Einstein and Nazi physics: When science meets ideology and prejudice

Philip Ball

Abstract


In the 1920s and 30s, in a Germany with widespread and growing anti-Semitism, and later with the rise of Nazism, Albert Einstein’s physics faced hostility and was attacked on racial grounds. That assault was orchestrated by two Nobel laureates in physics, who asserted that stereotypical racial features are exhibited in scientific thinking. Their actions show how ideology can infect and inflect science. Reviewing this episode in the current context remains an instructive and cautionary tale.

Keywords


Albert Einstein; Nazism; anti-Semitism; science and ideology

Full Text: PDF

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7203/metode.10.13472

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