“Bize iyi seçilmiş iki cümle ile şu sizin Görelilik Kuramı’nı anlatır mısın?” diye sorarlar.
“İsterseniz size bir hikaye anlatayım” diye yanıtlar soruyu ve anlatır Einstein.
Bir gün kör bir adamla yürüyorduk, nedense birden aklıma geldi. “Canım bir bardak süt
istedi” dedim.
“Süt nedir? diye sordu.
‘’Süt beyaz bir sıvıdır.”
‘’Sıvıyı biliyorum, ama beyaz nedir?’’
‘’Kuğu kuşunun rengidir.’’
“Kuğu kuşu nedir, peki?
“Boynu bükük bir kuş,” dedim.
“Boynu anladım,” dedi. “Ama ‘bükük’ nedir?”
Artık sabrım taşmıştı, adamın kolunu tutup dümdüz uzattım.
“İşte bu düzdür, kıvrıldığında büküktür.” dedim.
Kör adam o zaman gülümsedi.
“Tamam,” dedi. “Sütün ne olduğunu şimdi anladım!”
Facebook sayfamda rastladım kaynağı belirsiz bu öyküyü biraz düzelterek yeniden yazdım,
paylaştım. Ve düşündüm.
Siyah Kuğu diye bir kitap var. Hayatın hep alışıldığı veya beklenildiği üzere tekrar etmediğini, aykırılıklara her zaman hazırlıklı olmak gerektiğini anlatır. Ana fikri şu cümle ile özetlenebilir: Tüm kuğular beyaz değildir.
Kitaba baktım. Yayıncının notunda şu cümleler, ana fikrin başka bir boyutunu ortaya koyuyor:
“Kısaca, ‘Siyah Kuğu’ deyimiyle; olması ihtimal dışı görülen, fakat vuku bulduğunda etkisi çok büyük olan ve bir kez gerçekleştikten sonra, onu daha az rastlantısal kılacak bir açıklama uydurduğumuz olaylar kastedilmektedir. Siyaset ve ekonomi tarihinde olsun, bilim ve teknoloji tarihinde olsun, arkasında iz bırakan hemen hemen tüm olayların birer ‘Siyah Kuğu’ olduğunu hatırlatan yazar, özellikle hayatını riskleri hesaplayarak kazanan insanlara çok önemli bir yeni bakış açısı sunuyor.” Ve aklıma şu iki soru gelince gülümsedim.
1. Görelilik Kuramı gerçekten bir siyah kuğu mudur?
2. Kitabın yazarı Talib bu metaforu Einstein tarafından anlatıldığını sandığım Kör Adam öyküsünden almış olabilir mi?
Hayat aslında çok sade, ama fazlası ile de karmaşık derken gülümsedim kendi kendime.
…..
Yukarıdaki satırları paylaştığım günün ertesinde erkenden uyandığımda yatağımda hala bu hikayenin aslında ne anlama geldiğini düşünürken buldum kendimi. O kuramı çok iyi bilmediğime göre ne kadar dilinecek olsam sağlam bir sonuç çıkaramazdım. Bu saatten sonra görelilik kuramına bir kez daha dalmaya ise hiç niyetim yoktu. Bu hikaye hakkında başkalarının bir şeyler yazmış olacaklarını düşünerek Blind Man and Einstein yazarak internete dalış yaptım. Bulduğum ilk yazıyı kopyalıyorum.
Albert Einstein and his blind friend
This story shows how complex Einstein could be. Not long after his arrival in Princeton he was invited, by the wife of one of the professors of mathematics at Princeton, to be guest of honor at a tea. Reluctantly, Einstein consented. After the tea had progressed for a time, the excited hostess, thrilled to have such an eminent guest of honor, fluttered out into the center of activity and with raised arms silenced the group. Bubbling out some words expressing her thrill and pleasure, she turned to Einstein and said: “I wonder, Dr. Einstein, if you would be so kind as to explain to my guests in a few words, just what is relativity theory ? ” Without any hesitation Einstein rose to his feet and told a story. He said he was reminded of a walk he one day had with his blind friend. The day was hot and he turned to the blind friend and said,“I wish I had a glass of milk.”
