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Feynman because at least he’d talk on my level
Consent?
As if any of these people want to talk to ME for 3 hours?
Maybe Hawkings wheelchair battery died, and you are at the bus stop. What’s he going to do? Say no? See, he would never say no…because of the implication.
Feynman, he was a blast to listen to
Einstein.
He was a generally great guy and had very progressive social views, so it would be fun to talk to him about the current state of the world.
Also a lot of his theories around relativity and theories of quantum physics have been proven recently. It would be amazing to see his mind be blown when he realises both sides were right and what that means for how a theory of everything needs to look like.
To say he was a generally great guy really overlooks how awful he was to women. He was no doubt brilliant, but he had some very serious character flaws. And unfortunately, he had an echo chamber of peers and a rockstar celebrity status that only worked to reinforce his shitty behavior and backwards views. It’s not super uncommon for brilliant people to be absolutely nightmares on a personal level. Imagine being an absolutely brilliant scientist that gets married only to be completely forbidden from science and the things you love, and then reduced to being a maid for a madman with tons of insanely particular demands.
Yeah I’d love to discuss just the world and life with him.
Curie would be fun too.
Keep Newton away from me. And wasn’t hawking on the epstein island?
As far as ones who actually did things there I’m not sure that Hawking would have even been physically capable at a point where he was famous.
Hawking left his wife for his much younger nurse. Then, 20 years later, he left her for another much younger nurse. Proving that not only does nature abhor a vacuum, but that some people are only happy when someone else is doing the sucking.
Hawking was such a feminist he didn’t want to see women get on their knees.
And he was so smart he figured out kids don’t have to!
Feynman didn’t even write his books
I’d go for Leonardo. The others - while I understand things at a basic level - I’d likely not be able to understand most of their fields.
Maybe Tesla but I’m not sure if the conversation would end up centered around some of the neat science stuff I could grasp or pigeons with laser-eyes …
while I understand things at a basic level
… including Italian, right? Otherwise it could be a brief chat.
Ok… well we are discussing the fictive ability to speak with somebody who is dead. I’m assuming that whatever necromancy/chronomancy is involved included some sort of translation.
Hell, if it’s necromancy then the only thing we might get out of poor Leo is a “cerveeeeeeelli” before he lunges across the table :-)
I mean it will be three hours either way, even if your are shouting broken Spanish at him.
Agreed, Leonardo had that natural sense of curiosity and wonder that I can imagine being completely infectious.
Bohr
Hawkings, how was Epstein island?
Really? Only one woman? Marie Curie is my choice
3h in a room with her might put you over your annual allowed radiation limit though.
True, thanks for the heads-up
Where’s Von Neumman?!
We need to get Euler in there as well!
“So, did you ever have any plans to build that helicopter thing you drew?”
“Chi sei? Dove sono? Come sono arrivato qui?”
“Sorry, what?”
You could use a phone to translate what people who speak in modern languages are saying, but I don’t know how well it would translate to and from 15th century Italian.
Leonardo to blow his mind and maybe make a time paradox
Tesla to explain to him that he really needs to take some financial advice because it’s not about him, it’s about people using his techniques.
Edison to punch in the face repeatedly for an hour
With Marie Curie but perhaps via zoom.
I was about to say one of them should be allowed 30h but hell yes
Newton, because he was a revolutionary thinker for his time & it would be most fulfilling to just show him the wonders of the modern world & see the excitement in his eyes. Their all way to smart for me to gain any scientific knowledge of value that others hadn’t already, so might as well make Newtons day & show him some cool stuff.
Newton had massive social adjustment issues and deep religious convictions. I’m not so sure he would react well to the modern world.
Probably Einstein, because he seems like an interesting dude beyond his physics. He liked philosophy, for example, and is one of the examples that I invoke when I argue that university level science education should involve more philosophy — Einstein wasn’t an anomaly in this respect, but a good symbol for discussing how the practice of scientists doing philosophy seems to have waned over the 20th century.
He was also pro-socialism, and had sensible takes about how science isn’t a universal solution to stuff, but a specialised tool that is good for some problems but not for others.
Related: those who enjoy long video essays may enjoy this one from an awesome ex-astrophysicist: Einstein Was a Socialist; Should We Care? (1h16m)
pro-socialism
Some people really can’t say the C-word.
I mean, Socialism and Communism are different things. Regardless of one’s own personal perspective on the matter, it’s certainly plausible that someone could be in favour of socialism, but not communism (I can’t speak to Einstein’s views on communism specifically, given that much of what I know of his political views in this vein comes from his essay “Why Socialism?”. He may well have been a raging commie, but chose Socialism because he was aiming his piece at a particular audience.)
Edit: forgot to close my parentheses
(I can’t speak to Einstein’s views on communism specifically, given that much of what I know of his political views in this vein comes from his essay “Why Socialism?”. He may well have been a raging commie, but chose Socialism because he was aiming his piece at a particular audience.)
He already had to leave one country before, it’s probably more him being careful.
The FBI had opened its file on Einstein in 1932, , when he was seeking to immigrate to the United States, with a long report by the Woman Patriot Corporation (WPC), which in its extreme anti-Communism, claimed that Einstein was inadmissible to the country. “Not even Stalin himself,” the WPC charged, “is affiliated with so many anarcho-communist international groups to promote…world revolution and ultimate anarchy, as ALBERT EINSTEIN.”3 The FBI continued to collect everything it could on Einstein’s numerous socialist connections for the remainder of his life.
Couldn’t work on the atomic bomb bcs the military considered him a security risk.
Nobody is going to out themselves as communist in those circumstancesIn order to properly comment, I think I’d need to learn more about the differences between socialism and communism as understood when Einstein wrote his essay. I have a good sense of how we understand and use those terms nowadays, but a lot has changed since then in terms of the development of political theories, but also the wider cultural context.
What is clear though is that the essay was a ballsy move, even if Socialism was regarded as less dangerous than communism
