Related papers: Some comments on the paper "On the Effects of Exte…
Einsteins general theory of relativity is one of the most important accomplishments in the history of science. Its experimental verification a century ago is therefore an essential milestone that is worth celebrating in full. We reassess…
Einstein's own demonstration of time dilation taken from his book with L. Infeld (1938) is analyzed. His ingenious circumnavigation of an apparent discrepancy between clock synchronisation and Lorentz transformation is discussed.
In his Autobiographical Notes, Einstein mentioned that on his road to the final theory of general relativity it was a major difficulty to accustom himself to the idea that coordinates need not possess an immediate physical meaning in terms…
The first direct experimental test of Einstein's theory of general relativity involved a pair of expeditions to measure the bending of light at a total solar eclipse that took place one hundred years ago, on 29 May 1919. So famous is this…
In 1905 Einstein presented the Clock Paradox and in 1911 Paul Langevin expanded Einstein's result to human observers, the "Twin Paradox." I will explain the crucial difference between Einstein and Langevin. Einstein did not present the…
There is a myth that Einstein's discovery of general relativity was due to his following beautiful mathematics to discover new insights about nature. I argue that this is an incorrect reading of the history and that what Einstein did was to…
This article presents a brief review of some historical and philosophical aspects of Einstein's 1917 paper 'Cosmological Considerations in the General Theory of Relativity', a landmark work that denoted the starting point of modern…
Einstein's general theory of relativity is the standard theory of gravity, especially where the needs of astronomy, astrophysics, cosmology and fundamental physics are concerned. As such, this theory is used for many practical purposes…
This is a review with some comments on the A. Einstein`s 1911 paper, which he published as one of his many attempts of the general theory of relativity. The main point of the idea is to propose a new approach about light and its motion as…
Experimental tests on `time dilation' began in 1938 with Ives and Stilwell's work of the transverse Doppler effect due to atoms in inertial flight. Rossi and Hall (1941) inaugurated the era of fast moving elementary particles that dominated…
As we mark the centenary of Albert Einstein's seminal contribution to both quantum mechanics and special relativity, we approach another anniversary--that of Einstein's foundation of the quantum theory of solids. But 100 years on, the same…
Einstein's happiest thought was his leap from the observation that a falling person feels no gravity to the realization that gravity might be equivalent to acceleration. It affects all bodies in the same way because it is a property of…
In 1907, Einstein suggested an experiment with flying atoms for corroborating time dilation. In that paper, the flying atom was conceived as a flying clock: the reference to the Doppler effect was only indirect (the experiments by Stark to…
The relativistic time dilatation effect and Einstein's second postulate of special relativity are used to analyse train/embankment thought expriments, both Einstein's original one, and an extension where observers on two trains moving at…
It took eight years after Einstein announced the basic physical ideas behind the relativistic gravity theory before the proper mathematical formulation of general relativity was mastered. The efforts of the greatest physicist and of the…
The Einstein-Rupp experiments were proposed in 1926 by Albert Einstein to study the wave versus particle nature of light. Einstein presented a theoretical analysis of these experiments to the Berlin Academy together with results of Emil…
Although Einstein's name is closely linked with the celebrated relation E = mc2 between mass and energy, a critical examination of the more than half dozen "proofs" of this relation that Einstein produced over a span of forty years reveals…
The Einstein postulates assert an invariance of the propagation speed of light in vacuum for any observer, and which amounts to a presumed absence of any preferred frame. The postulates appear to be directly linked to relativistic effects…
Experiments may not reveal their full import at the time that they are performed. The scientists who perform them usually are testing a specific hypothesis and quite often have specific expectations limiting the possible inferences that can…
The concepts of primary and reciprocal experiments and base and travelling frames in special relativity are concisely described and applied to several different space-time experiments. These include Einstein's train/embankment thought…