ALBER EINSTEIN
Albert Einstein was exhausted. For the third consecutive night, his baby son Hans, crying, kept the household awake until dawn. When Albert finally dozed off ... was time to get up and go to work. We could not miss any days. Needed the job to support his young family.
Walking briskly to the Patent Office where he was a "Technical Expert, Third Class," Albert was concerned for her mother. It was getting old and fragile, and their relations were strained with her: he did not approve his marriage to Mileva. Albert looked at a shop window for passing. Her hair was a mess, he had forgotten to comb it vez.Trabajo. Family. Survive until the end of the month. Albert felt all the pressure that any young father and husband.
To relax, he revolutionized physics.
Right: Young Albert Einstein at the patent office.
In 1905, at the age of 26 and four years before getting a job as professor of physics, Einstein published five of the most important articles in the history of science-all written in his "spare time." He proved that atoms and molecules existed. Before 1905, scientists were not sure about it. He argued that light came in little bits (later called "photons") and thus laid the foundation of mechanics quantum. Einstein described his theory of special relativity: space and time were threads in a common fabric, he proposed, which could be bent, stretched and twisted.
Ahh, by the way, E = mc2.
Before Einstein, the last scientist who had a creative outburst was Sir Isaac Newton. This happened in 1666 when Newton retreated to his mother's farm to prevent an outbreak of plague in Cambridge. With nothing better to do, he developed his Theory of Universal Gravitation.
For centuries historians called 1666 the annus mirabilis of Newton, or "miracle year." Now those words have a different meaning: Einstein and 1905. The United Nations has declared 2005 "The World Year of Physics" to celebrate the centenary of Einstein's annus mirabilis. (Nobel Prize winners and other eminent scientists will meet with the public next month to discuss the work of Einstein.
modern popular culture paints Einstein as a súperpensador messy hair. His ideas, they say, were probably well ahead of other scientists. He must have come from another planet, maybe the same one Newton grew up.
"Einstein was not alien," laughs Peter Galison, a physicist and historian of science at the University of Harvard. " He was a man of his time. " All Articles of 1905 unraveled problems were being studied, with mixed success, by other scientists. If Einstein had not been born, [those papers] would have been written in one form or another, over time, by others, "Galison believes .
Súperpensador of tousled hair "? "Common man? Or both?
What is striking about 1905 is that a single person authored all five papers, plus the original, irreverent way Einstein came to his conclusions.
For example: the photoelectric effect. This was a mystery in early 1900. Cu 'm
light hits a metal, such as zinc, electrons fly off. This can happen only if the light comes in little packets concentrated enough to knock an electron free him. A separate wave would not do the trick photoelectric.
The solution seems simple, light is composed of particles. Of course, this is the solution Einstein proposed in 1905 and for which he won the Nobel Prize in 1921. Other physicists like Max Planck (working on a related problem: black body radiation), more senior and experienced than Einstein, were closing in on the answer, but Einstein got there first. Why?
is a question of authority.
"In the days of Einstein, if you tried to say that light was made of particles, you found yourself disagreeing with physicist James Clerk Maxwell. Nobody wanted to do that, "says Galison. The Maxwell equations were enormously successful, unifying the physics of electricity, magnetism and optics. Maxwell had proved beyond any doubt that light was an electromagnetic wave. Maxwell was a figure authority.
Einstein did not give a fig for authority. He did not resist being told what he had to do, not much, but hated being told what was true. Even as a child he was constantly doubting and questioning . 'Your mere presence here undermines respect class for me, "spat his seventh grade teacher, Dr. Joseph Degenhart. (Degenhart also predicted that Einstein" would never get anywhere in life "). This character flaw was to be a key ingredient in Einstein's discoveries.
Right: Einstein High School Diploma. Contrary to popular legend, Albert did well in school.
"In 1905," says Galison, "Einstein had just received his Ph.D. in physics. He was not beholden to any supervisor or other authority figure. "Consequently, his mind was free to roam.
In retrospect, Maxwell was right. The light is a wave. But so was Einstein. The Light is a particle. This bizarre duality baffles Physics I students today, like Einstein in 1905. How can light be both? Einstein had no idea.
That did not stop him. Without thinking twice, Einstein adopted the intuitive leap as a basic tool. "I believe in intuition and inspiration," he wrote in 1931. "Sometimes I feel like I am right while not knowing the reason."
Although Einstein's five papers were published in a single year, he was thinking about physics, deeply, since childhood. "Science was the topic of conversation at a dinner at Einstein's house," says Galison. Einstein's father Hermann and uncle Jakob ran a German company making such things as dynamos, arc lamps, light bulbs and telephones. This was the latest technology at the beginning of the century, "as it would be today a Silicon Valley company," says Galison. "Albert's interest in science and technology came naturally."
