But at any given instant, more water molecules would be hitting one side of the grain than the other, giving it a quick kick in some random direction. Einstein turned this insight into an equation that described the jittering mathematically. His Brownian motion paper is widely recognized as the first incontrovertible proof that atoms and molecules really exist—and it still serves as the basis for some stock market forecasts.
In March , the U. Navy launched a grapefruit-size sphere dubbed Vanguard I into orbit around Earth. People paid attention, partly because it was the first to be powered by a futuristic technology known as solar cells—shiny slabs of semiconductor that turned sunlight into electricity. Today, solar cells power almost all the hundreds of satellites orbiting Earth, along with many of the probes being sent to planets as distant as Jupiter. On the ground, solar cells are spreading across suburban rooftops, as rapidly falling prices bring them closer to being competitive with conventional electric power.
But he did sketch out their basic principle of operation in His starting point was a simple analogy: If matter is lumpy—that is, if every substance in the universe consists of atoms and molecules—then surely light must be lumpy as well. After all, Einstein argued, physicists had recently discovered that when a solid object absorbed or emitted light, it could do so only by taking a discrete step up or down in energy. And the easiest way to understand that weird fact, said Einstein, was to assume that light itself was just a swarm of discrete energy packets—particles of light that would later be named photons.
If the frequency was high enough, at least a few of its energy packets would have enough zing to knock electrons loose from the metal and send them flying out, so that experimenters could detect them. Solar cells work in essentially this way: Light streaming from the sun kicks electrons in the cell up to higher energy levels, producing a flow of electric current.
No one before Einstein had been able to fully explain this phenomenon. In the nearly six decades since physicists demonstrated the first laboratory prototype of a laser in , the devices have come to occupy almost every niche imaginable, from barcode readers to systems for hair removal.
All of it grows out of an idea that Einstein had in , as he was trying to understand more about how light interacted with matter. He started by imagining a bunch of atoms that are bathed in light. As he knew from his previous work, atoms that are sitting in their lowest energy state can absorb photons and jump to a higher energy state. Likewise, the higher energy atoms can spontaneously emit photons and fall back to lower energies. When enough time has passed, everything settles into equilibrium.
Hermann Einstein relocated the family to Milan, Italy, in the mids after his business lost out on a major contract. Einstein was left at a relative's boarding house in Munich to complete his schooling at the Luitpold Gymnasium.
With their son rejoining them in Italy, his parents understood Einstein's perspective but were concerned about his future prospects as a school dropout and draft dodger. Einstein was eventually able to gain admission into the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, specifically due to his superb mathematics and physics scores on the entrance exam.
He was still required to complete his pre-university education first, and thus attended a high school in Aarau, Switzerland helmed by Jost Winteler. Einstein lived with the schoolmaster's family and fell in love with Winteler's daughter, Marie.
Einstein later renounced his German citizenship and became a Swiss citizen at the dawn of the new century. After graduating, Einstein faced major challenges in terms of finding academic positions, having alienated some professors over not attending class more regularly in lieu of studying independently. Einstein eventually found steady work in after receiving a referral for a clerk position in a Swiss patent office.
While working at the patent office, Einstein had the time to further explore ideas that had taken hold during his studies at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and thus cemented his theorems on what would be known as the principle of relativity.
In —seen by many as a "miracle year" for the theorist—Einstein had four papers published in the Annalen der Physik , one of the best-known physics journals of the era. Two focused on the photoelectric effect and Brownian motion. Einstein married Mileva Maric on Jan. While attending school in Zurich, Einstein met Maric, a Serbian physics student. Einstein continued to grow closer to Maric, but his parents were strongly against the relationship due to her ethnic background.
Nonetheless, Einstein continued to see her, with the two developing a correspondence via letters in which he expressed many of his scientific ideas. That same year the couple had a daughter, Lieserl, who might have been later raised by Maric's relatives or given up for adoption. Her ultimate fate and whereabouts remain a mystery. The couple had two sons, Hans Albert Einstein who became a well-known hydraulic engineer and Eduard "Tete" Einstein who was diagnosed with schizophrenia as a young man.
The Einsteins' marriage would not be a happy one, with the two divorcing in and Maric having an emotional breakdown in connection to the split. Einstein, as part of a settlement, agreed to give Maric any funds he might receive from possibly winning the Nobel Prize in the future. In , Einstein won the Nobel Prize for Physics for his explanation of the photoelectric effect, since his ideas on relativity were still considered questionable.
He wasn't actually given the award until the following year due to a bureaucratic ruling, and during his acceptance speech, he still opted to speak about relativity.
In the development of his general theory, Einstein had held onto the belief that the universe was a fixed, static entity, aka a "cosmological constant," though his later theories directly contradicted this idea and asserted that the universe could be in a state of flux. His general theory of relativity changed our understanding of space and time, becoming one of the two pillars of modern physics — the other being quantum mechanics. It arose from his special theory of relativity , which proposed that in the vacuum of space, the speed of light is always the same , regardless of the movement of the person observing it.
It also suggested that measurements of distance and time both change as you get closer to the speed of light: clocks run slower and lengths appear to get shorter. Albert Einstein was the eldest child of Hermann Einstein, an electrical engineer and salesman, and Pauline Koch. He had one sister, named Maja. Just six weeks after Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, his family moved to Munich.
From a young age Einstein showed a keen interest in music, and he learned how to play the piano and violin. In Einstein began his education at the Luitpold Gymnasium a secondary school in Munich.
Four years later he completed his diploma but was unable to find a teaching job, so he began work at the Swiss Patent Office as a technical assistant in The couple married in and together they had two sons.
It has been suggested the couple may have had a daughter before they married, but the child may have died or been adopted. The couple ultimately separated in before divorcing in
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