Einstein::Poetic Thinker

The challenge for Einstein was not in how one related to family, friends, co-workers and strangers, but how one related to the universe.

Einstein puzzled over variance and invariance and "the harmony of the universe." He did this as a poet. Intellectual consideration must be done with words; in the hands of a poet words, quanta, mean much more: they have a hidden energy, belying a source still undiscovered that is glimpsed in the great line and flow of the universe.
Einstein theorized with an image, a visualization. He asked, what would it be like to ride on a beam of light?
What is it like to be a beam of light, coursing straight from God's eye, a divine thread speeding across the universe, one of many weaving the fabric of an ever-changing world in which the thread is constant?
Einstein's quest to map the soul of the universe with theoretical science was bolstered, supported, and meant to be proved by mathematical equations. Still, scientific tests and observations mattered less to him than the cosmological beauty, the religious tone and completeness of the theory. And so he insisted that other theories fit his. In the end, he had written a new Bible, with all the visionary and messianic intent of a prophet.

Einstein::Biography

Albert Einstein (1879-1955) is one of the most well-known and influential scientists of the twentieth century.

He is also an enthusiastic activist for peace and the science freed from politics and other prejudices.

Albert Einstein was born in 1879 in Ulm, Germany.

He moved with his family to Switzerland in 1895.

He got his diploma in 1900 and was employed at patent office in Bern in 1902.

In 1905 he published in the "Annalen der Physik" papers that changed the whole course of science: works on the quantum of light and photo-electric effect, the Brownian motion of particles and atomic theory and the famous special theory of relativity.

From 1907 to 1914, he perfected his theory and published his work on the general theory of relativity in 1915.

During the first World War, Einstein was among the scientists who were against the war.

He cosigned in the "Manifesto to Europeans" separating himself from the German militarism.

In 1922, despite the growing anti-Semite movements, Einstein was awarded the Nobel prize in physics ""for his services to theoretical physics and in particular for his discovery of the law of the photo-electric effect." He also began his works on unified field theory and debated with Niels Bohr on quantum theory intepretation at the fifth Solway Congress in 1927.

He visited the U.S. in 1930 and in 1932, he accepted to be professor at Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton with the intention of dividing time between there and Germany.

However, in 1933, as the Nazis came to power in Germany, he settled in the U.S.

The second World War broke out in 1939 and Einstein signed in the letter warning President Roosevelt of possibility of the Nazis creating atomic bombs.

Nevertheless, he was horrified by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and spent the rest of his life working for denuclearization.

He served as chairman of Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists and was offered the presidency of Israel in 1952 but declined.

Einstein died in 1955 in Princeton.

Albert Einstein is a person of great charisma and influence both inside and outside science. He is one of the few scientists known widely by non-scientific people. His works on photo-electric effect contributes in establishing the foundation for quantum physics, a new and radical branch of science.

His theory of relativity both special and general helps humanity approach nearer the nature of time and space as well as the universe and by doing so considerably change the way man views the world. It also inspires new views and debates in other fields like phylosophy, theology, etc. Besides science, Einstein was actively involved in social issues.

He was a firm pacifist in both World Wars and was a pioneer in anti-nuclearization movements. Despite being one of the authors of the letter urging President Roosevelt to take action in the matter of nuclear weapon, he did not do anything else for the atomic bomb project. After the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Einstein made many appeals for nuclear disarmament which had influence in both the science community and the public. He was also an early and firm supporter of the United Nation and civil liberties.

Source: http://www.aip.org/history/einstein

Einstein::eRumour about intelligency

This has a thought provoking message no matter how you believe. Does evil exist?

The university professor challenged his students with this question. Did God create everything that exists?

A student bravely replied yes, he did!""God created everything?" The professor asked.

"Yes, sir," the student replied.

The professor answered, "If God created everything, then God created evil since evil exists, and according to the principal that our works define who we are then God is evil."The student became quiet before such an answer.

The professor was quite pleased with himself and boasted to the students that he had proven once more that the Christian faith was a myth.

Another student raised his hand and said, "Can I ask you a question professor?" "Of course", replied the professor.