“Glass,” replied the blind friend, “I know what that is. But what do you mean by milk ?”
“Why, milk is a white fluid,” explained Einstein.
“Now fluid, I know what that is,” said the blind man. “but what is white ?”
“Oh, white is the color of a swan’s feathers.”
“Feathers, now I know what they are, but what is a swan ?”
“A swan is a bird with a crooked neck.”
“Neck, I know what that is, but what do you mean by crooked ?”
At this point Einstein said he lost his patience. He seized his blind friend’s arm and pulled it straight.
“There, now your arm is straight,” he said. Then he bent the blind friend’s arm at the elbow. “Now it is crooked.”
“Ah,” said the blind friend. “Now I know what milk is.”
And Einstein, at the tea, sat down.
This anecdote illustrates two points, but not as was originally intended.
(1) It does illustrate a problem with much of current university pedagogy. The professor pretends to
teach and the students pretend to learn. If the examinations are crafted so as to test not what was
taught, but rather what was learned, everyone is happy. Grades are good and teaching evaluations
are good, and the only loss is the time wasted with no knowledge gain.
(2) The analogy is wrong in suggesting that relativity cannot be made plausible to persons having
little scientific or mathematical background. It can be explained conceptually to anyone who is
familiar with the action of a magnet, and is willing to accept the fact that electric attaction or
repulsion occurs through the action of an intermediary messenger that travels with finite speed. An
explanation is given on pages 23-24 of the textbook that uses some algebra, but it can also be
made plausible with simple cartoons.
Question: What do swans have to do with Einsteinian Space-Time? Click Here
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Bir yazı daha buldum. Onu da kopyalıyorum.
Relativitity Explained
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) is of course most famous for the massive contribution he made to
physics with his theory of general relativity. He was a huge celebrity in his lifetime, and so had to
spend a great deal of time trying to explain it to people.
The story goes that at a party in America, a woman asked him to explain it in simple terms that she
could understand. He told her this story:
A blind man and his friend are walking down a dusty road in hot weather.
“Oh, for a nice drink of milk,” said his friend.
“Drink I know,” said the blind man, “but what is this milk you speak of?”
“A white liquid”
“Liquid I know, but what is white?”
“White is the colour of a swan’s feathers.”
“Feathers I know, but what is a swan?”
“A bird with a crooked neck.”
“Neck I know, but what is crooked?”
His friend took hold of the blind man’s arm and stretched it out. “That is straight,” he said, then,
bending the arm at the elbow said, “and this is crooked.”
“Ah!” said the blind man, “now I understand what milk is.”
The story
In his lifetime, Einstein was more than just a great physicist, he was also a major celebrity, feted everywhere in the way that movie or music stars are nowadays. Everyone in the western world knew he was a genius, but of course few understood relativity. This social, as well as academic, status would have a profound influence on world history when, after several scientists failed to persuade Washington of the danger of Germany developing an atomic bomb, Einstein (along with Leo Szilárd) wrote a letter to President Roosevelt. The government finally took notice; Einstein’s letter would lead directly to America’s decision to develop the bomb. Because Einstein was such a public figure, there’s a huge fund of stories about his wit. The story above is pretty well known. (I was reminded of it when re-reading The Long Weekend by Robert Graves and Alan Hodge, a social history of Britain between the wars. If you’re interested in this period and have never read it, try to get hold of a copy. It’s a wonderful chatty, thoughtful and amusing read.) There’s also a huge fund of stories about people’s inability to understand relativity. Dr Chaim Weizmann (1874–1952), himself a chemist and later Israel’s first president, once travelled with Einstein. “Throughout the voyage,” Weizmann told an interviewer when their ship docked in New York, “the learned professor kept talking to me about his theories of relativity.” “And what was your opinion about them?” “It seems to me,” said Weizmann, “that Professor Einstein understands them very well …” If you’d like to understand Einstein’s theory of relativity try www.wimp.com/relativitytheory/ BBC History Magazine is not responsible for the content of external websites
