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Tag archives: Einstein
Einstein’s legacy, 100 years on
By Tushna Commissariat
As readers of Physics World, you probably don’t need me to tell you that this year marks 100 years since legendary physicist Albert Einstein laid the foundations for his revolutionary general theory of relativity (GR). This month marks the exact time when he began giving a series of four weekly lectures – the first of which was on 4 November 1915 – to the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin. Indeed, today is the centenary of the final lecture, when he presented his “Field equations of gravitation”. In the video above, philosopher and one-time physicist Jürgen Renn, from the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, gives a short and sweet explanation of GR and its impact on physics.
Physicists in motion: immigration and the Nobel prize
Around the world: how has immigration shaped the global physics community? (Courtesy: iStockphoto/Joel Carillet)
By Hamish Johnston
In December 1938 Enrico Fermi travelled to Stockholm, where he was presented with that year’s Nobel Prize for Physics for his insights into the atomic nucleus. But after the ceremony, Fermi did not return to his native Italy. Instead, he joined his wife and young children on a voyage to the US. Fermi went on to make major contributions to physics in that country – including playing crucial roles in developing nuclear weapons and nuclear energy.
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The ins and outs of black holes and a new way of thinking about general relativity
By Hamish Johnston
While at the Convergence conference at the Perimeter Institute (PI), Physics World’s Louise Mayor and I had dinner with Sean Gryb. He did his PhD at the PI and is now doing a postdoc at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands. In the above video he shares some of his highlights of the conference.
Gryb is working on “shape dynamics”, which is a new idea for re-evaluating Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity (GR). The idea was initiated by Julian Barbour and Gryb became involved in the development of shape dynamics while he was at PI. He now belongs to a small international band of physicists who are developing the concept. While shape dynamics is an alternative treatment of GR, the ultimate goal of their work seems to be the creation of a new framework for a theory of quantum gravity – an important goal of theoretical physics.
Debating warp bubbles and quark novae over beer and samosas
Time traveller: Miguel Alcubierre works the crowd in Edmonton.
By Hamish Johnston at the CAP Congress in Edmonton, Canada
The first day of the Canadian Association of Physicists (CAP) Congress at the University of Edmonton closed yesterday on the theme of time travel. Surely that is science fiction, you are thinking? But Miguel Alcubierre of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) wasn’t joking when he delivered the Herzberg Memorial Lecture yesterday evening (although he did giggle a lot during his talk, which was very endearing). The session was called “Faster than the speed of light” and it was a fascinating romp through some of the more bizarre implications of Einstein’s general theory of relativity (GR) – which is 100 years old this year.
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The admiral of the string-theory wars, add-male-author-gate, the Einstein font and more…
Julie Peasley, creater of the Particle Zoo. (Courtesy: CERN)
By Hamish Johnston
Peter Woit is lauded by some for having the courage to speak the truth to the physics establishment, while others see him as an enemy of science. Woit writes the Not Even Wrong blog, which has the same title as a controversial book he once wrote about the merits of string theory. In an article in the latest issue of Nautilus, Bob Henderson profiles Woit and his three decades of doubt over various incarnations of the theory that culminated about 10 years ago in the “string wars”. Henderson’s article is called “The Admiral of the String Theory Wars” and provides a fascinating insight into how the rise of string theory caused Woit to switch from physics to mathematics and his relationships with string theorists – some of whom work in the same building as Woit at Columbia University.
Villainous physicists, Hubble’s cat and more
Eddie Redmayne as Stephen Hawking in the film The Theory of Everything. (Courtesy: Universal Pictures International)
By Tushna Commissariat
This week we heard about a possible new James Bond film villain and its none other than Stephen Hawking. According to this story in the Telegraph, he feels as if his trademark wheelchair and computerized voice would lend themselves perfectly to the part. On the same note, we saw this interesting feature on the Wired website that looks at the history behind Hawking’s very recognisable voice. Last month, I was lucky enough to attend an early screening of James Marsh’s Hawking biopic The Theory of Everything, which includes a rather touching and funny scene of Hawking testing out his voice for the first time. You can read more about the film in the reviews section of the upcoming January issue of Physics World.
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Quantum landscaping
Artist’s impression of a map of the Quantum Universe (Graphic courtesy of “ILC — form one visual communication”)
By Tushna Commissariat
Here’s a bit of Friday physics fun… I came across this rather interesting image that shows an artist’s impression of a map entitled “The Quantum Universe”. It includes six landmasses all floating in the Big Bang Ocean; including Dark Matter Landmass, Sypersymmetry Reef, Higgs Island and the Land of Ultimate Unification as well as others.
So go ahead and tell us which island you would like to settle down on. Be sure to look carefully at gems like Newton’s Lawn and Mount Einstein before you make your mind up!
To see a larger hi-res image follow this link.
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