miracle
Einstein created a miracle unprecedented in the history of science. This year, he wrote six papers. During the half year from March to September, he made four epoch-making contributions in three fields in his spare time besides working eight hours a day in the patent office. He published an article on the theory of light quantum, the determination of molecular size,
Theory and special relativity.
In March, Einstein sent the paper that he thought was correct to the editorial department of German Physics of the Year. He said shyly to the editor, "I will be very happy if you can find room for me to publish this paper in your annual report." This "embarrassing" paper is called "a speculative view on the generation and transformation of light".
This paper puts Planck
The proposed quantum concept is extended to the propagation of light in space, and the optical quantum hypothesis is put forward. It is considered that: for time average, light behaves as fluctuation; For instantaneous values, light appears as particles. This is the first time in history to reveal the unity of fluctuation of microscopic objects and particles, that is, wave-particle duality.
At the end of this article, he briefly explained it with the concept of light quantum.
inexplainable
The relationship between maximum photoelectron energy and incident light frequency is derived. This relationship was not confirmed by Millikan's experiment until 10 years later. 192 1 year, Ain
For "
The discovery of this law won the Nobel Prize in Physics.
This is just the beginning,
Einstein went hand in hand in three fields: light, heat and electric physics.
. 1905 In April, Einstein completed a new method to determine the molecular size, and in May, he completed the movement of suspended particles in still liquid required by the theory of thermomolecular motion. These are two articles about
Research paper. Einstein's purpose at that time was to determine the actual size of molecules by observing the irregular motion of suspended particles caused by the fluctuation of molecular motion, thus solving the problem of whether atoms exist in scientific and philosophical circles for more than half a century.
Three years later, French physicist Perrin confirmed Einstein's theoretical prediction with accurate experiments. therefore
Prove the objective existence of atoms and molecules, which makes Germany most resolutely oppose atomism.
Ostwald, the founder of the elite system.
Take the initiative to announce: "the atomic hypothesis has become a scientific theory with a solid foundation."
1In June, 905, Einstein completed his groundbreaking physics.
Long paper "On Dynamics"
",completely put forward the special theory of relativity. This is the result of Einstein's brewing and exploration in 10, which largely solved the crisis of classical physics at the end of 19 and changed it.
The concepts of time and space reveal the equivalence of matter and energy and create a brand-new physical world, which is the greatest revolution in the field of modern physics.
Special relativity can not only explain
All the phenomena that can be explained can also be explained.
Unexplained physical phenomena and predicted many new effects. The most important conclusion of the special theory of relativity is that the principle of conservation of mass has lost its independence and merged with the law of conservation of energy, so that mass and energy can be transformed into each other. There are other things that are often mentioned, such as the clock slowly contracting and the speed of light unchanged.
The rest mass of is zero, and so on. Classical mechanics has become the limit case of relativistic mechanics at low speed. So mechanics and electromagnetism are unified on the basis of kinematics.
1905 In September, Einstein wrote a short article, is the inertia of an object related to the energy it contains? ",as an inference of relativity. The mass-energy equivalent is
and
The theoretical basis was also recognized in the 1940s.
Release and use.
In this short period of six months, Einstein's breakthrough achievements in science can be said to be "unprecedented". Even if he gave up physics research, even if he only accomplished any of the above three achievements, Einstein would leave an extremely important mark on the history of physics development. Einstein dispelled the "dark clouds on the clear sky of physics" and ushered in more brilliant physics.
Exploration of general relativity
After the establishment of the special theory of relativity, Einstein was not satisfied and tried to extend the application of the principle of relativity to non-inertial systems. He comes from
discoverable
The breakthrough was found in the ancient experimental fact that all objects have the same acceleration, and the equivalence principle was put forward in 1907 2. In this year, his university teacher, the famous
home
Put forward the special theory of relativity
The form of expression provided a useful mathematical tool for the further development of relativity, but it was a pity that Einstein didn't realize its value at that time.
The discovery of the principle of equivalence was regarded by Einstein as the happiest thought in his life, but his later work was very hard and he took a big detour.
, he analyzed the rigid rotating disk, realized that
Euclidean geometry is not strictly valid. At the same time, it is found that Lorentz variation is not universal, and the equivalence principle is only effective in an infinitesimal region. At this time, Einstein already had the idea of general relativity, but he still lacked the necessity to establish it.
Einstein is back.
Work in my alma mater. With the help of his classmate Grossman, a professor of mathematics at his alma mater, he found a mathematical tool to establish general relativity in Riemannian geometry and tensor analysis. After a year of hard cooperation, they published an important paper "Outline of General Relativity and Gravity Theory" in 19 13, and put forward the gauge field gravity theory. This is the first time to combine gravity with scale, which makes Riemann geometry have real physical significance.
But what they got at that time
The equation is covariant only for linear transformation, not the arbitrariness required by the principle of general relativity.
Covariance is. This is because Einstein was not familiar with tensor operation at that time and mistakenly thought that there must be limits as long as he obeyed the conservation law.
In order to maintain causality, we have to give up the requirement of universal covariation.