Ahead of Einstein’s Time

 What would Albert Einstein think if he were alive today?

         As a theorist who was interested in experiments, in his early career at least, he would be pleased to know that a small band of 21^st century physicists are still trying to find flaws in the special theory of relativity, while others are busy checking out the predictions of the general theory, And having spent the final years of his life trying to unify general relativity with electromagnetism, without success, he could be forgiven for thinking that criticisms of his relative non-productivity in those years were somewhat unfair. No-one else has succeeded where he failed.

It is impossible to overstate the importance of what Einstein did in 1905. His work on Brownian motion provided the theoretical framework for experiments to prove that atoms were real, hard as it might be to believe now, at the time the majority of physicists did not believe in atoms. The special theory of relativity completely changed our notions of space and time, while E=mc2 led to the remarkable conclusion that mass and energy are one or same and interconversible. And his work on the photoelectric effect was the start of a love–hate relationship with quantum mechanics that still fascinates physicists today. And 1905 was just the beginning. The general theory of relativity – his truly outstanding achievement – followed 10 years later, with its predictions for the bending of light by mass being confirmed a few years after that during the solar eclipse of 1919. But even then Einstein did not abandon his interest in atoms, photons and quantum mechanics. The Einstein A and B coefficients for spontaneous and stimulated emission – without which we would not have lasers – made their debut in 1916, and the prediction of Bose–Einstein condensation – one of the hottest topics in experimental physics for the past decade – followed in the 1920s.

The general theory has so far survived all scrutiny, although it has not yet been tested in the strong-field limit. Most exciting, however, is the fact that theories that seek to unify gravity with the three other fundamental forces of nature predict departures from general relativity

that will soon be within experimental reach. Of course, the outstanding prediction of general relativity that has yet to be confirmed is the existence of gravitational waves: the almost superhuman efforts are being made to find out if Einstein was right. So there are a lot of things to be done which is the task of new, young and open mind.

Bishwas lal Shrestha (MSc 1^st year)

CDP,TU,Kirtipurbishwaslal@gmail.com

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