FOR BEGINNERS

Text by Joe Schwartz Illustrations by

~~~1===~ Michael McGuinness

r1~MI '-" ~

P;:mthpnn Rn~k>\:::1 .;;, ,,',

 Text Copyright © 1979 by Joe Schwartz
Illustrations Copyright © 1979 by
Michael McGuinness
All rights reserved under International and Pan-
American Copyright Conventions. Published in
the United States by Pantheon Books, a division of
Random House, Inc., New York, and simultane-
ously in Canadaby Random House of Canada
Limited, Toronto.
Originally published in England by Writers and
Readers Publishing Cooperative.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Schwartz, Joe, 1938-

Einstein for beginners.

Bibliography: p.
1. Einstein, Albert, 1879-1955. \. McGuinness,
Michael, 1935- joint author. I\. Title.
QC16.E5S32 530.1'1 79-1889
ISBN 0-394-50588-3
ISBN 0-394-73801-2 pbk.
Manufactured in the United States of America
02468B97531

About the Author and Illustrator

Joe Schwartz, who is Associate Professor of Physics at
the City University of New York, received his Ph.D. in
higher energy physics from the University of California
in 1964. He is the author of many scientific articles that
have appeared in Nature, New Scientist, and other
magazines.

Michael McGuinness studied fine arts at the Royal

Academy in London. He is a former art director at
Reader's Digest and designer for the Observer.
'If relativity is proved right the Germans will call me a German, the Swiss will call me a
Swiss citizen, and the French will call me a great scientist.
If relativity is proved wrong the French will call me a Swiss, the Swiss will call me a
German, and the Germans will call me a Jew.'
 A\be,rt Einstein was born in
ulm, Germany on March 11.1875
'Into a war Id not of his
own making .

.-{ Just like the rest ofus. ]

 hat was going on 'In the world?

~~ The 1880'5 marked

the beqinning of
the ag5 of
imperialism and
mon0p,0ly
capitdlisr'n.~~
LENIN

11

1870 Franco-Pru..ian War - Prussia annexes Alsace-Lorraine,

declares a German Empire, receives 5,000,000,000 francs
indemnity and blows it all in financial speculation.

The Parla Commune - Workers and soldiers take over the

1871 government of Paris for 3 months. The Commune suppressed
with the help of the Prussian Army. 30,000 Communards
executed by the French authorities.

The Great World-Wide Financial Crash. The next 17 years

1873 meant hardship for ordinary people; great profits and
consolidation for a few. Small businessmen, like Einstein's
father, were badly hit. This was a time of labor struggles,
immigration, the rise of militant socialism.

6
 Bismarck passes anti-socialist laws to suppress working-class
1878 political agitation.

~! The great questions of

the day w'llI not be
settled by resolutions
and majority votes but
by blood and iron.~!1

CItt</ %Ittpis~
181J-I 883
Chcmcellor of GermGlry'
1811 -1890

Wilhelm Marr coins the word

anti-Semitism and founds the
League of Anti-semites.

Jews qet
the bldrne
for the
Finoncicl
cnsis.
 The Jewish tribe has indeed a different blood
from the Christian peoples of Europe, a different
body, a different constitution, other affects and
passions. If we add to these peculiarities the
thick fat skin and the volatile, mostly disease
inclined blood, we see before us the Jew as
white Negro, but the robust nature and capacity
for physical work of the Negro are missing and
are replaced by a brain which by size and
activity bring the Jews close to the Caucasian
peoples.

Bi5ll1orcK's
friend
~nd
contidant .
•

Mamma rnic,
/' w'lth us, they
blarnethe .
Sicilians!

8
t'5 a period of tremendous overall industrial expansion.
People throughout Europe are forced off the land
and into the cities.

The rural Jewish population of

southern Germany falls by 70%
between 1870and 1900.
Many emigrate to the Americas.

n 1880 Albert's father's business -fOils because of the

depression and the fOl1lily moves from lJlm,
p'opulat!on 1.500, to Munlc~, population 2.3°,000.
Aloert 15 one year old.

Pauline, Fine!
Ithink You congo
things into
are 5e.tter ' business
in with your
Munich. brother
there.

5fe,.l11atJfltffl6fa1v ep~d
181T-1.902 18.5 8 -1.9 20
AI bert's father. A/bert's mother.
Freeman of Buchau. Daughter ot a court
Jews were not completely pvrveyc;:>r, JulIus Koch-
ermncipqred until 1867,59 Bernheimer;
being a freeman was special.

9
 entral to Germany's industrialization is ihe growth of
the chemical am' electrical industries.

10
........ Slgn81Ing by Electricity 1837:
telegraphs, cables, batteries, terminals, insulated
wire coils, switches, measuring instruments.

Electroplating 1840:
for fancy tableware and household objects for
the prosperous middle classes.

Electric lighting 1880-80:

arc lighting for streets, docks, railways and finally
homes.

Electric Power Production 1.:

electrification of railways, furnaces, machinery,
construction of power plants and distribution
systems.
 1881. In the suburbs of Munich, Albert's father opens
a small factory with his brother Jacob, a tmined
enqineer. They manufacture dynamos, electric
instruments and electric arc lights.

Hermann and Jacob are part of the German

electrical industry 0000000

"i~::', II .,
whioh is .
~~~~U9h
II1
I!II a
peric58 of
intense
monopol-
ization.

12
Darmstadter Bank 1853
Diskontogesellschaft Bank 1856
Deutsche Bank 1870
Dresden Bank 1872

13
y 19135 half the worlds Ircde in electro-chemical
products was in German hands.

&
. ' '. • had
Who

''f- other
the
half? Glad you asked.
.........."",...... The U5ofA.
General Electric Co.•
a combine of
Ihomson- Houston
& Edison Co.
ermann and Jacob Einstein are in for trouble.
Tneir small company, cannot compete against giants
like Siemens and flalske.

W~
ii
t808·1(J86
Scientific
~c:f~
t816-1892
From o
instru- prominent
ment Hanover
maker family.
at the Educated
Univer- inthe
sity of Prueson
Be~lin. Army.
Joined forces Artillery
with Siemens and .
in 184"1 Enqineerlng
Scnool.
Inventor
of modern
dynamo
in ISGr.
Since electricity
Figures so strongly, in
our story "It is worth
looking at the firm of
Siemens and Halske in
more detail.

15
 iemens' firsTplating.
and si Iver invention was an Improved
' process fur gold

With the
sold his brother
' Cha~ Ies actiIn~ <;15 agent, he
in 18+3. rights to Elkington of""BIrmingham, U.K.,

'J'BB WONDBK of the AGB

INS'rANTA.'lEOUS CO)B!UNICAnON.
r!
------ -
Under the speci3.1 P<1tr(,)Dag~
_.-.~_. .

of Her ltIo.jesty &. H.R.U. Prince Albert.

V~S QA,I!,VlAll'teO AllfO &C.illC;'lT~O·lI"I"Q;NE"~C

5iemerys J9i~s the circle TBLBClBAPBS,

of .Be~lm UnIversity GT. \VESTERN' RAIL\V AY.
SCI~ntlst5. He develops )hy be ~een in CIlu,stantoperati\)R, daily, (Sunda)'~ ellcepted) from 9 tin R. It ,111'
TELECRAPH OFFICE, LONDON TERMINUS, PADCINCTON
an Improved telegraph AND TELECRAPH COTTACe, SLOUCH STATION.
Au Es.hibiLion admitted by its nercerccs Visitor~ to be the most iotern.un1;\:
system. This is a and ATTRACTIVE of an,. in tbi~ great 'Metropoli~. In the list of vi~itor~ arc the
iUWltrious Il.llmel of several ut' the Crowned Headi of Eurol,e, and nearly the
m~thoq ofcoveri ng the "Thill f:~"llbiti,,". w'airh IVJJ _l'J mlle't ur.it~rl PllUk atttntil't"t ,,/ lalt, i, M:ll
wDo\e-oCtbe lIiobility of Engteed-

'!'lIre vxrth seamless worthy 4 tli,.t fr"OTII all tt'/w {Ol" to ,wi tiu wr)"d.no! u.,;tnC~"_~IOIt!'mi'l:: POST.
The Electric Telegnaph is unlimited in tbe D_tur. eed utent of iu ecre-

Insula~lon mode of cheap

municatioll&; by its tltraordinary agency a penon in l'/lndon could COD\'eUe ",jIlt
allothu at Ne ....Yor1c.or 310lnyother place however tli'ltant, lUI euilyand nurly u
rapidly as iTboth parti.es ",ne in the seine room. Cotue'tion"proposed by Vhitot~
...n1 be asked by means of this Apparatu~. and eeswers thereto will instaLf&neoull,.
morenoI Cgutta-perche]' be murnett hy a person 20 1\\~11.'~ otr, who will alto. at their requel't, ring a bll{
or ,fin a can non, in an increu.:bly ,Lo~t I?ac!! uf time ••nu the signal for his
a rubberlike plant . dOing so ha~ been given
SUbstance.) The Electric Fluid travels at the
rate of Z80,OOO Miles per Second.
By irs i \'I'f'rflll "'geney Mu:-Jercr~ have teen appl'l:'hcnll"tt l"'l ill rhe late ('lit."
of T."cJl,)-Tbi("vc~

In 1811 he found~
1C
detected; and :."t17. wbid\ i. oi no little impvrh"Y'ce. the
timely lIS~i..tl\l;,:,.,.f :'IledicallU-d hu been procured. in ca..es which otl1...r.,.,i~e would
have grutf.~I.L
crcved
T!;.. llaliof.llt irnportlln('~
or thi~ w.)nderful in"('ntion ill 1IO well knewn
Telegra.phen thAt allY fur'in,-f
N.D.
'1.\.1u~i"fc here
to hOimerits ""ould be supf'rf!.uo'J-S.
DC"l',~::h .." jell! t'" .lId fro
with the most cOllfiding secrecy. raph"'Menenr"'\,,'
B9uensTadt von in condA\1t attendance. '0 tbat comrllunitatioDS recei v.:J. b~'
"eleg woehl
be forwlU:d..d, if l'eiJ.uir~, to "ny part of Lendou, Wirold~,r. Eice, &e.

SIemens und Halske to ADMISSION ONE SHILLING.

T. HOIllI:, Licf1It«.

'!1anufacture and
Instal telegraph
systems.

16
n 18t8 he gets the Prussian government contract to build
q network in NorThern Germany.

1;~1he Frankfurt
Revolutionarv
ossemolv h05
JUS! electeq the
KIng to be I
emperor.

Siemens loses ihe Pruesiori conTract in 1850.

But 'In Ruesio he succeeds in seIling fhe Tsar
on an extensive sysre-m.

