(Article written for School Children)
For Part I, Check: http://physics-de-pristine.blogspot.com/2011/12/dr-einstein-gains-center-stage-part-i.html
Part-2
The first job of Albert Einstein, after he passed a course in teaching mathematical physics from ETH polytechnic in Zurich Switzerland , was ironically as a technical assistant in the Swiss patent office Berne Switzerland ! after publication of his 1905 papers(while he was in the Swiss patent office).The great European scientists like Dr Max Planck recognized Einstein's talent. Dr Kleiner professor of Zurich university who was aware of Einstein's capabilities ensured that Einstein was awarded a Ph D from Zurich university for which he was more than qualified.Einstein was still only about 26years old and had no direct inks with academic world of university professors and research laboratories .
Soon many university professors and the big scientific intellectuals of Europe like Max Planck,Lorentz,Poincare,Earnst Mach etc.got into direct touch with Einstein. Dr Einstein too started visiting the big professors and scientists and was everywhere warmly welcomed. He met Sir J.J.Thompson,Earnest Rutherford, Dr.Wien, Madame Curie etc during such visits. Due to his revolutionary ideas in theoretical physics he became quite a sensation among the scientific community.Particularly the young scientists were greatly attracted by his theories.Among them were Von Laue,Max Born and Jacob Laub .Many of them later winners of Nobel prize personally visited Einstein at Berne Switzerland to get a better understanding of his revolutionary ideas contained in his 1905 papers.
Just as Newton was obsessed with the problem of the falling apple Einstein right from his early student days was obsessed with the problem of how the world(i.e.matter and radiation) would look to a person traveling at speed of light. While working in the Swiss patent office he must have heard about A.A.Michelson’s experiment of 1887which could not detect any difference in speed of light in different directions.While at ETH he closely followed the developments in theoretical physics and also the revolutionary theories of giant intellects like Prof Max Planck,Prof Lorenz, Prof Ernst Mach ,Prof Poincare etc. He was shifting to the view that there is no such thing as aether and that light rays consist of billions billions of photons which are material particles. He it was who first coined the word photon to describe light quanta.But the phenomena of interference and diffraction could not be explained under Einstein's photon concept and could be explained only by Maxwell's theory of e.m.waves.
The insufficiency of photon concept and special theory of relativity to satisfactorily explain the wave based phenomena of interference and diffraction greatly vexed einstein and took him another ten years to make progress in the matter. The situation required revolutionary ideas such as treating matter as congealed and crystallized energy as proposed by Einstein himself and the equally revolutionary principles of quantum mechanics and wave mechanics (proposed by other scientists ) . Einstein did not accept the theories based on quantum mechanics and wave mechanics because they were against the law of "cause and effect" .
Dr Jacob Laub who was once a research assistant with Dr Wien went to Berne several times (about the year 1907) and had prolonged personal discussions with Einstein and the result was a group of three research papers leading to fuller understanding of Special relativity. Einstein continued with his work to find a link between photon theory and the phenomena of interference and diffraction but there was no immediate progress.Meanwhile Einstein took up another line of research ,namely application of quantum theory to explain the vibration of atoms and molecules in solids . This led to a vast new field of research by distinguished scientists like Nernst,Lindeman,Debye and Max Born.
Einstein also looked into the perplexing problem of radioactivity.The fission of a very small number of atoms in natural uranium occurring in a very random and casual manner is the reason for natural radioactivity. this is an endless process (because half life of uranium is in billions of years!) There is no rule to predict which particular atoms in natural uranium would undergo fission at a particular moment. Only some statistical averages calculated according to rules of quantum mechanics (just as done in classical thermodynamics) are to be applied to make some general predictions on natural fission. Einstein did not agree to use of such statistical averages . He did not approve application of quantum mechanics in the matter of radioactive fission because such calculations are based on "uncertainty principle" and theory of probability.He was firmly of the opinion that only because of nonavailability of required data (at present stage of scientific progress) we are not able to make accurate prediction of events governing the world of subatomic particles . Only due to this reason we are unable to predict which particular atoms within a piece of uranium would undergo fission. He was sure that God would not "play dice" in such matters!
