Max-Born-Institut Berlin (MBI)

30
Max Born • Gustav Born
Fig. 54
Amalie Heath, Max Born’s greatgranddaughter.
an appalling thought that our children and grandchildren should remain endangered by conflicts
fought with the latest quantum technologies between contemporary adherents of doctrines
invented for small, totally different and long gone societies.
If Max Born’s exhortation to change our ways of thinking is not followed the outlook is bleak.
In 1965 he wrote: “It seems that the attempt made by Nature on this earth to produce a thinking
animal may have failed.” (Born, 1968). He goes on to give reasons for this pessimism. At
that time the dominant reason was the increasing probability that a nuclear war might destroy
all life on earth. Forty years on that possibility still exists, the more so as nuclear arsenals spread
to smaller countries ruled by intolerant dogmatists such as Iran. But this threat has now
been superseded by that of climate change, which is already endangering the lives of millions
around the world.
Max Born has a great-granddaughter called Amalie [54, 55] who, just three years old, is such
a delightful thinking animal that my friend Lorie Karnath and I are busy producing a book called
“Answers for Amalie” to her memorable questions (a recent one: “I am growing bigger
every day. How will I know when to stop?”). All children and grandchildren are as valuable as
Amalie. We thinking animals have a duty to safeguard their future by promoting universal
acceptance of Max Born’s loosening of thinking [56].
I am very grateful to Sheila Lawler and Jed Lawler for excellent assistance in preparing
this lecture.
References
Fig. 55
Amalie held by her friend Lorie Karnath,
with her mother Carey (left) and her
grandparents Faith and Gustav Born.
Begent, N. A. and Born G. V. R., (1970). Growth rate in vivo of platelet thrombi, produced by
iontophoresis of ADP, as a function of mean blood flow velocity. Nature (Lond.), 227, 926-930.
Born, M., Brandt, W. and Born, G. V. R., (1950). In memoriam Gustav Born, experimental
embryologist. Acta Anat., 10, 466-475.
Born, M., (1955). Dialectical Materialism and Modern Physics, Personal communication.