Reborn and become a Great Scientist

Chapter 228 176 From Berlin to Göttingen

In the original time and space, in the last period of his life, the last good friend Einstein made was also a year-end friend, and it was Gödel who proposed the incompleteness theorem.

The two of them can become good friends because of many factors:
For example, they all work at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton;
A German and an Austrian have similar living customs and both speak German;

We are all smart people, and when we communicate with each other, there is no big gap in IQ;

and many more.

But no one can tell why Einstein liked Gödel so much. Even in the first Albert Einstein Award in 1951, he chose to award this award named after himself to Got Gödel this good friend.

In addition to the points mentioned above, is there any other reason?
For example, Gödel proposed and proved the incompleteness theorem, and slapped his deadly nemesis, the unpleasant old bald Hilbert.

Anyway, in this time and space, Einstein was very happy to see that Chen Muwu's incompleteness theorem was published in the newspaper, which made Hilbert's efforts in recent years all in vain.

Einstein even went to a reporter from the "Berliner Zeitung" to express his views on Chen Muwu's incompleteness theorem.

At that time, the reporter of "Berliner Zeitung" was also worrying about this matter, because he didn't know who to interview.

Hilbert is a highly respected mathematician in Germany, and he is already very old, and he is one of the parties involved in the incident.

His views before being raised by a junior were all wrong, he might be angry, or he might be in a hurry to get angry.

In the first case, going to interview Hilbert is likely to be scolded.

But in the second case, going to interview him is equivalent to sprinkling salt on the wound. The old man is so old, if he gets angry and loses his temper, then he is the culprit.

Instead of interviewing Hilbert, the reporter found several other mathematicians in Berlin.

But they all kept silent about it.

Hilbert is now a master figure in German mathematics, and other mathematicians are either his disciples, nephews or grandchildren.

The "Proceedings of the Royal Society of Science", which officially published the full text of Chen Muwu's paper, has not yet been published, and no one knows what the whole picture of this paper looks like, and whether there are any mistakes in the content.

Only relying on a piece of news in the newspaper reprinted from the British media, even with Russell's endorsement, no one dared to judge the right or wrong of this matter.

And regardless of right or wrong, if you rashly accept an interview with a newspaper reporter and express your opinion on this matter, it is equivalent to making comments on your master, uncle or master, and you will definitely offend Hilbert and his elders.

At this time, Einstein came to the door, which seemed to help the reporter solve an urgent need.

Although Einstein is not considered a mathematician, his scientific status in Germany and the world is extremely high, and his reputation is also one of the best.

There is no problem with letting him express his views, so the sales of the newspaper will be much higher than interviewing those few mathematicians who are not well-known in the eyes of the public.

So the reporter received Einstein very warmly, and asked for his opinion on the matter that Chen Muwu pointed out Hilbert's mistake.

Einstein's evaluation of Chen Muwu seems to have returned to before the autumn of 1924. The latter had not yet proposed the damn probability wave, and he was still a staunch supporter of the former in the fields of relativity and photon theory.

His compliments and compliments made the reporter sitting across from him unable to help wondering how much money Chen Muwu had remitted to Einstein for Mark's benefits in order for him to boast like this.

"Although the "Proceedings of the Royal Society of Science" that published the full text of Dr. Chen's thesis has not yet been published, we still have no way of knowing how he proved the incompleteness theorem, but I believe that this time, the winner will definitely be Dr. Chen.

"When I met Dr. Chen for the first time in China, I only had a short communication with him, and I knew that he would become a great talent in the future.

"You see, the development of things is exactly as I expected. It took Dr. Chen only one year to get his doctorate at Cambridge University, and he won the Nobel Prize in Physics within two years.

"And he has been involved in more than one field of science for a long time, first in physics, then in astronomy, chemistry, and now in mathematics.

"The last one that was able to achieve such a comprehensive scientific research, I think of Poincaré in France, and Lord Rayleigh III in Britain.

