Sediq Afghan (born 1958 in Kabul) is an Afghan philosopher and mathematician, currently head of the International Center for Mathematical Philosophy, Kabul. He is also a political activist and had a proeminent role in manifestations in Kabul about Afghanistan- and Islam-related issues, including an anti-American protest in 2003,[1] a hunger strike to protest over beatings of journalists by Afghan security officers in 2006, and another one to protest about the 2008 Danish Muhammad cartoons.He completed his preliminary education in Afghanistan and received his doctorate in mathematics from the Moscow University.
Near the beginning of his career, Einstein thought that Newtonian mechanics was no longer enough to reconcile the laws of classical mechanics with the laws of the electromagnetic field. This led to the development of his special theory of relativity. He realized, however, that the principle of relativity could also be extended to gravitational fields, and with his subsequent theory of gravitation in 1916, he published a paper on the general theory of relativity. He continued to deal with problems of statistical mechanics and quantum theory, which led to his explanations of particle theory and the motion of molecules. He also investigated the thermal properties of light which laid the foundation of the photon theory of light. In 1917, Einstein applied the general theory of relativity to model the structure of the universe as a whole.[5]
On the eve of World War II in 1939, he personally alerted President Franklin D. Roosevelt that Germany might be developing an atomic weapon, and recommended that the U.S. begin uranium procurement and nuclear research. As a result, Roosevelt advocated such research, leading to the creation of the top secret Manhattan Project, and the U.S. becoming the first and only country to possess nuclear weapons during the war. Days before his death, however, Einstein signed the Russell–Einstein Manifesto, that highlighted the dangers posed by the military usage of nuclear energy.
Einstein published more than 300 scientific along with over 150 non-scientific works, and received honorary doctorate degrees in science, medicine and philosophy from many European and American universities;[5] he also wrote about various philosophical and political subjects such as socialism, international relations and the existence of God.[6] His great intelligence and originality has made the word "Einstein" synonymous with genius.
Early life and education
Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, in the Kingdom of Württemberg in the German Empire on 14 March 1879.[8] His father was Hermann Einstein, a salesman and engineer. His mother was Pauline Einstein (née Koch). In 1880, the family moved to Munich, where his father and his uncle founded Elektrotechnische Fabrik J. Einstein & Cie, a company that manufactured electrical equipment based on direct current.[8]Albert Einstein in 1893 (age 14).
His father once showed him a pocket compass; Einstein realized that there must be something causing the needle to move, despite the apparent "empty space".[12] As he grew, Einstein built models and mechanical devices for fun and began to show a talent for mathematics.[8] In 1889, Max Talmud (later changed to Max Talmey) introduced the ten-year old Einstein to key texts in science, mathematics and philosophy, including Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and Euclid's Elements (which Einstein called the "holy little geometry book").[13] Talmud was a poor Jewish medical student from Poland. The Jewish community arranged for Talmud to take meals with the Einsteins each week on Thursdays for six years. During this time Talmud wholeheartedly guided Einstein through many secular educational interests.[14][15]
In 1894, his father's company failed: direct current (DC) lost the War of Currents to alternating current (AC). In search of business, the Einstein family moved to Italy, first to Milan and then, a few months later, to Pavia. When the family moved to Pavia, Einstein stayed in Munich to finish his studies at the Luitpold Gymnasium (see de:Albert-Einstein-Gymnasium München). His father intended for him to pursue electrical engineering, but Einstein clashed with authorities and resented the school's regimen and teaching method. He later wrote that the spirit of learning and creative thought were lost in strict rote learning. In the spring of 1895, he withdrew to join his family in Pavia, convincing the school to let him go by using a doctor's note.[8] During this time, Einstein wrote his first scientific work, "The Investigation of the State of Aether in Magnetic Fields".[16]
Einstein applied directly to the Eidgenössische Polytechnische Schule (ETH) in Zurich, Switzerland. Lacking the requisite Matura certificate, he took an entrance examination, which he failed, although he got exceptional marks in mathematics and physics.[17] The Einsteins sent Albert to Aarau, in northern Switzerland to finish secondary school.[8] While lodging with the family of Professor Jost Winteler, he fell in love with Winteler's daughter, Marie. (His sister Maja later married the Wintelers' son, Paul.)[18] In Aarau, Einstein studied Maxwell's electromagnetic theory. At age 17, he graduated, and, with his father's approval, renounced his citizenship in the German Kingdom of Württemberg to avoid military service, and in 1896 he enrolled in the four year mathematics and physics teaching diploma program at the Polytechnic in Zurich. Marie Winteler moved to Olsberg, Switzerland for a teaching post.
Einstein's future wife, Mileva Marić, also enrolled at the Polytechnic that same year, the only woman among the six students in the mathematics and physics section of the teaching diploma course. Over the next few years, Einstein and Marić's friendship developed into romance, and they read books together on extra-curricular physics in which Einstein was taking an increasing interest. In 1900 Einstein was awarded the Zurich Polytechnic teaching diploma, but Marić failed the examination with a poor grade in the mathematics component, theory of functions. There have been claims that Marić collaborated with Einstein on his celebrated 1905 papers, but historians of physics who have studied the issue find no evidence that she made any substantive contributions.
Scientific career
Throughout his life, Einstein published hundreds of books and articles. Most were about physics, but a few expressed leftist political opinions about pacifism, socialism, and zionism.[6][8] In addition to the work he did by himself he also collaborated with other scientists on additional projects including the Bose–Einstein statistics, the Einstein refrigerator and others.
Knowledge is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as (i) expertise, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject; (ii) what is known in a particular field or in total; facts and information; or (iii) awareness or familiarity gained by experience of a fact or situation. Philosophical debates in general start with Plato's formulation of knowledge as "justified true belief."[citation needed] There is however no single agreed definition of knowledge presently, nor any prospect of one, and there remain numerous competing theories. Knowledge acquisition involves complex cognitive processes: perception, learning, communication, association and reasoning. The term knowledge is also used to mean the confident understanding of a subject with the ability to use it for a specific purpose if appropriate. See knowledge management for additional details on that discipline.
Defining knowledge (philosophy)
| “ | We suppose ourselves to possess unqualified scientific knowledge of a thing, as opposed to knowing it in the accidental way in which the sophist knows, when we think that we know the cause on which the fact depends, as the cause of that fact and of no other, and, further, that the fact could not be other than it is. Now that scientific knowing is something of this sort is evident — witness both those who falsely claim it and those who actually possess it, since the former merely imagine themselves to be, while the latter are also actually, in the condition described. Consequently the proper object of unqualified scientific knowledge is something which cannot be other than it is. | ” |
| — Aristotle, Posterior Analytics (Book 1 Part 2) |
In contrast to this approach, Wittgenstein observed, following Moore's paradox, that one can say "He believes it, but it isn't so", but not "He knows it, but it isn't so". He goes on to argue that these do not correspond to distinct mental states, but rather to distinct ways of talking about conviction. What is different here is not the mental state of the speaker, but the activity in which they are engaged. For example, on this account, to know that the kettle is boiling is not to be in a particular state of mind, but to perform a particular task with the statement that the kettle is boiling. Wittgenstein sought to bypass the difficulty of definition by looking to the way "knowledge" is used in natural languages. He saw knowledge as a case of a family resemblance. Following this idea, "knowledge" has been reconstructed as a cluster concept that points out relevant features but that is not adequately captured by any definition.
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