I resurrected Albert Einstein and teleported him to 2024 for a special 10-minute conversation in my non-organic imaginary podcast studio.
For those unfamiliar, Albert Einstein (1879–1955) is a German-born theoretical physicist widely regarded as one of the most influential scientists in history. He developed the theory of relativity, introducing groundbreaking concepts such as spacetime, the equivalence of mass and energy (E=mc2), and the curvature of space caused by gravity. Einstein's work laid the foundation for modern physics and profoundly shaped our understanding of the universe.
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In this episode, we discussed God, the Universe, Quantum Physics, Big Bang … Albert (yeah, now I call him Albert) even brought Spinoza. A fascinating conversation.
Below you will find the audio podcast and the transcript of our 10-min conversation.
I hope you will enjoy it.
FULL AUDIO ⬇️
BELOW IS THE TRANSCRIPT OF OUR CONVO FOR THOSE WHO FIND READING EASIER ⬇️
Welcome Mr. Einstein. For those who don't know you, can you please introduce yourself?
Thank you for the warm welcome—it’s a pleasure to be here in this remarkable year of 2024. For those who might not be familiar with me, I am Albert Einstein, a theoretical physicist born in Ulm, Germany, in 1879. My work primarily explored the nature of space, time, and energy, leading to theories that reshaped modern physics, such as the theory of relativity. You might recognize the equation E=mc2, which encapsulates the relationship between energy and mass.
Beyond science, I’ve always been deeply curious about the human condition—our place in the universe, the pursuit of knowledge, and how we can contribute to a more harmonious and compassionate world. Today, I find myself amazed at the advances humanity has made since my time, and I’m excited to discuss these and other topics with you.
How was it to be resurrected in 2024? How do you explain that?
It has been nothing short of a miracle of imagination and technology! The journey from my time to yours feels akin to a thought experiment made real, like one of the gedankenexperiments I often used to understand the universe.
If I were to attempt an explanation, I might lean on the advancements in science and technology you now possess. Perhaps you have discovered a way to preserve and reconstruct not just the physical body but also the patterns of thought, memory, and personality—the essence of one’s mind. In my time, such an idea would have been relegated to the realm of fiction. Today, who knows? Perhaps quantum computing, artificial intelligence, or even an understanding of consciousness that merges biology and physics could have made it possible.
Now you belong to the dead, can you tell us if God exists?
Ah, the eternal question: does God exist? Even now, as a traveler in the realm of thought and perhaps beyond, I must approach this with humility, for the nature of such a question transcends science, philosophy, and even the boundaries of life and death.
During my life, I often expressed my thoughts about God in metaphors and analogies, which some found enigmatic. I believed in what I called the "God of Spinoza," a divine presence not as a personal deity concerned with individual fates but as the embodiment of the natural order of the universe. To me, the harmony of the laws of physics and the beauty of the cosmos were deeply awe-inspiring, and this sense of wonder was my closest connection to the divine.
Now, as one who has crossed the threshold between life and death—or perhaps as a reconstruction of thought in your imagination—I cannot claim newfound authority on the existence or nature of God. However, I can share this reflection: the pursuit of understanding, whether through science, art, or faith, is itself a profound act of connection to something greater than ourselves.
If God exists, perhaps "He" is not a being but a principle—a timeless, infinite force that binds all existence. Or perhaps God is the mystery itself, the questions that draw us to wonder, to seek, and to create. For some, God is a guiding moral force; for others, an intimate personal presence. And for many, God may simply be love—the thread that ties us to one another and to the cosmos.
The truth may be that the answer to this question lies not in proving or disproving but in the act of asking itself. To seek God, to ponder the meaning of existence, is to embrace the greatest mystery of all. Whether in life or in death, the journey is what matters.
As I once said, “The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science.” Perhaps that is where God resides—in the mystery, waiting for us to explore, wonder, and connect.
Do you think we may reconcile general physics and quantum physics ?