"But these two people, compared with Dr. Chen, they also have their own shortcomings.

"Lord Rayleigh has never studied astronomy, but Poincaré, like me, has very poor ability to do experiments, and is a pure theorist through and through.

"However, no matter Lord Rayleigh, Professor Poincaré or Dr. Chen, all three of them have one thing in common, that is, they all received education outside Germany.

"Why are the same European countries, the education of Britain and France able to cultivate multi-faceted and multi-disciplinary talents like them, but ours can't?
"Göttingen looked down on Berlin and Hamburg because the Germans were so infighting, so-called 'German' scientists looked down on their Jewish colleagues, mathematicians looked down on other disciplines...

"In the long run, the gap between Germany and Britain and France in terms of education will only widen, and talents like Dr. Chen will never be cultivated. This is something worthy of reflection by German educators.

"I even feel a little lucky now, fortunately, Professor Planck did not invite Dr. Chen to study abroad at Humboldt University in Berlin, but let him go to Cambridge University in England.

"If Dr. Chen really came to Germany, then I think the history of human science may lose a multidisciplinary all-rounder forever, and add a staid physicist."

"Having said so much, let me talk about Dr. Chen's new discoveries in mathematics this time.

"The reason why I think Dr. Chen is correct before I have seen the paper is because his previous research in other disciplines is occasionally as unacceptable as it is now, but basically all of them are correct. of.

"And this time, there is Russell, a master of mathematical logic in the UK, standing for him. The plan that Professor Hilbert put forward with confidence is probably already in danger.

"Here I would like to use your newspaper to speak out and persuade Professor Hilbert, hoping that he will not feel unhappy because his mistakes are pointed out by a young student.

"His achievements in mathematics are already very great, and a small mistake cannot conceal his brilliance in other aspects.

"Early before Professor Hilbert, Dr. Chen pointed out a mistake in my gravitational field equation through astronomical observation data. I should not blindly add a universe to the equation in order to maintain a static universe. academic constant.

"After checking the calculations later, I found that the point of view put forward by Dr. Chen is correct, so I have admitted our mistake to the physics community.

"Everyone makes mistakes, and it's not a big deal to make mistakes, as long as you correct them.

"Even Dr. Chen also makes mistakes, but he is still a young man, he is not willing to admit it.

"I hope he can realize the mistakes he made in quantum mechanics as soon as possible, correct his mistakes in time, and make greater contributions to the development of science and the progress of mankind.

"Finally, I would like to say that the idea of ​​those mathematicians trying to standardize mathematics in order to unify science is somewhat unrealistic.

"In my mind, mathematics is just a 'fancy science', far less real than physics.

"Even if we want to find the universal laws of our entire universe, we should not start with mathematics, but with physics.

"The work I am doing now is trying to unify the two basic interaction forces of gravity and electromagnetic force, and trying to find the ultimate law of the universe's operation."

The reporter was overjoyed. He thought that Einstein's point of view was just a few sentences, but he never expected to publish such a lengthy article, and many of the sentences in it were very topical when taken out individually.

As for his criticism of German education and mathematics in his words, he praised Chen Muwu so highly.

Although these are controversial, the reporter does not intend to change a sentence, a word or even a letter.

Anyway, the words are spoken by Einstein with red lips and white teeth. He is just a faithful recorder.

"Professor Einstein, thank you for being here today for my interview."

"It doesn't matter, this is what I should do. When will this interview be published?"

"Maybe it's not tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. I'm trying to get it published as soon as possible."

"Very good, very good, then I will trouble you."

Einstein walked out of the editorial office of the "Berliner Zeitung" in a happy mood. In the interview he accepted today, he achieved a subtle derogation of Hilbert by flattering Chen Muwu.

He Einstein is not a person who holds grudges, but you Hilbert made a mistake, so it’s okay for me to say a few words, right?

