I am Xiang Yinyin, the creator of The New Invisible College. This website was initially made as a project for the Milestone Institute. I am deeply interested in the history of physics, especially the Paradigm Shift in the early 20th century. Upon reading several scientists' biographies and other articles, I had an idea to create an interactive diagram that maps out the stories of scientists behind this special period of history.
I hope you enjoy this representation of the development of physics in the early 20th century. Should you have any questions or suggestions to share, you can use the message board or contact me at thenewinvisiblecollege@gmail.com.
This website is not a place for remembering scientific individual heroism. It contains multiple well-known scientists, as well as several scientists that has not been regarded as much as the former by the masses. However, if the aim was to promote those scientists who I felt have been overlooked, I may very well be criticized for not being inclusive enough, as there are sure too many scientists with great discoveries yet did not get into a tiny footnote of history.
To find the reason why I want to minimize individual heroism in this website, I want to ask myself: How many questions should one solve or ask, in order to be remembered? When a student in low temperature physics sees others disregarding Onnes' work, they can be as surprised as a pianist seeing others disregarding Lefébure's status. Those who made actual progress asked questions specific and relevant to a branch of knowledge, because those are the only questions that could be answered. However, there is not a specific topic that the mass is interested in as a whole. Otherwise, it would have been significantly developed and exploited by those who want to become famous. Therefore, I suspect what determines who is largely remembered by the masses is highly probable. For example, Einstein is definitely highly recognized by the masses, including those who do not even care about physics. Of course, I am not implying Einstein does not deserve his fame, as it was not something that he had control of, nor do I consider fame as an award to one. This makes fame not a good indicator of the quality of questions being asked and answered by one, which is why I want to avoid individual heroism.
So what is this website of a diagram for, then? In the recollections of Eugene Wigner, he claims that, "I hope that my life will soon be completely forgotten." While his attitude to Max von Laue, Walther Nernst, Michael Polanyi, and Wolfgang Pauli is, "We should know them all, and many more." Despite the modest nature of Wigner, these two statements may sound contradictory: on one hand, Wigner points out that people do not have the capacity to remember the life much historical figures; on the other hand, he advocates for us to learn about more scientists. Maybe he is implying that one's memory is very limited, but the number of people worth knowing is infinite, which makes it very easy to have a one-sided understanding. This may also people that we meet daily, but to avoid going off-topic,I have to stop here.
Perhaps the solution is that what we should learn are the stories that lie between those scientists, just like how biographies are different from plaques. For example, for the question "Who will remember Eugene Wigner?" if there is not a time boundary, the answer would be no one. However, because of his recollections, I am able to read the words of Wigner, which enables me to know the existence of László Rátz, his teacher, or to know Szilard a bit more than "one of the Martians." Through his words, he passed down something realistic. These realistic stories seem trivial in the face of the divine evolution of science, but surely give more insights to an enthusiast than an admiration of fame. Therefore, I hope this website can act as a medium that tells the realistic stories between scientists.
The name of this website, The New Invisible College, is an allusion to the early association of the Enlightenment-era Royal Society of London.