The student stood up and asked, "Professor, does cold exist?"

"What kind of question is this? Of course it exists. Have you never been cold?" The students snickered at the young man's question.

The young man replied, "In fact sir, cold does not exist. According to the laws of physics, what we consider cold is in reality the absence of heat. Everybody and every object is susceptible to study when it has or transmits energy, and heat is what makes a body or matter have or transmit energy. Absolute zero (- 460 degrees F) is the total absence of heat; all matter becomes inert and incapable of reaction at that temperature. Cold does not exist. We have created this word to describe how we feel if we have too little heat.

The student continued. "Professor, does darkness exist?"
The professor responded, "Of course it does".

The student replied, "Once again you are wrong sir, darkness does not exist either. Darkness is in reality the absence of light. Light we can study, but not darkness. In fact we can use Newton's prism to break white light into many colors and study the various wavelengths of each color. You cannot measure darkness. A simple ray of light can break into a world of darkness and illuminate it. How can you know how dark a certain space is? You measure the amount of light present. Isn't this correct? Darkness is a term used by man to describe what happens when there is no light present."

Finally the young man asked the professor. "Sir, does evil exist?"

Now uncertain, the professor responded, "Of course as I have already said.

We see it every day. It is in the daily example of man's inhumanity to man. It is in the multitude of crime and violence everywhere in the world. "These manifestations are nothing else but evil."

To this the student replied, "Evil does not exist sir, or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is not like faith, or love, that exist just as does light and heat. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God's love present in his heart. It's like the cold that comes when there is no heat or the darkness that comes when there is no light."
The professor sat down.

The young man's name --- Albert Einstein

source::http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/e/einstein-god.htm

Einstein had an affair with Marilyn Monroe?

While Einstein was known to have had extramarital affairs, Marilyn Monroe was not one of them.

Another popular urban legend about Einstein that has no basis in reality is that he sat next to Marilyn Monroe once at a dinner and she told him that she wanted to have a child with Einstein -- with her looks and his brain, it would have been the perfect child.

Einstein is said to have responded: "Ah, but what if it had my looks and your brain?"

This is clearly untrue first of all because the two never met, and second because the same story is often told of George Bernard Shaw and Isadora Duncan.

Einstein::Quiz

Einstein could not grasp which of these elementary school subjects, leading him into a mini depression?

Greek.At the time the young Albert had already taught himself Latin, advanced Mathematics and had discovered a love for geometry. In later life he announced the discovery of Euclid as a great delight in his life. He refers to a book on Euclidean geometry as 'holy.'

Polytechnic classmate and lifelong friend Marcel Grossman, used his father's influence to get Einstein a job in which countries patent office?

Switzerland. This position was a saviour for the now 23-year-old Einstein who had failed to get a permanent teaching or academic position after graduation. He was completely penniless. The job also allowed Einstein the time to develop his theories.

In 1905, the final jigsaw pieces of the special theory of relativity came to Einstein where?

In his sleep. Einstein is quoted as saying this about the discovery: "A storm broke loose in my mind and with it came the answers." A friend had later said: "He has tapped into gods' thoughts and tuned into the master plan for the universe."
1905 was a very busy year for Einstein. 'Relativity' was his fourth paper. The fifth that year was on the photoelectric effect. By applying this great scientists' quantum theory of light, Einstein helped to establish quantum mechanics.

Who was this great German scientist and idol to Einstein?

Max Planck. Planck had changed views that stood for over 200 years that light was a wave like phenomenon and he claimed that light was absorbed by matter or quanta. Einstein went further and claimed that light quanta or photons travelled as separate particles and would hit matter sporadically, not smoothly like a wave.

Einstein summed up the special theory of relativity in a magazine review a few years later with the now legendary equation E=mc2. How does this translate?

Energy = mass multiplied by the speed of light squared. Mass contains enormous amounts of energy. Marie Curie discovered that one-ounce of radium emitted 4000 calories/hour indefinitely. E=mc2 would be the base of the discovery of how the sun and stars radiate light and heat for billions of years - and much to Einstein’s horror, the atomic bomb.