11
 1854-56
Thanks to Siemens we can find out
how that. Crimean war i'5 doin ~

~~~~ Siemens
uses his
profits from
Russia for
the next
Big Deal-
underwater
coble
-
telegraphy!
~---.

18
he first transatlantic
cable is laid
between 1857-1868.

Siemens orqonizee the Indo- European telegraph in 18ro.

It connects London- Berlin-Odesso-Teheran and
Calcutta. He becomes consultant to the British government.
His ship, the faraday, loys 5 transatlantic
cables between 1875-1885.

-
~e better
(pullout of that
-
\ 'gold deal. I
~n.
---....
'\ vJhats the
I price of cotton
\ in London this

----
",-week?

19
 lectric power becomes a cornmod ity .
The first market 15 lightIng for docks, rai Iways and streets.

Schuckert,
who combines
withSiemens,
worked with
Edison in
NewJersey.

Edison organizes the construction of the first centra I

generating station in 1882.

Th'l,) should
turn d
nice
profit,hey?

Pearl st. Station of

Edison Electric Illuminatinq Company

20
feet· . is II
r/clty
Everyo .0 the
on t~ ne tnes 1- rage.
fie oct. 10 get in

21
 n 18B7 the German government opens the
Physikolische - Technische - Reichsanstalt for
research in the exact sciences and precision technology.
Siemens donates 500,000 marks to the project.
His old friend, Hermann von Helmholtz of
the University of Berlin circle.is appointed head.

21
So Albert was born when electricity had
become big business and the most
popular of the sciences. His future would
be greatly influenced by the
commitment of the German state to
technical education and state-supported
research.

In 1881 Alberts sister

MojC\ is born.

OUf fumily
was very
close-knit
and very
ho.spitable.

Albert proves to be a Al bert's closest

slow,dream'ichi ld. friend in
Even at oge 9 he childhood.
spoke hesitantly.
 Ach,
donT worry.
Perhap5
he'll De a
profseeor
onedoy!

Alberts Germany is a very military ploceoooooooo

There,there.
W'el/ worry
about it
later.

24
Arms expenditure nearly
triples between 1870 and
1890.

The officer corps increases

from 3000 to 22,500. Three
year military service is
compulsory. Socialist
Iiteratu re is forbidden.
Youths are subjected to
fear and humiliation.

Veterans organizations are

state supported.
Membership increases from
27,000 in 1873 to 400,000 in
1890and 1,000,000 in 1900.

Heads of state all appear in

military uniform.

Even the taxi drivers wear

uniforms.

Albert
doesn't
like it.
25
\
 Albert
goes to
schoolooo

000 which
is. very
military.

_ - - - - I Christ was
nailed ro
the cross
with
nails
liRe
thiS.

Albert goes to a Catholic school.

He is the only Jew in his closs.. ••

(Albert's father was a non-religious Jew who

regarded the kosher dietary laws as ancient
superstition.)

2.0
 AI bert, what do yo u
think' of this?Ifs
called
q
compass.

· lbert had a much

better time
at home playing
with his
sister M~a.

---==:---' ~gneti~m.
Hush now
and go to
sleep.

21
, lbert's uncle Jacob introduces him to math e e e e o o e e-e

I \i~e my uncle
Algebra is a merry science.
Jake. He always : / When the animal we are
shows me things.
hunting cannot be
/ caught, we call it x .
temporarily and conunoe
to hunt it until it IS caught.

00000000 And his mother introduces him

to music and literature.
Oh.no, not violin Go on.you
lessons! ~ you
~now
Its Just '\·11 ~ \ik?e to ploy
liRe ~ L when you.r
school. cousins
.J-: ", come.

2.8
t was a Jewish custom
in southern Germany to invite a
p'0or Jew to dinner on lhursday's.
'Max Ta\mey, a medical student in
Munich! visited the Einstein
home when Albert was 12.

Great public interest in science

in Germdn'y.' produced
poputor science best-sellers
ana vice versa,
Talmey brought some of
these with him.

29
 With Talmey'~ assistance,
Albert worked through
Spieker's Plane ~--""~--­
GeomeT~y and later went ontoteoch
himself "the elements of colculus.

Better- he
Hermann~ should
do you read
think than do
Albert nothin9.'
reads
too
mucn?
lbert's reading undermines hi5 faith in authority.

Through the reading of popular scientific books I

soon reached the conviction that much of the
stories in the Bible could not be true. The
consequence was a positive fanatic orgy of free
thinking coupled with the impression that youth
is intentionally being deceived by the State
through lies. It was a crushing impression.
Suspicion against every kind of authority grew
out of this experience, a skeptical attitude
towards the convictions which were alive in any
specific social environment - an attitude which
never left me, even though later on, because of a
better insight into causal connections, it lost
some of its original poignancy.

31
 ·
Einstein, YOL!5r disruptive
presence
inthef~a~ithe
and 0 re
other
etudents.
'(odll stay
for t.
deten Ion.
 Emperor
Charles
N
o 1346-1378

Emperor
Charles
s:
1519-1556

EllI~ror
chorles
~
1711-1140

~p The teochers in
elementary school
appeared to me .lil<e
) /'" sergeants, and In
/'" the Gymnasium, the
teochers were
lik?e \ieutenant5.'~

33
n 1894 Hermann's business fails. The family moves
south to Milan, Italy.
Albert, you'll stay here to
Finish sc.hool and qet
your diploma, y,0ulr
,~----. neea i t . '

After two months

on his own, I\\bert
obtains a doctors
certificate saying
"that he is suffering
a nervous break-
down.The school
authorities dismiss hi'l~--

Just whot
I wClnted!
o

4
Papa,lm renouncing
my Oerman citizens hip.

1m off to the
rnountnins. I
thinK I'll visit
our cousins in
Genoo.

Albert spends a free harRY year in Italy.

But his father's business fails again.
lhe family moves to Pavia where ogain
it fails!

Albert, I can
no longer
support you.
You must
become an
enqineer
anc1 go into
Business.
f

35
Evenwhen I was a fairly precocious young man,
the nothingness of the hopes and stirrings which
chases most men restlessly through life came to
my consciousness with considerable vitality.
Moreover I soon discovered the cruelty of that
chase, which in those years was much more
carefully covered up by hypocrisy and glittering
words than is the case today. By the mere
existence of the stomach everyone was con-
demned to participate in that chase.
ithout a diploma, Alberi can't enter University. But the
Eidgenossiche Technische Hochschule, the ETH, in
ZUrich, the most elite tech nical school outside of
Germany, would admit him if he passed an entrance
exam. Hefuiled miserably.

Einstein, you've roiled

French, English.
Zoology ana Botany.
But you have a
superior knowledge
of mathemat iC5 .

37"
· Ibert has a good ti me in Aarau.

Ooh,that
Albert
Einstein is
Cute.
=

He stays with the headmaster of the school,

Professor Winteler, who has 0 son,Paul,and a
daughter Albert's age. Alberts sister Moja later
marries Paul Winteler. He studies physics with ••• 0

0000Auqust Tuschmid, considered a fTrst-

class te'acher of physics.

The centml problem

In p'hysics Today
is the resolution
of Newton's
mechanical
world view
With the new
equotions of
electromagnetism.

38
· t the end of the year Albert graduates
and passes his ETH exam .

. Jat1
~/~~~f!.J)

;Aatat' J896
• n 2.8January 1896 Albert's official opplicotion for the
termination of his German nationality is approved.
He becomes a statelessperson! Albert convinces
his father that he should be a teacher instead of an
engineer. In October 1896 he is ready
for The.... 1h
.... "big time" e bigtime-
what's he mean? Dunne,
let's see.

39
 he ETH was 0 Big League outfit. The Physics Institute was
planned by Heinrich Weber and his friend Siemens.

00"It
attmeted
world-
wide
attention

Description by Henry Crew, PhD, U.S. physics professor in 1893:

"H. F. Weber and Dr Pernetare at the head of the physics department in

the Polytechnic. They not only have the most complete instrumental
outfit I have ever seen, but also the largest building I have ever seen
used for a physical laboratory. Tier on tier of storage cells, dozens and
dozens of the most expensive tangent and high resistence
galvanometers, reading telescopes of the largest and most expensive
form by the dozen, 2 or 3 in each room. The apparatus cost 400,000
francs, the building alone 1 million francs."

40
 But the
,A engineers
/ottneETH
-:/ complqmed
" ;;'/' motfheir
teachers
rff; were too
%' abstract.
The students
, orqonized .
J;jj demonstmnons
~ agoinstthe .
I "mathematics
. \\·.lectu res.

---~
\\
+1
· Ibert qUickly decided t~at
mathematics was
far too specialized
to be interesting .

Those engineers ore

right on.'

'. : ~ qnd spent

~--=-~/("--)~,!", his time In the
U .superb physical
laboratory doing
experiments. He had a
cavalier attitude toward
formal instruction .

42.
........ andnaturally he quickly antagonized some
of his instructors.

You're clever, Einstein, extremely,

clever. But you have one great fuuIt:
you never let yourself
be told anything!

yes, Herr Weber....

Some old stuff!

Here's the notee.

43
I lbert gets icofinncs a
month from his relatives.
He saves 20 francs of
iteach month toward
his Swiss citizenship.

Ex~nsive . . . . ond
restricted to a few
appliconts.

e forms friendships with Michelangelo Besso.

"jhe finest sounding-boord in all Eur0p.€:' Marcel
Grossmann,who later helps Albert get his first .secure
Job in the Swiss Patent Office,onCl Mileva Maric,
a mathematician from Serbia whom he marries
in 1903. They have a good time in the lively
political atmosphere of Zurich.
xiled revolutionaries from Germany and "Russia 01\ come
to Zurich. Alexandra Kollontoi, Trotsky,
Rosa Luxemburg,and later Lenin, are there.

Albert learns
about
(f!~
f(f~
Friedrich is the son of Victor Adler. the leader
of the Austrian Social Democrats, sent by his
revolutionary ~ father to study physics "and forget politics"
But Adler remains involved in the socialist
socialism from ~ movement. In 1918 he assassinates the
his rrierd ~--- Austrian Prime Minister. Albert submits
Friedrich Adler, ({(~ testimony on his behalf.
ajunior -./ Friedrich gets amnesty
and doesn't serve any time.
lecturer in
physics.

15
n physic5.Newton's consolidation of the laws
of mechanics had dominated for ihe
previous 200 years.

Attended Trinity College,

Cambridge. Whig MP for
Cambridge 1689-1690. Long-
term interest in metallurgy
led to his becoming Master
ofthe Mint from 1696 to
his death in 1727. Founder
of the theoretical basis of
mechanics. Using Kepler's
summary of the measurements
of the motions of the
planets he formulated laws
of motion of material objects.

Cl o ck work .
v Op t ick.s .

Newton's mechanical world

view is part of 18th & 19th century European philosophy
and vice versa.

Albert was skeprical bui nevertheless impressed by

the achievements of the mechanical world view.
 Dogmatic rigidity prevailed in
all matters of principles. In the beginning God created
Newton's law of motion together with the necessary
masses and forces.

But what the 19th century achieved on this basis was

bound to arouse the admiration of every receptive person.

Albert, like most beginning physics students,

particularly admired the ability of mechanics to
explain the behavior of gases. The relationship
between the pressure, volume and temperature of a
,,
II
I
\ I
gas could be derived by treating the particles of a
gas as projectiles constantly bombarding the walls
of the container. From this treatment came a
number of impressive results: the way the energy of
a gas depended on temperature, how viscous a gas
-., is, how well it conducts heat and how fast it can
diffuse. Comparison of this model to experiment
also yielded the first estimates ofthe sizes of atoms.
')
~ l
\

41
 ut it was the p.hysic5 of electricity and the
electrodynamics of faradoy,MaxwalI and Hertz
that most attracted his attention ....

Faraday: the most He worked Txears as a

accomplished bookbinder betore .
experimental physicist coming to the attention
of the 191tlC. 56n of a of Sir Humphrey Davy.
blockemith.
liJ

3 Sir HumphreyDavy (f) In 1832 Foraday

was head of the published the
Royallnstitutlon in
London. Faraday
experirpental and
iheore1ical work
I
become Dovy's
ossistant and ha.d to
ihai p'avedthe way
forfV1axwell'5 ih8or. y.
I
endure the recline ofeleciromagneiism.
insults of the His work was
British class system _ hampered in
throughout h'lS laier years by a
early years. Davy'5 failure ofmemory
Wi fe refused to _caused by
eat at 1he same -T.r C~_~ -= mer~ry'
table with him and _. ..F:::" ~~olsonlng·1/
demanded that lUf~ -- ,
Davy do "the same. ~-

91 -186 ~~~~;;~~.-

48
Child of a prominent Edinburgh
family. from 185110 1861' he
worked aT puttIng farodaY,'s
results into mathematical form.

Maxwell's equations showed Hmrn.,.. Faradois

that elecTric and magnetic picture of lines ot'
forces should move force :traversing all
through empty space S gaGe \s a gooa one.
at exactly the I ihink I can use
speed cf light. that.

-~i
~ ",,~. . -. ~

~~ :'\

K~ ~/
Maxwell expressed himself in
obscure and contradictory
language so his results weren't
accepted in Europe. In 1871,1
waded through his papers and
realized that he was probably
right. I put my best student on the
problem of showing experimentally
that the electric force propagated
at the speed of light.

49
 Son of a la\l\{yer and SenaTor of
Homburg.Trained as on engineer
he became aifrocTed to Helmholtz's
lob in Berlin. In 1886,ofter 8Jears or
work on fVlaxwell '5 ifJeory, fie
demonstrated eXQerimentally
thor the electric force propagates
thro!Jqh space crt the spee4
of Ilgl1t

o/dlertz
'\18Jl- .9f
18

H~rtz's experiments were

widely popularized and insp.ired
100 20-year-old Guglielmo Marconi.
Working with "Professor Auqusto
Ri9.hl,o friend and n~ighp:6r -+he British
in "Bologna, Marconi pUllt admlrolty a
signaling devices. self-propelled
torpedo In 1896.
 I Ibert got VeAy exdted about ihi5 line of work.

The incorporation of optics into the theo

electromagnetism with its relation to the
speed of light to electrical and magnetic
measurements ... was like a revelation!

EJectric1y ? science 5cience Hey, science

Magnetism? is is a force wnat is
optiCS? rfwst er- In about social
IOU5. production. curiosity? relations.

.51
 ow fur would Alberts childhood curiosity. about
the maqnet have gptten without a social basis?
Withoui'the organized work of rmny people like
Faraday., Maxwell, Hertz and others?

knowledge accumulaies
ihroug h worK

'CuriosityJis ju?t a way of sayin9

thot human beings con change '
their environment,can improve' "
things, can discover wha1 is use- "
fiji or not...

If only we
could use
-those
volcanoes
to worm us
in winter.!

52.
atural magnets. or
lodestones! were reported When youdiq
by the Chinese circa 2600B.C. for iron! YOlJ
find lots ofthem.

odestones are magnetized

by ihe E.ar1h's own
magnetism. Also called
magnetite. It is an oxide of
iron (iron combined with oxygen).

lhe Chinese used them firsT

for burial purposes and only
later for novigation .

1here were occult

speciolisls in China called
deomoncers.lheir lob wos
t6 see that a per:-son's grave
was correctly lined up fOr
pcoper entry to the -----.//
atlBr-lire. Far
out.
I

.53
· round 900 B.C. magnetized needles began to be
used 05 direc1ion irldicotors.
LucretiU5 (ciRCA 55 B.c.) wrote 0 poem about magnetism;
u!he sfee/ willf1WV(!;-foseel(lk~emb~
Or up or chW11 (J('f~ o1f!erfkwe- "
FItOM DE RERUM NATURA

And that W(}.6 that ror 1600 YeQrs. Magnetism was C,Jood
fOr dIrections and as a curiosity for the leisured .

"My brother told me that Bathanarius produced a

magnet and held it under a silver plate on which he
placed a bit of iron. The intervening silver was
not affected at all, but, precisely as the magnet was
moved backward and forward below it, no matter
how quickly, sowas the iron attracted above."

from me
utt!
yod
lectriety has a similar history.
,...---'-"''----- ----_--/'_------..
The Greeks circa 400 B. C.

....
Etruscans
hove a
method for
contrail ing
lightning.
And that's where thar sTood
fora very long time!

In 1726 a student of
Newton '5, 5tephen
Gray, showed! that
frictional
electr icity....
.... can
be made
to travel
along 0h
hempt reo

55
 y the end of the 18thC. a number of people like
Coulomb in fronce and Galvani and Volta in Italy,
supported by wealthy .pp~rons, were exploring
the phenomena of elecTricity.

Volta invented a battery which made steady currents

17
available for the first time,
~~~t