Below: The family of Einstein: Albert and his sister Maja (below left), his father Hermann (above), and his mother Pauline (bottom right).
Einstein's parents sometimes took Albert to parties. No babysitter was required: Albert sat on the couch, totally absorbed, solving math problems in silence, while others danced around him. Pencil and paper were Albert's Game Boy!
Einstein had an amazing ability to concentrate. His sister, Maja, recalled "... even when there was much noise, he could lie down on the couch, grab a pen and paper, precariously balance an inkwell on the backrest and engross himself in a problem as the background noise stimulated rather than disturbed him. "
Einstein was clearly intelligent, but not excessively more than their peers. "I have no special talents," he said, "I am passionately curious, nothing more." And again: "The contrast between the valuation popular of my abilities and the reality is simply grotesque. "Einstein credited his discoveries to imagination and pesky questioning more than conventional intelligence.
Later in his life, as recalled, he struggled mightily to produce a unified theory of field, combining gravity with other forces of nature. Failed. Einstein's brainpower was not limitless.
Neither was Einstein's brain. It was removed without permission by Dr. Thomas Harvey in 1955, when Einstein died. Probably expected to find something extraordinary. Einstein's mother Pauline had famously worried that baby Einstein's head was lopsided. (Grandmother Einstein had another opinion: "Too fat!"). But Einstein's brain was like any other, gray, wrinkled, and, if anything, slightly smaller than normal.
are recent and few detailed studies of Einstein's brain. In 1985, for instance, Prof. Marian Diamond of UC Berkeley, reported a number of glial cells (which nourish neurons) of superior quality in areas of the left hemisphere responsible for checking math skills. In 1999, neuroscientist Sandra Witelson reported that Einstein's inferior parietal lobe, an area related to mathematical reasoning, was 15% wider than normal. Also found Slyvian crack, a groove that normally extends from the front of the brain to the back, not walked all the way in the case of Einstein. Would this have allowed greater connectivity between different parts of Einstein's brain?
Nobody knows.
Not knowing makes some researchers feel uncomfortable. It exhilarated Einstein: "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious" he said. "This is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science."
is the fundamental emotion that Einstein felt, walking to work, awake with the baby, sitting at the table during dinner. The unknown spell expired from exhaustion, every day.
Walking briskly to the Patent Office where he was a "Technical Expert, Third Class," Albert was concerned for her mother. It was getting old and fragile, and their relations were strained with her: he did not approve his marriage to Mileva. Albert looked at a shop window for passing. Her hair was a mess, he had forgotten to comb it vez.Trabajo. Family. Survive until the end of the month. Albert felt all the pressure that any young father and husband.
To relax, he revolutionized physics.
Right: Young Albert Einstein at the patent office.
In 1905, at the age of 26 and four years before getting a job as professor of physics, Einstein published five of the most important articles in the history of science-all written in his "spare time." He proved that atoms and molecules existed. Before 1905, scientists were not sure about it. He argued that light came in little bits (later called "photons") and thus laid the foundation of mechanics quantum. Einstein described his theory of special relativity: space and time were threads in a common fabric, he proposed, which could be bent, stretched and twisted.
Ahh, by the way, E = mc2.
Before Einstein, the last scientist who had a creative outburst was Sir Isaac Newton. This happened in 1666 when Newton retreated to his mother's farm to prevent an outbreak of plague in Cambridge. With nothing better to do, he developed his Theory of Universal Gravitation.
For centuries historians called 1666 the annus mirabilis of Newton, or "miracle year." Now those words have a different meaning: Einstein and 1905. The United Nations has declared 2005 "The World Year of Physics" to celebrate the centenary of Einstein's annus mirabilis. (Nobel Prize winners and other eminent scientists will meet with the public next month to discuss the work of Einstein.
modern popular culture paints Einstein as a súperpensador messy hair. His ideas, they say, were probably well ahead of other scientists. He must have come from another planet, maybe the same one Newton grew up.
"Einstein was not alien," laughs Peter Galison, a physicist and historian of science at the University of Harvard. " He was a man of his time. " All Articles of 1905 unraveled problems were being studied, with mixed success, by other scientists. If Einstein had not been born, [those papers] would have been written in one form or another, over time, by others, "Galison believes .
Súperpensador of tousled hair "? "Common man? Or both?
What is striking about 1905 is that a single person authored all five papers, plus the original, irreverent way Einstein came to his conclusions.