What did Einstein win a Nobel Prize for in 1922, 17 years after relativity was first published?

Services to Theoretical Physics. There were many reasons why a Nobel Prize wasn't awarded to Einstein for so long and not for relativity. Relativity was very controversial and it was theoretical. It could not be proven. Add to the equasion that the judges didn't fully understand it. Also, there was a large 'anti-Einstein' movement headed by the anti-semitic and later nazi supporter Philip Lenard who had influence on the panel. By 1922 Einstein had the overwhelming support of the science community. The Nobel judges finally capitulated after pressure by the science world and awarded Einstein a services award based on the work he did with the photoelectric effect. (They were still playing it safe.)

Einstein first visited the United States of America in April, 1921. What was the purpose for the visit?

To support the World Zionist Organisation. Einstein was a world celebrity. The general public in the US did not understand relativity but he attracted thousands of people wherever he went including a media circus. The tour was a success, raising nearly a million dollars for the Zionist movement, enough to start building the Medical Faculty of Hewbrew University. Einstein wasn't a zionist but he cared deeply about the fate of his brother Jew and supported the creation and expansion of Palestine under British rule.

What did Edgar Hoover suspect so strongly, that he committed thousands of FBI man-hours in unsuccessfully trying to convict Einstein?

Einstein was a communist. Although Hoover suspected Einstein was a communist he would never put his money were his mouth was and approve phone tapping or mail interception in fear of the backlash against the FBI if they were discovered - Einstein was too popular a figure. After many years and thousands of hours work, Hoover dropped the case against Einstein and his secretary Helen Dukas. They had collected 6 feet of files, all proving nothing. Later, friends said Einstein would have found the whole affair highly amusing.

One of the reasons it took 30 years for the majority of scientists to support relativity was that it dispelled the mythical existence of the ether. Ether was described as an infinite, jelly like substance, which was the medium for the propagation of electromagnetic waves.

Amazing but true. The existence of the ether was (incorrectly) proven many times to support Maxwell's unified theory that light consist of electromagnetic waves. The waves needed a medium to travel upon, and the medium was believed to be an elastic, mass-less solid called the ether. Relativity shattered this belief but the existence of ether was so firmly entrenched in many great minds that they refused to comprehend its non existence and labelled Einstein a fraud.

Why We Love Einstein?

• It's no exaggeration to say that Einstein changed the world.

• Next generation, we’re always looking for “the next Einstein.” And yes, that’s Albert Einstein™.
  
  
  
• His genius crossed all boundaries: national, disciplinary, and otherwise. His influence in physics goes without saying, but there is barely a realm of knowledge that hasn’t been touched by his intellectual charms.
  
  
• Space and time conspired to make Einstein the icon that he is. He was working at a time when a patent clerk could actually change the face of science.

• Everyone knew that Einstein had done something important in 1905 (and again in 1915) but almost nobody could tell you exactly what it was after hundred years.

• With General and Special Relativity, Einstein came up with arguably the most intelligant and elequant theory known to man. He sucessfully pushed Quantum Mechanics to the very for front of physics. And he provd why the sky was blue.

• Albert Einstein was an extraordinary teacher who would take pains to see that his students had grasped the most difficult concepts.

Einstein::Funny True Story

After having propounded his famous Theory of Relativity, Albert Einstein would tour the various Universities in the United States, delivering lectures wherever he went.

He was always accompanied by his faithful chauffer, Harry, who would attend each of these lectures while seated in the back row! One fine day, after Einstein had finished a lecture and was coming out of the auditorium into his vehicle, Harry addresses him and says, "Professor Einstein, I've heard your lecture on Relativity so many times, that if I were ever given the opportunity, I would be able to deliver it to perfection myself!"

"Very well," replied Einstein, "I'm going to Dartmouth next week. They don't know me there. You can deliver the lecture as Einstein, and I'll take your place as Harry!"

And so it went to be... Harry delivered the lecture to perfection, without a word out of place, while Einstein sat in the back row playing "chauffer", and enjoying a snooze for a change.

