popper the example
of a particle that moves around a circle at steady speed; the
chance of finding the particle in a given arc of the circle reflects
the symmetry of its path. Similarly, a die has a one-sixth chance
of landing on a given side because it has six equal sides. He did
understand better than most at that time that there was significant physical content in the details of statistical-mechanical
probabilities, Howard says.
Another lesson of statistical mechanics was that the quantities we observe do not necessarily exist on a deeper level. For
instance, a gas has a temperature, but a single gas molecule
does not. By analogy, Einstein came to believe that a subquantum theory needed to mark a radical break from quantum mechanics. In 1936 he wrote, There is no doubt that quantum mechanics has seized hold of a beautiful element of truth. . . . However, I do not believe that quantum mechanics will be the
starting point i n the search for this basis, just as, vice versa, one
could not go from thermodynamics (resp. statistical mechanics) to the foundations of mechanics. To fill in that deeper level, Einstein sought a unified field theory, in which particles derive from structures that look nothing like particles. In short,
conventional wisdom is wrong that Einstein repudiated the
randomness of quantum physics. He was trying to explain the
randomness, not to explain it away.
DO YOUR LEVEL BEST
Although Einstein s overall project failed, h

is basic intuition
about randomness still holds: indeterminism can emerge from
determinism. The quantum and subquantum levelsor any
other pair of levels in the hierarchy of natureconsist of dis-
istically. In some configurations, the die

