Related papers: Einstein and the Quantum
In this Einstein Year of Physics it seems appropriate to look at an important aspect of Einstein's work that is often down-played: his contribution to the debate on the interpretation of quantum mechanics. Contrary to popular opinion, Bohr…
In two respects Ludwig Boltzmann was a pioneer of quantum mechanics. First because in his statistical interpretation of the second law of thermodynamics he introduced the theory of probability into a fundamental law of physics and thus…
Einstein's contributions to statistical mechanics and quantum theory are reviewed. We also provide a detailed discussion of his thesis on suspensions that led to a good value of the Avogadro number.
Einstein's theoretical analysis of mass-energy equivalence, already, at the time, experimentally evident in radioactive decays, in two papers published in 1905, as well as Planck's introduction, in 1906, of the concepts of relativistic…
The Einstein-First project approaches the teaching of Einsteinian physics through the use of physical models and analogies. This paper presents an approach to the teaching of quantum physics which begins by emphasising the particle-nature…
Einstein is considered by many as the father of quantum physics in some sense. Yet there is an unshakable view that he was wrong on quantum physics. Although it may be a subject of considerable debate, the core of his allegedly wrong…
In this article, we analyze the third of three papers, in which Einstein presented his quantum theory of the ideal gas of 1924-1925. Although it failed to attract the attention of Einstein's contemporaries and although also today very few…
From its very beginning, Quantum Theory developed contrary to the intentions of its creators. For Max Planck it marks the failure of a long-term research program, in which he tried to understand the 2nd law of thermodynamics…
In 1917 Einstein published his Cosmological Considerations Concerning the General Theory of Relativity. In it was the first use of the cosmological constant. Shortly thereafter Schr\"odinger presented a note providing a solution to these…
Einstein was in many ways like a detective on a mystery trail, though in his case he was on the trail of nature's mysteries and not some murder mystery! And like all good detectives he had a style. It consisted of taking facts that he knew…
In his 1916's first paper on gravitational waves Einstein began to speculate on interactions between the principles of the old quantum theory and his theory of gravitation. With this contribution Einstein has stimulated a lot of similar…
Expository paper providing a historical survey of the gradual transformation of the "philosophical discussions" between Bohr, Einstein and Schr\"odinger on foundational issues in quantum mechanics into a quantitative prediction of a new…
This paper explores the ER bridges theory and its relationship with quantum phenomena. An argument can be made that the ER bridges theory does not explicitly address quantum phenomena and implies that Einstein intended to differentiate…
A historical overview is given on the basic results which appeared by the year 1926 concerning Einstein's fluctuation formula of black-body radiation, in the context of light-quanta and wave-particle duality. On the basis of the original…
This is a brief look at how Einstein explored formal symmetries between quantized matter and quantized radiation between 1903 and 1925. Specifically he employed thermodynamic comparisons between the ideal molecular gas and the photon gas.…
In 1905 the well-known physicist Max Planck was coeditor of the Annalen der Physik, and he accepted Einstein's paper on light quanta for publication, even though he disliked the idea of "light quanta". Einstein's relativity paper was…
In 1905, Einstein formulated his special relativity for point particles. For those particles, his Lorentz covariance and energy-momentum relation are by now firmly established. How about the hydrogen atom? It is possible to perform Lorentz…
The theoretical model proposed by Einstein to describe the phononic specific heat of solids as a function of temperature consists the very first application of the concept of energy quantization to describe the physical properties of a real…
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…
Heisenberg's breakthrough in his July 1925 paper that set in motion the development of Quantum Mechanics through subsequent papers by Born, Jordan, Heisenberg and also Dirac (from 1925 to 1927) is reexamined through a modern lens. In this…