TEXT 7A

Albert einstein

(1879-1955)

Imagination is more important

than knowledge.

A. Einstein

Albert Einstein was born in Germany on March 14, 1879. His unusual ability to mathematics and physics began to show itself at a technical school in Zurich. At the age of 21 after four years of university study, Albert Einstein got a job as a clerk at an office. He used his spare time to work out problems in science that never left his thoughts. Certain scientific ideas had been in the back of his mind for a long time. They were strange, new notions about space and time and the universe. He went over the work of great scientists and found he could not agree with some of their ideas. His friends were worried about his going against opinions that were held in such respect in scientific world. Einstein occasionally began to use the word «relativity» in talking about his work. He little knew that this word would come to be a famous word not only in the world of science but in everyday affairs as well. His labors became more and more concentrated on his theory of relativity. He had no laboratory to test his theories. When he was asked what laboratory equipment he used for working out his theories he showed his fountain-pen. He tested his ideas only with more thinking. But already in 1905 he made revolutionary discoveries in sci­ence. He published three papers. In the first he explained the photoelectric effect by means of Planck's quantum theory. The second paper developed a mathematical theory of Brownian mo­tion. He presented his third paper on «Special Theory of Relativity* to a physical journal. Einstein expressed his theory in the equation E = mc², roughly that energy equals mass times the square of the speed of light. The idea of relativity was not new in the world. «Up» and «down» are examples of relativity in position. Einstein looked deeper than that. Newton had taught that every object remains exactly as it is, either in rest or in its own kind of motion, until some outside force pushes it. Now Einstein declared that there was nothing absolutely at rest on the earth or anywhere in the whole universe. Everything is in motion — from atoms to stars. In such a uni­verse, where all is in motion and nothing fixed, everything is «relative», depending on the circumstances under which it is observed. In this changing universe only light always has the same speed. And more: the speed of light is the only constant quality. Newton and the others had taught that time was absolute, that the world changes but time goes on and on unchanged. Ein­stein gives us a new picture. Time and space change relative to the position and speed of the ob­server. It was once thought that matter and energy are completely different things: matter is something solid, like a rock, while energy measures how fast an object moves or what it can do. Einstein showed that matter and energy are closely related. At very great speeds energy changes into matter. But matter (every piece of matter!) may also be turned into energy: a single gram of matter can give about 25,000,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity.

All over the world scientists read the work with great surprise. Few physicists understood its importance at that time. Everybody wanted to know where he taught and in what laboratory he did his research. Scientists had always believed that certain facts of the physical world were «ab­solute*, that they would never change. Einstein brought relativity to the facts of the exact sci­ence of physics. He gave an entirely new idea of the world we live in. Hundreds of books were attacking and defending his theory. His conclusions seemed so strange that many people refused to believe them.

Albert Einstein was a very talented man, a great thinker. He had an ability to look at the world with eyes full of wonder. All problems were new to him and he liked to solve them in his own way.

Einstein's fame among scientists grew slowly but surely. For a few years he lived in Prague where he worked as a professor. When he came to Prague, he often told his students he would al­ways try to help them. «If you have a problem, come to me with it, we'll solve it together», he said.

He liked questions and answered them at once, for there were no simple or foolish questions for him. He spoke much with his students about scientific problems and his new ideas. His advice to young students was, «Don't take easy problems».

Einstein continued his research he had began many years ago on his unified field theory. This theory included gravitation, electricity and magnetism, and the forces at the centre of the atom which provide atomic energy. Einstein's aim was to explain these three different forces by one most general theory. His unified field theory was the result of 35 years of intense work. He ex­pressed it in four equations where he combined the physical laws that control forces of light and energy with the mysterious force of gravitation.

Mathematical physics seems to be «pure» science which has little or no connection with prac­tical life. But that is not so. Einstein formulated the law of photo effect. His formula of the law determines the work of many electronic valves. Another formula of Einstein's describes the law of light absorption and emission. This formula determines the work of lasers that opened the way for the development of quantum electronics. Einstein's statement back in 1905 that energy can be turned into matter and matter can be transformed into energy, opened the way for re­search on atomic energy.

In 1922 Einstein got the Nobel Prize in physics not for the theory of relativity but for a logical explanation of the photoelectric effect. The committee seemed to feel that it was too early to judge properly the value of that theory. They mentioned only one of the earlier papers he pub­lished: «for the photoelectric law and his work in the field of theoretical physics*. Academies and scientific societies awarded him honorary titles. He was invited to many countries.

He gave all his life to the increase of human knowledge. His ideas produced revolution in the natural science of the 20th century.