ends up showing one dot; in others, two;
and so on. Therefore, a single macroscopic condition (being rolled) can lead
to multiple possible macroscopic outIs the world deterministic or indeterministic? T
he answer depends not only on
comes (showing one of six faces) [see box
the basic laws of motion but also on the level at which a system is described.
at left]. If we describe the die at a macro
Consider five atoms in a gas moving deterministically (top plot). They start at
level, we can think of it as a stochastic
nearly the same location and gradually spread out. On a macroscopic level (bottom
system, which admits objective chance,
plot), though, one would not see individual atoms but an amorphous puff of gas.
says List, who has studied the meshing of
After a time, the gas might split at random into multiple puffs. This macrolevel
levels with Marcus Pivato, a mathematirandomness is not an artifact of an observers ignorance about the microlevel;
cian at the University of Cergy-Pontoise
it is an objective feature of nature, reflecting how atoms agglomerate. Analogously,
in France.
Einstein suspected that a deterministic subrealm of the universe leads to the
Although the higher level builds (in the
randomness of the quantum realm.
jargon, supervenes) on the lower one, it
is autonomous. To describe dice, you need
to work at a level where dice exist, and
Microlevel
when you do so, you cannot help but neglect atoms and their dynamics. If you
cross one level with another, you commit
the fallacy of a category mistake, which is
like asking about the political affiliations
of a tuna sandwich (to use an example
Trajectories of atoms
from philosopher David Z Albert of Columbia University). When we have phenomena that can be described at multiple
levels, we have to be conceptually very
careful in not mixing levels, List says.
For this reason, the die roll is not
merely apparently random, as people
Time
sometimes say. It is truly random. A godMacrolevel
like demon might brag that it knows exactly what will happen, but it knows only
Trajectory of collection
what will happen to the atoms. It does
of atoms
not even know what a die is because that
is higher-level information. The demon
never sees a forest, only trees. It is like
the protagonist of Argentine writer Jorge
Luis Borgess short story Funes, the
Memorious, a man who remembers everything and grasps nothing. To think is
to forget a difference, to generalize, to
abstract, Borges wrote. For the demon
to know which side the die lands on, you
Time
In several places, the trajectory branches, an event
have to tell it what to look for. The dethat follows no clear law and occurs randomly.
mon would only be able to infer the higher-level history if the demon was given
our specification of how we partition the
physical level, List says. Indeed, the detinct types of structures, so they abide by different types of mon might well come to envy our mortal perspective.
laws. The laws governing one level can leave a genuine element
The level logic works the other way, too. Indeterministic miof randomness even if the laws underneath it are completely crophysics can lead to deterministic macrophysics. A baseball
regimented. A deterministic microphysics does not induce a can be made of particles behaving randomly, yet its flight is endeterministic macrophysics, says philosopher Jeremy Butter- tirely predictable; the quantum randomness averages out. Likefield of the University of Cambridge.
wise gases consist of molecules executing enormously compliThink of a die at the atomic level. It can be constructed from catedand effectively indeterministicmovements, yet their
zillions of atomic configurations that look utterly indistinguish- temperature and other properties follow laws that are dead simable to the eye. If you track any one of these configurations as ple. More speculatively, some physicists such as Robert Laughthe cube is rolled, it will lead to a specific outcomedetermin- lin of Stanford University suggest that the lower level is utterly
KEY CONCEPT
Graphic by Jen Christiansen
SOURCE: EMERGENT CHANCE, BY CHRISTIAN LIST AND MARCUS PIVATO, IN THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW, V
OL. 124, NO. 1; JANUARY 2015
Position
Position
Realitys Many Realms
irrelevant. The building blocks could be anything and still produce the same collective behavior. After all, systems as diverse
as water molecules, stars in a galaxy and cars on a highway
obey the same laws of fluid flow.
FREE AT LAST
When you think in terms of levels, t he worry that indeterminism might mark the end of science evaporates. There is no big
wall around us, cordoning off a law-abiding chunk of the universe from the anarchic and inexplicable beyond. Instead the
world is a layer cake of determinism and indeterminism. The
earths climate, for example, supervenes on Newtons deterministic laws of motion, but weather reports are probabilistic,
whereas seasonal and longer-term climate trends are again
predictable. Biology, too, supervenes on deterministic physics,
but organisms and ecosystems require different modes of description, such as Darwinian evolution. Determinism doesnt
explain everything, says Tufts University philosopher Daniel
C. Dennett. Why are there giraffes? Because it was determined that there would be?
Human beings are embedded within this layer cake. We
have the powerful sense of free will. We often do the unpredictable, and in most of lifes decisions, we feel we were capable of
doing otherwise (and often wish we had). For millennia, socalled philosophical libertariansnot to be confused with the
political kindhave argued that human freedom requires particle freedom. Something must break the deterministic flow of
events, such as quantum randomness or the swerves that
some ancient philosophers thought atoms can undergo.
The trouble with this line of thought is that it would free the
particles but leave us enslaved. Whether your decision was preordained at the big bang or made by a mutinous particle, it is
not your decision. To be free, we need indeterminism not at the
particle level but at the human level. And that is possible because the human and particle levels are autonomous. Even if
everything you do can be traced to earlier events, you can be
the author of your actions because neither you nor the actions
exist at the level of matter, only at the macrolevel of mind. This
macroindeterminism riding on microdeterminism may secure
free will, Butterfield says. Macroindeterminism is not the
cause of your decision. It is y our decision.
Some might complain that you are still a puppet of the laws
of nature, that your freedom is an illusion. But the word illusion itself conjures up desert mirages and ladies sawed in
half: things that are unreal. Macroindeterminism is not like
that. It is quite real, just not fundamental. It is comparable to
life. Individual atoms are completely inanimate, yet enormous
masses of them can live and breathe. Anything to do with
agents, their intentional states, their decisions and choices:
none of this features in the conceptual repertoire of fundamental physics, but that doesnt mean those phenomena arent
real, List observes. It just means that those are very much
higher-level phenomena.
It would be a category mistake, not to mention completely
unenlightening, to describe human decisions as the mechanics
of atoms in your brain. Instead you need to use all the concepts
of psychology: desire, possibility, intention. Why did I choose
water over wine? Because I wanted to. My desire explains my
action. Most of the times that we ask Why? we are seeking
someones motivations rather than the physics backstory. Psychological explanations presume the kind of indeterminism
that List is talking about. For example, game theorists model
human decisions by laying out the range of options and showing which one you will select if you are acting rationally. Your
freedom to choose a certain option steers your choice even if
you never plump for that option.
To be sure, Lists arguments do not explain free will fully.
The hierarchy of levels opens up space for free will by separating psychology from physics and giving us the opportunity to
do the unexpected. But we have to seize the opportunity. If, for
example, we made every decision on a coin toss, that would still
count as macroindeterminism but would hardly qualify as free
will in any meaningful sense. Some peoples decision making
may be so debilitated that they cannot be said to act freely.
This way of thinking about determinism also makes sense of
an interpretation of quantum theory that was developed in the
years after Einsteins death in 1955: the many-worlds interpretation. Advocates argue that quantum mechanics describes a
collection of parallel universesa multiversethat behaves deterministically in the large but looks indeterministic to us because we are able to see only a single universe. For instance, an
atom might emit a photon to the left or to the right; quantum
theory leaves the outcome open. According to the many-worlds
interpretation, that is because the same situation arises in a zillion parallel universes; in some, the photon goes deterministically left, and in others, it goes right. Not being able to tell
which of those universes we reside in, we cannot predict what
will happen, so the situation from the inside looks inexplicable.
There is no true randomness in the cosmos, but things can appear random in the eye of the beholder, says cosmologist Max
Tegmark of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a prominent proponent of this view. The randomness reflects your inability to self-locate.
That is very similar to saying that a die or brain could be
constructed from any one of countless atomic configurations.
The configurations might be individually deterministic, but because we cannot know which one corresponds to our die or our
brain, we have to think of the outcome as indeterministic.
Thus, parallel universes are not some exotic idea out there in
the cosmos. Our body and brain are little multiverses, and it is
the multiplicity of possibility that endows us with freedom.
Review Essay: The Shaky Game (by Arthur Fine). D

