Nobel Laureates
Albert Einstein
Good lord... just writing about him makes me nervous.
His contributions to our understanding of the hidden principles of nature is hard to overstate. In laymen's terms, I personally believe he should have had won more than one Nobel Prize. In my opinion, he deserves at least four.
One for the special theory of relativity. One for the general theory of relativity. One for furthering our understanding of the photoelectric effect (for which he was recognized). And another one for... you name it - black hole, inflation, quantum entanglement, Bose-Einstein condensate, and so on.
My favorite of his work is the Theory of General Relativity.
While grasping the underlying mathematical framework requires deep knowledge of differential geometry and tensor calculus, a high level conceptual understanding is "relatively" (get it? lol, I don't know why this made me laugh) simple.
Most of us have seen something like this. This illustrates that mass warps the spacetime fabric. I sometimes wonder if we can imagine anything outside of it. Like extra dimensions.
While the rubber sheet experiment is a good way to visualize the relation between spacetime and mass, in reality, a more accurate three-dimensional rendition would look like this.
This is how I view our spacetime continuum in the presence of masses.
Of course, Einstein's genius can be attributed his physiological abnormality*, but I believe people tend to underestimate his sheer dedication to the field.
I find his brain fascinating:
a large bundle of fibers that connects the two cerebral hemispheres and facilitates interhemispheric communication in the brain—using a novel technique that allowed for a higher resolution measurement of the fiber thickness. Einstein's corpus callosum was compared to two sample groups: 15 brains of elderly people and 52 brains from people aged 26. Einstein was 26 in 1905, his Annus Mirabilis (Miracle Year). The findings show that Einstein had more extensive connections between certain parts of his cerebral hemispheres compared to both younger and older control group brains.
At the juxtaposition of art and science (right/left hemispheres), Einstein rewrote the laws of physics. I don't believe in benevolent God, but if there is a such supernatural being, I do believe he/she/it is obsessed with beauty and logic.
Back to Einstein's dedication. Here is a letter he wrote to his son.
You learn the most from things you enjoy doing so much that you don’t even notice time passing. I am often so engrossed in my work that I forget to eat lunch.
I believe any work that can withstand the test of time requires such dedication and discipline. When was the last time I was so engrossed in a task that I forgot to eat? Umm... never?
Here is another example:
After one of their outings together, in Copenhagen in the 1920s, physicists Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein got so wrapped up in conversation that, as they returned to Bohr's home, they missed their streetcar stop. The men promptly turned around, resumed their conversation, and missed the stop again. In a letter to Bohr, Einstein later wrote: "Not often in life has a human being caused me such joy by his mere presence."
I do believe every one of us can find that special someone or idea or faith that we are wiling to sacrifice our life (or at least lunch) for.