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Einstein in Bern: the Great Legacy1 INTERNATIONAL SPACE SCIENCE INSTITUTE SPATIUM Published by the Association Pro ISSI No. 18, February 2007 SPATIUM 18 1 Editorial Omnia rerum principia parva sunt. Associate Professor at the Univer- The beginnings of all things are sity of Michigan have endeavoured Impressum small. successfully to translate the fascinat- ing ideas of Albert Einstein for a This famous quote of Marcus Tul- larger audience, not just in Bern, but lius Cicero is more than true for the in many stations all over the world middle drawer of an ordinary desk and to highlight some of the traces SPATIUM at the Kramgasse 49 in Bern. This he continues to leave in our daily Published by the drawer was called the office for the- life. We are greatly indebted to the Association Pro ISSI oretical physics by its owner, clearly authors for their kind permission to a euphemism initially, but more publish herewith a revised version than appropriate by the time when of their multi-media presentation. its contents prompted nothing less than a revolution of theoretical Association Pro ISSI physics. Hansjörg Schlaepfer Hallerstrasse 6, CH-3012 Bern Brissago, January 2007 Phone +41 (0)31 631 48 96 The desk belonged to the patent see clerk of third rank Albert Einstein, www.issibern.ch/pro-issi.html who during the office hours had to for the whole Spatium series treat the more or less ingenious in- ventions filed to the Patent Office, President while in his spare time had set out Prof. Heinrich Leutwyler to invent a new physics. University of Bern Layout and Publisher One might expect that such high- Dr. Hansjörg Schlaepfer flying studies could at best occupy CH-8173 Neerach a few scientists in their laboratories. Printing It was worse off: even the brigh- Stämpfli Publikationen AG test representatives of the world- CH-3001 Bern wide science community needed at least twenty years to fully grasp the epochal power of the patent clerk’s ideas while for the great public Ein- stein’s theories continue to stand for Front Cover the inaccessibility of science. This composite image provides a glimpse to the remotest regions of Nevertheless, much has been said the universe explored by the Hubble about Albert Einstein on the occa- Space Telescope so far. The evolu- sion of the hundredth anniversary tion of the cosmos is certainly a of the annus mirabilis 1905 in Bern, topic that Albert Einstein discussed the year, when the middle drawer with his two colleagues of the Aka- of his desk became really the office demie Olympia in Bern, Conrad for theoretical physics. Rudolf von Habicht and Maurice Solovine. The Steiger, Professor at the University overlay image shows an excerpt of of Bern and Director of the Inter- a message he wrote to the latter. national Space Science Institute to- (Credit: ESA, NASA, Hansjörg gether with Thomas H. Zurbuchen, Schlaepfer) SPATIUM 18 2 Einstein in Bern: The Great Legacy1 Thomas H. Zurbuchen, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA Rudolf von Steiger, International Space Science Institute, Bern, Switzerland Brian Grimm, Paper Cardinal Design, Oakland, CA, USA solved problems in science. One stars to astronomical telescopes. The Introduction problem concerned the way light assumption of a thin, nearly mass- interacts with metal surfaces and less ether had been questioned by obviously is able to eject electrons an experiment by Michelson and out of these surfaces. The second Morley some 25 years earlier that problem had to do with the appar- failed to find any evidence for such The French philosopher and math- ently random zig-zag motion of an ether. ematician Henri Poincaré2, in 1902, pollen observed under the micro- published a book entitled “La Sci- scope, called Brownian Motion. The Only a few years later a young pat- ence et l’Hypothèse”. In this book third problem was the failure of ex- ent clerk by the name of Albert Ein- he identified what were – in his perimental physics to detect how stein had solved all three of these opinion – the most important un- light propagates, for example, from problems in a convincing manner. Figure 1: Beautiful Bern. Looking over the roofs of downtown Bern to the hills of the Bernese Mittelland to the permanently snow-covered High Alps with the Blüemlisalp in the centre. (Credit: Bern Tourism, Bern) 1 The present text follows a lecture by R. von Steiger in the Historisches Museum in Bern, 22 August 2006. Similar talks were held by T. Zurbuchen and R. von Steiger in over 20 locations world-wide 2 Jules Henri Poincaré, 1854 Nancy, France – 1912 Paris, French mathematician, physicist and philosopher. SPATIUM 18 3 Setting the Stage The story plays in Bern, the