on Howard in Synthese, V
ol. 86,
No. 1, pages 123141; January 1991.
Freedom Evolves. D
aniel C. Dennett. Viking, 2003.
Laws, Causation and Dynamics at Different Levels. J eremy Butterfield in Interface
Focus, Vol. 2, No. 1, pages 101114; February 2012.
Free Will, Determinism, and the Possibility of Doing Otherwise. C hristian List
in N
os, V
ol. 48, No. 1, pages 156178; March 2014.
Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality.
Max Tegmark. Knopf, 2014.
FROM OUR ARCHIVES
100 Years of Quantum Mysteries. M

ax Tegmark and John Archibald Wheeler;
February 2001.
Was Einstein Right? G
eorge Musser; September 2004.
Finding Free Will. C hristof Koch; Scientific American Mind, M
ay/June 2012.
Recommended by Clara Moskowitz
For more recommendations,
MORE to go to ScientificAmerican.com/
EXPLORE sep2015/recommended
Einsteins Dice and

Schrdingers Cat:
How Two Great Minds Battled
Quantum Randomness to Create
a Unified Theory of Physics
by Paul Halpern. Basic Books, 2015 ($27.99)
Einstein notoriously
disliked the inherent
randomness in quantum
theorywhich he de
scribed as God playing
dice with the universe
and he was not alone. His lifelong friend
and another giant of 20th-century physics, Erwin Schrdinger, was one of the
architects of quantum mechanics and yet
struggled with the mainstream interpretation of the theory, which he parodied
in his famous Schrdingers cat thought
experiment. Physicist Halpern recounts
the two mens quest to find an overarching theory that would resolve these issues
and the occasions when vanity and ri
valry threatened, but never destroyed,
their friendship.
New Takes on the Great Man

Four recent tomes explore the loyalties, inspirations and trials of Albert Einstein
The Road to Relativity:
Einstein: His Space and Times
The History and Meaning

of Einsteins The Foundation
of General Relativity
by Steven Gimbel.
Yale University Press, 2015 ($25)
by Hanoch Gutfreund and Jrgen Renn.

Princeton University Press, 2015 ($35)
Any devotee o
f Einstein
will relish the chance
to parse this annotated
facsimile of the physicists original manuscript on general relativity. The authors
provide a full English translation and
painstakingly explain, page by page, Einsteins text and equations, which lay out
his theory and the path he took to derive
it. Their cogent descriptions and the
accompanying illustrations and documents open a fascinating window onto
Einsteins otherwise inaccessible opus.
Einstein renounced
religion at the age of 12,
when he decided his
Jewish beliefs were
incompatible with the
analytical mind-set of
his truer devotion, science. Yet the world
never stopped seeing him as a Jew, and
over time he became a champion for his
oppressed people and a supporter of the
Zionist cause. Einstein had alienated
himself from the larger Jewish community, but the times forced him to realize that
his heritage was an inalienable part of
who he was, writes philosophy professor
Gimbel in this look at Einsteins relationship to Judaism and his political activism.
The Physicist and

the Philosopher:
Einstein, Bergson, and
the Debate That Changed
Our Understanding of Time
by Jimena Canales.
Princeton University Press, 2015 ($35)
On April 6, 1922,
Einstein clashed with the
most famous philosopher
of the day, Henri Bergson,
about the nature of time.
Einstein espoused the picture he formulated in general relativity of time as inseparable from space and lacking the absolute
reality that humans tend to perceive in it.
Bergson claimed that science alone cannot
describe time, which he said was closely
intertwined with the vital impulse of life
and creative expression. Science historian
Canales describes how their debate initiated a rift between physics and philosophy,
splitting the century into two cultures
and pitting scientists against humanists,
expert knowledge against lay wisdom.
Illustration by Stephen Savage
Skeptic by Michael Shermer