In the end, he also shouted at Chen Muwu. In this interview, he praised him so highly. This young man should be very grateful to himself, right?
Maybe he will give up his naive and stubborn idea?

Throughout Germany, the "Berliner Zeitung" was not the only newspaper that reprinted the news from the "Manchester Guardian", and Einstein was not the only one who saw the news.

In Göttingen, Hilbert's new assistant, von Neumann, who had just been recruited at the beginning of this year, walked into his teacher's office with the "Göttingen Daily" that reprinted the news.

The "Göttingen Zeitung" is a newspaper with the largest circulation in the karaoke hall and the local area. It started out as a German nationalist newspaper, but quickly turned after the First World War to adopt more and more right-wing extremism. Report the news from the standpoint of National Socialism.

It was in this newspaper that Born’s student and assistant Jordan published anti-Semitic articles under a pseudonym.

Such a newspaper, when reprinting news, will never use the original headline of the British, but replace it with a new headline that is more in line with their position, "Arrogant Brits Ridiculously Claim They Overthrow the Great The Theory of the German Mathematician".

When useful, Hilbert was the great German mathematician.

However, when he was not used, Hilbert, a pure-bred Aryan, was even suspected of being a Jew, just because his name David was a name often used by Jews.

Although the headline was a little tit-for-tat, the "Göttingen Daily News" still reproduced the news in its entirety, but added a comment from the editorial department at the end, saying that the British were overwhelmed, and had long since given up combing research and turned to social criticism. Russell , even more in name only.

It was not the first time for von Neumann to see Chen Muwu's name in newspapers. He was hailed as a child prodigy since he was a child, and when he went to university, he suddenly found that there was another famous peer in Britain.

The work that von Neumann is currently doing at the University of Göttingen is also related to Chen Muwu.

He is trying to prove that matrix mechanics and wave mechanics are strictly mathematically equivalent, and Dirac, as far away as Cambridge University, is doing the same thing.

And this topic was exactly what Hilbert asked von Neumann to study.

Hilbert proposed 1900 mathematical problems in 23, the sixth of which was to axiomaticize physical theories.

Hilbert had always disliked physicists who used mathematics as a tool, but couldn't use it rigorously.

He also disliked a certain paper published by Chen Muwu on quantum mechanics, which pointed out that matrix mechanics and wave mechanics can be used to calculate the same physical problem and get the same result.

Physicists all believed that this paper proved the equivalence of the two mechanics, but Hilbert scoffed at it.

But he was disdainful and unable to spare his hands to do this little thing, so he put it on hold until von Neumann, who had just obtained a doctorate from the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, came to Göttingen as his assistant, Assign this subject to him.

It’s just that Hilbert’s ambition to axiomatize the physical theory is impossible to realize. Not only the physical theory cannot be axiomatic, but even the mathematics he is most proud of has been declared axiomatic by a young student of Cambridge University. as impossible.

Hilbert was reading Russell's letter to him when von Neumann walked into his office with the newspaper.

Although Hilbert carefully distinguished the two concepts of "true" and "provable" in his formal system, he always believed that the two concepts were actually the same.

So after reading Russell's letter, he still believed that the British had exaggerated in the letter, and the key steps in Chen Muwu's thesis listed in the letter could not prove that his plan was wrong.

"John, what's the matter with you? Why is there such an expression?"

"Professor Hilbert, the newspaper said that Dr. Chen of Cambridge University proposed two incompleteness theorems, proving that your plan is impossible to realize. The paper will be published in the Royal Society's "Natural Science Society" next month. Newspaper..."

"Oh, what are you talking about? You don't need to wait for the British journal. The core steps of that paper have already been explained to me by Professor Russell."

Hilbert raised the letter in his hand to von Neumann.

"For this matter, my evaluation is that physicists should study physics well, and don't try to understand mathematics.

"Because physics is already a difficult thing for them."

(End of this chapter)