'r-------

l
, I,nterest dropped off in
frictiono I electricity and every-
one rushed to make batteries because
they were so much betrer.

56
oulornb made detailed
measurements of-the
electric force. His experi- D

mente> showed that a

formula could be 12
written fur the electric
force sim i 10r to Newton'5 D
formula for gravitation.

Ex peri menters tried to

see if there wa s a
connection between
electric and
magnetic forces.

In \820
Oersted took 0/

·.0 piece of ~-..... and a •

ond showed that when current flowed in
~
tne wire the cornposs would deflect from magnetic north.
It's ~
~

L=:'.~-.I..- easy. ~
'(au 1IO

Wit
for
~i ~
your- :::;)
I-

self. ~

5f
I ndre Ampere made even
more precise measurements
of "this new force exerted by
currents flowing ihrough wires.

Amperes discovery. wa5

eleganT buT Oersted's was
commercial. Electric
tele9raph~ become pOSSible
because 1he electric current
could be used to deflect a
magnetized needle
somewhere elee and hence
pass on messages!

Havinq..,shown fuat electricity

in "the torm of electric
current could produce
mag netic effects, it now
remained to be shown
that magnetism could
produce electric effects.

This proved to be a touqh nut

which was not cracked
unti I 1831 by Faraday.
oraday was able it> show flnally -that you could get
en electric current from magnetism.
(The maqnetism had 10 change. Astatic magnetic force
couldnT'do it.)
It had been a big gamble and a lot of hard work.

This discovery, showed that

you could get an electric
current from the
mechanical motion
ofmognets.
Most everyone dropped
research into batteries and
storied building qenerotors.

Hippolyte Hxiis was the first.. ·

69
 · ... which was Q long way from Siemens'
First dynamo in 186(":

And otthe same time

people sorted
experi,menting with
electric motors ....

. ... which didn't payoff

until wide-sea Ie
distribution of power
become profitable
in the 1880'S.

60
 'IS how faraday tried to
.' ut the key thing for our story
understand ihe effect he observed.
Faraday was one of the very.fuw working-class scientists.
His bockqrourd of rich practical experience served him
well in hie experimental work. And his overall
Derspective was very down to earth. ,
Instead of trying 10 make up elegant force rl aws,
Faraday tried to visualize what was happening when
a magnet and a current interacted. 50 he
made pictures of what wos happening.

Iron filings placed near magnets D

tend to rline up'. faraday proposed .
that a magnet or a current- carrYing wire
sends out lines afforce in a definite
pattern ~ depending on -the shope and
strength of the magnet or current.

61
 Faraday's I?iciures showed
that the vdtage generated in
a circuit was ~uol totne
rote or which ihe lines of
force through the circuit
were changing.
Forthe ftr5t time ph~5ical
theory moved away from
forces actinq at a distance
as in glUvitallon,
Now lhe spoce between
the bodies was seen 05 the
active carrier of -the force.

A5 soon 05 Faraday discovered ihis effect he s1aried

asking how 'It was tnatthe lines afforce 90t1hrough space.
62
 Certain of the results
which are embodied in the
two papers entitled
Experimental Researches
in Electricity lead me to
believe that magnetic
action is progressive and
requires time.

When a magnet acts on a

distant magnet or piece of
iron, the influencing
cause proceeds gradually
from the magnetic bodies
and requires time for its
transmission.

Here's on exam ple.Check The influencing

it out. ~ cause proceeds
When the ~ is closed here and
ihe ~ attracts requires time
the e 0 nd deflects it for its
from magn etic north. transmission.

63
 25 years later Maxwell made very good use of this picture. He renamed the magnetic
lines of force the magnetic field. He renamed the electric lines of force the electric field.
He produced equations showing how the fields were related to each other. And, as
an extra bonus, the equations predicted that under certain conditions the fields (lines of
force, magnetic influence, it's all the same) should move like waves through space at
the speed of light.

