Excerpt
His accent and rumpled appearance was the origin of the media’s
‘mad scientist’, but there was nothing mad about any part of him.
Through research and assumption, he came up with a mystery that
shook the scientific world and spurred on a number of other scientists.
Although many of his calculations were later proven wrong, the key
element is that Einstein made the first great scientific leap after Newton.
When I think of him, I see beautiful questions and a beautiful mind.
Ken tells a story of a meeting between Einstein, Bohr and a young
Danish scientist, Dr. John Moffat. This could fall within the peculiar
category of Six Degrees of Separation—the inexplicable chance of meeting
someone, who knows someone, connected in an obscure way to you.
John Moffat is a friend of Averill Lehan, a photographer I met during
the Isumataq project. Moffat’s mother was Danish, his father English
and they were in Denmark when John was born. As a young man, he
achieved some recognition as a painter, but like me, his brain was filled
with ideas that wouldn’t let him alone. He tried to get into academic
programmes that would permit him to move into advanced scientific
studies.
Moffat was an impatient twenty-year-old and felt he had important
things to share, but all doors were closed to him. He did not have the
required academic prerequisites, therefore, no credentials! He wrote a letter
to Albert Einstein respectfully sharing his calculations and explaining, with
regret, that he believed they proved the great man’s theories were flawed.
Dr. Einstein wrote back expressing interest in Moffat’s arguments. This
initiated an ongoing correspondence between them. It was the mid-1950s.
The US press got hold of the story, which tweaked the interest of the Brits.
The Physics Department at Cambridge University arranged with
Moffat to examine the correspondence. That was the tipping point. Niels
Bohr was connected with Cambridge, and he also developed an interest in
this young fellow, who’s quoted as saying, “Suddenly doors of opportunity
were swinging open for me.”