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Derken bir yazı daha. Nihayet en şahane yazıyı buldum diye sevindim aşağıdaki yazıya rastlayınca. Benim gibi hikayenin peşine düşmüş olanlardan biri araştırmasının sonuçlarını paylaşıyordu. Yorum kısmında ise aynı hikayenin peşine düşmüş olan birkaç kişinin katkıları vardı. İzlenimim bu hikayeyi aslında Einstein’in hiç anlatmış olmadığı ama ona izafe edildiği şekline dönüştü. Bu yazıyı da aşağıya kopyalıyorum, yorumları merak edenler için bağlantısını ekliyorum. FEBRUARY 1, 2014 BY JAY
Describing the color white to a blind person
Einstein: Wikimedia Commons | Swan: Robert Woeger
I have been searching online for years for this story that’s been half-submerged in my memory,
with no luck; I finally found it in an old journal entry dated June 8, 1985. It was cut out of a
newspaper, but I have no idea which one, and I can’t find this exact version of the story anywhere:
“One day Einstein was asked by a pesky reporter to describe his theory of relativity in a few simple words. He responded with the following story:
“A man was asked by a blind man to describe the color white. The man said, ‘White is the color of a swan.’ The blind man said, ‘What is a swan?’ The man said, ‘A swan is a bird with a crooked neck.’
“The blind man asked, ‘What is crooked?’ The man was becoming impatient. He grabbed the blind man’s arm, straightened it and said, ‘This is straight.’ Then he bent it and said, ‘And this is crooked.’
“Whereupon the blind man quickly said, ‘Yes, yes, thank you. Now I know what white”
So there’s the first clue why I could never find this story online — I had thought it was one of John Cage’s zen stories, but it’s actually a story told by Einstein. This in itself is a good illustration of the fallibility of memory. Here is another version I found, and this fits the pattern of all the references I found to this story:
Einstein and his blindfriend. This story shows how complex Einstein could be. Not long after his arrival in Princeton he was invited, by the wife of one of the professors of mathematics at Princeton, to be guest of honor at a tea.-Reluctantly, Einstein consented. After the tea had progressed for a time, the excited hostess, thrilled to have such an eminent guest of honor, fluttered out into the center of activity and with raised arms silenced the group. Bubbling out some words expressing her thrill and pleasure, she turned to Einstein and said: “I wonder, Dr. Einstein, if you would be so kind as to explain to my guests in a few words, just what is relativity theory?”
Without any hesitation Einstein rose to his feet and told a story. He said he was reminded of a walk he one day had with his blind friend. The day was hot and he turned to the blind friend and said, “I wish I had a glass of milk.”
“Glass,” replied the blind friend, “I know what that is. But what do you mean by milk?” “Why, milk is a white fluid,” explained Einstein. “Now fluid, I know what that is,” said the blind man. “but what is white ?” “Oh, white is the color of a swan’s feathers.” “Feathers, now I know what they are, but what is a swan?” “A swan is a bird with a crooked neck.”
“Neck, I know what that is, but what do you mean by crooked?”
At this point Einstein said he lost his patience. He seized his blind friend’s arm and
pulled it straight. “There, now your arm is straight,” he said. Then he bent the blind
friend’s arm at the elbow. “Now it is crooked.”
“Ah,” said the blind friend. “Now I know what milk is.” And Einstein, at the tea, sat down.
Now the plot thickens. Here is a similar version of the milk story, but with Einstein now completely out of the picture, as told by the Hungarian-British writer George Mikes, in one of his books, which I found quoted in a post to the Pakistan Gardening Forum, of all places:
“A blind man asks a young girl to describe milk. The young girl is astonished that he doesn’t even know what milk is. “Milk is white,” she tells him. The old man tells her that he is blind and doesn’t know what white means. The young girl tells him that this is very easy to explain and tells him that a swan is white. The old man tells her that a swan may be white, but he has never seen a swan. “It has a curved neck,” she tells him. The blind man says that he has no idea what ‘curved’ is. She lifts her arm, bends her wrists forward like a swan’s neck. “Feel it,” she says, “that’s curved.” The old man feels the girl’s arm, touches the girl’s wrist and exclaims joyfully: “Thank God. Now at last I know what milk is.”
