Question: do you like albert einstein

Steven Gardner answered on 17 Jun 2013:

I spent 4 years studying theoretical physics, so Albert Einstein is very much one of my personal heroes.

In 1905, Einstein published 4 scientific papers. The first explained a problem called Brownian motion, which is where grains of pollen in water appear to jiggle around randomly. Einstein showed this was because atoms in the water were crashing into the pollen grain and in doing so pretty much invented a whole field of physics called statistical mechanics. Statistical mechanics is a very important pillar of modern physics, and is still heavily used.

The second paper won him the Nobel prize. Einstein won the prize for explaining an something called the photoelectric effect. The photoelectric effect was where beams of light of a specific frequency where able to remove the charge from a metal. The photoelectric effect had puzzled physicists for years, why should only that frequency work and not all frequencies? Einstein explained the effect by showing that electrons could only absorb light with a specfic energy, and all other light would not be absorbed. This effect went on to be used as evidence for another pillar of physics, quantum mechanics.

And the third and fourth papers, well they completely changed the world. In these Einstein outlined his theory of special relativity, changing forever how we thought about time and space, and he showed that mass and energy were two sides of the same coin with his most famous equation E=mc^2.

So, in one year, he invented or heavily contributed to three pillars of modern physics, and won a Nobel prize as well. Not bad that!