Curated category
Albert Einstein
- Albert EinsteinWhen Albert Einstein was five and sick in bed, his father brought him a compass. The trembling needle, always pointing the same way, convinced the boy that…
- Einstein–de Sitter universeThe Einstein-de Sitter universe is a model of the cosmos that two of the twentieth century's most accomplished physicists built together in 1932, chasing the…
- Einstein's static universeEinstein's static universe is the cosmological model Albert Einstein proposed in 1917, only months after finishing his general theory of relativity.
- EinsteiniumEinsteinium, element 99 on the periodic table, was born in the fire of history's most destructive weapon. On the 1st of November 1952, the United States…
- Albert Einstein HouseThe Albert Einstein House sits at 112 Mercer Street in Princeton, New Jersey, a modest cottage that bears no historical marker explaining why it matters.
- Einstein familyThe Einstein family stretches back to at least the late seventeenth century, when a man named Jakob Weil was born. He is the oldest recorded relative of the…
- Einstein–Szilard letterOn the 2nd of August 1939, Albert Einstein signed a letter he had not written. The author was Leo Szilard, a Hungarian physicist who had already been losing…
- Einstein's thought experimentsEinstein's thought experiments began at the Gymnasium in Aarau. A sixteen-year-old asked himself what a beam of light would look like if he could travel…
- Olympia AcademyThe Olympia Academy began not with grand ambitions, but with a newspaper advertisement. Albert Einstein, then living in Bern, Switzerland, placed a notice…
- Einstein–de Haas effectA change in the magnetic moment of a free body causes that body to rotate. This physical phenomenon is a direct consequence of the conservation of angular…
- Special relativitySpecial relativity is a theory that Albert Einstein published on the 26th of September 1905, in a paper titled "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies." It…
- Theory of relativityThe theory of relativity arrived in two parts, separated by a decade. Albert Einstein published special relativity in 1905, then general relativity in 1915.
- Cosmological constantThe cosmological constant is a number so small it nearly vanishes, yet its presence or absence shapes the fate of the entire universe.
- Bose–Einstein statisticsBose-Einstein statistics describes something genuinely strange: particles that seem to prefer being together. While presenting a lecture at the University of…
- Einstein field equationsThe Einstein field equations sit at the heart of general relativity, a set of ten coupled, nonlinear equations that tell the universe how to curve.
- Brownian motionBrownian motion is the ceaseless, random jostling of tiny particles suspended in a liquid or a gas. Watch a grain of pollen floating in water under a…
- Albert Einstein College of MedicineAlbert Einstein College of Medicine opened its doors to 56 students on the 12th of September 1955, in a building that was not yet finished.
- Einstein refrigeratorThe Einstein refrigerator grew out of a tragedy reported in Berlin newspapers. In 1926, accounts spread of a family killed when a seal in their refrigerator…
- Mach's principleMach's principle asks one of the strangest questions in all of physics: why do your arms fly outward when you spin? Not because of anything touching them…
- Bose–Einstein condensateA Bose-Einstein condensate is a state of matter so strange that it forces physicists to reckon with quantum mechanics not as an invisible rule governing the…
- Photoelectric effectThe photoelectric effect is the emission of electrons from a material struck by electromagnetic radiation such as ultraviolet light.
- Mass–energy equivalenceMass-energy equivalence is one of the most consequential ideas in the history of physics, and it can be written in five characters: E equals mc squared.
- Albert Einstein MemorialThe Albert Einstein Memorial stands at the southwest corner of the National Academy of Sciences grounds, at 2101 Constitution Avenue in Washington, D.C.
- Annus mirabilisThe phrase annus mirabilis translates directly from Latin as year of miracles or marvelous year. Ancient writers used these words to describe times when…
- World Year of Physics 2005The World Year of Physics 2005 was built on a single extraordinary year from a century before: 1905. It was also called Einstein Year.