Category Scientist & Invensions

Einstein had also made contributions to the development of the quantum theory. The concept of light quanta (photons) was used by him in 1905 to explain the Photoelectric Effect and to develop the quantum theory of specific heat.

Despite playing a main role in its development, Einstein regarded the quantum theory only as a temporarily useful structure.

His efforts were primarily in formulating the unified field theory which he believed would turn out to be the reason behind quantization of energy and charge. He felt that the quantum theory lacked the simplicity and beauty befitting a rational interpretation of the universe.

He engaged in a series of private debates with physicist Niels Bohr about the validity of the quantum theory later on. The 1920s witnessed his prolonged public debates with Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg over quantum mechanics. Einstein was rather lukewarm about the quantum theory even from a philosophical standpoint, saying in 1926 that he was convinced God does not throw dice. However, Bohr showed the ambiguities in Einstein’s reasoning.

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The Nobel Prize in Physics 1921 was awarded to Albert Einstein “for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect.”

Albert Einstein received his Nobel Prize one year later, in 1922. During the selection process in 1921, the Nobel Committee for Physics decided that none of the year’s nominations met the criteria as outlined in the will of Alfred Nobel. According to the Nobel Foundation’s statutes, the Nobel Prize can in such a case be reserved until the following year, and this statute was then applied. Albert Einstein therefore received his Nobel Prize for 1921 one year later, in 1922.

However, Einstein did not attend his prize giving. Though he was informed that he was to receive the prize, he continued with a lecture tour of Japan.

Einstein has published four papers on the general theory of relativity. In the third paper, he used general relativity to explain why Mercury’s closest point to the Sun (its perihelion) is erratic.

Gravitational influence of the Sun and other planets was not sufficient explanation for this movement. Some even went as far as to suggest in the 19th century that a new planet, Vulcan, orbiting close to the Sun was the reason! But this was disproved as Einstein succeeded in calculating the shift in Mercury’s perihelion using the general theory of relativity.

The theory not only explained previously unexplained phenomena, it could even predict events that have not occurred yet. In 1919, the theory was validated again when Sir Arthur Eddington, secretary of the Royal Astronomical Society of London travelled to the island of Principe off the coast of West Africa. There, he had the perfect view of the Sun during a total eclipse.

The light emitted from a certain strand was measured and it was found that the light was deflected, or bent, by just the amount that Einstein had predicted. Einstein’s fame skyrocketed after this.

The General Theory of Relativity predicted that the space-time around Earth would be warped and twisted due to Earth’s rotation. The theory gave a new framework for all of physics and proposed new concepts of space and time.

In 1907, Einstein had certain realizations about his theory. He understood that special relativity could not be applied to gravity or to an object undergoing acceleration. Consider a person sitting inside a closed room on Earth. That person experiences Earth’s gravity. Now imagine if the same room was placed in space, away from the gravitational influence of any object.

If it is given an acceleration of 9.8 m/s2 (same as Earth’s gravitational acceleration), the person inside the room won’t be able to tell whether he is feeling gravity or uniform acceleration. This idea laid the foundation of the General Theory of Relativity.

Einstein’s next question was how light would behave in the accelerating room. When we shine a torch across the room, the light looks like it is bending forward. This is because the floor of the room would be coming up to the light beam at an ever-faster speed, so the floor could catch up with the light. As gravity and acceleration are equivalent, light would bend in a gravitational field.

It took Einstein several years to find the correct mathematical expression of these ideas. In 1912, his friend, mathematician Marcel Grossman, introduced him to the tensor analysis of some mathematicians. This helped him. After three more years of work, the foundations of this theory were laid in the four papers he published in 1915.

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Einstein was not the first scientist to observe and study the photoelectric effect. However, he was the first to properly understand the nature of light and draw the correct assumptions from it. Physicists James Clerk Maxwell in Scotland and Hendrik Lorentz in the Netherlands had already proved the wave nature of light in the late 1800s. This was proven by seeing how light waves demonstrate interference, diffraction and scattering- which are common to all waves including water.

Einstein’s 1905 argument that light behaves as sets of particles (initially called quanta and later ‘photon’) was contradictory to the classical description of light as a wave. A completely new model of light was needed to explain the phenomenon. Einstein developed a model for this purpose and according to this, light sometimes behaved as particles of electromagnetic energy or photons. Though others had presented this theory before Einstein, he was the first to explain why it occurred and consider its potential.

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Photoelectric effect is the emission of electrons from a substance when electromagnetic radiations fall on it. For instance, when light falls on a metal plate, electrons are ejected.

Light with energy above a particular point frees electrons from the surface of the solid metal. Each photon (particle of light) collides with an electron and uses some of its energy to remove the electron. Photon’s remaining energy transfers to the free negative charge which is called a photoelectron. This was a discovery that revolutionized modern physics as it clarified many doubts regarding the nature of light.

The photoelectric effect proposed by Einstein in 1905 remains valuable in various areas of research such as material science and astrophysics. It is also the basis of many useful devices. The ‘electric eye’ door openers, light metres used in photography, solar panels and Photostat copying are all applications of the photoelectric effect.

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