Video Library

Could the laws of physics change? The laws of physics are usually meant to be set in stone; variability is not usually part of physics. Yet contradicting Einstein\'s tenet of the constancy of the speed of light raises nothing less than that possibility. I will discuss some of the more dramatic implications of a varying speed of light.

The most important scientist of the twentieth century, and its most important artist, went through their periods of greatest creativity almost simultaneously and in remarkably similar circumstances: Einstein\'s special theory of relativity and Picasso\'s Les Demoiselles d\'Avignon. It turns out they were both working on the same problem: the nature of space and time and, more particularly, simultaneity.

Although Einstein emerged as a leading spokesman for pacifism in 1930, his political views already underwent a major shift even before Hitler came to power in January 1933. Disappointment with negotiations at the 1932 Disarmament Conference in Geneva led him to the conclusion that the only hope of averting a major war was the creation of a strong world government.

Before 1919 Einstein’s political and social interests lay fallow, their moral roots unarticulated. This talk argues that it was his search for Jewish identity as a forty-year old in the years after World War I, as well as his growing commitment to Zionism, that laid the foundation for his active political engagement. We will examine the trajectory of Einstein’s ambiguous relationship with Judaism and Jewish settlement in Palestine from 1919 until the founding of the state of Israel in 1948.