Measurements of the speed of light

1670 I. Newton instantaneous

1676 O. Roemer 141,000 miles/sec

1727 J. Bradley 186,233 miles/sec

Yes. Maxwell's equations
implied thai liqht wos on
1849 H. Fizeau 194,000 mi/sec electromog nefi"c
1875 A. Cornu 186,400 mi/sec
phenomenon,o hitherto
unsuspected form
1926A. Michelson 186,281 mi/sec of the electric furce.
1941 C. D.'Anderson 186,269mi/sec
lhe study oflightwo5 now
modern value... 186,279 mi/sec to become a pari
of the study of
electromognetism.
61
ut not everyone liked Maxwell's equations. Even
Faraday was a bit piqued.
He wrote to Maxwell:

There is one thing I would be glad to ask you. When a mathematician

engaged in investigating physical actions and results has arrived at his
conclusions may they not be expressed in common language as fully,
clearly, and definitely as in mathematical formulae71f so, would it not be
a great boon to such as I to express them so 7 - translating them out
of their hieroglyphics, that we also might work upon them by
experiment. I think it must be so, because I have always found that you
could convey to me a perfectly clear idea of your conclusions, which,
though they may give me no full understanding of the steps of your
process, give me results neither above nor below the truth, and so clear
in character that I can think and work from them. If this be possible,
would it not be a good thing if mathematicians, working on these
subjects, were to give us the results in this popular, useful, working
state, as well as in that which is their own and proper to them.

It wasn't until Helmholtz in 1811 decided to put all itle

competing "theories in order flaT Maxwell's equaTions
emerged as ihe p'rime candidate fur ihe correct
1i1eorv. Helmholtzslab become the center for
research into eJectromagnetic waves and the
propagation ot light
Every,one agreed
that liqht was __
a form of -
electric and d' - "'-
magnetic"'" ;,;i*1} -,
interaction. • • • • •••• but nobody
coul~ under-
stanu how it
qot from I
p lace to place.

65
 he mechanism of -the transmission of electric and
magnetic forces was now a mqjor Rroblem. Everyone
believed thot some sort of medium (or substance)
was necessary to eupporf !he fjelds.

rr We have
reason to
believe,
from the
phenomenom
ofli~hta29
heaf,thot mere
is an
oethereal
medium
filling space
and
permeofng
bodies. ~,

This was-the
fomous,
luminiferous
nether that was
to occupy some
physicisfs for the
next40 years.

UntiI AI bert
did away
with it all.

66
lhe oeiher was supposed io fill all space ...
. . . and had to have the contradictory properties:

1 completely permeable to
material objects, while .:
But did
2at the same time, ihe aether
infinitely rigid in really.
order to support the -t~~i~JJi exist?
light properly. ~

6,
 n 1887two U.S. Americons, A.A. ty1ichelson and
E.W.Morley, tried 10 detect ihe motion ofihe Earth
through 1he oether using very sensitive apparatus.

Thb massive
stone block,
floating
mercu ry,in with
onll-rnefer
IMI'
--
inierterometer....

.... srould
'=",10/1 settle this
~~~~~ once and
fOroll.

18jt.-19Ji
Traveled 10 Europe 1880 -rssz
where he began aether
experiments in Helmholtz's lab.
68
 hE?Y found no effect. 1he motion of-the Earih throu.9h ihe
oefuer was undetectable.

. .alreodj?
So, what did Albert do .••..

When Albert comes on the scene in 1895:

1 Hertz has experimentally verified

Maxwell's equations

2 Marconi is busy trying to get

money to build more wireless radios
3 The aether is assumed to exist but
no one can find it.

¢'

Albert does
experiments to
\ try to detect
the aether •••••
I '$

\ ••••• and
neor~ injureS
\ himself
eeriously....'

trying to
pusnthe
opparatus
beyond
~.---J its limits.
69
.l.
•••• he wanted to
I understond what's
qoing on when
fight propagates
(spreads out) tram
placeto place.

like faraday,
AI bert r-referred
simple pictures.

Remember ,os q
child Albert
wondered how !he
com ROSS need Ie
couICJ line up
pointing to ltle
Nann Pole
without anything
touching it.

7°
50 Albert tried to form a simple- picture of how
light works.

~~~M.l wonder what would

~~f~ ~o~~6 i0qht
olong with itcrt 11Ie
eoeed of light?

from 1his perspective,

and ofter Q lot of hard
work with his friends,
Alb..ert come up with a
differentogproochJoihe
problem dt'the oen ,er:
11
, f course we don't
know exactJv how
"It haP.f~eneer because
aItho' Albert cou ld
mke an Q~urnent
aport with just one
punch he tHdn'r
I

like to talk about

it all fuat much.

No. Albert never got

used to being treated like
a qenius. He aidn't like
it. -So he avoided going
into detail about 1he
WOy he thought about
things.

An d be51'd6S, ...."In sCience..

"
...the work ofthe ind ivld uaI
is 50 bound up with that of
his scientific contemporaries
mot it appears almostos an
in1P6rSonol product
of his qenerotion."
he key puzzler in his discuesions with his friends
WOo •.. , What exoctly would hoppen if he rode along'
with a light wave ofihe speed or light?

Waves throush Supp,0se I was

the oether holding Q
mirror·· ... '.

.. .. and
moving
at the
speed of
nght

13
You remember.
Mike Besso,
one of
Albert's
friends.
Listen Mike. No listen.
lve been JhiS i,s difrerynt
tryinq to Again? Didn't Imagtne youre
understand thot accident movmq at the
the aether inthe lob 5~c:rof
ogain. cure you? light....
well? whatis
I it this time?

Wait a
minute.
OK I've
got it.

Now ifyou're
moving at me
speed of light Hrnmm,
and f11~
') mirror 15 50 ?
. moving at F
'" I W,~,the sp'eed 01

IJliqhtJ lhe l[ght

tani catch up
to the /
mirror.

15
5o,doesn't Hmmm.
thotmean You mean
1hd~our that if
1m e liqht is a
six> Id vrove in the
disappear ?! stationary
oether....

•
And if you
sit on top
of thewave.·· :..then fr:1e lighT
Isn't"mOvlnQ
with respect
to you ...

... and can't Interesting!

catch up to Listen. You
the mirror I should read Mach's
to get reflected. stufF. He rejects the
idea of absolute
SMce anCl
motion
completelY.

A\bert~lored "\his puzzle with his friends fOrlo.~ear5.

fir5t at C{ ETH in Zurjf,h from 1895c19oo,and tnen
atthe wse Patent Qttlce in Bern nom 1901to 1905·
hen Albert ~raduated his ETHgrofessor.s wouldn't
recornmerd''hirn, 50 he did dd tecchinQ jobs fOr
Q veer (he was a very qood teacher) unHI Marcel
Grossmann was able to pull eorne 5frings to get him
ajob atihe Swiss Patent office ...

• ' ... 0 common civil servicejob fOr d

science graduaTes inlhose C!j5.

lr
 In Bern he meets MouriceSolovine Qnd
Conrad Habicht.They formitleI!O~rnpiqAcodemy'~ ..

• and alonq with Mileva Maric, Marcel Grossmann

• 0

and Mike Bes~, Albert conlmues to chew over

that puzzIe.
Moving with the speed of liqht,
'will mJ imQge disappear or11ot?
ach believed that Q physicol
theory snou ld be tree of
metaphysical constructions.

No one is competent
to predicate things
about absolute space
and absolute motion;
they are pure things
of thought. pure
mental constructs
that cannot be

--~
produced in
experience.

ttn6tdfud 18)8-f.j16
ach also believed that a physical iheory mlJ.5r be bosed
only on prim03 5en~~ r?en;ep'n:oQ.s (a b'el iE(t thar Lenin
saw as crean golrtlCClI mlsChlet later on).
Albert benefit trornMach's willingness to challenge
the accepted ideas ot mechanics .•.

- Moch's Science of Mechanics

6Xfi:rcised a profound
e leer on me while 1
was a student
,. . . . . .,.-----'-_ _---'1 Iv----~-~___r
I ~ N:ach's 9r~tne5s
in his IncorruptIble
skepticism.

19
 ach'5 ideas were useful because -they helped
Albert to ~ect =the aether.

Since DO one
could rind
'rt anyway.

Here's what .Albert .

thouqht 000

No metter how it is that I/Sht

gets from place to Rloce
(.aether, sHmaether') my
image should not disappear.
But, fuel") on observer on ihe grourd would see the
light leaving Albert's face at twice Its normal veloci1}'.!

~ If I'm moving at
_ -~ ~~~~18ii6i,oioio miles per second•••
o 0and the light leaves
Ylj iDce crt 186,000 miles
)er second. 0 0

000then relative to the Braund

the light should be moving at
186.000 t 186,000 ~ 3rJ.,OOO miles
per secoivx] "Right?

80
But that
didn't.
make sense
either •• 0

The speed of waves depended only on the medium and not on the
source. For example, according to wave theory, sound from a passing
train covers the distance to the observer in the same time no matter how
fast the train is moving. And Maxwell's equations predicted the same
thing for light. The observer on the ground should always see the light
leaving Albert's face at the same speed no matter how fast Albert was
moving.

But if the observer on the ground were to see the same speed for the light
leaving Albert's face no matter how fast Albert were moving, then Albert
should be able to catch up to the light leaving his face and his image
should disappear.

But if his image shouldn't disappear, then light leaving his face should
travel toward the mirror normally. But then the observer on the ground
should see the light traveling toward the mirror at twice its normal
speed. But if the observer on the ground ... Oy veh!

Albert began to try to see if there

were any way for the speed
of light to be the same for both
the moving and the ground observers!

81
 t nearly gave him a nervous breokdown ...

I must confess that at the very

beginning when the Special
Theory of Relativity began to
germinate in me; I was visited by
all sorts of nervous conflicts.
When young I used to go away for
weeks in a state of confusion, as
one who at that time had yet to
overcome the state of
stupefaction in his first encounter
with such questions.

me Theory of Relativity is Albert's solution

10 thi5 apparently impossible reguirement.

In order to make progress Albert first needed to convince himself that his
image should be normal even if he were moving at the speed of light. Albert
needed to find some gener8. principle that could give him the confidence
to continue.
He found it in an old principle of physics that had
never been particularly useful before. And that was ...

62
THE PRINCIPLE OF RELATIVITY

The
principle
of .
relativity ?

Galileo got into a lot of. .

trouble with the InqU/stlon.
His ex\?eriment5 on motion
led to The Principle of
ReIativi t.>:.:

All steady
motion is
relative and
cannot be
detected
without
reference to
an outside
point.

6;
 Galileo was
Profes50r of
Mathematics and
Military
Engineering at
Pisa, Itoly:
'Z.ZZ •••

8+
ollleo worked on a lot of thinqs. He built "the first
telescope in Italy ond promptly eold it to the Doge
of Venice for 1000 ducats ana a lile professorship.

"I have made a telescope, a thing for

every maritime and terrestial affair and an
undertaking of inestimable worth. One is
able to discover enemy sails and fleets at
a greater distance than customary, so
that we can discover him two hours or
more before he discovers us, and by
distinguishing the number and quality of
his vessels judge whether to chase him,
fight or run away ... "

85
e 0150 used me tele.sc0p.e to observe -the moons of
Jupiter. Being Q prQctical man who needed money
hetried to oefl 1tlis first to the King of Spain and ihen
tothe states General of Holland as a navigational aid.

