We've all gotten the email about Einstein humiliating an atheistic professor, an incident that never happened. Yesterday via Facebook someone shared with me a dramatization of this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JgpARGvBnc
They shared the link to say to me, "See! Einstein was a believer and he sure dealt with that haughty professor! Hah!"
Nice production- problem is, it never happened. As we all know, Einstein did not believe in a personal God that was concerned with the affairs of humans. http://www.snopes.com/religion/einstein.asp
Moments after viewing the video, I was disturbed because I knew the video was not factual.
It is my understanding that Einstein admired the beauty and logic underlying the natural world. He viewed values and morals as human constructs.
In any event, I simply wanted to share the link. The video could actually be used to stimulate an interesting discussion in class on the proper role of religion, science, and historical accuracy...as well as what Einstein really believed. Perhaps the point of the video production was, I guess, to stimulate such discussion, though I believe there are serious ethical issues here. The history shown should have been real history!
Thoughts? Corrections? Concerns? Just curious how the phys-l community responds to this use of the "Einstein icon" by the culture.