If I sing Einstein, who will listen?

Princeton amplified my Einstein stories.

  • In 2023, their alumni magazines contained a full-page story about myself.


    Click on this figure for the link mentioned there.

  • What do I say about Einstein? I make the following claims difficult for you to accept.

    1. Einstein left an empty spot for younger generations, when he formulated his theory of relativity in 1905 which leads to E = mc2.

    2. I filled up this spot, with the mathematics I learned during my war-time high-school years in Korea (1951-54). The Korean War lasted from 1950 to 1953.

Are you going to listen to me? Perhaps No.
You would listen if I were Einstein's grandson, but I am not.

  • In order to let you pay attention to my Einstein stories, it is essential for me to establish a genealogical connection with Einstein. In my case, my Princeton background is a good starting point. However, there are so many Princeton graduates. Why am I so special?

    I would like to tell you I constructed a scientific genealogy. I would like to explain how I constructed this genealogy.

      Eugene Paul Wigner (Nobel 1963). Photo from the Reviews of Modern Physics (1962).
    While I was a student there, Eugene Paul Wigner (Nobel 1963) was totally isolated from the rest of the physics department, and my professors routinely said "Wigner is gone."

  • However, I sensed something wrong with this environment. Wigner was isolated because nobody there was able to tell him the story he wanted to hear. I sensed this from a story from Korea's recent history. Click here for this interesting story.

  • While I was at Princeton, I became interested in his paper published in 1939, having to do with internal space-time symmetries. What does "internal" mean? Click here.

    Wigner received his Nobel prize in 1963, but the prize was not for this 1939 paper. He was not happy with this aspect.

    For me, the best way to approach Wigner was to tell him that his 1939 paper alone deserves one full Nobel prize. The only way to tell this story was to show that this paper could be regarded as an extension of Einstein's theory of relativity.

  • It took me 20 years to compose this story.


In 1966,

  • I published papers telling Princeton made a big mistake, known widely as the Dashen-Frautchi Fiasco.

      In 1965, Princeton appointed Roger Dashen as a full professor at their Institute for Advanced Study (institute created for Einstein). His appointment was based on his calculation of the neutron-proton mass difference. Dashen became the genius of the century.

    With my own Herod Complex (someone other than myself is a genius??), I became very unhappy. I looked at Dashen's papers, and I found a gross mistake.

    In 1966, I published my papers telling Dashen made a mistake in his calculation. Click here to see how wrong he was.

  • However, the reaction from the American physics community was

    Dashen is a genius, but you are only a Korean.
    Go back to Korea.

    Thus, my position was in danger at the University of Maryland. I contacted Sam Treiman for help. Treiman was my thesis advisor at Princeton, and I used to regard him as my route to Princeton. He told me to come to Princeton and explain the situation, and I did.

    However, he did not have enough brain power to understand the details of my explanations, and he became very angry. His reaction was "Dashen is a genius. Never come to Princeton again." This happened in 1966.

  • I hate to say this. I had to conclude that my brain is superior to the brains of those Princetonians who believed Dashen was a genius. I used to think I had been an excellent student thanks to my hard work while God gave, biologically, the same brain power to everybody. Did God give me a superior brain? I am not yet ready to say Yes.

  • After this event of 1966, I became able to understand why Eugene Paul Wigner was so isolated from the rest of Princeton.

    Since they could not understand my explanation of the Dashen-Frautchi Fiasco, they did not have enough brain power to digest Wigner paper on the Einstein issue which led to his E = mc 2 .

  • I then started publishing my papers on the Wigner issues with my younger colleagues.

    I was born again!


In 1986,

    20 years after 1966,

  • I went to Princeton to show Professor Wigner the following table.

    Einstein's Genealogy

    		Massive/Slow between Massless/Fast
    Energy
    Momentum     		E = p2/2m Einstein's
    E=(m2 + p2)1/2     		E = cp
    Helicity
    Spin, Gauge     		S3
    S1 S2     		Winner's
    1939 paper     		Helicity
    Gauge Trans.

    This table was contained in the earlier papers I published with my younger colleagues. According to this table, Einstein told us how to go from E = p2/2m for massive particles to E = cp for massless particles.

    This aspect is widely known as Einstein's E = mc2 .

      Summary of the Kim-Wigner collaboration (1986-90)
    I told Wigner that his 1939 paper, together with his group contraction technique, tells us how to go from S1, S2, S3 to Helicity and Gauge Transformation. Wigner became very happy to hear my story.

  • The above table clearly defines Wigner's coordinate in Einstein's genealogy. This was precisely the story Wigner wanted to hear, and he asked me to publish new papers with him.

    During the years (1986-90), I went to Princeton often to tell Winger the stories he wanted to hear, and we publsihed a number of joint Kim-Wigner papers.

    The contents of those published papers can be summarized in this figure.

  • After publishing a number of papers with him, I became known as Wigner's youngest student at Princeton, instead of a boy from Korea (regarded as an underdeveloped country at that time).

    I then became strong enough to publish a paper in 1989 in Physical Review Letters (known as the most prestigious journal in physics). This paper contains the following table.

    Einstein's World

    		Massive/Slow between Massless/Fast
    Energy
    Momentum     		E = p2/2m Einstein's
    E=(m2 + p2)1/2
    		E = cp
    Helicity
    Spin & Gauge     		S3
    S1 S2     		Wigner's
    Little Group     		Helicity
    Gauge Trans.
    Hadrons,
    Bound States     		Gell-Mann's
    Quark Model    		 One Lorentz-
    Covariant Entity     		Feynman's
    Parton Picture

    The blue row in this table is based on the earlier papers I published mostly with Marilyn Noz. Click here for further details about this blue row.

    According to this table, I am allowed to construct Einstein's Princeton genealogy given here:

    With this genealogy, I am strong enough

    to talk about Einstein.

    Click here to hear my Einstein stories.


You may be interested to hear what the public media say about me these days.