And ~ in addition,-the di'5cove~y

helped convince people -thoT planets
did revolve around tne sun.
ut Galileo's main concerns were with terrestrial motion ...

Because of
cannon bolls-

Galileo took up from

Nicolo Tartaglia who hod guesood
lhoTthe maximum range you
could get from a cannon
WQSID point it at 15~
 alileo realized ihotihe motion cf projectiles ~ou\d be
analyzed by treating the horizontal and vertical
motions separately.

50 if horizontal and vertical motion are combined this

should mean thai. 0 0 0

the cannonball fired from 0 perfectly horizontal

connon and another otthe same time which fOlie>
verticallv from 1tle mouth of ire connon should hit
the ground ot ihe sometime!

Thafs a strange result!

88
Doesn't the horiz.ontal marion affect the vertical
motion at all?
When I'm moving smoothly the cannonball's
vertical motion isn't affected at all.
Galileo then extended his argument to say that you
couldn't use vertical motion orany other kind of
motion to detect horizontul motion.

liiillii ' Yes.lve

often
wondered
in my
cobin
whether
the ship
was.
moving or
standing
still.
still.

89
 And ihat's "the principle of
relativity. You can "t tell
it" you're moving smoothly
~~r without looking outside.

lYle r.rinciple of
relativity sounds
harmless encqqh.
Negati ng the idea of
absolute rest wasn't
a burninq issue. /
But whel1 app lied l6
the problem of tMe
ae1'He.r it paved /The
way tor the
pow~rtul arguments
that Decome-the
1heo~ ofReloTlvi!y

0000 which first.

appeared in rns
mogozme.
~~
~

90
osed on the principle of t:ek;1iiv·~ Albert ~rgued he
should be able iO eee his (moO e norma!!y even if he
were moving ar the speed ot ight

Because if your image

disappeared when you were
moving at the speed of light, you
could tell you were moving at the
speed of light just by looking in a
mirror, right? You wouldn't need
to look outside, right? Which
would violate the principle of
relativity I

91
 Damn!
there gOO? my
lrY10t oqoln.l
kee ten in_q them
not ~o 18'6,000
miles- er-second
mm;;;;;;;;;;;;m;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;m;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;m;;;,when tin shovi~.
//

Speed is distance
divided by time (as
in miles/nour). So
That was half the problem solved.
Albert realizeQ thai
Albert's image should be normal.
if the speed were
But could Albert see the light move to be 1rle some ihen
away from his face at the speed of me disTance and time
light relative to him . . . while, at the wo~ld have to be
same time, observers on the ground
would see the light leave Albert's face
difrerent. Which
at the same speed of light relative to meant that there
them? must be .something
How could this be possible? suspect with time.

92
Perhaps "the moving ~b58rver and 1he stationary
observer observed cliflerent times ...

If both
were to
observe
the same
velocitv
fOr /igrTt.

Because
Albert
took the
principle
of relativity
as a
starting
point,
ne was
led tOk
rettun
the
concepts
of space
and
time
in order
make it
come
out
all right
93
This is how Albert
finally' expressed it
in his Annalen der
Physikarticle in 19°5: ON THE
ELECTRODYNAMICS
OF MOVING BODIES

... the unsuccessful attempts to discover any

motion of the earth relatively to the light medium
like the Michelson -Morley experiment
suggest that the phenomena of electrodynamics
he mean~ ihe propagation oF'light which isthe
same thing ///
as well as of mechanics possess n~ properties
corresponding to the idea of absolute rest.
He means Galileo's principle of relativity ohould be
good for light as well as for ordinory motion.
We will raise this conjecture (the purport of which
will be hereafter be called the 'Principle of Relativity')
to the status of a postulatej"
*postulate: a basic assumption

and also introduce another postulate, which is only

apparently. irreconcilable with the former
he means he's found a way out of the contradiction

namely, that light is always propagated in empty

space with a definite velocity c which is
independent of the state of motion of the emitting
body.
He means everY,~>ne should always observe the
same velocity iOr light.
 These two postulates suffice for the attainment of a
simple and consistent theory of the electrodynamics
of moving bodies based on Maxwell's theory for
stationary bodies.

The introduction of a 'luminiferous aether' will prove

to be superfluous inasmuch as the view here to be
developed will not require an 'absolutely stationary
space' provided with special properties ...
He means he's doing awoy with the oemer once
and for 011 . Space will no longer require .
r.special properties' in order TO transmit light.

Bur, cerroin
conventional ideas
about time
about lenqths,
about moss ,
obout velocity
had to be
chucked out
and replaced.

95
· Ibert5 arquments ore veCY simple because "they are
very logicar. If .yOU accept file two postulates Albert
shows exac11y now to make it come out O. K.
Albert was ver.v pleased with the result. He wrote to his
friend Conrod'
Habicht··· ... '

.'
6reot! He's reallY done it!

96
ow. Do you see what is happening? Albert says:
no matler how
liqht propagates
. Wflen:you are
Nice and srandi"h9 still ....
5u y I
dnn
thin~.I'll
to
qo r
(j drive.

. .. it
pro 899 ates
exactlY the
eorne way
when movln.9'
This i5the
principle of •
relativitv, Alberrs
first posfuIare.
Such a
nice doy.

9,
 ut Albert also says
rr Liqht is alwa~5. propaQ~ted in
empty space wd:h q detinrle
velocity C which is Indej:?endent of
the stcfte of mo1ion at The emitting
or receiving body"

An observer an /he ground hos ID see light moving ot

the same velocity os the moving observer.
lhis is Alberts 2na postulate.

96
 Bur what does I'm not sure.
it mean? what about,
P-B1mate. KtxP dis ch?

Remem ber the compass?

Albert wondered how the
cornROss needIe interacted
with fue Earth's magnetism.
How do maqnetic(or electric) effects get transmitted
from one pl ace to another?

Maxwell and Hertz

showed "that such In fact they
showed
magnetjc that every
interactions could electromagnetic
only take place effeq takes
ota certain
maximum speed. time to get
transmiITed.

99
 Radio waves, microwaves.
sun rays,etc., all take
time to getfrom place
to place.

100
o Albert mode an inference. Based on fhe experience
with elecTricity as summariz.ed by Maxwell ana
verified by Hertz, Albert proposed that ihere are no
insTantaneous intemcilons at on in nature.

Here is "the simple physical meaning of Alberfs 2nd postulaie:

Every interaction takes time it:' getfrom one place toihe
next.
{j

And if ihere are no insTantaneous interactions in nature

then "there ,must be a maximum possible speed
ofi nterocllon.

I .I
This is so im portant we will repeat it: Iffhere are no
instantaneous interactions in Doture -then -there must be
a maximum possible speed ot interaction.

101
 he maximum possible speed of interaction in
nature is the speed of the electromC?qnetic
interaction - wliich is the speed cf light!

It's quite
revolutionary
really.

Now by the
8rinciple of
relotivity~ the maximum
epeed or interaction must
1'~~I51' be the same for every
J...l observer no ma1ter how
they are moving.

~
The speed of Iighf(1he maximum speed of interaction) is a
universal constant.This is Albert5 2nd postulate.
102
Everyone sees ihe some speed 10r light no matler
how th~ are movi n.9.
103
 -- This means ,of course;that nothing con go
- foster than
,-.. .. me
speed
of light . r; +L
Noihngluste~lrlon
the speed 01 fi9ht?
~'~. Nonsense!
h Un·American!
~ We crocked .
C~. ~~ tne 60und - berner
. and by qol~
we'll crdok
- the light: barrier.

Nothinq
faster
1tlanthe
~.---,.,.",,- .s-eed
~Iight!??
Now IVe
heard
everj-
ihing.

104-
 The maximum poesible speed is a material
property of our world.
But how is it
possible?

Well ...
-L Alberl
has lo show
that &omell1in.9
l:Jnexpected
IS gOIng on.

Albert has to show:

1 How everyone can ... the same speed for light (c).

and

2 What happens when you try to get an object to move f88terthan c.

To do this Albert shows that:

The concept of time

must be changed
The concept of length
must be changed
The concept of ma..
must be changed

105
 o ihis is A\beri~ position:

1 There ore no
instantaneous interactions
in nature.

2J Therefore fhere must

be a maximum Q05sible
speed of interaction.

J The rnoxirnum poeeible speed

of interaction isibe speed .of
the electromagnetic inleroctlon.

4 lhe ~d ofihe electromagnetic

Interaction is -the speed
. of light

5 The speed of lioht;5 1tle

maximum possible speed.

The reoll" difficult part wos showinq how everyone

couId see -the some speed fur light'.

Let·5 see how he did it:

ioo
· Ibert nearly drove himself craz~until he real ized
that TIME was 111e Joker In the ck! The time
elapsed between events was no necessarilY the
sorre fOrall observers!

Remem ber speed

is disTance ~one
divided by me time
it takes. D
In symbols: .5 = T

o the moving person could observe the Iiqht

travel in,q a certain distance D in a certaif'l time T
10 give itie speed of light c ....

0 ••• while a station.QIY person could observe the

ligbT traveling a ditterent distance D in a
arfferent time T in jusT such a way 1haT she
would measure eJCQt.tly -the same spee~

.. ~~

10T
t is neat. Here's .how A\bert analyzed "the
phenomenon of simultaneous events .

5imultaneous .. " .. .... events?

Yes. Albert points out that any measurement of

time uses "the idea of simultaneous events.

We have to understand that all our

judgments in which time plays a
part are always judgments of
simultaneous events. If, for
instance, I say "That train arrives
here at 7 0' clock" I mean
something like this: "The pointing
of a small hand of my watch to 7
and the arrival of the train are
simultaneous events."
A\bert arqued ihat simultaneous events in one frome
of referer1te would nO(Iloces5cwily be simultaneous
when viewed from 0 dittereni fmnie.
Albert called this the RELATIVITY OF
SIMULTANEITY
8\bert suqqests. ihat we try to picture his argument
In terms <fa rmm ....

• • • . as ihe moving nome of reference and the

roilwoy embankment as the sTationary Frome
of reference .

109
 ow we co0 put them together. Let's hove 0 passenger
car too. MIke.

(I
/'/
{ '-( ,
(f i( {('

There. Now imogine that someone in the ce nter ofthe

pgs5enger car Holds a device which can send out a beam
of light in the forward direction and atihe same time
a beam oflight in the backward direction.

1/ 1/

---F

1/
((If(/'/-/(((If
r
111,((7((1
II
((ff j ; 1 / 0 il /' (t/(;
I ..-

110
 · nd we furTher imagine ihat ihe rront door and back
door can be opened automatically byrne \i9ht beams.

