A Riveting Paper

It was June 1905 and the story goes that world famous physicist Max Planck brought in the mail after a long day at work. In the mail was a scientific article by an author unknown to most of the science community. A guy who worked as patent clerk and wrote in his spare time.

Somehow the article intrigued him and one can just imagine Planck, absent mindedly putting down the rest of the mail while reading the beginning of this paper. Keep in mind that we are talking about one of the greatest scientists in the world in 1905. Max Planck's theories on physics would be the under pinning of scientific discovery for the next 80 years!

I do not know if the story is absolutely true but, it is said that Planck stood riveted as he read this very complicated paper full of mathematics and paradoxes. He then set down in his chair and said
"The world has changed!"

The patent clerk who sent him the paper was a young German named (yup!) Albert Einstein. The paper was on special relativity.

The world had indeed changed. The way the universe worked was not at all what it seemed. The laws of time and space according to Isaac Newton were wrong! Time itself was not what we thought. Crazy Jules Verne like ideas of traveling to a future time might just be possible. It was all pretty heady stuff.

Fortunately for us, Max Planck was smart enough to realize that Einstein was probably right. He took him under his wings and the rest they say is history.

One of my favourite books is by a genius named Brian Greene. He wrote a book called the Elegant Universe. I understood the first 3 chapters. Sitting by a physics professor on an airliner I enquired of the gentleman if he had read it. Telling him how far I had gotten. Don't feel bad he said..I am a physicist and I only understood about half of it!

The book is worth the cost for those 3 chapters. In one of them he explains Einstein's Theory of relativity. Greene tells the reader to re-read this chapter until it clicks. I did and it clicked after 3 tries. I suspect everyone has a similar reaction when relativity becomes somewhat clear.
OH!
Wow!
Good grief!

I had a year of Calculus based Physics at the University of Oklahoma.
Just enough to know that the mathematics of special relativity and Euclidean Geometry are beyond my Okie brain.

That said, it is fairly easy to comprehend what Einstein figured out 100 years ago this month. At the risk, of getting some nasty emails from Physics experts telling me I have the explanation all wrong..I will attempt it.
But not tonight...later this week perhaps!

Dan