This year marks the centennial of Albert Einstein's 'Miracle Year' -- 1905, the year that Einstein, a patent clerk in Bern, Switzerland, published four papers covering the topics of Brownian motion, the photoelectric effect, and relativity, setting down in print the famous equation E=mc².

Einstein later described 1905 as the year that "a storm broke loose in my mind.' In this hour of Science Friday, live from the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, DC, we'll talk about ten years in the life of Albert Einstein - 1905 to 1915. What did Einstein do in those ten years that changed the course of physics? And how did he become a worldwide icon of science?

Call in with your questions and comments at 1-800-989-8255 (3-4 Eastern).Teachers can learn more about teaching with Science Friday programming in the Science Friday Kids' Connection.

 

Guests:

Rolf Sinclair
Retired Program Officer, Division of Physics
National Science Foundation
Senior Scientific Advisor
Centro de Estudios Científicos
Valdivia, Chile

Richard Wolfson
Author, "Simply Einstein: Relativity Demystified" (W.W. Norton, 2003)
Video course instructor, "Einstein's Relativity and the Quantum Revolution: Modern Physics for Nonscientists" (The Teaching Company, 1999)
Benjamin F. Wissler Professor of Physics
Middlebury College
Middlebury, Vermont

Barry Barish
Linde Professor of Physics
Director, LIGO Laboratory
Prof., High Energy Physics
California Institute of Technology
Pasadena, California  

Books/Articles Discussed:

 

(find books discussed on previous broadcasts)

Search by keywords:

This segment produced by Karin Vergoth