Mozart, Einstein, and the Essential Order of the Universe

Last year was the one-hundredth anniversary of Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity. This year is the 250-th. anniversary of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. According to an interesting article in today's New York Times, there is more of a connection between the two prodigies than that, though:

Einstein once said that while Beethoven created his music, Mozart's "was so pure that it seemed to have been ever-present in the universe, waiting to be discovered by the master." Einstein believed much the same of physics, that beyond observations and theory lay the music of the spheres — which, he wrote, revealed a "pre-established harmony" exhibiting stunning symmetries. The laws of nature, such as those of relativity theory, were waiting to be plucked out of the cosmos by someone with a sympathetic ear.

Thus it was less laborious calculation, but "pure thought" to which Einstein attributed his theories.

Einstein was fascinated by Mozart and sensed an affinity between their creative processes, as well as their histories...

In 1905, the year he discovered relativity, Einstein was living in a cramped apartment and dealing with a difficult marriage and money troubles.

That spring he wrote four papers that were destined to change the course of science and nations. His ideas on space and time grew in part from aesthetic discontent. It seemed to him that asymmetries in physics concealed essential beauties of nature; existing theories lacked the "architecture" and "inner unity" he found in the music of Bach and Mozart.

In his struggles with extremely complicated mathematics that led to the general theory of relativity of 1915, Einstein often turned for inspiration to the simple beauty of Mozart's music.

"Whenever he felt that he had come to the end of the road or into a difficult situation in his work, he would take refuge in music," recalled his older son, Hans Albert. "That would usually resolve all his difficulties."

In the end, Einstein felt that in his own field he had, like Mozart, succeeded in unraveling the complexity of the universe.

Scientists often describe general relativity as the most beautiful theory ever formulated. Einstein himself always emphasized the theory's beauty. "Hardly anyone who has truly understood it will be able to escape the charm of this theory," he once said.

The theory is essentially one man's view of how the universe ought to be. And amazingly, the universe turned out to be pretty much as Einstein imagined. Its daunting mathematics revealed spectacular and unexpected phenomena like black holes.

Though a Classical giant, Mozart helped lay groundwork for the Romantic with its less precise structures. Similarly, Einstein's theories of relativity completed the era of classical physics and paved the way for atomic physics and its ambiguities. Like Mozart's music, Einstein's work is a turning point...

What Mozart and Einstein seemed to believe--perhaps at times, needed to believe--is that in the end, in spite of the chaos and uncertainties of life, the universe makes sense. They believed that with order, there was peace, serenity, and calm. In spite of all our obsessive railing against "stress" these days, this idea of theirs is very out of vogue today.

The prevailing culture believes in randomness and chaos, almost elevates these things to godlike status. Doing so displaces the true God and allows us to answer only to ourselves.

It should be said that the world is submerged in chaos in many ways. This is what Paul talked about in the New Testament book of Romans (chapter 8), when observing that at present, all of creation groans under the weight of human alienation from God and its consequences. (To which the modern environmental movement should, at the very least, issue a hearty, "Amen!") But there is an underlying order, observable to scientists and anybody else with eyes.

As a Christian, I believe that the longing for order and peace reflects an ancient memory Einstein and Mozart displayed is bred deeply into our collective DNA. We know that the chaotic natural and human realities we experience today aren't what is meant to be. We also know that the profusion of chaos doesn't erase the essential order of the universe. So does God, the One Whose Spirit bore over the waters of primordial chaos and brought order, life, and peace into being.

Like all the greatest artists and thinkers of history, Mozart and Einstein were in touch with the most basic facts of the universe. May their tribe increase!