Reference
- Einstein, Albert (1879-1955)German-born US theoretical physicist who revolutionized our understanding of matter, space, and time with his two theories of relativity. Einstein also established that light may have a particle nature and deduced the photoelectric law that governs the production of electricity from light-sensitive metals. For this achievement, he was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize for Physics. Einstein also investigated Brownian motion and was able to explain it so that it not only confirmed the existence of atoms but could be used to determine their dimensions. He also proposed the equivalence of mass and energy, which enabled physicists to deepen their understanding of the nature of the atom and explained radioactivity and other nuclear processes. Einstein, with his extraordinary insight into the workings of nature, may be compared with Isaac Newton (whose achievements he extended greatly) as one of the greatest scientists ever to have lived.
Einstein was born in Ulm, Germany, on 14 March 1879. His father's business enterprises were not successful in that town and soon the family moved to Munich, where Einstein attended school. He was not regarded as a genius by his teachers; indeed there was some delay because of his poor mathematics before he could enter the Eidgenössosche Technische Hochschule in Zürich, Switzerland, when he was 17. As a student he was not outstanding and Hermann Minkowski, who was one of his mathematics professors, found it difficult in later years to believe that the famous scientist was the same person he had taught as a student.
Einstein graduated in 1900 and after spending some time as a teacher, he was appointed a year later to a technical post in the Swiss Patent Office in Berne. Also in 1901 he became a Swiss citizen and then in 1903 he married his first wife, Mileva Marié. This marriage ended in divorce in 1919. During his years with the Patent Office, Einstein worked on theoretical physics in his spare time and evolved the ideas that were to revolutionize physics. In 1905 he published three classic papers on Brownian motion, the photoelectric effect, and special relativity.
Einstein did not, however, find immediate recognition. When he applied to the University of Berne for an academic position, his work was returned with a rude remark. But by 1909 his discoveries were known and understood by a few people, and he was offered a junior professorship at the University of Zürich. As his reputation spread, Einstein became full professor or Ordinariat, first in Prague in 1911 and then in Zürich in 1912, and he was then appointed director of the Institute of Physics at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin in 1914, where he was free from teaching duties...
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Perspectives
Einstein
Illustrating spectacular architectural feats and creations of great beauty, this handbook introduces children to the original Seven Wonders of the World as well as the monuments on the new list. The creativity and ingenuity of human history are captured in detail as these icons of world culture are explored, offering opportunities to discover amazing civilizations, technological innovations, and a shared global heritage. Interesting sidebars, fun trivia, and entertaining illustrations make for an accessible and engaging trip through time while hands-on projects encourage active learning. With minimal adult supervision and using supplies commonly found in most households, activities range from creating a model Colosseum tonbsp;fashioning a working water pump. From the Pyramids of Egypt and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon to the ruins of Machu Picchu and thenbsp;Great Wall of China, this activity book conveys the value of preserving the world’s treasures.
Albert Einstein, Mileva Maric
In 1903, despite the vehement objections of his parents, Albert Einstein married Mileva Maric, the companion, colleague, and confidante whose influence on his most creative years has given rise to much speculation. Beginning in 1897, after Einstein and Maric met as students at the Swiss Federal Polytechnic, and ending shortly after their marriage, these fifty-four love letters offer a rare glimpse into Einstein's relationship with his first wife while shedding light on his intellectual development in the period before the annus mirabilis of 1905. Unlike the picture of Einstein the lone, isolated thinker of Princeton, he appears here both as the burgeoning enfant terrible of science and as an amorous young man beset, along with his fiance, by financial and personal struggles--among them the illegitimate birth of their daughter, whose existence is known only by these letters. Describing his conflicts with professors and other scientists, his arguments with his mother over Maric, and his difficulty obtaining an academic position after graduation, the letters enable us to reconstruct the youthful Einstein with an unprecedented immediacy. His love for Maric, whom he describes as "a creature who is my equal, and who is as strong and independent as I am," brings forth his serious as well as playful, often theatrical nature. After their marriage, however, Maric becomes less his intellectual companion, and, failing to acquire a teaching certificate, she subordinates her professional goals to his. In the final letters Einstein has obtained a position at the Swiss Patent Office and mentions their daughter one last time to his wife in Hungary, where she is assumed to have placed the girl in the care of relatives. Informative, entertaining, and often very moving, this collection of letters captures for scientists and general readers alike a little known yet crucial period in Einstein's life.
Odd Boy Out
When he was born, Albert was a peculiar, fat baby with an unusually big and misshaped head. When he was older, he hit his sister, bothered his teachers, and didn't have many friends. But in the midst of all of this, Albert was fascinated with solving puzzles and fixing scientific problems. The ideas Albert Einstein came up with during his childhood as an odd boy out were destined to change the way we know and understand the world around us . . .
