A loner with an intimate bond to humanity - Einstein: His Life and Universe

I have been thinking to delve back into the world of physics for quite a while. I had taken a couple of classes at the university, but since then I didn't touch much on the subject. Physics has an intimidating reputation, but at the same time, it is an intriguing and fascinating subject.  Finally, a few months ago, I decided to give it a try by taking a couple of online courses.

My first course has been about Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity, one of a trio of breakthroughs that made his reputation in 1905, Einstein’s annus mirabilis, where within a few months, he wrote a series of  papers that would transform the way we see the universe.

One of the books that I read while I was taking the course was Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson. It is a wonderful and detailed account of all aspects of Einstein's life, scientific, personal, and political. Einstein’s life story is as fascinating and well known as his science.

In 1905, Albert Einstein was 26 years old. He graduated from University in 1900 but he hadn't been able to find a position as a physics assistant at the University, not even  as a physics teacher in a high school. He was considered an academic failure and luckily he managed to find a job  at the Swiss patent office.

While working as a patent clerk, he was thinking and working on his physics problems. Finally, and in a period of only few months in 1905, Einstein published five papers, an impressive number, and any one of them could made his career as a physicist.  In the first one, on March 1905, “The light quantum idea, a ‘heuristic proposal’, Einstein introduced the concept of ‘quanta’ and the idea that light was more than just a wave, but that it had particle aspects, ‘quanta’, to it.

Only a month later, on April 1905, Einstein published  a paper where he demonstrated that you could calculate the size of molecules. Perhaps the less important of the all and actually the one that became his doctoral dissertation.

We are on May 1905 and Einstein published his third paper where he explained the effect known as Brownian motion, which is the  random movement of microscopic particles suspended in liquids or gases resulting from the impact of molecules of the surrounding medium. By applied a hydrodynamic theory, Einstein  came up with the idea that the motion of these particles could actually be tracked.

On June 1905, he published his paper on the special theory of relativity. It was titled "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies." It was then that he realised  that there is something about the nature of time or as he described it later, “Time is suspect.”

And finally, on September 1905, Einstein published the final paper, a coda to his previous special relativity paper.  It is there that the most famous equation in the world is included, E = mc squared. Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared.

That was Einstein Annus mirabilis and the beginning of his rise to fame.

Einstein’s personal life is very well known. It was not without its strains and tragedies. It was particularly interesting to read about his philosophy and it was impossible not to admire his perseverance and persistence. He was a pacifist, although he slightly changed his views on this subject after the WWII, and a supporter of Zionism. In his own words, "Long before the emergence of Hitler I made the cause of Zionism mine because through it I saw a means of correcting a flagrant wrong….”

Einstein was person of beguiling modesty and simplicity, a non-conformist whose fundamental belief was that freedom was the lifeblood of creativity. “The development of science and of the creative activities of the spirit, requires a freedom that consists in the independence of thought from the restrictions of authoritarian and social prejudice,” he said. Personally, politically and professionally, he was repulsed by any restraints and looked upon authority suspiciously. In one of his famous quotes, he said,

A foolish (or blind) faith in authority  is the worst enemy of truth.