For example: the photoelectric effect. This was a mystery in early 1900. Cu 'm
light hits a metal, such as zinc, electrons fly off. This can happen only if the light comes in little packets concentrated enough to knock an electron free him. A separate wave would not do the trick photoelectric. The solution seems simple, light is composed of particles. Of course, this is the solution Einstein proposed in 1905 and for which he won the Nobel Prize in 1921. Other physicists like Max Planck (working on a related problem: black body radiation), more senior and experienced than Einstein, were closing in on the answer, but Einstein got there first. Why?
is a question of authority.
"In the days of Einstein, if you tried to say that light was made of particles, you found yourself disagreeing with physicist James Clerk Maxwell. Nobody wanted to do that, "says Galison. The Maxwell equations were enormously successful, unifying the physics of electricity, magnetism and optics. Maxwell had proved beyond any doubt that light was an electromagnetic wave. Maxwell was a figure authority.
Einstein did not give a fig for authority. He did not resist being told what he had to do, not much, but hated being told what was true. Even as a child he was constantly doubting and questioning . 'Your mere presence here undermines respect class for me, "spat his seventh grade teacher, Dr. Joseph Degenhart. (Degenhart also predicted that Einstein" would never get anywhere in life "). This character flaw was to be a key ingredient in Einstein's discoveries.
Right: Einstein High School Diploma. Contrary to popular legend, Albert did well in school.
"In 1905," says Galison, "Einstein had just received his Ph.D. in physics. He was not beholden to any supervisor or other authority figure. "Consequently, his mind was free to roam.
In retrospect, Maxwell was right. The light is a wave. But so was Einstein. The Light is a particle. This bizarre duality baffles Physics I students today, like Einstein in 1905. How can light be both? Einstein had no idea.
That did not stop him. Without thinking twice, Einstein adopted the intuitive leap as a basic tool. "I believe in intuition and inspiration," he wrote in 1931. "Sometimes I feel like I am right while not knowing the reason."
Although Einstein's five papers were published in a single year, he was thinking about physics, deeply, since childhood. "Science was the topic of conversation at a dinner at Einstein's house," says Galison. Einstein's father Hermann and uncle Jakob ran a German company making such things as dynamos, arc lamps, light bulbs and telephones. This was the latest technology at the beginning of the century, "as it would be today a Silicon Valley company," says Galison. "Albert's interest in science and technology came naturally."
Below: The family of Einstein: Albert and his sister Maja (below left), his father Hermann (above), and his mother Pauline (bottom right).
Einstein's parents sometimes took Albert to parties. No babysitter was required: Albert sat on the couch, totally absorbed, solving math problems in silence, while others danced around him. Pencil and paper were Albert's Game Boy!
Einstein had an amazing ability to concentrate. His sister, Maja, recalled "... even when there was much noise, he could lie down on the couch, grab a pen and paper, precariously balance an inkwell on the backrest and engross himself in a problem as the background noise stimulated rather than disturbed him. "
Einstein was clearly intelligent, but not excessively more than their peers. "I have no special talents," he said, "I am passionately curious, nothing more." And again: "The contrast between the valuation popular of my abilities and the reality is simply grotesque. "Einstein credited his discoveries to imagination and pesky questioning more than conventional intelligence.
Later in his life, as recalled, he struggled mightily to produce a unified theory of field, combining gravity with other forces of nature. Failed. Einstein's brainpower was not limitless.
Neither was Einstein's brain. It was removed without permission by Dr. Thomas Harvey in 1955, when Einstein died. Probably expected to find something extraordinary. Einstein's mother Pauline had famously worried that baby Einstein's head was lopsided. (Grandmother Einstein had another opinion: "Too fat!"). But Einstein's brain was like any other, gray, wrinkled, and, if anything, slightly smaller than normal.
are recent and few detailed studies of Einstein's brain. In 1985, for instance, Prof. Marian Diamond of UC Berkeley, reported a number of glial cells (which nourish neurons) of superior quality in areas of the left hemisphere responsible for checking math skills. In 1999, neuroscientist Sandra Witelson reported that Einstein's inferior parietal lobe, an area related to mathematical reasoning, was 15% wider than normal. Also found Slyvian crack, a groove that normally extends from the front of the brain to the back, not walked all the way in the case of Einstein. Would this have allowed greater connectivity between different parts of Einstein's brain?
Nobody knows.
Not knowing makes some researchers feel uncomfortable. It exhilarated Einstein: "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious" he said. "This is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science."
is the fundamental emotion that Einstein felt, walking to work, awake with the baby, sitting at the table during dinner. The unknown spell expired from exhaustion, every day.
