Posters Einstein Quotes

I often wonder what Einstein would have done in my position. At Peterson, I kept an Einstein poster in my room, the one that says 'Imagination is more important than knowledge.' Einstein was smart, maybe even as smart as Laserator, but he played it way too safe. Then again, nobody ever threw a grappling hook at Einstein. I like to think he would have enjoyed my work, if he could have seen it. But no one sees anything I do, not until it's hovering over Chicago.

Remember, Thursday, that scientific thought -- indeed, any mode of thought, whether it be religious or philosophical or anything else -- is just like the fashions that we wear -- only much longer lived. It's a little like a boy band." "Scientific thought a boy band? How do you figure that?" "Well, every now and then a boy band comes along. We like it, buy the records, posters, parade them on TV, idolise them right up until --" ... "-- the next boy band?" I suggested. "Precisely. Aristotle was a boy band. A very good one but only number six or seven. He was the best boy band until Isaac Newton, but even Newton was transplanted by an even newer boy band. Same haircuts -- but different moves." "Einstein, right?" "Right. Do you see what I'm saying?" "I think so." "Good. So try and think of maybe thirty or forty boy bands past Einstein. To where we would regard Einstein as someone who glimpsed a truth, played one good chord on seven forgettable albums." "Where is this going, Dad?" "I'm nearly there. Imagine a boy band so good that you never needed another boy band ever again. Can you imagine that?

We like to believe that we live in a grand age of creative individualism. We look back at the midcentury era in which the Berkeley researchers conducted their creativity studies, and feel superior. Unlike the starched-shirted conformists of the 1950s, we hang posters of Einstein on our walls, his tongue stuck out iconoclastically. We consume indie music and films, and generate our own online content. We “think different” (even if we got the idea from Apple Computer’s famous ad campaign). But the way we organize many of our most important institutions—our schools and our workplaces—tells a very different story.

PREFACE A New Look at the Legacy of Albert Einstein Genius. Absent-minded professor. The father of relativity. The mythical figure of Albert Einstein—hair flaming in the wind, sockless, wearing an oversized sweatshirt, puffing on his pipe, oblivious to his surroundings—is etched indelibly on our minds. “A pop icon on a par with Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe, he stares enigmatically from postcards, magazine covers, T-shirts, and larger-than-life posters. A Beverly Hills agent markets his image for television commercials. He would have hated it all,” writes biographer Denis Brian. Einstein is among the greatest scientists of all time, a towering figure who ranks alongside Isaac Newton for his contributions. Not surprisingly, Time magazine voted him the Person of the Century. Many historians have placed him among the hundred most influential people of the last thousand years.

If Albert Einstein, the last century’s very poster boy for the cunning man and the wild-haired magician of science, knew one thing, then it was simply that there was always more to be known. He didn’t pridefully condemn dreams of physics and incomplete theories. He pointed off into the future and named the unknown things as, in fact, spooky action at a distance.

If this is true—if solitude is an important key to creativity—then we might all want to develop a taste for it. We’d want to teach our kids to work independently. We’d want to give employees plenty of privacy and autonomy. Yet increasingly we do just the opposite. We like to believe that we live in a grand age of creative individualism. We look back at the midcentury era in which the Berkeley researchers conducted their creativity studies, and feel superior. Unlike the starched-shirted conformists of the 1950s, we hang posters of Einstein on our walls, his tongue stuck out iconoclastically. We consume indie music and films, and generate our own online content. We “think different” (even if we got the idea from Apple Computer’s famous ad campaign). But the way we organize many of our most important institutions—our schools and our workplaces—tells a very different story. It’s the story of a contemporary phenomenon that I call the New Groupthink—a phenomenon that has the potential to stifle productivity at work and to deprive schoolchildren of the skills they’ll need to achieve excellence in an increasingly competitive world. The New Groupthink elevates teamwork above all else. It insists that creativity and intellectual achievement come from a gregarious place. It has many powerful advocates. “Innovation—the heart of the knowledge economy—is fundamentally social,” writes the prominent journalist Malcolm Gladwell. “None of us is as smart as all of us,” declares the organizational consultant Warren Bennis,

Oh,” he said, stopping in the doorway. “I should probably warn you. Your beds might take a little getting used to.” “Why?” Tesla asked. “What’s wrong with them?” When Uncle Newt had shown them their room earlier, the beds had looked normal enough. Not that Nick and Tesla had paid much attention to them. They’d been distracted—and horrified—by the posters haphazardly stapled to the wall: Teletubbies, Elmo, Smurfs, Albert Einstein, and the periodic table. (Nick and Tesla had quickly agreed that the first three would “fall down” and “accidentally” “get ripped” at the first opportunity.) “There’s nothing wrong with your beds, and everything right!” Uncle Newt declared. “I’m telling you, kids. You haven’t slept till you’ve slept on compost!” “What?” Nick and Tesla said together. Even Uncle Newt couldn’t miss the disgust on their faces. “Maybe I’d better come up and explain,” he said. Uncle Newt pulled the comforter off Nick’s bed and revealed something that didn’t look like a bed at all. It was more like a lumpy black sleeping bag with tubes and wires poking out of one end. “Behold!” Uncle Newt said. “The biomass thermal conversion station!” Nick reluctantly gave it a test-sit. It felt like he was lowering himself onto a garbage bag stuffed with rotten old food. Because he was. “As you sleep,” Uncle Newt explained, “your body heat will help decompose food scraps pumped into the unit, which will in turn produce more heat that the convertor will turn into electricity. So, by the time you wake up in the morning, you’ll have enough power to—ta da!” Uncle Newt waved his hands at a coffeemaker sitting on the floor nearby. “Brew coffee?” Tesla said. Uncle Newt gave her a gleeful nod. “We don’t drink coffee,” said Nick. “Then you can have a hot cup of invigorating fresh-brewed water.” “Great,” Nick said. He experimented with a little bounce on his “bed.” He could feel slimy things squishing and squashing beneath his butt. “Comfy?” Uncle Newt asked. “Uhh … kind of,” Nick said. Uncle Newt beamed at his invention. “Patent pending,” he said. Uncle Newt was a gangly man with graying hair, but at that moment he looked like a five-year-old thinking about Christmas. Tesla gave the room a tentative sniff. “Shouldn’t the compost stink?” “Oh, no, no, no, no, no! Each biomass thermal conversion station is completely airtight!” Uncle Newt’s smile wavered just the teeniest bit. “In theory.” Nick opened his mouth to ask another question, but Uncle Newt didn’t seem to notice. “Well,” he said, slapping his hands together, “I guess you two should wash your teeth and brush your faces and all that. Good night!