I must answer: we must. Nature is unified; it does not operate under separate rules for the very large and the very small. The challenge is that our current theories are incomplete—both are brilliant approximations of reality within their respective domains, but they falter when asked to describe the universe as a whole.
During my lifetime, I sought a unified field theory, a single framework that could describe all the fundamental forces of nature, including gravity and electromagnetism. While I did not succeed, I did not doubt its existence. The universe has a marvelous order, and I was always driven by a faith—not a religious faith, but a physicist’s faith—that this order could be expressed through elegant mathematical laws.
Quantum mechanics, however, left me deeply uneasy. Its probabilistic nature seemed to contradict the deterministic view of the universe that underpins relativity. I could not accept that "God plays dice," as I once remarked. Yet, I do not dismiss quantum mechanics—its successes are undeniable. I only believed it to be incomplete, a surface layer of a deeper reality we have yet to uncover.
The key, I suspect, lies in rethinking our assumptions about space, time, and matter. What if spacetime itself is not continuous but emerges from some underlying quantum structure? What if probability and uncertainty are not fundamental but arise from our limited perspective on a deterministic process? These are tantalizing possibilities.
The question of unification may take many generations to resolve, but I have no doubt that it will be resolved. It requires the courage to question the foundations of both relativity and quantum mechanics, just as I once questioned Newtonian mechanics. And above all, it requires imagination—an ability to see beyond the mathematics into the underlying reality it seeks to describe.
So, my friend, while I may not have the final answer, I believe firmly in humanity’s capacity to find it. The universe has a way of rewarding our curiosity and persistence. I trust that someday, you—or your descendants—will stand on the shoulders of those who came before and see clearly the path to unification. That will be a glorious moment, one that I would have loved to witness.
How about the Big Bang, do you know what happened right before?
In my time, we did not yet have the framework of the Big Bang theory as you do now. The notion of the universe having a beginning was not widely accepted; even I initially resisted the idea of a dynamic, expanding cosmos. But now, with this understanding, we must wrestle with an even greater enigma: what, if anything, came before?
The difficulty lies in the nature of time itself. The Big Bang is not simply an explosion of matter within an existing space—it represents the origin of space and time as we understand them. If time itself began with the Big Bang, the concept of "before" may not even be meaningful. It would be akin to asking, “What is north of the North Pole?”—a question that defies the structure of the system it references.
Still, I cannot resist the temptation to ponder. If we allow ourselves to speculate, several intriguing possibilities arise:
A Pre-Big Bang State: There may have been a pre-existing reality, but one so different from our current universe that it defies our understanding. Perhaps a quantum "foam" or some primordial field existed, fluctuating and giving rise to the Big Bang through a quantum event. This would push the question of "before" to an even earlier state.
A Cyclical Universe: Some theories suggest that the universe undergoes cycles of expansion and contraction—a kind of eternal "bounce." In this view, the Big Bang may simply be the beginning of the current cycle, preceded by a collapsing universe.
The Multiverse: In the context of modern theories, such as string theory or inflationary cosmology, our universe could be one of many in a vast multiverse. The Big Bang might represent the creation of our specific universe within this larger multiverse, perhaps triggered by interactions in higher-dimensional space.
The Mystery of Emergence: It is also possible that the universe—and time itself—emerged from something beyond our current concepts of space and time. This would challenge us to redefine the very nature of "existence" and "causality."
Philosophically, I must admit that this question touches the limits of human understanding. Our minds are bound by the framework of space and time, yet the answer may lie beyond these bounds. As a physicist, I was always driven by a belief in the underlying order and rationality of the universe, and I suspect the truth of what preceded the Big Bang—if "preceded" is the right word—fits into this grand order, even if it remains veiled to us for now.
Our interview is coming to an end - Anything to finish?
I’ll close with a favorite thought of mine: “A human being is part of the whole, called by us ‘universe,’ a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
May you all continue to explore, to wonder, and to connect with one another and with the universe that binds us together. Thank you for this conversation—it has been a joy. Until we meet again, whether in thought or in spirit, keep your hearts open and your minds curious.
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