Viewing the world with a rational eye
Michael Shermer is publisher of Skeptic

magazine (www.skeptic.com). His new
book is The Moral Arc (Henry Holt, 2015).
Follow him on Twitter @michaelshermer
Forensic
Pseudoscience
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN AND HENRY HOLT ARE AFFILIATES
How trustworthy are DNA

and other crime scene tests?
The criminal justice system has a problem, and its name is foren
sics. This was the message I heard at the Forensic Science Re
search Evaluation Workshop held May 2627 at the AAAS head
quarters in Washington, D.C. I spoke about pseudoscience but
then listened in dismay at how the many fields in the forensic sci
ences that I assumed were reliable (DNA, fingerprints, and so on)
in fact employ unreliable or untested techniques and show incon
sistencies between evaluators of evidence.
The conference was organized in response to a 2009 publica
tion by the National Research Council entitled S
trengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward, w
hich the U.S.
Congress commissioned when it became clear that DNA was the
only (barely) reliable forensic science. The report concluded that
the forensic science system, encompassing both research and
practice, has serious problems that can only be addressed by a na
tional commitment to overhaul the current structure that supports
the forensic science community in this country. Among the areas
determined to be flawed and in need of more research are: accura
cy and error rates of forensic analyses, sources of potential bias
and human error in interpretation by forensic experts, fingerprints,
firearms examination, tool marks, bite marks, impressions (tires,
footwear), bloodstain-pattern analysis, handwriting, hair, coatings
(for example, paint), chemicals (including drugs), materials (in
cluding fibers), fluids, serology, and fire and explosive analysis.
Take fire analysis. According to John J. Lentini, author of the de
finitive book S
cientific Protocols for Fire Investigation (CRC Press,
second edition, 2012), the field is filled with junk science. What
does that pattern of burn marks over there mean? he recalled ask
ing a young investigator who joined him on one of his more than
2,000 fire investigations. Absolutely nothing was the correct an
swer. Most of the time fire investigators find nonexistent patterns,
Lentini elaborated, or they think a certain mark means the fire
burned fast or slow, allegedly indicated by the alligatoring
of wood: small, flat blisters mean the fire burned slow; large,
shiny blisters mean it burned fast. Nonsense, he said. It may take
a while for a fire to get going, but once a couch or bed burns and
reaches a certain temperature, you are not going to be able to dis
cern much about its cause.
Lentini debunked the myth of window crazing in which
cracks indicate rapid heating supposedly caused by an acceler
ant (arson). In fact, the cracks are caused by rapid cooling, as
when firefighters spray water on a burning building with win

dows. He also noted that burn marks on the floor are not the re
sult of a liquid deliberately poured on it. When a fire consumes
an entire room, the extreme heat burns even the floor, along with
melting metal and leaving burn marks under a doorway thresh
old, which many investigators assume implies the use of an ac
celerant. Most of the science of fire and explosive analysis has
been conducted by insurance companies looking to find evi
dence of arson so they dont have to pay off their policies, Lenti
ni explained to me when I asked how his field became so fraught
with pseudoscience.
Itiel Dror of the JDI Center for the Forensic Sciences at Uni
versity College London spoke about his research on cognitive fo
rensicshow cognitive biases affect forensic scientists. For ex
ample, the hindsight bias can lead one to work backward from a
suspect to the evidence, and then the confirmation bias can di
rect one to find additional confirming evidence for that suspect
even if none exists. Dror discussed studies that show that the
same expert examiner, evaluating the same prints but within dif
ferent contexts, may reach different and contradictory decisions.
Not just fingerprints. Even DNA analysis is subjective. When 17
North American expert DNA examiners were asked for their in
terpretation of data from an adjudicated criminal case in that ju
risdiction, they produced inconsistent interpretations, Dror and
his co-author wrote in a 2011 paper in S
cience and Justice.
No one knows how many innocent people have been convicted
based on junk forensic science, but the National Research Council
report recommends substantial funding increases to enable labs
to conduct experiments to improve the validity and reliability of
the many forensic subfields. Along with a National Commission
on Forensic Science, which was established in 2013, its a start.
Illustration by Izhar Cohen
Anti Gravity by Steve Mirsky

