In 1905, the hitherto unknown Albert Einstein publishes four papers on the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, relativity, and mass/energy equivalence, that revolutionize modern physics.
Playlist:
Fanfare
Opening Theme
Violin Sonata No. 26 in B♭
Composed in 1781 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Public domain.
Performed by Corey Cerovsek, violin, and Jeremy Denk, piano, and used pursuant to a Creative Commons license. Details.
Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.
Mark,
Wonderful episode. Your explanations of Einstein’s 1905 published papers were excellent. Well done!
Exploiting the Kevin Bacon degrees of separations concept (if there is one)…my sister-in-law grew up in Princeton, NJ in the 1950s. Her father was a dentist and one of his patients was Albert Einstein. I recall from years ago seeing a photo with Dr. Einstein and my sister-in-law’s father. Still cool.
In terms of people whose names have come to mean something, another example was the Italian adventurer and lady’s man Giacomo Casanova. For a few years I dated a lot, and now think of those times as my “Casanova years.” Good times.
–Spencer