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Las Vegas, Nevada
Feb 2000
time: 21:17
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No not the formation of the township of Las Vegas (that deserves its own thread  ).
The anniversary of a year where an unknown patent clerk published 5 scientific ariticles that shook the world of physics. Special relativity being the big one, but they were all important.
quote:
March, 1905: Conventional physics described light as a wave and could not explain how light can knock electrons off metal. Einstein showed that light is made of tiny packets of energy, or quanta, that can behave like individual particles, too.
This duality is the basis of quantum theory, a pillar of modern physics so paradoxical that even Einstein didn't entirely buy into it. His explanation of this "photoelectric effect" won him the Nobel prize in 1921.
April: Based on cafe conversations over tea, Einstein submits a paper that determined the size of sugar molecules by calculating their diffusion in the liquid.
May: He shows how particles (like pollen) that appear to be independently moving in water are being jostled by atoms in water that are moving chaotically. Known as Brownian motion, Einstein's calculations confirmed the atom's existence and by extension, the makeup of chemical elements.
June: Einstein's paper on "special relativity" separates him from the mainstream physics crowd. Newton considered gravity to be absolute - mass attracts mass. It's what makes gas and dust form stars and debris form planets.
November: Einstein publishes an extension of special relativity regarding the conversion of mass into energy, noting that the "mass of a body is a measure of its energy content." In 1907, he abbreviated it to what would become science's most famous equation: The amount of energy equals mass times the speed of light squared, or E mc2.
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http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBGKBH1M7E.html
Use this thread to discuss Einstein's legacy. He did his best work before 1920. And he spent so much time working on the Unified Field Theory. Was it wasted time? He wasn't aware of nuclear forces at the time, and didn't account for them. We know about them today, but we are still no closer to it. Most phsyicists do their best work when they are young anyways. It really would be asking too much, to expect more from Einstein. And his rejection of Quantum theories is troubling. Was that a good idea?
Will we ever discover the Theory of Everything? And if so, what impact will this have on our world today? String theory looks promising, but I'm not so sure. But hey, I'm no physicist .
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26-04-2005 13:11
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