Einstein’s genius mistakes: in honour of 145th anniversary

This year the world celebrates the 145th anniversary of the birth of Albert Einstein, one of the most influential theoretical physicists of all time. "I am enough of the artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world," said the scientist. 

Albert Einstein needs no introduction: for more than a century, he has been universally recognised as the man who did more to revolutionise twentieth-century physics than anyone else. In the scientific community, however, Einstein is also known for his highly unusual style of work and for his extraordinary courage in setting research goals. 

In our lecture we will talk about the scientist’s passion for unifying physics, which made him spend the last decades in a fruitless search for a unified theory of electromagnetism and gravitation, and about the concept of the cosmological constant, which he called "his biggest blunder". We will also talk about Einstein’s distrust of quantum mechanics and his conviction that "God does not play dice". 

Find out how a bit of daring helped Einstein forge new paths in physics, and which of those paths turned out to be dead ends. 

Lecturer 

Anton Sheikin is a senior lecturer at the SPbU Department of High Energy and Elementary Particle Physics. Winner of the 2021 Russian Society "Knowledge" Award in the "Teacher — Educator of the Year" category, Sheikin teaches physics and popularises science. His research interests focus on gravity and geometric methods in physics.

The lecture will be streamed online in Russian with simultaneous translation into Spanish as part of the celebration of the 300th anniversary of SPbU — Russia’s first university.

Registration