It is a great irony that even with great achievements to his credit Einstein still continued to work at the Swiss patent office. On advice of Dr Kliener who had very high opinion of him, Einstein applied for a Professor's post at Berne university.But his application was rejected because the senior professors were opposed to his iconoclastic ideas in theoretical physics. .However he was offered the post of “privatodigent” i.e.a professor on probation with out salary. However his name was attracting greater attention day by day among scientists.
He was invited in 1909 to deliver a lecture at the 350th anniversary celebrations of the Geneva university. He was honored by the university along with such greats as Madame Marie Curie of France (who received Nobel prizes for both physics and chemistry for her path breaking researches on radioactivity) , Prof Solvay the famous industrial chemist of Belgium and prof Wilhelm Ostwald who later won Nobel prize for his research on catalysis.
He was next invited to deliver a lecture at the Salzburg conference of scientists.The greatest scientific minds of Europe were there.---Dr Plack, Dr Wien, Dr Reubens and also Dr Sommerfield,Prof Max Born etc of the younger generation . On the the very exciting subject of Relativity Prof Max Born (and not the originator Dr Einstein ) delivered the lecture . Einstein was engrossed in constructing the "General theory of Relativity" to encompass and explain gravitation and all other physical phenomena in entire universe and also to find ways to explain the phenomena of interference and diffraction on basis of relativity . He wanted to know whether photons ,the material particles of e.m. radiations are subject to gravitational attraction. He was even thinking whether all matter is only condensed energy .
He also proposed the idea of " space curvature". If a body (from photon to a planet)traveling in space is influenced by different gravitational bodies ,then its path is not a straight line but a slightly curved line in the 3-d space. Also the total mass of matter in entire universe is so much that even photons of all em radiations would rotate round and round the universe at its edge in closed curves.The entire universe is a single field of energy . The" matter" of entire universe may be only a condensation of a small part of the" energy" of universe.
While the scientists at Salzburg thought that Einstein would deliver a lecture on old topics like Special relativity theory, he virtually burst a bomb with his paper entitled “ Development of our views on nature and constitution of radiation” . His ideas were on revolutionary new lines of research and the conservative theoretical physicists were not fully prepared for those ideas! He discussed the problem of scientifically linking e.m.wave theory- based phenomena (like interference and diffraction) and the quantum theory- based concept of photons. Dr Einstein reminded the audience about the inter convertibility of energy and matter (as per equation E=M x square of C ) and proposed in his paper that radiation need not travel in a spherical wave front but can travel in a needle like straight paths like a ray of billions billions photon bullets (almost same as Newton's corpuscular theory.)It is said that even Dr Max Planck the inventor of quantum theory was stunned and remarked that the paper “was a bold step in my opinion , but not yet called for”.
The scientists gathered there felt that only Einstein could confront scientists like Dr Max Plack with such new ideas and his well thought out arguments. Einstein always treated Dr Max Planck with greatest regard as his own teacher. Einstein successfully explained photoelectric effect only on the basis of Planck's theory and proposed the idea of light photons. Prof Lise Meitner (who later was awarded Nobel prize for discovery of nuclear fission in uranium atoms and was then only a research scholar working with Dr Max Planck at Berlin university ),later stated that she could remember the original revolutionary hypotheses of that particular paper of Dr Einstein even 30 years after it was delivered.!
In 1908 a chair of theoretical physics was created at Zurich university and Dr Einstein name was proposed by Prof Kleiner as the first choice for that post. But due to political interference there was delay.However Prof Frederic Adler in whose favor the political pressure came being a great admirer of Einstein's scintillating intellect said that Dr Einstein was too great a professor to be denied that position. On Adler’s insistence Dr Einstein was appointed to the post in 1909. Dr Adler remained as a lifelong admirer of Einstein. On 6th July 1909 Einstein finally resigned his technical job at Swiss patent office and became a full time academic. Einstein became the center of admiration in European science and he at last settled into a full time academic and research work.
By Sastry Polavarapu (Admin of PDEP)
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