Today Google honors him with a "Google Doodle" award in honor of his 135th birthday.

One of Max's most notable quotes:

"The belief that there is only one truth, and that oneself is in possession of it, is the root of all evil in the world."

How aprobos for RfM discussion of Mormonism teachings.

Being BIC and indoctrinated from early age on, there was no doubt we belonged to "the one and only true church upon the earth," yada yada.

It took growing up to recognize that isn't so. How about all those who stay behind believing the myth that their way is the only true plan of not only salvation, but exaltation?

Max Born would have scoffed at such a notion.

Sadly too, no doubt he's been dead dunked many times over in temple rites to assure his acceptance of the one and only true church in the afterlife.

Sadly the only thing I know about this man is that he is the grandfather of Australian singer Olivia Newton-John

thecornpoop Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Sadly the only thing I know about this man is that
> he is the grandfather of Australian singer Olivia
> Newton-John

Max's mother, Margarete, died when he was only four years old. His father had been a professor of science. His mother was heiress of an industrialist's family. Max and his only sister spent much of their childhood shuffled between his father's and his mother's family home.

His industrialist grandfather gave him a present one year that maybe led to his future in physics. He gave him something to build and engineer, like a model railroad, that piqued his imagination, fueled his curiosity and that convinced his grandfather of Max' potential.

Max was purportedly a frail child, who spent much of his time indoors studying.

He studied at some of Europe's leading universities. Besides becoming a renowned scientist, he was a father, husband, and friend. He and Albert Einstein were best friends for the duration of their adult lives.

Max moved to England to escape persecution of the Jews. Following the war he eventually returned to Germany (his homeland,) where he was given a pension to enable him to live out his golden years in relative comfort.

Unlike his mother's family, Max was not as financially sound as they were. His prospects in England although sustained him somewhat, did not afford him a pension like Germany offered.

So there he returned to spend his last days, with his wife Hedi. They were very private people. Spending most of their time with only close family and friends, and each other.

He's someone I would have liked to have known. :-)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/13/2017 09:55AM by Amyjo.

Wasn't he your family member, Amyjo?

http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Born.html



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/12/2017 02:20AM by kathleen.

Max and I are third cousins, twice removed, through our shared German Jewish ancestry. My German Jewish ancestors immigrated to America during the 19th century. Most of their family stayed behind. Many of our Jewish cousins were murdered during the Holocaust.

Max fled to England in 1933 to avoid persecution. He was passed over for the Nobel in 1933 because he was Jewish. It went instead to his German colleague. He wasn't recognized until 1954 by Nobel for his contributions to science.

Max converted to Christianity after his marriage to Hedi. She was of Jewish and Christian parentage. He became Lutheran like she was. One of her direct ancestors was Martin Luther.

Max wasn't very religious though, according to son Gustav. Gustav described his father as more of a Deist than anything. It is said in one of his biographies that he remained in contact with his Jewish relatives throughout his life. He just was no longer a practicing Jew.

One of our Jewish cousins, an Israeli who died this past year, considered Max a traitor to the Jewish faith, because he left it leading up to the Holocaust. I see it more as if Max was "guilty" of anything, was the desire to assimilate into European society during the rise of anti-Semitism, like many other Jewish people of his day did. It didn't help to save them during the Holocaust, because Hitler sought them out (the converts from Judaism,) and had them murdered anyway.

Another professor cousin of Max (and mine,) did the same as Max did in 1933, only he moved with his family to Amsterdam (believing he'd be safe there from the Nazis.) Only he wasn't, and nearly became a casualty of the Holocaust if not for his Dutch Resistence daughter who used forged and real documents to save her father.

He converted to Christianity himself. But his daughter-in-law I spoke with several years ago who lives in America, told me he wasn't religiously observant at all. She said he was more into his studies and work than religion.

His family had been good friends and neighbors of the Frank family. Following the Holocaust it was my cousin who insisted that Otto publish Anne's diary. Otto wasn't going to at first. My cousin had been a professor of Journalism, Mass Media, and the effects of propoganda (distributed and promulgated by Hitler.) He knew how important it was to publish her work. Neither man had any idea it would become a voice around the world for the victims of the Holocaust.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/12/2017 06:10AM by Amyjo.

Also the grandfather of the very wonderful Georgie Born, who I saw in 1977 playing bass for the very unusual art-rock band Henry Cow:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgina_Born

Georgie is today a professor at Cambridge (in Sociology and Anthropology,), following in the footsteps of her late grandfather. (Max was a professor there of Math and Physics.)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/12/2017 05:45AM by Amyjo.

Don't be so negative towards adults caught in a cult. It's hard as hell for anybody to truly succeed on getting out both mentally and physically.

I read this book many years ago, thoroughly enjoyed it. It has since been digitized and is free to view.

The Born Einstein Letters
https://archive.org/stream/TheBornEinsteinLetters/Born-TheBornEinsteinLetters#page/n0/mode/2up

I bought this book one Christmas several years ago. One for me. And another copy for one of my children who's a student of physics and math like Born was.

They're the only two in my family that I know of who majored in these disciplines.

My child at one time had been accepted into the Heidelberg University in Germany to study where Max Plank once taught. That would have been his reason for going there. Gladly for me he changed his mind and stayed closer to home.

Born and Plank were colleagues. Born actually studied under Plank as a student before becoming a professor himself.

That was neat to learn!

In fact, both men, along with other notable physicists are buried in the same German cemetery (in Gottingen.)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/13/2017 12:06PM by Amyjo.

"Intellect distinguishes between the possible and the impossible; reason distinguishes between the sensible and the senseless. Even the possible can be senseless."

"For all the communities available to us, there is not one I would want to devote myself to, except for the society of the true searchers, which has very few living members at any time.”

"We, the atom and I, have been on friendly terms, until recently. I saw in it the key to the deepest secrets of Nature, and it revealed to me the greatness of creation and the Creator.”

"Einstein would be one of the greatest theoretical physicists of all time even if he had not written a single line on relativity.”

One of my favorite:

"If God has made the world a perfect mechanism, He has at least conceded so much to our imperfect intellect that in order to predict little parts of it, we need not solve innumerable differential equations, but can use dice with fair success."

:)