capital of Switzerland, in the very heart of Europe. The historical roots of Bern date back to the La Tène time, the 5th to 1st centuries B.C. Modern Bern was founded by Duke Berch- told V von Zähringen in 1191. A legend tells us that he decided to name the new city after the first an- imal he would catch on a hunt; this was a bear, prompting him to name the place Bern. Bern is considered one of the most beautiful cities in Europe. It is located close to the Aare, a river originating in the Swiss Alps that brings clean water from the mountains to the city. Naturally, the U-shaped river bend was an at- tractive location for the city in me- dieval times, providing protection from three directions. Today, Bern houses approximately 150,000 peo- ple. To outsiders, Bern is known for its history, spanning many centuries, its bear pit housing the animal also found in the Bern flag, and its am- biance that is certainly unrivalled. To its visitors, Bern is often de- scribed as “gemütlich” – you imme- diately feel the warmth of its peo- ple, and its beauty. In the old part of the city, in a house whose origins date back to the first city expansion in 1218, a story unravelled that was so ground- breaking and new that it still has effects today. In this house at Kram- Figure 2: Bern, Kramgasse 49. It is here that the Einsteins lived between 1903 3 and 1905. From this house Albert Einstein revolutionized physics by his publications gasse 49 (Figure 2) Albert Einstein in 1905. (Credit: Einsteinhaus Bern) lived from October 1903 to May SPATIUM 18 4 1905. It was one of the seven differ- steins shared the kitchen and the The Great ent locations where he resided dur- bathroom with four other families, ing his seven year stay in Bern. while their own apartment con- Scientific Trilogy tained two rooms and a foyer. Noth- For all practical purposes, things did ing of this simple setting revealed not go very well during that time. that here one of the most ingenious He had finished his exams, allow- human spirits ever silently was at ing him to submit a doctorate at the work. And his objective was noth- The genius could not be halted by University of Zurich. Out of the ing less than to answer the three ma- the measly setting. Rather he dis- three graduating students applying jor open issues identified by Henri cussed the ardent problems together for a doctorate, two were hired as Poincaré three years before while with his colleagues of the Akade- teaching assistants, but Einstein was dealing with such mundane items mie Olympia, Conrad Habicht and not. He was married to Mileva as shower heads or refrigerators, Maurice Solovine (Figure 3), and Maric and they had a child, so the during his office hours. He did not then went back to his desk, the mid- sheer economical necessities forced even have unlimited access to li- dle drawer of which he called his him to accept a job at the “Amt für braries as he generally worked in office for theoretical physics, and geistiges Eigentum” – the Swiss of- the patent office during the time put his thoughts to paper. fice for intellectual property, or, as when the library was open. we now call it, the Patent Office. He was hired as a clerk of third rank. We will now concentrate on what The Photoelectric Effect The office hours were from 7 a.m. Einstein wrote in three of his most to 6 p.m. every working day and important papers, but let’s not for- In March 1905 Albert Einstein pub- from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays. get how, under what conditions he lished a short article in the Annalen Only Sundays were off. The Ein- lived when writing these papers. der Physik entitled Über einen die Erzeugung und Verwandlung des Lichts betreffenden heuristischen Ge- sichtspunkt, a paper that in 1921 earned him the Nobel Prize. At that time, all physicists knew what light was. Whether from stars, the Sun, or from radio antennas, light clearly propagated as a wave. Just like sound, light can propagate around the cor- ner – you can easily see this for your- self. Just drop a coin in a mug, then back away until you lose sight of the coin. Next fill the mug with water. Voilà, the coin reappears though it still rests on the bottom of the mug. Light propagates very much like sound, bending, adding, and subtract- ing, and very much behaving like liq- Figure 3: The members of the Akademie Olympia. From left to right: Conrad uid waves on a lake or sound-waves Habicht, Maurice Solovine and Albert Einstein. (Credit: ETH-Bibliothek, Zürich) in air. Just like sound-waves in air, light-waves were assumed to propa- gate in a medium, the so-called ether, 3 Today, this is the location of the Einstein house.
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