Einstein Relatively Simple: Our Universe Revealed in Everyday Language

398 Pages·2014·16.113 MB·

by  Egdall, Ira Mark

EINSTEIN
RELATIVELY SIMPLE
Our Universe Revealed
in Everyday Language
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EINSTEIN
RELATIVELY SIMPLE
Our Universe Revealed
in Everyday Language
Ira Mark Egdall
World Scientific
NEW JERSEY • LONDON • SINGAPORE • BEIJING • SHANGHAI • HONG KONG • TAIPEI • CHENNAI
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Published by
World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
5 Toh Tuck Link, Singapore 596224
USA office: 27 Warren Street, Suite 401-402, Hackensack, NJ 07601
UK office: 57 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9HE
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Egdall, Ira Mark, author.
Einstein relatively simple : our universe revealed in everyday language / Ira Mark Egdall.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-9814525589 (hard : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-9814525596 (pbk)
1. Einstein, Albert, 1879-1955--Influence. 2. Relativity (Physics) I. Title.
QC16.E5E25 2013
530.11--dc23
2013033953
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Copyright © 2014 by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval
system now known or to be invented, without written permission from the Publisher.
For photocopying of material in this volume, please pay a copying fee through the Copyright Clearance
Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. In this case permission to photocopy
is not required from the publisher.
In-house Editor: Rhaimie Wahap
Typeset by Stallion Press
Email: [email protected]
Printed in Singapore
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To the memory of my father,
who taught me to appreciate the wonders of science.
To the memory of my mother,
who taught me to see beauty in the world.
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About the Author
IRA MARK EGDALL
Einstein Relatively Simple
Ira Mark Egdall is the author of the eBook Unsung Heroes of the Universe
and a popular science writer for DecodedScience.com. He is a retired
aerospace program manager with an undergraduate degree in physics
from Northeastern University. Mark now teaches lay courses in modern
physics at Lifelong Learning Institutes at Florida International University,
the University of Miami, and Nova Southeastern University. He also gives
entertaining talks on Einstein and time travel. When not thinking about
physics, Mark spends his time playing with his grandchildren and driv-
ing his wife of 45 years crazy.
www.iramarkegdall.com
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Prologue
All knowledge begins in wonder.
Aristotle
In June of 1905, former high-school drop-out and lowly patent clerk
Albert Einstein published a paper in the German Annals of Physics
which revolutionized our understanding of space and time. What came to
be known as the theory of special relativity predicted a strange new uni-
verse where time slows and space shrinks with motion.
In that same journal, Einstein proposed light comes in discreet pack-
ets of energy we now call photons. Along with Max Planck’s work, this
insight sparked the quantum revolution. This in turn set off the greatest
technological revolution in human history — enabling the invention of
television, transistors, electronic digital computers, cell phones, digital
cameras, lasers, the electron microscope, atomic clocks, MRI, sonograms,
and many more modern-day devices.
Einstein’s follow-up article in September of 1905 proposed that mass
and energy are equivalent. His famous equation, E = mc2, came to solve
one of the great mysteries of modern science — how the Sun and stars
shine. Some four decades later, Einstein’s breakthrough ushered in the
atomic age.
In December of 1915, Albert Einstein — now Professor of Theoretical
Physics at the University of Berlin — surpassed his already staggering
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