Albert Einstein wrote from Berlin to the French writer and pacifist, Romain Rolland: ‘When posterity recounts the achievements of Europe, shall we let men say that three centuries of painstaking cultural effort carried us no farther than from religious fanaticism to the insanity of nationalism? In both camps today even scholars behave as though eight months ago they suddenly lost their heads.’ ***

Lo commuoveva un po’, a volte, quella sua ingenua convinzione che il mondo avesse senso. Doveva sempre trattenersi dal disilluderlo con brutalità, perché era evidente a chiunque avesse vissuto davvero che nella realtà non c’era nulla di logico, o giusto, o equilibrato. Soltanto rapporti di potere più o meno sbilanciati, modi diversi di tenersi a galla. Vendere la pelle, o affittarla. Salvando l’anima, forse. O l’illusione di averla.Forse era quello l’altro problema con Carlos.Sembrava avere la stessa illusione stupida. Solo che, nel suo caso, si faceva aggressiva.«Se mi tirassi indietro all’ultimo sarebbe tanto grave?» domandò, e stava scherzando solo in parte. Nel monitor vide Keith soffocare un sospiro e sentì il bip del cellulare, in sottofondo, la sveglia programmata per permettergli di trascinarsi a lezione. «Vabbè, scusa l’improvvisata. Ti lascio andare, su.»«Viv,» lo richiamò l’amico, un attimo prima che lui premesse il pulsante per spegnere. Skype gli aveva sempre dato fastidio, in realtà; lo usava perché Keith sembrava tenerci ed era più a suo agio con un pc che con il cellulare in mano, ma ogni volta che doveva chiudere la conversazione si sentiva prendere dalla smania. «Promettimi che non gli darai buca.»«Perché dovrei prometterlo a te?» domandò, lo sguardo fisso su un punto indistinto alle sue spalle: si intravedeva un angolo del poster che aveva appeso alla parete, qualcosa di terribilmente cervellotico, senza dubbio: tipo la tavola periodica o qualche formula di Einstein. «Perché sono tuo amico e dai importanza a quello che penso o non mi avresti chiamato.»«Certo che ci do importanza,» ribatté lui, alzando gli occhi al cielo. «Ma questo non c’entra.»«Tu promettimelo e basta.»«Va bene.» Lo guardò negli occhi, a quel punto, con il dubbio di mentire. La vergogna di non saperlo spiegare. «Ci proverò. Lo giuro.»«Grazie.»Gli fece un sorriso. Poi chiuse la conversazione in fretta, prima che mantenerlo diventasse troppo doloroso. Carlos sorrideva cauto, quando Viv l’aveva trovato ad aspettarlo accanto al portone: si era staccato un po’ impacciato dal muro, aveva sfregato i palmi contro la giacca in un gesto istintivo di imbarazzo. Sembrava dolce e fuori posto; bellissimo, ma troppo lontano per essere vero.Gli aveva dato un bacio sulla guancia, breve e delicato. Viv aveva chiuso gli occhi, il cuore in gola per la tensione della mattina, e quella del presente; gli era sembrato che quel contatto asciutto e gentile fosse indirizzato a un’altra persona.Quando aveva riaperto gli occhi, un istante dopo, aveva pensato – inspiegabilmente, con un po’ di spavento – che forse avrebbe potuto sforzarsi di diventarla.Carlos non sembrava pensare nulla di simile, però, mentre lo faceva salire in auto e gli richiudeva la portiera alle spalle, chiacchierando a ruota libera di cose piccole, leggere, insignificanti solo nel senso che non cambiavano la vita. Viv sentiva le labbra muoversi, mentre rispondeva con lo stesso tono lieve, ma era come se non fosse lui davvero a parlare; non avrebbe saputo ripetere una sola battuta. Guardava il sole che entrava dal finestrino, diafano come il novembre che sgocciolava via intorno a loro, e cercava di capire quale fosse il senso che l’aveva portato lì, contro ogni aspettativa: gli sembrava che, se avesse abbassato lo sguardo sulle mani posate in grembo, avrebbe potuto trovare i frammenti di quello che era stato, la persona che Carlos aveva conosciuto qualche mese prima e quella che si stava sgretolando al suo fianco momento dopo momento; come se la sua stessa presenza facesse pressione sulle crepe che lo tagliavano da sempre, e lo mandasse a pezzi del tutto.Gli avrebbero ferito i palmi se avesse stretto i pugni?Ci provò, ma non sentì dolore; solo quell’impressione di estraneità crescente