Subtle Is the Lord
Since the death of Albert Einstein in 1955 there have been many books and articles written about the man and a number of attempts to "explain" relativity. In this new major work Abraham Pais, himself an eminent physicist who worked alongside Einstein in the post-war years, traces thedevelopment of Einstein's entire oeuvre. This is the first book which deal comprehensively and in depth with Einstein's science, both the successes and the failures.Running through the book is a completely non-scientific biography (identified in the table of contents by italic type) including many letters which appear in English for the first time, as well as other information not published before.Throughout the preparation of this book, Pais has had complete access to the Einstein Archives (now in the possession of the Hebrew University) and the invaluable guidance of the late Helen Dukas--formerly Einstein's private secretary.
Albert Einstein: Still a Revolutionary
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Albert Einstein, the most famous scientist of all time, was a world renowned celebrity, greeted like a rock star when he appeared in public. An anti-war firebrand, Einstein also spoke out on issues ranging from women's rights and racism to immigration and nuclear arms control. But today, his image has been neutered into that of a charmingly absent-minded genius. He was, in fact, a powerful force for social change and a model for political activism
Einstein's Universe
- Kanopy This link opens in a new windowA documentary produced in 1979 by WGBH and the BBC to celebrate the centenary of the birth of Albert Einstein. Narrated and hosted by Peter Ustinov and written by Nigel Calder, the author of the accompanying book of the same title, the film takes place at the University of Texas' McDonald Observatory where a staff of renowned scientists and physicists take both Ustinov and the viewer through a hands-on experience of the various facets of Einstein's theory of general relativity.
Albert Einstein: Theoretical Physicist
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Born in Germany in 1879, Einstein published 4 groundbreaking papers in 1905, and in 1916, he published his theory of general relativity.
Online Resources
- Einstein-Cartan wormhole solutionsIn the present work we investigate wormhole structures and the energy conditions supporting them, in Einstein-Cartan theory ({\sf ECT}). The matter content consists of a Weyssenhoff fluid along with an anisotropic matter which together generalize the anisotropic energy momentum tensor in general relativity ({\sf GR}) to include spin effects. Assuming that the radial pressure and energy density obey a linear equation of state, we introduce exact asymptotically flat and anti-de-Sitter spacetimes that admit traversable wormholes and respect energy conditions. Such wormhole solutions are studied in detail for two specific forms for the redshift function, namely a constant redshift function and the one with power law dependency.
- Einstein Equations from Varying ComplexityA recent proposal equates the circuit complexity of a quantum gravity state with the gravitational action of a certain patch of spacetime. Since Einstein’s equations follow from varying the action, it should be possible to derive them by varying complexity. I present such a derivation for vacuum solutions of pure Einstein gravity in three-dimensional asymptotically anti–de Sitter space. The argument relies on known facts about holography and on properties of tensor network renormalization, an algorithm for coarse-graining (and optimizing) tensor networks.
- Entanglement Equilibrium and the Einstein EquationA link between the semiclassical Einstein equation and a maximal vacuum entanglement hypothesis is established. The hypothesis asserts that entanglement entropy in small geodesic balls is maximized at fixed volume in a locally maximally symmetric vacuum state of geometry and quantum fields. A qualitative argument suggests that the Einstein equation implies validity of the hypothesis. A more precise argument shows that, for first-order variations of the local vacuum state of conformal quantum fields, the vacuum entanglement is stationary if and only if the Einstein equation holds. For nonconformal fields, the same conclusion follows modulo a conjecture about the variation of entanglement entropy.
- Quantum Einstein gravityWe give a pedagogical introduction to the basic ideas and concepts of the Asymptotic Safety program in quantum Einstein gravity. Using the continuum approach based upon the effective average action, we summarize the state of the art of the field with a focus on the evidence supporting the existence of the non-trivial renormalization group fixed point at the heart of the construction. As an application, the multifractal structure of the emerging space-times is discussed in detail. In particular, we compare the continuum prediction for their spectral dimension with Monte Carlo data from the causal dynamical triangulation approach.
Working with Einstein
- Kanopy This link opens in a new windowFilmed at the Princeton's Institute for Advanced Studies' commemoration of the centennial of his birth, WORKING WITH EINSTEIN offers a rare glimpse into the great scientist's professional musings as recalled by his students and colleagues.
With participation from Banesh Hoffmann (Queens College), Peter Bergman (Syracuse University), Valentine Bargmann (Princeton University) and Ernst Strauss (UCLA), the panel pays homage to Einstein's work and creative personality. Listening to those who worked closest to him reminisce about their time spent with Einstein is to understand how the scientist shone in both a personal and professional light.