Chapter 16.

The 20th Century Revolution in Physics

"Nothing can resist the power of an idea whose time has come."

Victor Hugo

16.1. Two 20th Century Revolutions in Scientific Thought

• Relativity
  • Albert Einstein (1879-1955); German-Swiss-American physicist
• Quantum Theory
  • Max Planck (1858-1947); German physicist
  • Albert Einstein (1879-1955); German-Swiss-American physicist
  • Niels Bohr (1885-1962); Danish physicist
  • Erwin Schrödinger (1887-1961); Austrian physicist
  • Louis de Broglie (1892- ); French physicist
  • Werner Heisenberg (1901-1961); German physicist
  • Paul Dirac (1902-1984); English physicist

16.2. Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

• Born March 14, 1879, in Ulm, Germany (Swabian part of Bavaria in southwest German), in Jewish family
• Father electric equipment manufacture; failed in business, moved to Munich in 1880, moved to Milan in 1894
• Einstein's education and early years
  • No early indication of intellectual capability
  • Concern as small child that he may be backward
  • Considered disruptive in school because of a dislike for rigid methods of instruction
  • Fascinated by mathematics and science which he studied on his own
  • 1895, left high school to join parents in Milan, never finished
  • Had German citizenship revoked in 1896; became Swiss citizen in 1901; became American citizen in 1955
  • 1896, enrolled in Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich to study electric engineering, later switched to physics, graduated in 1900
• Swiss patent office years
  • Subsisted on odd teaching jobs between 1900 and 1902
  • 1902 to 1909, patent examiner in Swiss Patent Office in Bern
  • Married Mileva Maritsch, fellow student from Hungary, two sons born of marriage
  • 1905, published four papers in Annalen der Physik
    • Brownian motion, random thermal motions of molecules in colloidal solutions
    • Quantum theory of light and photoelectric effect
    • Special theory of relativity, "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies"
    • Mass is one more form of energy, E = mc[E(2)]
• Academic career
  • 1909, Associate Professor, University of Zurich
  • 1910, Professor of Theoretical Physics, German University of Prague, Czechoslovakia
  • 1912, Professor of Theoretical Physics, Swiss Federal Polytechnic University in Zurich
  • 1913, Professor, University of Berlin, Research Director, Kaiser Wilhelm Institute
  • "If my theory of relativity is proven successful, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare that I am a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German and Germany will declare that I am a Jew."
  • 1933, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University
  • 1955, died in Princeton