Related papers: Einstein Chases a Light Beam
This paper examines "Free Creations of the Human Mind: The Worlds of Albert Einstein" by Diana Kormos Buchwald and Michael D. Gordin. The authors seek to dispel the long-standing myths of Einstein as the "lone genius" of Bern and the…
We present a translation and analysis of a cosmic model published by Einstein in 1931. The paper, which is not widely known, features a model of a universe that undergoes an expansion followed by a contraction, quite different to his static…
The confrontation between General Relativity and experimental results, notably binary pulsar data, is summarized and its significance discussed. The agreement between experiment and theory is numerically very impressive. However, some…
Einstein's revolutionary light quantum hypothesis of 1905 and his further contributions to quantum theory are reviewed.
We attempt to see how closely we can formally obtain the planetary and light path equations of General Relativity by employing certain operations on the familiar Newtonian equation. This article is intended neither as an alternative to nor…
Henri Poincare's work on mathematical features of the Lorentz transformations was an important precursor to the development of special relativity. In this paper I compare the approaches taken by Poincare and Einstein, aiming to come to an…
A hundred years ago, two British expeditions measured the deflection of starlight by the sun's gravitational field, confirming the prediction made by Einstein's General theory of Relativity. One hundred years later many physicists around…
We review here the main contributions of Einstein to the quantum theory. To put them in perspective we first give an account of Physics as it was before him. It is followed by a brief account of the problem of black body radiation which…
Einstein established the theory of general relativity and the corresponding field equation in 1915 and its vacuum solutions were obtained by Schwarzschild and Kerr for, respectively, static and rotating black holes, in 1916 and 1963,…
Einstein's theory of general relativity describes gravity as the interaction of particles with space-time geometry, as opposed to interacting with a physical fluid, as in the old gravitational aether theories. Moreover, any theoretical…
Though Einstein and other physicists recognized the importance of an observer being at rest in an inertial reference frame for the special theory of relativity, the supporting psychological structures were not discussed much by physicists.…
We summarize the papers published by Einstein in the Annalen der Physik in the years 1902-04 on the derivation of the properties of thermal equilibrium on the basis of the mechanical equations of motion and of the calculus of probabilities.…
It is well-known that Einstein got the 1921 Nobel prize not for his theory of relativity, but for his theory of photoelectricity. It is not that well-known that he did not get the prize in 1921. Why not, and when did he get it?
This paper will attempt to show that the Doppler principle was of major relevance to Einstein for the genesis of the special theory of relativity.
Now that an English translation of Schwarzschild's original work exists, that work has become accessible to more people. Here his original solution to the Einstein field equations is examined and it is noted that it does not contain the…
In a previous work we have shown that the null result of the Michelson-Morley experiment in vacuum is deeply connected with the notion of time. The same is true for the the postulate of constancy of the two-way speed of light in vacuum in…
This work analyzes the difficulties in learning and teaching Einstein's theory of special relativity. An extensive bibliographic review has been performed, considering articles published in the most relevant journals on science education,…
We briefly review a few aspects of the development of differential geometry which may be considered as being influenced by Einstein's general relativity. We focus on how Einstein's quest for a complete geometrization of matter and…
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…
Albert Einstein's practice in physics and his philosophical positions gradually reoriented themselves from more empiricist towards rationalist viewpoints. This change accompanied his turn towards unified field theory and different…