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Lectures

A Look at Albert Einstein's Social Conscience



Badash

Albert Einstein is internationally famous for writing three scientific papers 100 years ago whose ideas have since influenced all of modern physics and provided the intellectual seeds for so many other technological developments. But few recognize the great scientist’s social influence as an activist, and the dangers that Einstein’s outspoken views created for him. In his talk “Einstein the Peacenik,” Santa Barbara history of science professor Lawrence Badash explores this side of Einstein’s life. A “World Year of Physics” lecture, it is free to the public and begins at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, October 25 at Berkeley High School’s Florence Schwimley Little Theatre.

The talk is the first of three in a Distinguished Speaker Series this fall dedicated to the international World Year of Physics and co-sponsored by the Berkeley Lab Physics Division and the "Friends of Science."

Before World War II, scientists rarely spoke out on public issues, and then nearly always limited themselves to matters having a technical component. Albert Einstein, almost alone, pioneered a new relationship between scientists and society. He consciously used his professional fame to promote his often-unpopular views. These included criticism (while living in Germany) of Germany's role in World War I, support of pacifism, anti-militarism, defense of socialism and to a degree the behavior of the Soviet Union, opposition to Hitler, condemnation of America's use of nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, encouragement of a powerful world government, censure of the Joseph McCarthy-era restraints on freedom of speech, and disapproval of racism. Scientific expertise was of no value in most of these cases, yet Einstein's words were taken seriously and reached a large audience.

For his efforts, he was threatened with assassination several times, was in danger of deportation from the United States, and accumulated a huge FBI file. He even was denied security clearance to work on the WWII atomic bomb project. Einstein's courage in his public activities ran on a track parallel to the boldness of his scientific work.

Lawrence Badash is Professor Emeritus of History of Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he taught for 36 years. He has been a NATO Postdoctoral Science Fellow at Cambridge University, a Guggenheim Fellow, Director of the University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation's Summer Seminar on Global Security and Arms Control, a Council member of the History of Science Society, Chairman of the Division (now Forum) of History of Physics of the American Physical Society, and a Member-at-Large of the Section on History and Philosophy of Science of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Badash is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

His research is centered on the physical sciences of the past century, especially the development of radioactivity and nuclear physics; on the role of scientists in the nuclear arms race; and on the interaction of science and society.

The Science Department at Berkeley High School is co-sponsoring this talk. The Schwimley Theatre is on Addison Street between Martin Luther King, Jr., Way and Milvia Street.

For more information, contact the Community Relations Office at 510-486-7292.