In the world of science, 2005 was the year of physics. In remembrance of Albert Einstein’s discovery; not only the theory of relativity in 1905. But he deduced the photoelectric law that governs the production of electricity from light sensitive metals. He investigated Brownian movement-confirming the existence of atoms and quantum theory (the relationship between mass and energy) the same year.
Einstein was born in 1879 in Germany city of Ulm. He had been no infant prodigy; indeed he was so late in learning to speak that his parents feared he was a dullard.
In school his teachers saw no special talent in him. He was a late developer and hated school too. Were it not for his Uncle who encouraged the young Einstein to continue with school and study mathematics (the problematic subject), through buying him journals of the then Mathematicians, his great genius might not be known beyond his immediate environment.
Thus he taught himself calculus.
At the Age of 16, he asked himself whether alight wave would seem stationary if one ran abreast of it. From that innocent question would raise, then years later, his theory of relativity.
Einstein developed his theories by using simple “thought experiments” but the full flowering of his ideas required complex mathematics.
It should be noted that mathematics is the language of physical sciences and all branches of engineering. Hence we won’t celebrate physics without taking serious consideration of its language masterly.
It is memorable that Einstein failed his entrance examinations at the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School, in Zurich but was admitted a year later. There he went beyond his regular work to study the master-works of physics on his own. Rejected when he applied for academic position, he ultimately found work, in 1902, as a patent examiner in Berne, and there in 1905 his genius burst into fabulous flower.
This testimony his telling: Mathematics and physics are the preserve for those who cherish this area. Those who will perspire to go beyond what others say and first-glance-approach-of –understanding. There is virtually a one-to-one correlation between avid reading and intellectual accomplishment.
Someone sagely pointed out, “The mind once stretched by an idea, never returns to its original dimensions.”
This reminiscences of Isaac Newton during his boyhood schooling. One day his classmate (a bright boy who usually excelled Isaac in his studies); kicked him violently in the stomach. Isaac had not been doing well in his studies. From that time Isaac changed his manner of study, and his progress was most unusual.
From here Isaac looms large in both in mathematics and physics as a-no-dispensable genius.
At a conference in Princeton in honor of Einstein’s 70th Birthday, one of the speakers, a Nobel Prize – Winner, tried to convey the magical quality of Einstein’s achievement. Words failed him, and with a shrug of helplessness he pointed to his wristwatch, and said in times of wed amazement, “If all come from this”.
Time and creativity are revolutionary ingredients. Creativity is experienced when using imagination to come up with innovative Ideas, or finding new ways to look at an old problems.
I remember the magical advice of solving 15 sums a day in standard 6 (don’t mind whether you are scoring them!) It will obviously revolutionize your stance forever, as a pupil or a student.
It isn’t that Einstein was only concerned with deepest aspects of science rather he saw scientific principles in everyday things to which most of us doesn’t take a second thought. He once asked why a man’s feet will sink into either dry or completely submerged sand, while sand that is merely damp provides a firm surface.
We will afford to celebrate physics by aping the legendary lawyer Hospital, who took the search of what Pythagoras called that – which – is most – real as a hobby – Mathematics. Or following the footsteps of Benjamin Franklin, the Ingenious man of affairs: a publisher, a literary icon and a civil servant who through conducting experiments invented the lightning rod.
Whenever a colleague come to see Einstein with a new Idea his endearing – request was: “Please go slowly. I do not understand things quickly.”
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