The ongoing search for fundamental farces
Numbers Games
Some animals can count;
others can be counted on
Its nice to know t hat the great man we celebrate in this special
issue had a warm sense of humor. For example, in 1943 Albert
Einstein received a letter from a junior high school student who
mentioned that her math class was challenging. He wrote back,
Do not worry about your difficulties in mathematics; I can as
sure you that mine are still greater.
Today we know that his sentiment could also have been di
rected at crows, which are better at math than those members
of various congressional committees that deal with science who
refuse to acknowledge that global temperatures keep getting
higher. Studies show that crows can easily discriminate between
a group of, say, three objects and another containing nine. They
have more trouble telling apart groups that are almost the same
size, but unlike the aforementioned committee members, at least
theyre trying.
A study in the P
roceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA fi
nds that the brain of a crow has nerve cells that special
ize in determining numbersa method quite similar to what
goes on in our primate brain. Human and crow brains are sub
stantially different in size and organization, but convergent evo
lution seems to have decided that this kind of neuron-controlled
numeracy is a good system. (Crows are probably unaware of evo
lution, which is excusable. Some members of various congressio
nal committees that deal with science pad their reactionary r
sums by not accepting evolution, which is astonishing.)
Crows are not the only avian types out there illustrating that
birdbrain should really be a compliment. Mexi

can jays in Arizona (which to Donald Trumps prob
able dismay cross the border with impunity) know
lots about legume load. That is, researchers report
in the Journal of Ornithology that they observed
the birds picking up peanuts in their beaks to gauge
the samples hefts. After literally weighing their op
tions, the birds would fly off with the densest nut
but enough about various congressional commit
tees that deal with science. And Donald Trump.
By the way, although the journal article refers
to the Mexican jays as A
phelocoma ultramarina, in
2011 the American Ornithologists Union decided
that A
. ultramarina should probably be consid
ered a separate species called the transvolcanic jay.
And that the birds still to be called Mexican jays,
which include the subjects of the peanut study,
should be referred to as A
phelocoma wollweberi.
Mexican jays used to be called gray-breasted jays, for anyone
keeping score at home. The thing to remember is that the birds
dont care, and if you worry about these designations too much,
you could wind up aphelocomatose.
Dogs may not have the talents, let alone the talons, of some
birds, but their domesticated sophistication extends into realms
that look suspiciously ethical or moral. The journal Animal Behaviour r ecently featured a study in which 54 dogs watched an
unknown person either help the dogs owner with a task or re
fuse to help. And the dogs later turned their noses up at a snack
offer from that good-for-nothing creep who would not give a
hand to the most wonderful person in the world. Well, to be
more accurate, the dogs were less likely to accept the snack from
the rat punk than from somebody else, anyway. In a follow-up
interview, one weak-willed dog allegedly described its choice to
take the tasty morsel as rough.
Finally, in invertebrate news, heres a quote from a late June
story by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation about a find
ing published in the P
roceedings of the Royal Society B: A tiny
worm which procreates by jabbing a needle-like penis into its
own head has left biologists in Europe stunned. Thats some jab.
Of course, the flatworm is hermaphroditic; its actions would
otherwise be mere self-abuse. But during times when it cant
find a discrete mate, the male end bends around to the head
end to engage in whats technically called hypodermic insemi
nation. The sperm then travels to the midbody, where fertiliza
tion occurs. So it looks like it injects where it does because thats
the easiest place for the tail to wriggle around to reach. That is,
it did the math and used its head.
Illustration by Matt Collins
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN IS PART OF SPRINGER NATURE
Steve Mirskyhas been writing the Anti Gravity

column since a typical tectonic plate was about
34 inches from its current location. He also hosts
the S cientific American podcast Science Talk.
50, 100 & 150 Years Ago compiled by Daniel C. Schlenoff

Innovation and discovery as chronicled in Scientific American
SCIENTIFIC F ind original articles and images in

