THE WORLD CHANGES

Don't criticize
What you can't understand
— Bob Dylan



Dear Spike:

So profound was the work Albert Einstein did in 1905 that scientists have taken to calling that year his annus mirabilis — Latin for “miracle year.” The theories he advanced that year (in his spare time, no less, as he still was working as a clerk in a patent office) revolutionized the way we understand time, light, motion and matter.

Yet at the time, nobody really noticed.

It would be three years before Einstein would land even a part-time teaching job — and four years more before he would be accepted as a full professor at the prestigeous Swiss Polytechnic.

And it was not until 1919, 14 years after his now famous flurry of discovery, that Einstein was treated to the notoriety that marked the remainder of his life — not for the celebrated equation E = mc2 but rather for having predicted the way the light of distant stars would behave when nearing our Sun.

Detailing the way the effect had been measured and studied following a solar eclipse earlier in the year, The New York Times reported. . .

LIGHTS ALL ASKEW IN THE HEAVENS;
Men of Science More or Less Agog Over Results of Eclipse Observations;
EINSTEIN THEORY TRIUMPHS
Stars Not Where They Seemed or Were Calculated to be, but Nobody Need Worry.

Ah, they just don’t write headlines like they used to.

Here’s my point: Sometimes the world changes and no one notices. But that don't mean the times aren’t a changin’.

When you learn something that changes the way you see the world, don’t be discouraged if it seems that everyone else is still moving around the sun at the same old speed of 18.55 miles per second.

After all, everything is relative.

Love,
dad