Einstein On The Strip
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place to go, except dust to dust. No matter who loses the next war, or the last
one, the desert wins. It’s a Nevada house rule, equivalent (by fiat) to an
immutable law of nature; the jig is up, the dice are loaded, the game is rigged.
And all the Bookie’s bets are off.
Speaking of which, we all recall that Einstein said “God does not play dice”
(to which Bohr responded, “who are you to tell God what to do?”). But the
analogy runs deeper, like its unavowed angst. As Einstein heatedly objected
(1924): “I find the idea quite intolerable that an electron exposed to radiation
should choose of its own free will, not only its moment to jump off, but also its
direction. In that case I would rather be a cobbler, or even an employee in a
gaming-house, than a physicist.” Why worry about quanta, when fate is a
croupier taking bets in a casino? Where did that come from? Did Albert Einstein
work in Monaco, or moonlight in Laughlin when he wasn’t otherwise
preoccupied? If God doesn’t throw dice, did Einstein do so, on (or off) the job?
Or did he exhibit some clairvoyance about a small patch of sand, our world-line
as Hermann Minkowski would call it, and the fate of those who play with fate
itself, in a world of (im)probabilities? Or is the quantum realm off-limits here,
like the law of (non-) contradiction when a given particle inhabits two places at
once?
Let’s bring this discussion closer to home—and to the crap table. Did
Einstein lay odds on the emergence of an uncivilized oasis? Did he cease his
Mosaic wanderings, that took him from Biblical to Babylonian tableaus, and
back again? Did he glimpse Nevada as the promised land, or simply mistake the
Hoover Dam for New Jerusalem? I fear I’m making too much of this, but I can’t
help it. After all, even Time magazine named Albert Einstein “Person of the
Century.” (Time special issue and poll, January 3, 2000). All that occurred even
before the city of Las Vegas celebrated its 100th birthday, on May 15, 2005 (the
date of the original land auction in Clark County). As it happens, that coincides
almost perfectly with the date (June 19) when Einstein submitted “On the
Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies” to Annalen Der Physik (it was published
on September 28, 1905). That’s well within the limits of expe ɥ