AMERICAN the Scientific American a rchives at
ScientificAmerican.com/magazine/sa
ONLINE
September
1965
years, for then the birds would soon

have pecked up every grain that fell
to the ground.
September
1865
Cities on
the Rise
Against the Sea
Nitroglycerin
for Blasting
Glycerine, as we all
know, is the sweet
principle of oil, and
is extensively used for purposes of the
toilet, but it has now received an application of rather an unexpected nature.
In 1847 Ascanio Sobrero discovered that
glycerine, when treated with nitric acid,
was converted into a highly explosive
substance, which he called nitro-glycerine. It is oily, heavier than water, soluble
in alcohol and ether, and acts so powerfully on the nervous system that a single
drop placed on the tip of the tongue will
cause a violent headache that will last
for several hours. This liquid seems to
have been almost forgotten by chemists,
and it is only now that Mr. Nable [sic
Alfred Nobel], a Swedish engineer, has
succeeded in applying it to a very important branch of his art, viz., blasting.
Brilliant(-ish)
Invention
September
1915
War and
Wildlife
The war is having a
great influence on the
birds throughout Europe, especially on
the birds of passage. These birds were
observed in places where they were
never seen before and were missed in
the localities where battles were raging.
In Luxembourg, where otherwise mil
lions of birds congregate in the leafy
forests, there are now scarcely any to
be seen or heard. A nature lover there
writes that whole oat fields have
sprung up along the roads and in the
market squares of the little towns and
villages where the horses have been
fed as the cavalry passed through. This
would never have been possible in other
DREAM OF FLIGHT: A creative plan to slip

the surly bonds of Earth, 1865
Messrs EditorsI venture to

submit for publication a plan,
to me apparently simple and
feasible, but that I have never
put to the test of experiment. It
is to do what man has already
done upon the earthmake use
of the powers of the inferior
animals given to him to be his
servants to effect his purposes.
There are many birds noted for
strength of wing and endurance in flight. The brown eagle
and the American swan particularly suggest themselves. I
propose to obtain a number of
such birds and attach them by
jackets fitted around their bodies and cords to a frame work,
which shall sustain a basket
large enough to hold a man.
A slide show of other optimistic
inventions from 1865 is at
www.ScientificAmerican.com/
sep2015/creative-inventions
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, VOL. XIII, NO. 13 (NEW SERIES); SEPTEMBER 23, 1865
Urbanized societies,
in which a majority
of the people live crowded together in
towns and cities, represent a new and
fundamental step in mans social evolution. Although cities themselves first
appeared some 5,500 years ago, they
were small and surrounded by an overwhelming majority of rural people;
moreover, they relapsed easily to village
or small-town status. The urbanized
societies of today, in contrast, not
only have urban agglomerations of
a size never before attained but also
have a high proportion of their population concentrated in such agglomerations. Neither the recency nor the
speed of this evolutionary development is widely appreciated. Before
1850 no society could be described
as predominantly urbanized, and
by 1900 only oneGreat Britain
could be so regarded. Today, only
65 years later, all industrial nations
are highly urbanized.
Twice during the thirteen years since

it was built has the great concrete wall
along the waterfront of Galveston
withstood the furious onslaughts of a
raging sea lashed by a hurricane, and in
each case the seawall has stood perfectly.
In the latest storm the damage done
to the city was chiefly in the business
section, north of Broadway, where the
plan of grade raising has never been
carried out. The writer at the request of
the County Commissioners Court of the
County of Galveston inspected the work
immediately after the two great storms
of 1909 and 1915, and in neither case
did he find the seawall damaged in the
slightest degree, though heavy timbers
and logs were driven over it and badly
damaged the boulevard.BrigadierGeneral Henry M. Robert
The author also wrote R
oberts Rules
of Order, o
riginally published in 1876.
Graphic Science
A Bigger City Isnt

