Immanuel Velikovsky

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Recommended: Essay on pseudoscience

Correspondence

Before the Day Breaks,

When I first ran across any of Velikovsky's ideas it was in this online book Before the Day Breaks. In this book Velikovsky writes about his correspondence and conversations with Albert Einstein. I read some of this book before ever reading anything else of Velikovsky, or having any idea of what was proposed in his book Worlds in Collision. Before the Day Breaks is a very well written book, where Velikovsky's main argument is that gravity and inertia are not the only forces acting on the solar system. After Velikovsky published his book Worlds in Collision he has had much difficulty getting anyone in the scientific community to listen to him. There were numerous accounts of unjust behavior towards him from many famous scientist. It is ironic that while many people were ignoring him, he was discussing scientific matters with Einstein. While Before the Day Breaks may not have any substantial scientific impact, it does two separate other things. Provide a good insight to some of the prejudices of the general scientific community at that time. Give good clues as to what Einstein's personality was like.

Background Info. / History

1895, June 10, Immanuel Velikovsky was born in Vitebsk, Russia

1913> studied medicine at Montpelier, France,

1921 Velikovsky received a medical degree at the University of Moscow

1921 moved to Berlin, married, edited a journal called Scripta Universitatis atque Bibliothecae Hierosolymitarum, the mathematical-physical section was prepared by Albert Einstein. This journal played a big role in developing the Hebrew University in Jerusalem,

1924-1939 "Velikovsky lived in Palestine, practicing psychoanalysis- he had studied under Freud's pupil, Wi1helm Stekel in Vienna" quoted from (Short Biography)

1950 published Words in Collision right away it was a NY Times non-fiction #1 international best seller for 7 weeks until the publisher (Macmillan) dropped the book due to opposition to it led by Harvard astronomer Dr. Shapley

-This book was about Velikovsky's claims that incidences in numerous independent cultures around the world were not due to terrestrial origin (i.e. comets and planets caused massive disasters)

1960s Velikovsky was considered as quack by most everyone

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