"t.~,
e
~~ 1hen to the person hold ing -the device the doors
of the passenqer car will eoen simultaneously.
But to a person 6n the embanK.ment, ~berr Ol'"qU6S,
tne bock door will open before the front dOdr/

111
 ~ee ? Becouse for fue stationor'\' ~roons
the back door moves fOrward to rrieet the
Iiqhi Prul 5 e, whiIe 1tle" froni door moves
away from fhe light pulse.

Bu1 which is it?

Do the doors
open at the
5ame time or
don'they?

112
hat's ihe point Since "the speed of lighi i~ to be the
same for both frames, Albert argues fhot. 0 ••

--~:~~

r------------t()~_i':~~~-]·::~8!i·-")'·:·nS~
Events which are simultaneous with
reference to the train are not
simultaneous with respect to the
embankment and vice versa.

You better give us

a chance to get used to ihis.

ake a more common sense example: distance traveled.

Imagine that our pereon middle ofihe carriage
gets up and goes 10 thin1he
e front door.

~.
Hang 00 .
. • :J) J~-.....,r-------
@l J OKay.
>

113
 ow, how for h05 our imaginary person gone?

Relative to the train ihe person has

gone J1. a car length.
But relative to the embankment the
person hos gone farther.
----~

Distance
gone
IS a
relative
measure.

So you see, Albert argues that elapsed time is a relative measure also. To
the person in the passenger car the opening of the doors is simultaneous; the
time elapsed between the opening of the front door and the opening of the
back door is zero.
But to the person on the embankment the time elapsed between the
opening of the doors is not zero and depends on how fast the train is moving.

114
 Next, Albert argues, isihe
relativity ofthe measurement
of length.

Albert asks'fwhat is
the length a ihe
passenger car?

An observer in the train

measures the interval by
marking off his measuring
rod in a straight line.

(This is the length measured

by the moving observer)

But it is a different matter

when the distance has to be
judged from the
embankment.

115
 Riqh.t Albert argues ihatto measure the length ofthe
cat as seen from the embankment, we have to
mark the positions on ihe embankment which are
being passed b~ the front door and the bock door
at the same timeT-as judqed from the embankment.
The distance between ffiese points is tnen
tneasured with a measuring rod.

(This is the length of the car as measured by the stationary observer)

116
· Ibert says:
It is by no means evident that this last measurement will supply us with the same result
as the first.

Thus, the length of the train as measured from the embankment may be different from
that obtained by measuring in the train itself.

Albert i~'prep,aring the ground for a reconsider-

arion or Newton's analysis of space time t:t motion.

Classical mechanics assumes

"that: 1The time interval
between events if> independent
oF-the motion of the observer.
Z
The spoce interval
(length) of d bact' is .
inde8endent offue motion
of the observer.
Unjusiiflable!

11'1
 ffewton 6aY{
Spoce and time Intervals
ore. absolute ond the speed
of light is relative.

Albert replaces Newton's metaphysical absolutes, the constructs of absolute space and
time, with a material absolute: there are no instantaneous interactions in nature!

Albert's contribution was dramatic because it so fundamentally challenged the

framework of classical physics that had been accepted for the previous 200 years.

dossicol _ perfect
_ _ _\[_HtjJr------J

50? Quite rilrlht There's

How does no neecrto get
this mat excited about
aff€Ct us? relativity just
b~uee a bunch
at P0ysici5t~ got
excited by IT.

118
Relativity theory had nothing to do with the development
of the A-bomb. The Anti-Nuclear Handbook tells the story.
And we'll discuss this again later.

Mean whi Ie lets see what ihe -rest of

Alberts argument consists or,
119
· Ibert didn't just argue that space and time intervals
needed to Be reformulated. He showed exact~ how
to do it.

Albert's program:

To find a place and time of an event

relative to the railway embankment when
we know the place and time of the event
with respect to the train

such that

Every ray of light possesses the speed c

relative to both the embankment and the
train.

Since we ore iol~ing about

rneceurernenrs ofdlstances
and time, we are talk'ina
about numbers. Alber"E
needs to use the
troditional lonqua~e of
numbers to mo~e it
come our right

120
 ~ he nmtsfep of cwrse was counung.
lhere aro at least 1 more dinosaurs
qround here. We'd better iell
me others.

Tallyinq has been dated t9 30,000 B.c.They used

scmtcnee on bones to do It

((111 1 II}!I I/J(I VII;))!)} JIII;}l;' 1ft) IJ

II

And the next big step' was measurement, which got

its real start wittllhe rise of the cities.
121
 Hey tnan,howfur is "It to Gizeh?

he Eqyptian ruler-priests needed measures of

distance..Lorea, volume and weight 10 osse ss taxes
and run me state.
We'\1 need
o lot more
groin and
beer to
feed ihis
lot.

122
o ~eep records of what "they were doinq they hod
to write down -the accounts. 50 written l"Iumerals
were 1he next step. And 1tlis if> where mathematics
beqon 10 qet mystitled. Because 1he priests kepr
wrlnng tor fnemselves.

Hiero -glyph
= priest's writing

Anyway, "\he
Bobvloriion
and Sumerian
priests
gotrather
qood at
<:lriihmetic
starting
about 3000 B.C.

. ' .. ' .
,

.. ,.
- ......
",

,
.' ::.

.. .

" ..

;
"
......
' ".
. .
:':.: .:. :..:...::...=....::', :'.",: :: ..::::.:;:

123
· t fret fuey wrote their numbers like -this
y ~ 1 and <. = 10
50 a number like.59 would be written