What of this strange connection between the “white” things called “milk” and “swans”? Turns out that goes back to Hinduism and Sanskrit, according to the swan page on Wikipedia:
“Swans are revered in Hinduism, and are compared to saintly persons whose chief characteristic is to be in the world without getting attached to it, just as a swan’s feather does not get wet although it is in water. The Sanskrit word for swan is hamsa or hansa, and it is the vehicle of many deities like the goddess Saraswati. It is mentioned several times in the Vedic literature, and persons who have attained great spiritual capabilities are sometimes called Paramahamsa (“Great Swan”) on account of their spiritual grace and ability to travel between various spiritual worlds. In the Vedas, swans are said to reside in the summer on Lake Manasarovar and migrate to Indian lakes for the winter. They’re believed to possess some powers such as the ability to eat pearls. They are also believed to be able to drink up the milk and leave the water from a saucer of milk adulterated with water. This is taken as a great quality, as shown by this Sanskrit verse:”
“Hamsah shwetah, bakah shwetah, kah bhedah hamsa bakayo?
Neeraksheera viveketu, Hamsah hamsah, bakah bakah! “
“(The swan is white, the duck is white, so how to differentiate between both of them? With the milk-water test, the swan is proven swan, the duck is proven duck!)”
I guess the ancients required empirical evidence to distinguish a swan from a duck, a task that many modern humans can perform with relative ease. Of all the versions of this story that might be floating around the universe, I like the original one I clipped from an unknown newspaper all those years ago, because to me the idea of describing the color white to a blind person is much more abstract and interesting than describing what milk is, since milk, after all, is a substance that can be discerned by other senses. But how can you possibly describe “white” without referencing other things? Such is relativity.
Coda: I have now found printed source attribution for the second Einstein story (still can’t find mention of the first): The Chicago Daily News, as quoted in the journal New Outlook, May 1952, p. 33
(p.278 of the downloadable PDF of all 1952 issues together). Thanks Google Books!
Filed Under: Ideas, NarrativeTagged With: Albert Einstein, George Mikes, John Cage, stories, Zen
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Hayır bitmedi, bir yazı daha buldum. Ama bu son olsun. Neden son olsun? Çünkü.. Bu yazı alabildiğine kısa olmasına karşılık bu hikayenin izini daha fazla sürmenin gereksizliğini, her şeyin gerçekten de aslında hem çok basit, hem aşırı karmaşık olduğunu daha güçlü şekilde hissetmeme yol açtı.
Explaining to a Blind Person
JOKE OF THE WEEK, 3 Apr 2017
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service
Someone asked Albert Einstein at a party: “Oh, you are Albert Einstein, could you please explain me your relativity theory in three or four sentences?”
Einstein thought for a while and then he said, “I am very sorry, it is not really possible to explain relativity theory so quickly, but I will at least try to explain you why not.
Once I went for a walk with a blind man on a warm summer afternoon. After a while we came to a restaurant and sat down at a table. I asked him, ‘Would you like a glass of milk?’ ‘I know what a glass is,’ the blind man said, ‘but what is milk?’ ‘Milk is a white fluid,’ I replied. ‘Aha, I know what a fluid is,’ he said, ‘but what is white?’ ‘White is the color of swans,’ I explained to him. ‘I know what a color is, but what are swans?’ ‘Swans are big birds with a crooked neck.’ ‘Oh, birds,’ the man exclaimed, ‘I have heard of birds. And what is crooked?’ I took his arm, stretched it and said, ‘This is straight,’ then I bent it and said, ‘and this is crooked.’ The man’s face turned into a happy smile and he said, ‘Now I finally know what milk is.’”
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 3 Apr 2017.
Şimdilik bu kadar.
