In the interview with George Sylvester Viereck, Albert Einstein stated: “Imagination is more important than knowledge” (Viereck 17). Albert Einstein used this ideal in everyday life, but not many people did at the time. Albert Einstein, the son of Pauline and Hermann Einstein, had a life span from 1879 to 1955, and during his lifetime, he was a brilliant man with extraordinary Ideals. As a theoretical physicist, he worked with other famous scientists including Edward Schroedinger, who won the Nobel Prize for discovering new productive forms of atomic theory. Not only was Einstein a theoretical physicist, he was also a humanitarian, which is someone that fights for human rights, who helped in the civil rights movement and the pacifist movement. During his time, there was a shift in culture from conformity to pushing the boundaries. With this came leaders to push this movement forward. Albert Einstein’s idea of straying away from the popular consensus paved the way towards a new era of creative thinking in not only America but the entire world.
One reason Einstein started a new generation of thinking was that he revolutionized the procedure taken by a scientist when it comes to their jobs. When Einstein became a physicist in 1902, most major scientific studies were extremely basic when it came to what people did and didn’t know. But during Einstein’s career, he created a paper that changed science forever, which was the Theory of Relativity (Isaacson). Three years after he published the theory in 1916, astronomers proved that the theory was correct. At the meeting of the Royal society in London, J.J. Thompson proclaimed “Our conceptions of the fabric of the universe must be fundamentally altered” (Thompson). After Einstein’s revolutionary discovery, other scientific discoveries changed to more specific and detailed theories that helped changed the way life is today. Einstein’s theories may have helped science change for the better, but they might have changed it for the worse as well. This is because his discoveries were then later used to in the Manhattan Project, which Einstein did not accept willingly.
Furthermore, Einstein was one of the many directors who spawned the pacifist movement of the 1940’s. After his retirement from the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, he would write a letter to the UN stating why they should have a one world government. He wrote this letter because he was skeptical about whether the UN alone could stop further wars (American Museum of Natural History). In this letter, he states that “The only real step toward world government is world Government itself” (Einstein). When he wrote this letter, many people were inspired to step out of their comfort zone and started protesting to end the war going on at the time. This helped spark the pacifist movement, in which inspired many people to reinvent the movement during the Cold War. Even though his proposition of a world government was never fulfilled, the way he challenged the ideals of the common man inspired many people today. The pacifist movement also inspired another famous movement in history, one that helped millions of people for the better.
Finally, Albert Einstein helped the Civil rights movement, which was obscure at the time. When actor and singer Paul Robeson’s career died out because he was caught helping the civil rights movement, Einstein invited him to Princeton to help his reputation in the public eye (Oskin). Not many people would have done this since he was put on the blacklists. He also wrote an essay called “The Negro Question”, in which he stated that “Your ancestors dragged these black people from their homes by force; and in the white man’s quest for wealth and an easy life they have been ruthlessly suppressed and exploited, degraded into slavery” (Einstein). This statement shows clearly that he was against racism, which was against the popular opinion of the time. Einstein also gave the NAACP public encouragement and offered to help W. E. B du Bois’ trial case in 1951. Many people might not know it, but Einstein was a huge part of the civil rights movement. However, his influence has changed so many other ideas in our society as well.
Thanks to one of the greatest minds in history, we have learned that just because the public says one thing, that doesn’t mean it’s always the best thing to do. People can use this lesson in current times as well. Peer pressure is rampant across the nation, with only ten percent of teens saying they have never been affected by it. This can cause serious problems in a teen’s life, including bad behaviors and habits. People should only do what they think is right, not what others tell them is right. If society didn’t have this knowledge, then racism and sexism would still be a common thing today. Who knows, maybe it is relatively a simple concept that should be analyzed to a further extent.