Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 50 — page 112: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Great men of science—6 ALBERT EINSTEIN by H.J.C. Those of us who were duds at school can always point,to Einstein with whom we have something in common—even if we do not share his genius. For young Albert was the very opposite of a promising student, mainly perhaps be- cause he was rather contemp- tuous of the Teutonic atmos- phere of his school and the rigidity of its curriculum. Having enough intelligence to know that open rebellion would have incurred a great waste of energy, he chose the attitude of simply ignoring authority and orthodoxy, and going his own sweet, en- chanted way. He has carried this attitude with him ail his life. It has made him scepticai, a little introspective, liberal-minded and an acute observer of the frailty of human conduct codes. It has also made him the world’s greatest theoretical physicist. So great is his independence of mind (and knowledge, too, of course) .that he can categorically re- Lil ject “modern physics’ and take an almost lone position as disbeliever in the quantum theory. Through all this deep con- cern with physical matters, Einstein has yet remained what is often cailed a religious man. When objectors to the idea of evolution said that God might have created the rock strata and strewn them with fossils, Einstein remarked that: ““God is ingenious, but He is not malicious.” Perhaps the greatest single factor which distinguishes Ein- stein from his peers is that he is still a firm adherent to the theory of causation—while other eminent physicisis are beginning to doubt that sub- atomic phenomena have a causal basis. Thus Einstein is, in a sense, being old- fashioned. He is clinging to an idea which, after all, lies at the very root of all science. To him, everything has a cause. He has built his whole life and philosophy on that idea. And the event which really comiclbooks.cormn