What Did Einstein Do?
Recently, a student asked me, “What did Albert Einstein really do?” Well, here’s a science shorts version of what should actually be a long answer.
Einstein’s most famous equation is E= mc2. This equation tells us that we can change mass into energy. The formula provides the basis of nuclear energy. The letter ‘E’ indicates the amount of energy, ‘m’ refers to the mass of an object, and the ‘c’ term is the speed of light squared. The c2 factor is so large that converting just a few atoms to energy can wipe out a city or run a power station.
There’s a lot more to relativity than E= mc2. This equation is only a by-product of Einstein’s theory of relativity. Relativity revolutionized physics. It led us to understand that time and space are not absolute fixed quantities. They appear different to people moving at different speeds. However, because the speed difference is usually small, the disparity isn’t noticeable.
When asked the meaning of relativity, Einstein himself replied, “It was formally believed that if all the material things disappeared out of the universe, time and space would be left.” According to relativity theory, however, time and space disappear together with the things.
So next time someone asks you about Einstein, at least you won’t have to quickly change the subject!
Einstein was one of the greatest figures of the 20th century. His work in the field of physics was revolutionary as it overturned the way people had for centuries understood the concepts of time and space, motion and light. These are fundamental features in the structure and function of the universe. Einstein contributed to the emerging field of quantum theory with his Photon Theory of Light. It described the way in which the energy in light is transmitted in particlelike fashion. As well, he independently developed the Theory of Relativity which challenged the previous notion of the relationship between time and space. In the process, he showed the limitations of the Newtonian concepts of motion known to us in classical physics.
Einstein became a celebrity to the American public. He maintained a high profile in society and was dedicated to pacifism, social reform and the re-establishment of a Jewish national homeland in Palestine. His Jewish ethnicity had been the cause for his own emigration during the Nazi regime. It may also have played a part in his inability to gain entrance into graduate school in Switzerland (the fact that he had not been an outstanding student up to that point was probably the greater impediment though.)
Although a Jew, Einstein had a certain respect for Christianity. In a little known interview with George Sylvester Viereck in The Saturday Evening Post, October 26, 1929, Einstein had this to say: "Jesus is too colossal for the pen of phrasemongers, however artful. No one can dispose of Christianity with a bon mot... no one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life."
Many scientists today are concerned with questions of meaning and purpose, not merely alongside their scientific pursuits, but rather as part of their identity and the implications of their work within the field of science. As science makes new discoveries, new questions arise. The implications from new data require us to consider the spiritual dimension of this complex and highly ordered universe in which we live.
Even scientists who are committed to materialism (matter is all that exists) increasingly struggle to explain the appearance of design and order in the universe. Is this merely chance or is there indeed a Designer who has purposefully ordered the universe in this way?
David Humphreys and Debbie Hughes
© August 2004
