Miraculous Visions - 100 years of Einstein

Economist.com ^ | December 29, 2004

[mikegi]

My post wasn't clear. There were two separate thoughts in it:

1) Heaviside showed that a charge in motion has a distorted em field. He corresponded with Fitzgerald of the Lorentz-Fitzgerald effect. Heaviside also derived the correct effective mass increase with speed (based on Thomson's earlier attempt). This was in the 1880-90s. What I'm saying is that Einstein didn't just pop up with SR. Others had slogged through the difficult theories for decades. Heaviside's comment on Einstein's SR: "now to explain the explanation".

2) Heaviside also showed that em waves carry energy and momentum in the 1880s (this is common knowledge). The Compton Effect shows that a billiard ball-like collision between a photon and an electron works. It's now known that classical em theory + Special Relativity can produce the same result. I wrote a summary of the derivation:

http://users.adelphia.net/~mikegi/compton/

The advantage of the classical approach is that you can see how the process works.

[rcocean]

Thanks for the response.

Could you explain (briefly) how he was responsible for atomic power?

I've read about the splitting of the atom and the Manhattan project and he doesn't seem to be very involved in either of them.

[aimhigh]

It's interesting that all these articles fail to mention his political leanings. Einstein was an ardent socialist.

[RadioAstronomer]

Great post! :-)

Thank you!

[yarddog]

I guess genius and morality are not connected.

There was a biography of him (I think it was the history channel), and I was surprised what a creep he was in his personal life.

He obviously was incredibly smart, but I recall a question asked of Dr. Teller at a meeting I was able to attend. When asked who was the greatest physicist of all time, Teller said he thought it was some guy I never heard of. I do remember he was from Hungary tho.

[PatrickHenry]

Science Ping!

This is an elite subset of the Evolution ping list.

See the list's description in my freeper homepage. Then FReepmail me to be added or dropped.

[Junior]

It did allow for the invention of the laser, which is used nearly everywhere now.

[Condor51]

" Could you explain (briefly) how he was responsible for atomic power? I've read about the splitting of the atom and the Manhattan project and he doesn't seem to be very involved in either of them."

Please exuse, I don't mean to butt in, but try this:
ALBERT EINSTEIN and the ATOMIC BOMB

But maybe this part will suffice for you:

The physicist Albert Einstein did not directly participate in the invention of the atomic bomb. But as we shall see, he was instrumental in facilitating its development.

In 1905, as part of his Special Theory of Relativity, he made the intriguing point that a large amount of energy could be released from a small amount of matter. This was expressed by the equation E=mc2 (energy = mass times the speed of light squared). The atomic bomb would clearly illustrate this principle.

[Brett66]

Bump for later reading.

[GVnana]

What Einstein realised, without adding any new mathematics, but in a profoundly new way nonetheless, was that there was no seem about it. Space really was contracting, and time was slowing down. It is just this that Pais was referring to when he said that Einstein was good at picking invariance principles. Everyone had thought that time was invariant. It is not. No one thought the speed of light was. It is.

Thanks for the post. This article is the simplest and best explanation of Einstein's special theory I have ever read.

[topher]

From reading the article Einstein certainly was a great scientist. But what real impact has his discoveries made in every day life?

Perhaps Einstein's greatest impact on the world was during World War II -- in a way he did not intend. He wrote a letter to President Rooservelt issuing a warning that Nazi Germany might be building an atomic bomb [which the were].

Einstein's letter had good intentions, but created the arms race. From it, the Manhattan Project was born, as well investigation of how far along the Nazis were in building their bomb.

Fortunately, the Nazis tried to build it with heavy water -- which was totally wrong.

On the other hand, a great collection of minds were gathered to build that atomic bomb via the Manhattan Project.

Basically, if you collide matter at the speed of light, you square the speed of light. Thus, the famous equation:

E = mc^2

The Manhattan Project started the arms race; Einstein accidentally started the Manhattan Project with his letter.

It is an unfortunate that this ended this way, but Einstein feared the Nazis getting the bomb. By giving the US government information on what a bomb could do [I guess that was in the letter], he gave ideas to the FDR Administration to build their own.

[It's me]

Just a small thing.

Isaac Newton invented calculus

I think he discovered calculus.

[Lady Jag]

[GVnana]

Possibly a socialist of an older stripe? I understand Einstein did believe in God.

[Fiddlstix]

BTTT

[not2worry]

I don't know how well know it was how instrumental Einstein was in the Manhattan Project. Credits usually go to Waters, et. al.

Lived in a house in St. Thomas where Einstein visited one Dr. Lillienfeld who also socialized with Dr. Waters who lived on St. John during WWII.

According to the locals, the US Military had both scientist's homes guarded to keep the Russians from "getting them".

[rcocean]

Thanks for the response. I understand his role in atomic power more clearly.

[muir_redwoods]

"I do remember he was from Hungary tho."

Leo Szilard (sp?), perhaps?

[yarddog]

I am sure I would not remember the name if I heard it.

The reason it stuck in my mind was Teller said the guy was a "fellow Hungarian", which meant Teller was also a Hungarian.

[PatrickHenry]

From the article:
Invariance principles play a central role in the theory of relativity. Indeed, Einstein had wanted to call relativity the "theory of invariants".

I wish he had used the original name. It would have prevented a bunch of idiots from running around saying: "Hey, man ... like it's all relative, ya' know?"