BiographyAlbert Einstein is widely regarded as the most influential physicist of the 20th century. He was born in Wittenberg into a secular Jewish family in 1879. Due to rising conflicts in Europe, Einstein and his families would move from country to country, eventually settling in the United States. Similarly, during his childhood, the physicist shifted between various schools due his lack of engagement in the schools' curriculum and was tutored. Einstein's first tutor, Max Talmud, introduced the young Einstein to science and is largely responsible for Einstein's interest in the field. In 1905, Einstein published four papers revolving around the photoelectric effect, the Brownian motion, the theory of special relativity, and the relationship between matter and energy. Of these, Einstein's paper on special relativity became the most well-known, and he later received numerous awards for his research, the most prestigious of which was the Nobel Prize. After attempting to unite all laws of physics and struggling with then-modern issues of atomic warfare, Albert Einsteins died in 1954 at the age of 76.
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The Basis of Special Relativity |
The special theory of relativity is Einstein's uniting theory of two fundamental principles, the principle of relativity and the principle of the speed of light. Using these two principles, Einstein formulated his widely accepted theory of relativity, which deals with the laws of physics in certain spaces of uniform motion. Uniform motion, as described by Isaac Newton, refers to motion between two observers traveling at constant velocities in a straight line. The two observers must not be affected by any external forces such as gravity. As such, these spaces of uniform motion, also called inertial frames of reference, cannot truly exist.
The principle of relativity states that all laws of physics apply in inertial frames of reference. In other words, even when movement between two observers is uniform, laws of physics are maintained. The second principle, the principle of the speed of light, dictates that the speed of light is constant independent of the speed of the observer. This entails that no matter the speed of the observer, the speed of light will always be measured at 300,000 kilometers per second. |
The Special Theory of Relativity Links Space and Time |
The special theory of relativity forms a fundamental connection between space and time. Thus connection is based on the fact that the universe has four dimensions- three for space and one for time. At speeds approaching the speed of light, observations about space and time differ from observations made from different speeds. For instance, if Person A in a spaceship bounced a ball off of the ceiling so that it came down, the ball would appear as if going up and down to the observer. However, if Person B was on a nearby spaceship traveling at much slower speeds and observed the ball being bounced, it would appear as though the ball was traveling diagonally. Therefore, the paths the ball takes relative to the observer's location are different in shape and length. This causes time dilation, a implication of Einstein's theory.
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Influence |
Einstein's influence during his lifetime and after are far-reaching. HIs theories of general and special relativity allowed physicists to envision the world in new ways. For example, prior to Einstein, time was considered constant. However, as time dilation ascertains, time is not constant but relative on speed. Subsequently, scientists began to question even the most basic principles of their fields. In addition, ideas such as the existence of singularities were born from Einstein's discoveries, Outside of science, Einstein impacted several artists as well. One form of art, called Cubism, focuses on portraying a subject from different perspectives. The perspectives of the object were drawn from Einstein's ideas of relativity. However, Einstein did not create these ideas. Instead, he drew upon the work of former scientists such as Sir Isaac Newton and Ole Roemer to formulate his theories.
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