Einstein's other conflict has yet to be resolved. It involves something that most of us have only heard about in general terms, but understand from his own comments about it. It is the question of the so-called "Cosmological Constant," a number introduced in the equations of General Relativity to avoid certain seemingly paradoxical and inelegant consequences of the theory. Much later Einstein rued the day he had inserted this "fudge-factor" into the mathematics, calling it one of his biggest blunders. Actually, we do not know yet whether it was a mistake, but the example is instructive in a way that is different from the atomic bomb situation.
Much of science and other forms of scholarship is done alone off in a corner of a subdiscipline or (for a few) out on the cutting edge of the frontiers. In these situations the research often comes up against unforgiving facts, unpleasant evidence, and disappointing directions. Emotional states are aroused and the urge to complete the study (and win the approval of colleagues, advancement, higher wages, the Nobel Prize, etc.) may color the perspective one has of these facts, evidence, and directions. There is only one cure for this common experience. It is to remember that each researcher is but one ephemeral part of the edifice of research--a social enterprise with consensus values and an abiding need for the truth, whatever it is.
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