tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11124017.post111384656931447308..comments2023-03-30T06:09:00.211-07:00Comments on a whole nother blog: reissuesjollybeggarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03795539157694277977noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11124017.post-1113956715819072262005-04-19T17:25:00.000-07:002005-04-19T17:25:00.000-07:00celebrate einstein's death-day or something...(i k...celebrate einstein's death-day or something...<BR/>(i know that this is posted late, but being that all things are relative, all you need to do fly around the world west-to-east really really fast like superman did, and then join in the celebration.) <BR/><BR/>Chemical Eye on Waves of Light<BR/><BR/>Author: Preston MacDougall<BR/>Published on Fri, 15 Apr 2005, 08:06<BR/><BR/>In spite of his role as one of the founders of quantum theory, Albert <BR/>Einstein didn't much like it - too "spooky". He was certain that <BR/>something was missing, though he never found it.<BR/><BR/>April 18th marks the fiftieth anniversary of his death, and an Austrian <BR/>physicist has planned a day-long, once around the world, wave of light <BR/>to salute the man who quantized it. To honor his life, a committee of <BR/>physicists has compiled year-long plans for 2005, the World Year of <BR/>Physics and the centennial of his annus mirabilis, or miracle year.<BR/><BR/>In 1905, Einstein, a patent clerk in Switzerland, must have been burning <BR/>the midnight oil while working on his doctoral dissertation for the <BR/>University of Zurich. It was titled "A New Determination of Molecular <BR/>Dimensions".<BR/><BR/>His dissertation was eventually published in the premier physics journal <BR/>of the time, Annalen der Physik, but not until 1906. I feel confident <BR/>speculating about his night-life, because he then submitted four <BR/>additional manuscripts (without the aid of White Out, let alone a word <BR/>processor), all of which were published in 1905.<BR/><BR/>The impact of these ideas outshines that of any patent issued before or <BR/>since, and this is reflected in the ongoing evolution of his status, <BR/>from icon to myth.<BR/><BR/>The equation commonly associated with Einstein, whether on TV or <BR/>T-shirts, has become something of an icon itself. It was introduced, <BR/>rather matter-of-factly, in a three-page supplement to a preceding paper <BR/>titled "On the electrodynamics of moving bodies", better known as his <BR/>special theory of relativity.<BR/><BR/>In this theory Einstein really made some waves. Laws being laws, one <BR/>expects them to be upheld, especially when they are "universal". The <BR/>trouble with Newton's Universal Law of Gravitation, however, was that it <BR/>wasn't universal enough. It depended on whether the observer and the <BR/>observed were at rest, or moving.<BR/><BR/>Experiments say otherwise, particularly when the motion approaches the <BR/>speed of light. Einstein resolved the discrepancy by famously proposing <BR/>that "everything is relative." This phrase is another icon, and may not <BR/>mean much to you. But if you have ever wondered "Where did all the time <BR/>go?," Einstein took all of it in 1905. He didn't eliminate time, but <BR/>said that it was elastically interwoven with the three dimensions of <BR/>space. There is only spacetime, which may, or may not, be unimaginably <BR/>tightly-packed balls of string.<BR/><BR/>It gets weirder. Also in 1905, Einstein resolved another discrepancy <BR/>between our familiar conception of nature, this time of light itself, <BR/>and experiments on the interaction of light and matter. Again so-called <BR/>"classical laws" that had reached their limit. By treating light as a <BR/>wave, Classical Laws of Optics gave us the tools to design cameras, and <BR/>the insight to understand rainbows.<BR/><BR/>To follow Einstein's style and use a made-up example, or gedanken <BR/>experiment, classical laws could explain how light, entering my eye, <BR/>travels through the cornea, the lens and the vitreous cavity to form an <BR/>image on the retina, but not how the molecules that make up the rods and <BR/>cones in the retina convert light of different wavelengths into <BR/>electrical signals that can be interpreted by my brain as a colorful <BR/>image, such as a rainbow.<BR/><BR/>Einstein proposed that light is composed of energy quanta, and that <BR/>these "atoms" of pure energy can behave both as a wave, that can be bent <BR/>by a lens, and as a particle, that may fit one molecule in the retina, <BR/>but not another. It all depends.<BR/><BR/>Long after 1905, it became the orthodox interpretation of quantum theory <BR/>that this uncertainty in the nature of light, and all other <BR/>submicroscopic particles, is embedded, and cannot be removed by closer <BR/>inspection with more advanced technology, such as lasers (which, by the <BR/>way, are another example of Einstein's predictions bearing fruit). In <BR/>fact, the mere act of observing changes reality.<BR/><BR/>This is where Einstein got spooked. He famously chided the faithful: "Do <BR/>you really think the Moon is not there when you're not looking?"<BR/><BR/>His remaining 1905 paper sought to heal a schism in the physics <BR/>community over the reality of atoms, which chemists had been happily <BR/>tinkering with for the preceding century. He predicted the effect that <BR/>randomly colliding sugar molecules, dissolved and invisible even with <BR/>microscopes, would have on observable particles, such as pollen. When <BR/>these statistical predictions were later shown to be quite accurate, <BR/>most physicists concluded that chemists weren't simply imagining things.<BR/><BR/>Beginning on the evening of Monday, April 18, human particles around the <BR/>globe will shine a light at their instructed times, forming a wave of <BR/>light to honor one who shone so brightly.<BR/><BR/>Preston MacDougall is a chemistry professor at Middle Tennessee State <BR/>University. His "Chemical Eye" commentaries are featured in the Arts and <BR/>Public Affairs portion of the Murfreesboro/Nashville NPR station WMOT <BR/>(www.wmot.org). To participate in the wave of light, go to <BR/>www.wyp2005.at/glob1-light.htm.<BR/><BR/>© Copyright 2005 by YubaNet.comjollybeggarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03795539157694277977noreply@blogger.com