Voyages of Discovery: Copernicus to the Big Bang                      
    http://edu-observatory.org/olli/VD-C2BB/Week4.html



  Poincaré & Einstein
  
  Ref: "EINSTEIN 1905", John S. Rigden, Harvard University Press (2005)
    http://www.amazon.com/dp/0674021045/

    "In his 1902 book "La Science et l'Hypothèse", the mathematical
    physicist Henri Poincaré identified three fundamental yet
    unresolved problems [in physics]. 

    "One problem concerned the mysterious way ultraviolet light
    ejects electrons from the surface of a metal; 

    the second problem was the zig-zagging perpetual motion of
    pollen particles suspended in a liquid; 

    the third problem was the failure of experiments to detect
    Earth's motion through the aether".

    "In 1904, Einstein read Poincaré's book. He had also been
    thinking about these problems, independently of Poincaré. For
    Einstein, they were clearly part of God's thoughts. One year
    later, in 1905, he solved all three".

   



  Five Papers that Shook the World by Matthew Chalmers 
    http://physicsweb.org/articles/world/18/1/2/1

  On 17 March in 1905 - three days after his 26th birthday -
  Einstein submitted a paper titled "A heuristic point of view
  concerning the production and transformation of light" to Annalen
  der Physik.(Ann. Phys., Lpz 17 132-148)

  Einstein would go on to receive the 1921 Nobel Prize for Physics
  for this work, although the official citation stated that the
  prize was also awarded "for his services to theoretical physics".

  On 30 April, one month before his paper on the photoelectric
  effect appeared in print, Einstein completed his second 1905
  paper, in which he showed how to calculate Avogadro's number and
  the size of molecules by studying their motion in a solution. 

  This article was accepted as a doctoral thesis by the University
  of Zurich in July, and published in a slightly altered form in
  Annalen der Physik in January 1906. 

  After finishing a doctoral thesis, most physicists would be
  either celebrating or sleeping. But just 11 days later Einstein
  sent another paper to Annalen der Physik, this time on the
  subject of Brownian motion.  (Ann. Phys., Lpz 17 549-560).
 
  Einstein's fourth paper landed on the desks of Annalen der Physik
  on 30 June, and would go on to completely overhaul our
  understanding of space and time. Some 30 pages long and
  containing no references, his fourth 1905 paper was titled "On
  the electrodynamics of moving bodies" (Ann. Phys., Lpz 17
  891-921).

  Einstein's "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies" (June 30,
  1905)
    http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/einstein/specrel/www/    

  After a short family holiday in Serbia, Einstein submitted his
  fifth and final paper of 1905 on 27 September. Just three pages
  long and titled "Does the inertia of a body depend on its energy
  content?", this paper presented an "afterthought" on the
  consequences of special relativity, which culminated in a simple
  equation that is now known as E = mc^2 (Ann. Phys., Lpz 18
  639-641). 

  This equation, which was to become the most famous in all of
  science, was the icing on the cake.

  Einstein was finally given the title of Herr Doktor from the
  University of Zurich in January 1906, but he remained at the
  patent office for a further two and a half years before taking up
  his first academic position at Zurich. 

  By this time his statistical interpretation of Brownian motion
  and his bold postulates of special relativity were becoming part
  of the fabric of physics, although it would take several more
  years for his paper on light quanta to gain wide acceptance.

  1905 was undoubtedly a great year for physics, and for Einstein.
  "You have to go back to quasi-mythical figures like Galileo or
  especially Newton to find good analogues," says Wilczek. 

  "The closest in modern times might be Dirac, who, if magnetic
  monopoles had been discovered, would have given Einstein some
  real competition!" But we should not forget that 1905 was just
  the beginning of Einstein's legacy. His crowning achievement -
  the general theory of relativity - was still to come.
  

  The Mechanical Universe - MU-25  "From Kepler to Einstein" 28:30
    http://www.learner.org/resources/series42.html

  
  Our Restless Tides (NOAA)      
    http://co-ops.nos.noaa.gov/restles1.html

  On the Shoulders of Giants by Steven Hawking
    http://www.amazon.com/dp/0762413484
    
  

    
     
    swormley1@mchsi.com