Motion and time are fundamental components of life. Finding himself late to work, an employee will drive faster, which in turn, will reduce the time needed to commute to his job. The rules of motion and time are known intrinsically to every person on the planet. As children, these “Laws” become common sense. No explanation is needed when a sleeping student falls out of his desk onto the floor. Motion and time were always considered to be self-explanatory and obvious parts of everyday life. This was true until a group of scientists who deemed themselves “Physicists” began challenging the known rules of motion and explaining them using mathematics and experimentation. Isaac Newton was one of these founding fathers of physics. His experiments in the 17th century focused on “Forces”: Pushes and pulls that made matter move. Every physics student has been made familiar with his three laws of motion, and to this day, these remain the fundamental rules of moving bodies on Earth. Newton would remain the most famous physicist of all time until the early 1900's, when a new champion of physics set the world ablaze with dreams of time travel, black holes, and a mysterious phenomenon dubbed “Relativity.” Albert Einstein’s ideas revolutionized science and technology and opened a new field of theoretical physics concerned with the origins and behavior of the universe as a whole. Many believe that only a person of Einstein’s mental caliber could possibly comprehend The Theory of Relativity, but this is far from true. The concepts behind this theory are accessible by most everyone, but it took a man of Einstein’s genius and determination to see what so many had taken granted for many years. Understand... ... middle of paper ... ... field of study for aspiring theoretical physicists in the final search for a Unifying Field Theory which may finally describe the dynamics of the universe. Works Cited "Albert Einstein." . 9 Nov 2004. Wikipedia. 16 Nov 2004 Einstein, Albert. The Meaning of Relativity. 4th ed. Princeton: Princeton University. P, 1953. Kaku, Michio. Einstein's Cosmos. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2004. "Speed of Light." . 9 Nov 2004. Wikipedia. 16 Nov 2004 "Theory of Relativity." . 9 Nov 2004. Wikipedia. 16 Nov 2004 Watterson, Bill. Calvin & Hobbes. Various collections. Universal Press Syndicate. 2004 Wolfson, Richard. Simply Einstein. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2003.
Beside its contribution to physics Einstein’s relativity also offered so many scientific bases for some breakthroughs and new technologies. We can divide the influences into two aspects.
The ideas of classical physics, which started with Copernicus and ended with Newton’s laws on motion and gravity, were widely accepted by European society in the years leading up to the Revolution in Physics. The beliefs of classical physics rested on five cornerstones. The first cornerstone was the existence of absolute space and the second cornerstone was the existence of absolute time. "In the Newtonian system bits of matter moved in absolute space and time"(Baumer 460). Of these two cornerstones, space was considered to be more important because it was immutable and because every change in the motion of matter indisputably involved a change in space as well. In contrast, change did occur in time, but unlike space, time did not itsel...
Einstein became a hero, and the myth building began. Headlines appeared in newspapers all over the world. On November 8, 1919, for example, the London Times had an article headlined: "The Revolution In Science/Einstein Versus Newton." Two days later, The New York Times' headlines read: "Lights All Askew In The Heavens/Men Of Science More Or Less Agog Over Results Of Eclipse Observations/Einstein Theory Triumphs." The planet was exhausted with World War I, eager for some sign of humankind's nobility, and suddenly here was a modest scientific genius, seemingly interested only in pure intellectual pursuits.
The Theory of Relativity, proposed by the Jewish physicist Albert Einstein (1879-1955) in the early part of the 20th century, is one of the most significant scientific advances of our time. Although the concept of relativity was not introduced by Einstein, his major contribution was the recognition that the speed of light in a vacuum is constant and an absolute physical boundary for motion. This does not have a major impact on a person's day-to-day life since we travel at speeds much slower than light speed. For objects travelling near light speed, however, the theory of relativity states that objects will move slower and shorten in length from the point of view of an observer on Earth. Einstein also
Miller, A. (1975) Albert Einstein and Max Wertheimer: a Gestalt psychologist's view of the genesis of special relativity theory. History of science; an Annual Review of Literature, Research and Teaching 13 (2): 75–103.
A hundred years ago, a young married couple sat at a kitchen table talking over the items of the day while their young boy sat listening earnestly. He had heard the debate every night, and while there were no raised voices, their discussion was intense. It was a subject about which his parents were most passionate - the electrodynamics of moving bodies in the universe. The couple were of equal intelligence and fortitude, working together on a theory that few people can comprehend even to this day. Mileva Maric Einstein was considered to be the intellectual equal of her husband Albert, but somehow went unrecognized for her contributions to the 1905 Papers, which included the Special Theory of Relativity. The stronger force of these two bodies would be propelled into the archives of scientific history, while the other would be left to die alone, virtually unknown. Mrs. Einstein was robbed. She deserved to be recognized for at least a collaborative effort, but it was not to be. The role which society had accorded her and plain, bad luck would prove to be responsible for the life of this great mathematician and scientist, gone unnoticed.
