Einstein’s Luckiest Thought

Abstract

We were taught at school that there is no place for reason in scientific discovery. Reason’s place is in the “context of justification”. But the context of discovery-exemplified by the wriggling, tail-biting snakelike devils which inspired Kekulé’s discovery of the ring structure of benzene¹ is one dominated by chance and “the Unconscious”. Now, it is undeniable that thoughts — good or bad — come when they will, not when we want them to.²But the inquiring scientist who is inspired — by Lady Luck or whomever — with a novel idea must then and there decide to trash it or to keep it and continue to build upon it, at least for the time being. He cannot wait until the philosophers finally agree on a computer checkable logical syntax of inductive inference which, if applied to the relevant data, would constitute the appropriate context of justification. Indeed, the idea he has had can turn into a germ of discovery only by being woven into his ongoing critical, argumentative reflection about the scientific problem at hand. What whims of intellectual fancy are retained and further elaborated, and which forgotten, is determined, from day to day, and even from minute to minute, by promptly testing how they fit into this live tissue of thought. It is this, and this alone, that deserves the name of a “context of discovery”. And, of course, it is eminently a place for reason. Indeed, there is no better way of ascertaining what we ought to understand by scientific reason than to look here, into a working scientist’s reflections, and to identify that — whatever it is — which steers and coordinates them in the course of this research.