-<~«
,
~~~
VVy
= 59

But later "the Baby-Ion ions developed the first place

system fOr numbers.
They used a base of 60

If I I 1Y
2x60x60 + LX 60 +- 2. ... 7322
or: r322 = T X (lOX lOX 10) +3 x (lox 10) + zx 10 +2
The Babylonians hod as good a computation
system 05 ours.

You owe me lhots Il2

yyyy bushels
bushels too mony.
of wheat

12.t
mow a skill developed in.may
special qroup, otpeople
isololion fbr centuries by a
become somewhotborinq.
By 1900 -e.~. 1heBabylonians hod made up lars of litHe
. pfo15lems lor their own instruction and amusement.
This was -the beginning of ALGEBRA

lhev. wrote
it 011 down
on clay-
tablet 5

Babylonian inblet.1)ooBG.
wilh algebra equation
on It

Of course it was not exactly what we now use.

The Babylonians didn't hove. olqebroic
ot at ion. (That hod to wait tor me rise of the
Pslam and Hindu merchant closs)
 hat "the Babylonians did was to pose on obstroct
problem 0 0 0 0

-=::;:::----U
Find the
5 ideof
(V o
a square if o
the area
less -than
the side
is l4-x60 t 30

detailed 5teps to me solutionand ihen give-the

00 0 0

r Take hair rf
one .and
L
Now add half of
one and the
mUltlQly by result ie 30, the
half of one. side oFthe square.

126
hile what we do now is write
x:- x .. 870 -+ X ~~ +VCiY"+ 870' : .30
lheres noT much difference really. In focT we solve
equations on modern computers with exoc11yihe
some st~p-by-~reQ method hrst used by me
bobyloruon pne5rs.

2
DIV To run: enter 810
5TO 1 enter 1
ENTE.R hit start
MUL.T
PLUS
f
-r:
RC L 1 divide 1bXl and
PLUS
sTore it,multir?ly
RTN ix~ and add 870,
ml<e the squore
. . . . . . . root, recallt
and add it.
Ans, '"'30'

., .
rom here Its a blq
~ Jump to the GreeKs who came up
with the Idea of
-= .

121
 PROOF

Some soy it was the Greek legol system ihat

paved the way.

PYrhogora5 is soid
to hove token up .
Egvptlqn, Babylonian
and O'llnese results
and tried (with h'15
followers) to prove-thern.

......,"ru ..'u ~S ~o1B·C.

'iB't;CJ I
mystic,mathematicJan.
showmen.

128
famou5 example is the Py1hogorean Theorem.
Rem ember th is from echoo I ?

The square on -the hypotenuse equals -the sum

of the squares on th~ other two sides .

. . . and we mean: Take the length of side C and multiply it by

,. itself. This gives the area of square C. Do the same for squares
Aand B.

keep this in mind-

Albert will use it later.

129
· ny-how, Greek
mathematIcs
fell into the hands
of Plato. ~~~ii

Plato used
mathematIcs
as an l.Q.
test..... . .. and he had
ihese weird
rules about whQt
was permitted In
qeom~try "\hot
rnys1iti eo every-
one for Q longTIme.
reek mathematicians labored for centuries -trying to
rrisecl an onqle .with only a compass
and a eiraighLedge 0 000 - - -
,
Why dont
we just
meosure it?

000 0 end "thor was

where
matters
stood untiII
!he Hirdus
invented
our modern
algebra.
 Ary.obhato{A.D.410) wrote down all the Hindu methods of
multiplicotlon, long division and alQebra ihat we use
today. They made up ex~rcises(lTke -the Bab>:lonlons)
to herp "them with colculotions of fuxatlon, debt and
interest.

Amerchant At the first

he gives -s of
PO~
au on his,qoods,
ceraln at me second
~OodS at # of what he
has left and
different atthe third
places. '3 ofihe
remainder.
The total
eguol?
24 cOins.

what x=- what he hod

had at first
he ot 1 gives up ~x
frer ? ;l. gl:ves up ~ C. ~x)
3 gives up ~ (~(~x.))
21" ::. -!.ox. + J.. X. ojo.Lx.
"
X ::. 36 6 6
COinS

132
eanwhlle Medieval Europe wallowed in the throes cf
the Age of Faith until .0 0 0

u f
mWo The Renoi6sance. ~
:o\rth -tt> you I

Mary' ie 24years
old. Mary is ask /
mice 05 old as Ann.
Ann was when
Mary was as
old 65 Ann ·'s now.
How old is Ann?

Now improved mathemqtics was needed tor

astronomy, for noviqotion , fOr gunnery, for
ship'buildinq, fOr hyaraulic engineering. for
building technology.
50 there come: Algebraic notation Vieta (1580)
Decimals stevinus (1585)
Logarithms Napier (161-+)
Slide rule Gunter (1620)
AnalyTic geometry Descorres(te37)
Adding machine Pascal (1642)
Calculus NewTon (1665)
calculus Lei bn iz. 06S~)

133
• f course ihere has been 0 long histor:Y c! nom ber
mystics who were very Impreosea with 1helr own
cleverness 0000

Fytha9oras:~PBle55 us divine number, who

generated Gods and men.
f\lumber containest the
Ann root and source of
15 eternally flowing creation."
18
yoors Plato: rr (Jad ever geometrizes It

old Galileo: lIThe book ofihe Universe

is wri1ten in molhemoticol
language" without which
one wanders.in vain throv9h
a dork, labyrlnth.55
Hertz: re One cannot escape the
fuelinq that Theoo
math em aticaI funnulas
haye an independent
eXIstence and intelliqence
of their own, thatffleyore
wiser than we am. wiser even ihan
-theirdiscoverers.mot we get
rnor:e out ef'them than was
orisinally put ,Onto them."

.00 0 ond who forgot

the onqinol impulses
"that led them to
mathematics
in the first place.

134
-( p5SST.. ,.. ever since 111e mattlematicians have started
on relativity, I myself no longer understand it.'

But in reoli~ mo1hemarics is only a Iqnqu9Qe

invented by human Ibelnqs to describe 51Z~ and
Q~antitie5 and re atiol16hips between meosuroble
ttl1n95.
And ihat's.exactly how Albe.rt used moth to express
0 •• 0

the relaTionshIp between the place and time cfon event

in relotion to -the embankment when we know ire ploce
and i1me of the event with respect to the train.
And now let's have that passenger car O!jQin Mike.

135
 Actually this pa5senger car is a bit complex" can we
have oomelhing 0 Iitle simpler lookin.9?

Thafs better. You knowJwe could do awoy with ihe car

altoqether and just "IndIcate a movi ng frame of reference.
HoW"about trylf'1g that?

X' isthe distance along

me CQr.
y'is the distance
up the car.
y'?» > V
v i5 the speed of the
moving frame. x·

136
here,that's ~ifT}pler. Now we have a moving finme of
reference y x .
And a stationary frame of reference x 1r
rx isihe distance along the embonkment
zr ism distance up the embankment

y' m >V
x:

Which corresponds to ihe p056e!]qer car and the

emboDkment. We marl< ,an eyent in lfIe movlrJQ fume by its
coordinotes y'x'and tim~ t and we mark ffle same
event In:fue J.sTationary trame by \ts coordinates ti- x
and Its ttrf1e-t-, a
Albert noworgues(u.5lng
olqebra) thafthe relationship
between the coordinates
ofevents in "the two
systems is
x' = x-vt
VI-V/c2.'
y'''~
t , ,. ;..::L
1.- - C,.X
VI-V/~,.,

137
 The sy5lem of
~uatlons on page 137
15 Known by
'My name.

!f~Uztzphysic~tJ
19fj-(3fB
Dutch iheoretlcol
discovered the .
senior 51otesmon of
phxsics end friend
Of Einstein.

Right. Now we must show what's going on here 0 tJ 0 0 0

Imooine ihat both frome5 df reference ore at rest

(rslofive to each other ofeourse).
And we hove two idenhccl rather spec·IQI I~qht docks
in them (designed byihe U.s. physicr5r R.P.feyrnman).

X'

138
 1he liqht bulb gives out regular pulses
ofliqm- which qo up tottle mi rrortjqet
retlocted and . . bounce bark to ~
counter which goes dickfclick.

S'
y' Now we imagine
that the s' system
is q iven a verocity
V50tnat it if> a
movinq system
W"lttl respect to
ire SY6tem .e.
 5'-+ The observer in
s' Bees her clock
v-+ work exactly
the eorre as
y when she was
at reer,

otherwise ihe principle of relativity would be

wrong. If her clock chonqed when she was moving
she could then tell she 'NQS moving by notiCln9
ihe change.

-eut -the stationary

observer, /C).
\ooking at fue
moving 5'clock
sees someihin9
completely
different.

14-0
 ",,=--=, I
l fEV}

,--- n •
D1 ~.:!j }zl':!---r~ "" n
&1 ~
j
PULSE PULSE
EMITTED AP>50RBED
Mov'lng frame of reference 5 as seen by the coservenn-c'

Albert points out

that the veloeity
of Iiqht isthe some
fur c:r1\ observers.
Thus ihe stationary
observer hears
more time elapse
between clicks on
the moving dock
thon onthe statlona ry
dod<. because ofthe
longer m.th leqqth Oh let
a5 seen tram me him
qround. AIber-tsoys finish at
movinq cocks run leo6t
slower-than
stationary decks.
I
AND we am
derive a
formula from
the
difference.

141
 Dorit have a nervous breakdown.

8 go.lowly

b use pencil8nd peper

c get 8 friend to come 810ngl

The Key Terms:

v = the speed of the moving frame

t' = the time between clicks in the moving
frame
= the time between clicks in the
stationary frame
c = the speed of light

n The time, t', between clicks in the moving

frame is the time the light takes to reach
the mirror Lie plus the time it takes to
return, again LIe.

I 2L
sot=C

DO
EJ But the time, t, between clicks as heard in
the stationary frame is the time it takes
light to travel the triangular path, h.

,...-------,
L... J ,...-------T
L i

1ft
D Now in the time t. the moving frame
moves a distance d. And d = vt,

r------.....,
l- -J

!DO DO
I I

And now we can use the 1500-year-old

Pythagorean Theorem (on page 129).
Remember? "The square on the
hypotenuse equals the sums of the
squares on the other two sides."

o But we just saw that

h is related to t:
h
t· 2c or h= c2t
d is related to t: d= vt or J.2. d= .l.vt
2
L is related to t': t' = 2LC or L = c t'
2

m So what we got before (h2 = (Y2 d)2 + L2)

can now be substituted for:

(~r=(l vtY +(1)2

· nd if we want to
solve for what t
eguoIs we get

An astronaut goes off in a rocket at 8/10 the speed of light relative to the Earth. After 30
years has elapsed on the rocket how much time has elapsed on Earth?

t I, the time elapsed on the rocket = 30 yrs.

v, the speed of the rocket = .8c

So with Albert's formula

30yrs

or
t= = = 50JYS.
V'36 ·6 elapsed
onEorth.
Now stop and decide if you feel like reading it through once more.

Albert '. conclusion i•. . .

14t
 trA~..Judqed.from 5 itlec1oe;:,k is moving
WITn velocitv v; 50 the time whi~h
elapses between two elrokes 01
"the dock is nor one second
but 1 seconds.
y 1-V 2.1c2 '
i.e. a somewhat longer time. As a
consequence cf tHe motion, the
dock qoes more slowly than
when 6T rest. 55

Well~'d
~~~t fo L -_ _ :::::=,===- _
find out about
relativity, didn't you?

What Albert achieved was a glimpse into how the world looks when things
move at close to the speed of light. This is so far removed from everyday
experience that it takes a certain amount of work to visualize it.

But remember, Albert was led to this picture by a desire to understand how
electric and magnetic forces propagate. He realized that the new area of
experience represented by Maxwell's equations required deep modifications
of the ideas based on the old area of experience represented by Newton's
laws.

115
 ow all we have to show is how "the velocities come
our right.

Yes, you remember

ever,y observer must
see me some velcx:;:lty
of Iiqht no matter.
how1hey are moving
O'n a sTeady' way
of course).

Mike, lets have our passenger car agoin.

Good, Now we imagl'l1e that our

person in the midd Ie d fhe car
get5 up and wall<s to "the front door
at a rate of w = 3 mHesper hour. We
further imagine that the trom is
per hour.
°
moving at velocity of v c 2D miles

50?

146
 ell, how fast is .
our person moving U. WIth
respect to the embankment?

2'V+W'20+~ :Ph?
1hat's riqht (almost).
But AI berr tells us ihat
the distances and times
measured on thetrain
ore not the same as the
distances and times
rneosu red on the
embankment

~@ 50
~~ ~ what
:i
I ..

do
we
do?

Well ,10 toke relativity inro account

we. just have to be very precise.
In reality when we say mot a
person walks or 3 miles per hour
with respect to -the train we mean
that thej cover "the distance
10 the front door X in atime t where
xandt are measured on thetrain, right ?

147
· nd we know that distances and times as measured on
-the train are not the some as when measured from the
embankment, right?

50 what we need todoisto convertx'ondt.os measured

on the train into x, and t as measured on the embankment

Doina this AI bert shows }hat the velocity U of the person as

seenrrom the ground 15 gIven by

V+W
u=---
1+Y.J!J!
C2
50 you see the velocity of the person with reepecr to
the ground ischanged Just a little from zo-ymp.h.

= 20miles!hr+ 3miles!hr
U 1 +20X 3
(Velocity of light) 2

Nqw the velocity of liqht is very great, 186,000

miles per second .so fhot the Correction
is very small ordinarily.

149
 ut lets try me formula when ihetrain goes atthe speed
of light

C
Now imagine "that our person sends out 0 light flash to
the front of -the train.
What, according to Alberts formula, isthe velocity of
the light flash wi1il respect to the ground?

~~rve

U= V+W
1+ VC2
W

In -this case V· velocity ofihe train-C

and W· velocity of the liqht flash
with respect 10 ltle ira in = C
so U the velocity of the Iight Flash
'yVith respect to the ground
. ~
15 u- c+c
- 1 C·C = 2
2C
=
CI•
+ C2

150
It's a neat formula. Albert has shown that his proposed
modifications of space and time intervals lead to a new
formula for the addition of velocities. The new formula
expresses the new fact: there are no instantaneous
interactions in nature, nothing can go faster than the speed of
light.

Don't get worried. Among physicists there's a saying: "You

never really understand a new theory. You just get used to it,"

Understanding is based on experience and it is difficult to

accumulate experience about things moving near the speed
of lightl (Unless you're a worker on high-speed particles.)

<• •

151
, Ibert now has to enow what happens when you try to
get an object to exceed thespeed of light.
lhls is how Albertargue5:
To get on oblect moving you've got
to apply a force.

_______ Force sTrength, power 13C.

bodyof'
armed men 14c.
strong,2roducing
a powertuIeffect 16c.
From Latin
AD.200 orearlier
fortis 5trong

or a kick

152.
 .-.JfIY-~ .J:n physics force
IS an6ther
word for 0 0 0 0

~~ooo interaction! ~~~~~

('

To get ono~ect.movl'n9 really fast

you ye got to give it lots oPrllts'

or a constant steady push, say, by an engine..

There are lots of prccncol difftculties in applying a large
steady force to an object. Air resistance.
Mechanical breakdown.
Running out of Fuel.

153
 ut Albert is concerned with Q peeper difficultv. Iffthere
ore no instantaneou5 interactions in nature arid i -the
speed of liqht is the fastest you can go, what exactly
does hOPR~11 ~hetn on object storts to appoach
the speea at I'gh ? ,
Wow.
Does it explode ?!?
No. Waitand see.

We imagine w~ apply a steady

force to Q pqr1icle
(which we coil an electron).

NOoNo.
Electrons
ore much
smaller. Oh
well. Never
mind.