Always Better
10
Salt Lake City
Other cities (gray dots)
Atlanta
Cities will save us, e xperts argue. Higher densities of people mean
less energy consumption and lower carbon emissions per capitaa
boon for the environment. People supposedly switch from driving
cars to using public transportation, for instance. But density in and
of itself isnt changing behavior, says Conor Gately, a graduate student in Boston Universitys department of Earth and environment.
Gately and his colleagues analyzed 33years worth of annual carbon
dioxide emissions by on-road vehicles across the U.S. Since 2000 the
50 fastest-growing counties by population decreased their per capita
emissions by only 12 percenta reduction that was not enough to
offset the total emissions growth in those same areas. The discrepancy probably comes down to the sprawl of suburbs, the researchers
say. If public transportation between city and surrounding neighborhoods, for example, fails to keep pace with growth, more and more
people will drive into center cities for work and play and add pollution to areas where they dont live. (Thats whats been happening in
Salt Lake City.)
Urban areas that are already dense and have the necessary green
infrastructure, such as New York City, will see their per capita emissions decline as they grow larger. In 2012 carbon emissions from vehicles on the road accounted for 28 percent of the total fossil-fuel CO2
emissions for the entire countrya sizable chunk to target for reductions. The data suggest that solutions and regulations should be customized for individual cities, not mandated as national catchalls.
Amber Williams
On-Road Carbon Dioxide Emissions (megagrams per capita)
Phoenix
Salt Lake City, Atlanta,
Houston, Phoenix
Per capita emissions are
determined by the amount
of carbon dioxide produced
by road transportation in
an area divided by the number
of people living in that area. If
many suburbanites commute
into cities, the emissions from
their cars can counteract
carbon savings achieved by
having more people who dont
drive often living in city centers.
6
Denver
Detroit
Los Angeles
Boston
San Francisco
Already dense, the City by the Bay has continued to grow
over the past 20 years and its per capita emissions have
declined accordingly. Whether the trend will hold is
unknown: vehicle use dropped precipitously after the
2008 recession and may or may not be the new normal.
Washington, D.C.
Baltimore
San Francisco
Seattle
New York City

Chicago
Dashed line = 1,650 persons

per square kilometer
Cities to the left and right of this
threshold follow different per capita
emissions trends as they grow.
Chicago
The population of the
Windy City declined from
1990 to 2010 and because
its suburban population
rose sharply, the emissions
per resident increased.
1980
1990
2000
2010
0
0
1,650 2,000
4,000
6,000
8,000
10,000
12,000
Density (persons per square kilometer)
Graphic by Tiffany Farrant-Gonzalez
SOURCE: CITIES, TRAFFIC, AND CO 2: A MULTIDECADAL ASSESSMENT OF TRENDS, DRIVERS, AND SCALING RELATIONSHIPS, BY CONOR K. GATELY,
LUCY R. HUTYRA AND IAN SUE WING, IN PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES USA, VOL. 112, NO. 16; APRIL 21, 2015
Density does not reliably predict

per capita carbon dioxide emissions
Houston

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50 What Einstein Got Wrong

The visionary scientist repeatedly

His quest for a theory of everything

74 The Black Hole Test

A STUDY IN CONTR A STS

80 Who Was Einstein, Really?

88 Is the Cosmos Random?

2 Scientific American, September 2015

Illustration by Bernard Lee

2015 Scientific American

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F U N DAM E N TAL P HYSICS

60 Cleaning Up after Einstein

6 From the Editor

29 The Science of Health

98 50, 100 & 150 Years Ago

General Relativity at 100

Take a quiz about Einstein, read about the real story

4 Scientific American, September 2015

2015 Scientific American

From the Editor

Editorial and Einstein

long with his article submission, the scientist

mentions Einstein, who boldly generalized the principle and

President and Chief Executive Officer,

Director, Origins Initiative,

Harold Skip Garner

Director, Medical Informatics and

Director, Sage Center for the Study of Mind,

Professor of Physics and Permanent

Lene Vestergaard Hau

Partner, Khosla Ventures

Professor of Applied Economics and

Class of 1935 Distinguished Professor

Co-chairman, Applied Minds, LLC

Director, Hedonia: TrygFonden

Professor of Microbiology and

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Director, Program for Evolutionary

Leader, Cassini Imaging Science

Director, Center for Brain and Cognition,

Professor of Physics, Harvard University

Astronomer Royal and Professor

Regents Professor of Soil Science

Director, The Earth Institute,

Chair, Advisory Council,

Professor and Laboratory Head

Professor of Genetics, Stanford

Co-director, Clean Energy Incubator,

Director, Theory Research Group,

Professor of Chemistry and

Director, Global Viral Forecasting Initiative

Professor of Quantum Optics,

Professor of Law and of Computer

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2015 Scientific American

hannah peckler u niversity of california,

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Airplanes face a new collision risk: