Ep.50: Albert Einstein – Top 7 Theories

August 10, 2023 Peter Jans

Intro

Hello and Welcome to this episode of the podcast, "The Mnemonic Tree", where we add a single mnemonic leaf to our Tree of Knowledge.

Today's episode our 50th, our big golden jubilee will be on Albert Einstein a man that has lent his name to everything synonymous with intelligence.

He did however, have a slow start, not speaking full sentences until he was five years of age with the condition, they now call the Einstein Syndrome. This along with being told by one teacher that he would never amount to anything.

Well, he ended up winning a Nobel prize for Physics in 1921, formulating the famous equation E=mc2, helped change the course of World War II, formed the two pillars of modern Physics, is considered the most influential physicist of the 20th century and this, along with being named “Person of the Century” by Time Magazine.

Today’s mnemonic is on Albert Einstein’s top 7 theories.

So, with no further ado, we will begin with a summary from Wikipedia.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Albert_Einstein_Head.jpg

Wikipedia Summary

Albert Einstein (/ˈaɪnstaɪn/ EYEN-styne;[4] German: [ˈalbɛʁt ˈʔaɪnʃtaɪn] ( listen); 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist,[5] widely held to be one of the greatest and most influential scientists of all time. Best known for developing the theory of relativity, he also made important contributions to quantum mechanics, and was thus a central figure in the revolutionary reshaping of the scientific understanding of nature that modern physics accomplished in the first decades of the twentieth century.[1][6] His mass–energy equivalence formula E = mc2, which arises from relativity theory, has been called "the world's most famous equation".[7] He received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect",[8] a pivotal step in the development of quantum theory. His work is also known for its influence on the philosophy of science.[9][10] In a 1999 poll of 130 leading physicists worldwide by the British journal Physics World, Einstein was ranked the greatest physicist of all time.[11] His intellectual achievements and originality have made Einstein synonymous with genius.[12]

In 1905, a year sometimes described as his annus mirabilis (miracle year), Einstein published four groundbreaking papers.[13] These outlined a theory of the photoelectric effect, explained Brownian motion, introduced his special theory of relativity—a theory which addressed the inability of classical mechanics to account satisfactorily for the behavior of the electromagnetic field—and demonstrated that if the special theory is correct, mass and energy are equivalent to each other. In 1915, he proposed a general theory of relativity that extended his system of mechanics to incorporate gravitation. A cosmological paper that he published the following year laid out the implications of general relativity for the modeling of the structure and evolution of the universe as a whole.[14][15] The middle part of his career also saw him making important contributions to statistical mechanics and quantum theory. Especially notable was his work on the quantum physics of radiation, in which light consists of particles, subsequently called photons.

For much of the last phase of his academic life, Einstein worked on two endeavors that proved ultimately unsuccessful. Firstly, he fought a long rearguard action against quantum theory's introduction of fundamental randomness into science's picture of the world, objecting that "God does not play dice".[16] Secondly, he attempted to devise a unified field theory by generalizing his geometric theory of gravitation to include electromagnetism too. As a result, he became increasingly isolated from the mainstream of modern physics.

Born in the German Empire, Einstein moved to Switzerland in 1895, forsaking his German citizenship (as a subject of the Kingdom of Württemberg)[note 1] the following year. In 1897, at the age of seventeen, he enrolled in the mathematics and physics teaching diploma program at the Swiss Federal polytechnic school in Zürich, graduating in 1900. In 1901, he acquired Swiss citizenship, which he kept for the rest of his life. In 1903, he secured a permanent position at the Swiss Patent Office in Bern. In 1905, he submitted a successful PhD dissertation to the University of Zurich. In 1914, he moved to Berlin in order to join the Prussian Academy of Sciences and the Humboldt University of Berlin. In 1917, he became director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics; he also became a German citizen again, this time as a subject of the Kingdom of Prussia.[note 1] In 1933, while he was visiting the United States, Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany. Alienated by the policies of the newly elected Nazi government,[17] Einstein decided to remain in the US, and was granted American citizenship in 1940.[18] On the eve of World War II, he endorsed a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt alerting him to the potential German nuclear weapons program and recommending that the US begin similar research. Einstein supported the Allies but generally viewed the idea of nuclear weapons with great dismay.[19]

