How smart is Einstein? :: essays research papers

There is a parlor gamy physics students play Who was the greater genius? Galileo or Kepler? (Galileo) Maxwell or Bohr? (Maxwell, but its closer than you ability think). Hawking or Heisenberg? (A no-brainer, whatever the best-seller lists might say. Its Heisenberg). plainly there are two figures who are simply by the charts. Isaac Newton is bingle. The other is Albert Einstein. If pressed, physicists give Newton pride of place, but it is a photo finish -- and no one else is in the race.Newtons claim is obvious. He created modern physics. His system described the behavior of the entire cosmos -- and enchantment others before him had invented grand schemes, Newtons was different. His theories were mathematical, making specific predictions to be confirmed by experiments in the real world. Little wonder that those after Newton called him well-off -- "for there is only one universe to discover, and he discovered it. "But what of Einstein? Well, Einstein felt compelled to ap ologize to Newton. "Newton, forgive me" Einstein wrote in his Autobiographical Notes. "You found the only way which, in your age, was just about possible for a man of highest thought and creative power." Forgive him? For what? For replacement Newtons system with his own -- and, like Newton, for putting his mark on just about every branch of physics.Thats the difference. Young physicists who play the "whos smarter" game are sincerely asking, "how will I measure up?" Is there a twinge to match -- if not Maxwell, then perhaps Lorentz? But Einstein? Dont go there. Match thisIn 1905, Einstein is 26, a patent examiner, working on physics on his own. After hours, he creates the Special Theory of Relativity, in which he demonstrates that measurements of time and distance vary systematically as anything moves relation to anything else. Which means that Newton was wrong. Space and time are not unattackable -- and the relativistic universe we inhabit is n ot the one Newton "discovered."Thats more or less good -- but one idea, however spectacular, does not make a demi-god. But now add the rest of what Einstein did in 1905In March, Einstein creates the quantum theory of light, the idea that light exists as tiny packets, or particles, that we now call photons. Alongside Max Plancks work on quanta of heat, and Niels Bohrs later on work on quanta of matter, Einsteins work anchors the most shocking idea in twentieth century physics we live in a quantum universe, one built out of tiny, discrete chunks of energy and matter.