The Everything Einstein Book

From Matter and Energy to Space and Time, All You Need to Understand the Man and His Theories

Shana Priwer, Cynthia Phillips

• Publisher: Everything
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781605505244
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Science & Technology Biographies
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Albert Einstein was the most famous and influential thinker of his time. His theories of relativity, quantum mechanics, and statistical physics gave birth to a new era in scientific thought and changed the ay people see the universe and their place in it. The Everything Einstein Book walks you through his rise from a lowly patent clerk to a groundbreaking scientist and explains the theories that brought him fame and world renown. Covering everything from photoelectric effect to the unified field theory, this book answers all your questions about the genius, his work, and the age that influenced him.

Chapter 1

Why Einstein?

Albert Einstein is perhaps the most famous scientist of modern times, but he was not only a scientist. He was also an ardent humanitarian who worked for peace and for equal treatment of all people. His theories changed the scientific world of the twentieth century, and his work on humanitarian issues helped change the lives of many people whom he helped find a better life.

Einstein’s Impact

Albert Einstein was, without a doubt, one of the most influential people of all time. He was a scientist, a humanist, and a father. While he is best known for his special and general theories of relativity, Einstein contributed much more, both to the scientific community and to the world at large. His interests were varied, and his intelligence immense. With a natural capacity for both thought and reason, it is no surprise that Einstein had such an amazing impact.

Have you ever heard of the Big Bang theory of how the universe began? Thank Einstein for laying the groundwork. Did you know that Einstein first proposed the building of the atomic bomb to Franklin Delano Roosevelt? He did, and then later tried to retract the idea. Einstein was not accepted at university when he first applied! He also had his share of layperson drudgery–before making his most important contributions to science, Einstein worked a nine-to-five job in a patent office.

People often think of scientists as highly educated folks who spend all their time holed up in an office. While Einstein certainly spent his share of time in research, his life’s work extends beyond the laboratory. Religion was also important to Einstein. He was a deeply spiritual Jew whose thoughts on religion influenced his ideas about the creation of the world. He spent much of his later life involved in humanitarian concerns, campaigning to convince the United States and other countries not to develop nuclear weapons. He also spent much time writing affidavits and otherwise helping Jews who wanted to immigrate to the United States from various European countries in the years leading up to World War II.

How Did He Become So Famous?

What is it about Einstein that makes people worldwide know his name? Why is he such a familiar figure, even to those who don’t understand his theories? How did one person come to be so widely known? A simple answer to this question doesn’t exist, but one of the goals of this book is to explore all the elements that created the icon everyone knows as Einstein.

Part of Einstein’s fame and recognition was circumstantial. He developed his theories at a time when the world was ready to accept them. The scientific community of the early twentieth century was ready and willing to receive new ideas, and without this support, Einstein’s ideas might have done nothing more than gather dust. The general public was also ready for some good news in the late 1910s, especially after the depression and stress caused by the war years. When Einstein’s theory of general relativity was beautifully confirmed by observations of bending starlight taken during the 1919 solar eclipse, Einstein received international acclaim.

Accessible Science

In addition, the nature of Einstein’s work was such that it could be accepted by those who did not understand it. Einstein didn’t challenge common religious beliefs or attempt to overthrow societal norms. While his work was complex and not readily comprehensible, it also wasn’t blatantly offensive to most people. Had his goal been to prove that God didn’t exist, for example, Einstein’s name probably wouldn’t be known as fondly as it is today, if at all.

Perhaps one of the most famous equations in the world is Einstein’s E=mc², which refers to the equivalence of matter and energy. In this equation, energy (E) is related to mass (m) by a factor related to the speed of light (c) squared.

Einstein’s major scientific works can also be easily stated in terms accessible to the general public, even if the physics and mathematics behind them are far beyond all but the most advanced scientists. Such ideas as the equivalence of matter and energy, as expressed in the equation E=mc², can be understood by just about anyone. So can the idea of living in a four-dimensional universe, with the fourth temporal dimension (time) in addition to the three spatial dimensions (length, width, and height). It is also fairly easy to picture the idea of the warping of space, or the speed of light as a universal speed limit, or a black hole with gravity so strong that nothing, even light, can escape from it. All these concepts are results of Einstein’s work, yet they do not require advanced physics to understand intuitively.

Why Does Science Matter?

A larger issue, of course, is the question of why science matters. Why do nonscientists care about science? From the perspective of the human race as a whole, it is obvious that science is valued. If it weren’t, no one would have ever heard of Einstein. There would be no Nobel Prize in physics. High school students would not be required to study chemistry. No one would know about Saturn’s rings, and famous rock stars would not be spending millions of dollars trying to travel into outer space.

The realm of science might be seen as composed of two main elements: fact and theory. Facts are proven truths that have stood their ground, through the tests of time and the rigors of usage. Facts are things that are taken for granted to be true and unambiguous.

Most facts, though, do not start out as such, particularly in the world of science. In a field where innovation is part of the job, scientists are at times tasked with creating fact from scratch. Such creation does not come easily, nor is it handed to them on a silver platter. People are inquisitive and, by nature, have a tendency to question the environments and situations surrounding them. Sometimes things that are taken for granted as truth have to undergo rigorous examination and questioning by many, many people before they are finally accepted as fact.

Enter the theory. What exactly is a theory? It can be generally defined as a set of ideas that relate to each other in some way. Theories differ from facts in that they are unproven ideas; a theory is, by definition, speculative and not certain. Scientists, musicians, artists, philosophers, and people from just about every walk of life create theories every day. How? Simply by being alive and cognizant.