Sir Isaac Newton, the man that helped people figure out why things move and how they move, had a very interesting life. In the beginning of his early life, he dealt with hardships, and progressed to be an extremely inspiring man later in his life. In college he had many breakthroughs with his scientific works, including the laws of physics that we still use today. His life has answered many of people’s scientific questions that are still being asked today in physics’ classrooms all around the world. His discoveries have helped people for over 350 years to know and understand why things move the way they move, and stop the way they stop. Newton’s works comprise of the Principia and many other important publishing’s that he started when he was just in college. Newton’s life was full of discoveries, from his life as a minor to the years later in his life when he became an important individual in the government and changed the world, as we know it today.
Throughout Albert Einstein’s lifetime he accomplished many amazing things that have an effect on people today. For example, in 1905, “often called as Einstein’s “miracle year”, he published four papers in the Annalen der Physik, each of which would alter the course of modern physics” (Michio,Kaku 13). Throughout Einstein’s four books, he “applied the quantum theory to light in order to explain the photoelectric effect, offered the first experimental proof of the existence of atoms, laid out the mathematical theory of special relativity, and proved the first mechanism to explain the energy source of the Sun and other stars”(13). Throughout 1905-1915 Einstein began to realize that his theory for relativity was flawed, because “it made no mention of gravitation or acceleration” (19). “In November of 1915, Einstein finally completed the general theory of reality” (20); “in 1921 he won the Nobel Prize in Physics” (Belanger, Craig. 1).
Kirkpatrick, Larry, and Gerald F. Wheeler. Physics: A World View. 4th ed. Orlando: Harcourt College Publishers, 2001.
John McTaggart in his essay “Time” presents a radical argument that claims time is unreal. While the argument is interesting and has attracted much attention for his arguments, I remain unconvinced of the argument he makes. This paper will lay out McTaggart’s argument that time in unreal, critically analyze why I believe McTaggart’s argument fails and present an alternative idea about time, utilizing aspects of McTaggart’s argument.
Stemming from the first years of the 20th century, quantum mechanics has had a monumental influence on modern science. First explored by Max Planck in the 1900s, Einstein modified and applied much of the research in this field. This begs the question, “how did Einstein contribute to the development and research of quantum mechanics?” Before studying how Einstein’s research contributed to the development of quantum mechanics, it is important to examine the origins of the science itself. Einstein took much of Planck’s experimental “quantum theory” research and applied it in usable ways to existing science. He also greatly contributed to the establishment of the base for quantum mechanics research today. Along with establishing base research in the field, Einstein’s discoveries have been modified and updated to apply to our more advanced understanding of this science today. Einstein greatly contributed to the foundation of quantum mechanics through his research, and his theories and discoveries remain relevant to science even today.
In this essay we will consider a much more recent approach to time that came to the fore in the twentieth century. In 1908 James McTaggart published an article in Mind entitled 'The Unreality of Time', in which, as the title implies, he argued that there is in reality no such thing as time. Now although this claim was in itself startling, probably what was even more significant than McTaggart's arguments was his way of stating them. It was in this paper that McTaggart first drew his now standard distinction between two ways of saying when things happen. In this essay we shall outline these ways of describing events and then discuss the merits and demerits of each, and examine what has become known as the 'tensed versus tenseless' debate on temporal becoming.
In 1905, Albert Einstein wrote his paper on the special theory of relativity (Prosper). This theory has the reputation as being so exotic that few people can understand it. On the contrary, special relativity is simply a system of kinematics and dynamics, based on a set of postulates that is different from those of classical mec...
From a very young age, I have enjoyed reading a wide spectrum of topics. However, during high school, I had become preoccupied with physics during my studies and readings, and so I began to focus my attention upon the materials that further shed light on the science. The more I read, the more I became intrigued with the interrelations between matter, energy, and time and space motion illustrated through the science. Therefore, motivated to become one of Saudi Arabia’ few female physicists, upon graduating from high school I opted to major in the science that captivated me like no other....
Yes, many people have heard of Albert Einsteins General Theory of Relativity, but few people know about the intriguing life that led this scientist to discover what some have called The Greatest Single achievement of human thought!