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Page history last edited by PBworks 18 years ago

Joe Knittel

Kem Crimmins

02/27/2006

 


 

Albert Einstein: The Most Influential Scientist of the 20th Century

 


 

History has seen many great scientists. The world’s greatest theorists can be traced back thousands of years. Archimedes and Aristotle were two of the most recognized geniuses of the Before Common Era. More recently, during the 16th and 17th centuries, Galileo Galilei and Sir Isaac Newton established the most innovative ideas of their time and saw the greatest recognition of anyone during their lives. Many great scientific discoveries were made in the 1900s, but Albert Einstein’s theories demonstrated in his Annus Mirabilis Papers and afterward dominated the time, making him the most influential scientist of the century.

What made these great scientists and mathematicians of the past so important? These thinkers made advances that influenced millions of people during their lives. More importantly, these individuals set themselves above the rest by conceptualizing ideas that continued to influence people for hundreds of years after their death. Aristotle developed the idea of matter and conducted numerous experiments making him one of the first empiricists. Archimedes brought attention to the existence of buoyancy and invented the field of statics. Galilei developed the notion of free-fall acceleration due to gravity in addition to making various astronomic observations. Newton invented calculus as well as a law of cooling and conservation of momentum. Each of the ideas conceived by these geniuses continues to play a big roll role in how we live today. In addition, many of these scientists’ ideas provided the basic framework for other advancements years after their deaths.

The scientific advancements of the 20th century can be broken into two categories: Einstein’s accomplishments and everyone else’s. Certainly, Philo Farnsworth’s invention of the electric television, Kurt Gödel’s incompleteness theorem, Edwin Hubble’s understanding of the universe and its galaxies, James Watson and Francis Crick’s discovery of the structure of DNA, and Tim Berners-Lee’s creation of the World Wide Web were all huge advancements during the 1900s, but Einstein’s ideas far outweighed the rest. In fact, the theories Einstein demonstrated in his Annus Mirabilis Papers paved the way for the invention of the television, the discovery of DNA’s structure, and even a better understanding of our universe (“Albert Einstein”).

Einstein published the Annus Mirabilis Papers in his “miracle year of 1905” (“Albert Einstein”). The first of the Papers, named "On a Heuristic Viewpoint Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light", demonstrated a new idea describing what we now refer to as photons. Einstein proposed that light is made up of massless packets of energy which he called light quanta. In addition, the paper also demonstrated how light quanta can be used to explain the photoelectric effect. The phototube developed by Philo Farnsworth in his invention of the television was a direct effect of this paper. Although he is now more known for his general theory of relativity, this paper earned Einstein the Nobel Prize in 1921. The second paper in Einstein’s series of 1905 papers titled, "On the Motion—Required by the Molecular Kinetic Theory of Heat—of Small Particles Suspended in a Stationary Liquid", proved that atoms were indeed real entities, in fact, he proved that atoms could be counted simply by looking into an ordinary microscope. This paper brought an "end to a millennia-old debate on the fundamental nature of the chemical elements" (Levenson 1) and played a huge role in the discovery of what makes up DNA. "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies", the third paper in the series, dealt with the special theory of relativity, a concept who’s generalization would eventually make Einstein the most recognized scientist of the 20th century. In this paper, Einstein disproved the popular belief first proposed by Newton that the speed of light is relative to the movement of the observer. This theory would play an important roll in the last of the Annus Mirabilis Papers as well as many calculations in the physics we study today. The special theory of relativity was very similar to electromagnetism; however, gravity played no roll role in the theory (“Albert Einstein”). Perhaps Einstein’s most well-known formula came from the fourth of the Annus Mirabilis Papers, "Does the Inertia of a Body Depend upon Its Energy Content?" This paper demonstrated that a body at rest possesses energy equal to its mass times the speed of light squared. The mass-energy relation would later be used in WWII and continues to be used to see how nuclear reactions emit such phenomenal amounts of energy.

Most of the recognition Einstein received was spawned by his creation of his general theory of relativity, published in 1915. Einstein’s general theory of relativity is a unification of two main ideas: Newton’s law of universal gravitation, an idea stating that gravitation is not due to a force but rather a manifestation of curved space and time, and special relativity, which Einstein also helped create (“Albert Einstein”). Einstein proved that “gravity was just a natural outcome of a mass’s existence in space” ("Newton vs. Einstein vs. the Next Wave" 2). The study of cosmology, the study of the large-scale structure of the universe, has benefited greatly from the acceptance of the theory. Phenomena such as gravitation redshifting of light, gravitational time dilation, bending of light, and black holes are all due to general relativity. Every test attempting to prove the theory of general relativity wrong has been negated failed.

 

Many of Einstein’s theories were born in the miracle year of 1905 and the years immediately following, but he certainly continued producing valuable papers for years. In 1917, Einstein established another idea in the field of optics. He set forth the concept of stimulated emissions; the notion allows lasers to amplify light. Einstein and former student, Leo Szilard, co-invented what is most commonly referred to as the Einstein refrigerator in 1926. In the last few years of his life, Einstein began trying to form a bond between the fundamental forces of the world. He was trying to link the gravitational force with the electrodynamics force. Einstein, however, was not aware that there exist two other fundamental forces: the strong and weak nuclear forces (“Albert Einstein”). A common link between the fundamental forces of the universe still does not exist, but numerous scientists continue to add onto Einstein’s ideas.

 

Albert Einstein’s theories combine to make him the most influential scientist of the 20th century. Many scientists were able to reach millions of people with their inventions or ideas, but for how many years will their ideas continue to play an integral role in our lives? In the case of Farnsworth’s television and Berners-Lee’s internet, the main objective is to share information. Throughout the years, there have been numerous innovations in the process of sharing information; undoubtedly, improvements will continue to be made in that field. DNA structure and the universe continue to be studied and continue to influence millions of people, but without Einstein’s Annus Mirabilis Papers, these discoveries may not have been made for years to come. Add the general theory of relativity and various other theories and inventions to his repertoire and Einstein best exemplifies the criteria that described a great scientist of the past. More than fifty years after his death, little kids know of Albert Einstein. His ideas will continue to shape how we think about the world we live in and will undeniably unearth new discoveries. There simply was no 20th century scientist that had a greater influence on the world than Albert Einstein.

 


 

Works Cited

 

 

"Albert Einstein." Wikipedia. 16 Feb. 2006 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein>.

 

Levenson, Thomas. "Genius Among Geniuses." Nova. June 2005. 16 Feb. 2006 <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/einstein/genius/>.

 

"Newton vs. Einstein vs. the Next Wave." Science Bulletins. American Museum of

Natural History. 16 Feb. 2006 <http://sciencebulletins.amnh.org/astro/f/gravity.20041101/essays/44_1.php>.

 


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