The Scientific Method

Einstein’s ideas are called “theories” because they were initially unproven. They did not start out as facts; they were ideas that had to be tested. This aspect is, in and of itself, unremarkable. Most large-scale ideas that present new information, or suggest a reversal of old information, are going to be questioned by someone; as such, they will be considered theories until most people agree on their validity. This is what is called the “scientific method”–the method by which science tries to develop more and more accurate descriptions of the natural world around us.

The scientific method is the way in which scientists, over time, attempt to construct an accurate representation of the world around us. The foundation of the scientific method is experimental verification–any idea must be tested before it can be accepted.

Hypothesis

The scientific method is the basis of Einstein’s work and of all other scientific research–in the past, present, and future. The scientific method begins with a hypothesis, which is a new thought or idea to explain some observation of the world around us. The hypothesis must be testable; this is the main difference between science and other fields such as religion or philosophy. In science, once a new idea or explanation is proposed, it must make specific claims or predictions that can be tested.

The scientific method consists of the following steps:

1. Observation of a particular phenomenon.
2. Formulation of a hypothesis to explain the observations.
3. Use of the hypothesis to make further predictions.
4. Performance of experiments to test the predictions made by the hypothesis.

Experimental Verification

The predictions are then tested by experiments performed by many independent scientists, not just the one or ones who initially made the hypothesis. If the predictions made by the hypothesis turn out to be correct, then the hypothesis has been proved accurate; it will eventually become elevated in stature to a theory or a law of nature. Even theories can be overturned. As you will see in the following chapters, Einstein’s theories showed that Newton’s laws of classical mechanics, the established theories of the previous century, did not hold up under certain conditions.

Only a scientific theory that has been subjected to experimental verification can truly be called a theory. An important example is the theory of evolution, which has made specific predictions that have proved correct. This theory can be compared to the idea of creationism, which can make no such predictions. Evolution is therefore a scientific theory, while creationism is not.

Revolutionary Theories

So what made Einstein’s theories so special? One of the primary reasons Einstein stood out from his predecessors and contemporaries is that the theory of relativity (discussed in detail in Chapter 6 and Chapter 12) changed the way scientists fundamentally considered both space and time. Humankind’s place in the universe was seen from a new perspective, and such a notion was both frightening and exciting. Other scientists had important theories; Einstein’s were daring. Sometimes a little excitement goes a long way toward the creation of a legacy!

In fact, Einstein’s ideas were so revolutionary that much of the scientific community initially rejected them as being too outlandish. Einstein won the Nobel Prize in physics, but for some much less controversial work he had done early in his career–not for relativity. It took many years for Einstein’s ideas to become part of the scientific mainstream.

Einstein’s Public Role

Theories do not stand alone, nor are they created by a faceless entity in a vacuum. Einstein himself was, of course, partly responsible for the success and popularity of his ideas. He was not the type of scientist to spend night and day isolated from the public. Quite the contrary; Einstein was involved in science, as well as humanitarian concerns, from a public and political viewpoint as well as research perspective. He was actively involved in many public organizations, including the League of Nations and the German League for Human Rights, and was able to promote both himself and his science on many levels.

Public Speaking

His interest in public speaking undoubtedly helped to provide awareness of his theories. He was in direct communication with world leaders, giving credence to his own research and to science in general. Being both a scientist and a figure of popular culture was enabling to members of the scientific community at large, as evidenced by the large number of radical and critical scientists who were Einstein’s contemporaries.

Through being a public humanitarian, though, he was also able to gain public support for science. Bringing science to the people provided a popular base for Einstein’s research. New scientific research and breakthroughs must be explained to the general public in order to really change the way we see the world, and Einstein’s interest in public speaking provided an immense outlet for potential support and recognition.

Complex Ideas Made Simple

Did most people understand relativity when Einstein first presented his ideas in 1905 with a paper on the photoelectric effect? Probably not. Do most people understand these ideas today? Again, probably not, but lack of general comprehension didn’t hurt Einstein’s reputation. What was significant was the fact that other well-known and well-respected scientists did understand and give credence to Einstein, and the masses were more than willing to follow suit.

Those who wanted to understand Einstein, of course, could. Complex ideas can be broken down, and common terms can be used to decipher a maze of scientific lingo. Anyone who wants to can grasp Einstein’s message.

Einstein’s Science

So what was the gist of Einstein’s work? While he made important contributions to many aspects of science, he is most fam...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Top Ten Impacts of Einstein’s Life and Work
• Introduction
• 1 Why Einstein?
• 2 Early Life
• 3 Scientific and Cultural Background of Einstein’s Time
• 4 Education and Later Life
• 5 The Photoelectric Effect
• 6 Special Relativity
• 7 Energy and Mass
• 8 Other Major Early Papers
• 9 Einstein’s Contemporaries
• 10 Background on the General Theory of Relativity
• 11 Einstein in Berlin
• 12 Einstein and the General Theory of Relativity
• 13 Quantum Theory and Einstein’s Role
• 14 Cosmology
• 15 Later Years–Effects of the Nuclear Age
• 16 Later Years–Family and Humanitarianism
• 17 Unified Field Theory
• 18 Einstein and Religion
• 19 Applications of Einstein’s Theories
• 20 Einstein’s Other Science
• 21 Einstein’s Legacy
• Appendix A • Glossary
• Appendix B • Timeline of Einstein’s Life
• Copyright