Extracted from: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein]

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Einstein1921_by_F_Schmutzer_2.jpg

Mnemonic

Albert Einstein – Top 7 Theories Mnemonic – A BiG Quantum Pass Word is Secure

(Picture Albert Einstein coming up with the most sophisticated quantum password to protect the data for the Manhattan Project)

1. Avogadro’s Number

2. Bose-Einstein Condensate

3. General Theory of Relativity

4. Quantum Theory of Light

5. Photoelectric effect

6. Wave-Particle Duality

7. Special Theory of Relativity

Five Fun Facts

1. Albert Einstein was born on 14th March 1879 in Ulm, Germany to Hermann and Pauline Einstein who had two children Albert and his sister Maria.

2. Albert Einstein was officially stateless after he renounced his German citizenship at age 16. He then went on to become a Swiss citizen in 1901.

3. Einstein’s first marriage was to Mileva Maric who was also an aspiring physicist. She was the only female student in Einstein’s physics class where they met at Zurich Polytechnic. They divorced in 1919.

4. Einstein’s second marriage gets a lot more interesting when he married his first cousin, Elsa. Not only was she his first cousin, but also a second cousin, as Elsa’s father and Albert’s father were cousins, saving her the trouble of changing her surname.

5. J. Edgar Hoover who seemed to have his thumb in every pie, kept a comprehensive file on Albert Einstein of 1,427 pages. At one point he tried to keep Einstein out of America by using the Alien Exclusion Act, however, this was overruled by the US State Department.

6. Bonus Fact: Einstein was a close friend to the man that introduced chemical warfare, which was Fritz Haber. He was responsible for the deadly chlorine gas that was developed in WWI which was heavier than air thus, would flow down the trenches asphyxiating soldiers. Their friendship became strained when Haber would extoll the virtues of assimilation.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Richard_C._Tolman_and_Albert_Einstein_at_California_Institute_of_Technology.jpg

Three Question Quiz

Q.1. Was Albert Einstein offered the presidency of Israel? True or False

Q.2. Which theory was developed first? The Special Theory of Relativity or The General Theory of Relativity

Q.3. What year did Albert Einstein die? Options are 1955 or 1965?

Bonus Q. What does E = mc2 stand for?

Mnemonic Recap

Albert Einstein – Top 7 Theories Mnemonic – A BiG Quantum Pass Word is Secure

(Picture Albert Einstein coming up with the most sophisticated quantum password to protect the data for the Manhattan Project)

1. Avogadro’s Number

2. Bose-Einstein Condensate

3. General Theory of Relativity

4. Quantum Theory of Light

5. Photoelectric effect

6. Wave-Particle Duality

7. Special Theory of Relativity

Three Question Quiz Answers

Q.1. Was Albert Einstein offered the presidency of Israel? True or False

A. True. By David Ben Gurion

Q.2. Which theory was developed first? The Special Theory of Relativity or The General Theory of Relativity

A. The Special Theory of Relativity which was in 1905 and The General Theory of Relativity which was in 1915.

And just in regards to the Theory of Relativity. They say if Einstein hadn’t come up with the theory of relativity, that someone else would have. Apparently, it was just a matter of time!

Q.3. What year did Albert Einstein die? Options are 1955 or 1965?

A. 1955 in Princeton, New Jersey in the US

Bonus Q. What does E = mc2 stand for?

A. Energy = Mass times the speed of light squared

Word of the Week

phantasmagoric

[ fan-taz-muh-gawr-ik, -gor- ]

adjective

having a fantastic or deceptive appearance, as something in a dream or created by the imagination.

Example

The inordinate IQ of Einstein was augmented by his phantasmagorical hairstyle.

Extracted from: [https://www.dictionary.com/]