The Invisible Century: Einstein, Freud, and The Search for Hidden Universes

Összefoglaló

Describes the commonalities in the scientific methods pioneered by Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud, citing how their applications of non-traditional methods opened up unprecedented intellectual landscapes and founded the sciences of cosmology and psychoanalysis.

They met only once. During the New Year's holiday season of 1927, Albert Einstein called on Sigmund Freud, who was staying at the home of one of his sons in Berlin. Einstein, at forty-seven, was the foremost living symbol of the physical sciences, while Freud, at seventy, was his equal in the social sciences, but the evening was hardly a meeting of the minds. When a friend wrote Einsten just a few months later suggesting that he allow himself to undergo psychoanalysis, Einstein answered, "I regret that I cannot accede to your request, because I should like very much to remain in the darkness of not having been analyzed." Or, as Freud wrote to a friend regarding Einstein immediately after their meeting in Berlin, "He understands as much about psychology as I do about physics, so we had a very pleasant talk."