Just as Harry was descending from the podium, however, one of the research assistants intercepted him, and began to ask him a question on the theory of relativity.... one that involved a lot of complex calculations and equations. Harry replied to the assistant "The answer to this question is very simple! In fact, it's so simple, that I'm going to let my chauffer answer it!"

1905::A Miracle Year

1905 was Einstein's Annus Mirablis – his miracle year. During this year he wrote three fundamental papers, any of which would have guaranteed him immortality in the world of physics.

His first was on a new understanding of the structure of light. Einstein argued that light is composed of small particles of energy, called photons, as well as oscillating waves.

The second paper built upon the theory of kinetics. Einstein explained how atoms were responsible for the buffeting of particles of material in suspension, like cigarette smoke suspended in air. This paper presented the first direct evidence for the existence of atoms vindicating an idea that had been around for over 2000 years.

His third paper of 1905 was 'On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies'. Here Einstein derived the theory of 'special relativity'. In a supplementary paper four months later, he formulated the famous equation, E=mc2, where mass and energy are equivalent, showing that a very small amount of mass converts to a huge amount of energy. This is the driving force behind atomic bombs, and all the stars in the Universe.

The one equation almost everyone knows by heart. It describes the simple yet profound link between energy and matter and has totally changed the way we view the Universe. It has overturned the understanding of the physical world which stood unchallenged for hundreds of years. It explains why stars shine, and indirectly, is responsible for the mushroom cloud that appeared over Hiroshima. In many ways this equation has changed many lives and it still challenges our common sense view of the world.

Is Theory Of Relativity given by Einstein?

He'd been very secretive about his family life, and the secrecy had prevailed after his death.
He left behind some 40,000 documents in Princeton, and they had been locked up like the Dead Sea Scrolls until the late 1980s when the Hebrew University (which owns Einstein's copyright) and the Princeton University Press began to publish them.

In the course of their investigation the scholars on the Einstein Papers project found love letters that he had written to Mileva(first wife) when they were both students in Zurich in the late 1890s, and the years just after the turn of the century. It was clear from these letters that Einstein had talked about the issues of relativity, and atomic theory and everything else, but especially relativity, with Mileva.

There were statements in these letters such as "how happy and proud I will be when our work on the relative motion is complete." It sounded provocative to some renegade historians and they made a fuss about Mileva having been deprived of her share of credit.

Actually if you read these letters in full and in context, that statement has more emotional content than intellectual content. He was reassuring her about the state of their relationship. Nobody had really tried to tell the story of where general relativity had come from, and the very winding path that he had taken to it, for a popular audience.

Einstein::Early Love

Einstein grew up in a family who were making gadgets and electromagnetic gizmos When Einstein was about 15 or 16 his family was in the electrical business in Munich, which was like being in the Internet business today.

His uncle had patents on dynamos and electrical meters. The Einstein Brothers company sold power and lighting systems around southern Europe. He was very familiar with this technology, which was the leading edge technology of the day, like computers are today.

The family moved to Italy, leaving Albert back in Munich where he was in school, and he he seemed to have some sort of nervous breakdown. He dropped out of school, and went back to Italy, where he found himself with nothing to do, so he told his parents that he was going to go to the Polytechnic in Zurich and study engineering.

They took him there, but he was too young to go to college. He took the entrance exam, and he impressed them with most of his scores, except in languages, so they sent him off to a prep school for a year, for a season.

He lived with a family, the Wintelers, a big, boisterous intellectual family, who were always arguing and bird watching and hiking and seems to have had a wonderful time. And he got involved with one of the Winteler daughters, Marie.

Later on, his sister married one of the Winteler brothers, and his best friend, Michele Besso married another one of the Winteler sisters. So the Einsteins, Bessos, and Wintelers became very intertwined.

Albert's parents liked Marie a lot, and everyone was very unhappy when Albert dumped her for Mileva(first wife). And, in fact, Marie went into a depression was hospitalized for a while. But eventually she led a normal life and married a manager of a watch factory. Albert kept talking about her his whole life, about how he would be consumed in flames if he even saw her again. He would even tell this to Mileva. He was greatly relieved when Marie finally married, either because that put finally her out of reach or he felt very guilty about dumping her and what had happened to her.