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Gettier & Einstein

Bob Wadholm, Missouri University, 2013

Albert Einstein was a pretty smart guy. One might say he knew a lot of things. This essay, however, is about something which Einstein did not know, a Gettier (1963) case from the life of Einstein in which he had justified true belief but not knowledge. A Gettier case is one in which an individual has justifications for a true belief, but the true belief is only accidentally so: accidentally because the basis of the justifications are faulty, but the conclusion turns out to be true anyway. In this way, a Gettier case seems to point to the existence of justified true belief without knowledge. Such is the case with Einstein and his cosmological constant. In 1905, at the consummation of his doctorate, Einstein published a paper that was to change the face of physics. His special theory of relativity postulated, among other things, that time is relative to an observer, and that light travels at an absolute speed that can never be surpassed. Later, in 1916, Einstein published a full formulation of general relativity, touching on the nature of matter and energy and the shape (and geometry) of space. Einstein believed (with many others of his time) that the universe was static and not expanding or contracting. But his field equations predicted a dense blob rather than a spread out universe when applied to a static model of the cosmos, so he introduced what has come to be known as the cosmological constant (Einstein later referred to this as a fudge factor) an extra term in his mathematical equations that acted like anti-gravity. Einsteins justification for the reality of this reformulation was that we do indeed live in a universe with matter spread throughout, and the universe is static (not expanding or contracting), so the cosmological constant must be true (given that it is necessary in order to ensure correct predictions from general relativity). Unfortunately, in 1929, Edwin Hubble, an astronomer at the Mount Wilson Observatory, published findings that seemed to point to an expanding universe. Einsteins cosmological constant was

Wadholm 2 no longer needed. In fact, it was an embarrassment. It seemed Einsteins justified belief in the cosmological constant was a justified false belief. His original mathematical formulations worked just fine without the fudge factor. Fast-forward to the present and we see a different picture. Further calculations have been made concerning the mass and shape of the universe, as well as its composition. From where physicists stand today, it seems as though the universe is acting not as we had anticipated (continual expansion at an even rate), and that there is an enormous amount of stuff in our universe that astrophysicists call dark energy that seems to be doing the work of counteracting gravity. The current data we have about the shape and expansion rate of our universe seems to require the cosmological constant, and to provide ample justification for its existence. The cosmological constant was correct (but for reasons Einstein could not have known about). So we see that Einsteins original belief in the cosmological constant turned out to be justified true belief, but was not knowledge (following the formulation of a Gettier case). His original justification was based on incorrect information about the state of the universe (that it was static). A stroke of bad luck proved his justification faulty (Hubble discovered the universe was expanding, so unluckily Einsteins static universe model was false). However, a stroke of good luck showed that his belief (the cosmological constant) was actually true and necessary (dark energy and the expansion rate of the universe seems to point to this). Einsteins belief about the cosmological constant was justified, and it turned out to be true. But true and justified for reasons other than those he relied upon when formulating his belief. This is a true Gettier case: Einstein had justified true belief in the cosmological constant without knowledge. Einstein was accidentally right: even though he based his belief on faulty premises that seemed to justify his conclusion, still his conclusion was later found to be correct.

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References
Gettier, Edmund. (1963). Is justified true belief knowledge? Analysis, 23, 121-123.