15t
hen on oQjeet picks up
epeed we soy 'It accelerates. Hey,what aboutMach~
anti Hertz's critlcism?
It was Newton who
postulated a connection
between force
and acceleration.

Oh, stop I
6howing off.

Newton eoid F=mo. Or a=F/m. The occelerorion,«,

i~ proportional to the applied force, F, and is
inversel,y' p,rovoriionaJ to the mass, m (0150 coiled
me inerTia) or the object
lhe biqqer the force the faster it picks up speed . "The
bigg.errhe mass or inertia itle harder it is to getit
moving fast.
Some call
it the
"power to ,
weight ratio."

155
 t is easier to get a light car rolling than a loaded
true\<..

But we'I\ return to the concept of mass or

j nertia
in a moment
000' leading to E=mc2 ?

1 If the electron is at rest then its subsequent motion is

given by F = rna.

156
2 But suppose the electron already has a speed v?

Then the electron is at rest with respect to a frame of

reference S' moving with velocity v with respect to S.

s'
Fl=t )
I---+-----------....j} S' is moving
u )

15 •
stationary

Relative to S', the electron has an acceleration a = F/m (because the electron is at rest
relative to S').

Ah hOI
Albert uses -the Lorentz
rronsformction
(see page 131 )

Right. Albert knows how to find the place

and time of an event with respect to the
embankment S, when he knows the place
and time of the event with respect to the train S'.

151
 he event in fuis case is -the acceleration ofthe electron.
Here'. what happen.:
1 The electron goes faster because of the force

but
2 In the frame where the electron is at rest the time over which the force acts gets
smaller and smaller compared to the stationary frame (moving clocks run slow,
remember?)

80

3 In the frame where the electron is at rest the force acts for a shorter and shorter time,
the closer the electron gets to the speed of light. As seen from the ground the electron
hardly has time to get pushed at all!

Wow. You qive relativity your

little fi'nge'r and itiokes
your whole arm!

AI bert expresses the process by a concrete

new forrnula.
EINSTEIN'S FORMULA NEWTON'S FORMULA
1905 Y~~K~~W 1686
one
F
(19°5) a=-
M
Compared
to mx /
old one.
~---r\"--~
 Once again,
the new formula
re-expresses the new fact:
There are no instantaneous interactions in nature.
Nothing can go faster than the speed of light.

Albert's fonnula shows that when

V-C, a-zerol So even if you
keep on pushing, the electron
doesn't pick up any more speed.

What
does
it
mean?

The meaning is 'relatively' straightforward.

If you push on an object with a force and"it hardly picks up any speed at all, you say it has
a lot of inertia!

Thus as the electron approaches the speed of light it appears to get heavier and heavier
because it becomes harder and harder to increase its speed.

159
 Ah, /
energy.

The definition of energy goes back

again to Newton's Laws.

1 When a force, F, acts on a body of mass, m,

for a distance, d. it is useful to say that work,
W, has been done on the body.

2 The work, W, is assigned a value W= Fd.

3 By using F= ma you can show that the work as

defined by W = Fd is exactly equal to Y, mv 2.

4 The expression Y, mv 2 is also given a name. It

is called the kinetic &nergy of the body.

6 The more work (Fd) you put into pushing a

body, the more kinetic energy (y, mv 2) it gets.

160
 , AIbert now says
Its all a er Waita minute."
naminq qpme We can Rut in -the work
c.onneCteti up ( W= Fd) but ihe body
by f=ma! doesn't pick up sf?eed
in tne some way. Why?
Because now
F- .;....m,;..:..o.-,,-,-_
- (1- ~~) ~

50 Alberfs modification leads to Q new

formula. The work now equals;

Me 2.
W= (1_ -t~)1-MC ~. W =
1 Ilk Jr-----J..
2 mv
2.-----'

Alberts formu10 Newton's formula

161
· lbert i5 5Cltisned. He concludes 0 000

When v=c, W becomes infinite. Velocities

greater than that of light have - as in our
previous results - no possibility of existence.

REMEMBER: V -velocity

C ... speed of light

W-work

00 0., instead of going fOster andfaster

itgets heavier and heavier!
50 even iFyou gave a rocket 1,OOO,ooo~ooo,0
3,000,000,000,000 ,000 ,000 ,00 0 .00
o, 000,000, 000.000.000,000. 000, 0
p:P.ooopoo,ooo .000,000,000,000,000,000 po

I .
b
00. 000 foot Rounds ofthrust, it would still be
going less tilan lhe speed of light!

162.
[JutIf work
that's not all.
goes into
giving me .
Dody more inertIa. o'

00. then inertia

must contain energy!

Yes. Albert says we need a new definition of energy. The old Newtonian one
(k.e. = Y, mv 2) is only good for speeds much less than the speed of light.

50000
1 m~
Albert has shown (page 161) that the work W equals (1- V 2/ c 2) Y, - mc 2

2 mc 2
So Albert says let's call the quantity (1_ V2/ y, the energy Eof the electron.
c2)

3 Then, with this definition of energy, Albert's formula reads E= W + MC2

What Alberrsays i5ooo6ven if W=zero, If you If

- don'tput in any workata .,
men the electron sri" has an
energy equo] to
 Not quite li~e this·· .

Albert wosnt
afraid to
reach for
a simple
qeneral I
conclusion!

And to show how it could work: he wro~te q

litile 3 PJgB poper in 1905 called .... :
" ()
I!!I"

164
 DOES THE IN.ERTIA
OF A BODY DEPEND ON ITS
ENERGY CONTENn

Albert's argument in this paper isn't a proof.

You can't prove a definition. All you can do is show that is makes sense.

So without driving ourselves crazy with more formulas, here's what Big AI is driving at:

the old definition of work (W = Fd). combined with

the new fact, nothing can go faster than the speed of light expressed by
mq h
F::. (l-V}(}) 12 meanst at

:!J the woe' go", into makinq the body heavier. Theretore

work adds to the inertia of a body and by implication inertia has energy
and to make it CONCRETE ...

o the relationship between enerqv and inertia is E-me2

But remember ... nobody really knows what inertia is -

or why objects have it in the first place!

165
 Albert iust argued thotenergy has ineriiaand inertia
has errergy.
Hedjdn!t sqy anything about how togetlhe energy
out In 111efirst place.
E = MC2 is not (as some folks think) the formula for the A-bomb.
Remember, Albert proposed relativity in 1905. The A-bomb
project began in 1939. Nuclear physics was developed by other
scientists, like Joliot Curie, Enrico Fermi and Leo Szilard.

Szilard in 1934 came up with the idea ofthe "chain

reaction" release of atomic energy.

Szilard wrote a famous letter, 2 August 1939, to President

Roosevelt, which Einstein signed. Roughly, this letter said:
Nuclear energy is here. Scientists in Nazi Germany are also
working on it. Plainly, it is a decisive strategic weapon.
The President must decide what to do about it.

Later, after the A-bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Albert

said: "If I knew thevwere going to do this, I would have become
a shoemaker!"

166
 Einstein won the Nobel Prize in'
1921 and became a popular
world figure.

AI, here'syour
Nobel Prize
money.

Hmmm,
gravity and
electricity
must be
related
somehow .....

Albert made other fundamental contributions to physics. His general theory of

relativity (1916) was a new relativistic theory of gravitation which replaced Newton's
old theory.
And Albert was.a central figure in the debates raging round the quantum theory -
a new theory of the electron.

Albert's materialist questioning attitude had encouraged a younger generation of

research-workers to overthrow even more of classical Newtonian physics.

16'T
 These researchers went so far as to throw out the rules of cause-and-effect.
(Essentially, they said you couldn't know for sure where an electron would go when
you hit it. All you could say was where it "probably" would go!)

Albert didn't approve of this at all.

Albert,
quantum
theory
seems
such a
good
way to
vnde rsto nd
the
electron.
Why won't
you
accept
?
Iit .

Danish phY5icist
and rounder of the
"Cppenhoqen School n
ofquontum theory.
Up to his death in 1955 Einstein was active, opposing McCarthyism, working with
Bertrand Russell on disarmament, and still worrying about how to unify electricity
and gravity. It may still be done!

166
 Albert wasa radical and a Jew. He never lost his political
perspective and his consciousness of being a member of an
oppressed ethnic minority.

This statement on socialism, part of a longer analysis,

appeared in the U.S. magazine Monthly Review in 1949 ...

The
-
situation prevailing in an economy based on the private ownership of capital is
characterized by two main principles: first, means of production (capital) are privately
owned and the owners dispose of them as they see fit; second, the labor contract is free.
Of course, there is no such thing as a pure capitalist society in this sense. In particular
it should be noted that the workers, through long and bitter political struggles, have
succeeded in securing a somewhat improved form of the of the 'free labor contract' for
certain categories of workers. But taken as a whole, the present day economy does not
differ much from 'pure' capitalism.
Production is carried on for profit, not for use. There is no provision that all those able
and willing to work will always be in a position to find employment; an 'army of
unemployed' always exists. The worker is always in fear of losing his job. Technological
progress frequently results in more unemployment rather than easing the burden of
work for all. The profit motive, in conjunction with competition among capitalists, is
responsible for an instability in the accumulation and utilization of capital which leads to
increasingly severe depressions. Unlimited competition leads to a huge waste of labor
and to a crippling of the social consciousness of individuals.
This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole
educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is
inculcated into the student who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a
preparation for his future career.
I am convinced that there is only one way to elimi nate these grave evils, namely
through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational
system which would be oriented toward social goals.
P. A. Schlipp, ed., ALBERT EINSTEIN,
PHILOSOPHER - SCIENTIST, Library
of Living Philosophers, Evanston, III.
1949. The closest thing to an
autobiography. . A. Einstein, RELATIVITY, Methuen,
Carl Seelig, ALBERT EINSTEIN: A
DOCUMENTARY BIOGRAPHY, Staples
Press Ltd., London 1956.
MORE RECENT WORKS ARE:
R. W. Clark, EINSTEIN, THE L1FEAND
TIMES, Hodderand Stoughton,
London/ Avon, New York 1971. Lots of
facts ruined by the author's thinly veiled
hostility to Einstein's politics.
Lewis S. Feuer, EINSTEIN AND THE
GENERATIONS OF SCIENCE, Basic
Books, New York 1974. The first book to
confront the politics of the times in any
depth. But Feuer's bitter opposition to
the student rebellions of the 1960shas
produced an odd and unworkable theory
of generational conflict as the moving
force in science.
C. P. Snow, VARIETY OF MEN,
Scribners, New York 1971. A nice
portrait from an elitist vantage point.
BOOKS ABOUT RELATIVITY
There are thousands. The trick is to find
ones that seem to make sense and stick
with them. Working from three or four at
once can be helpful. But there's no
substitute for talking the ideas over with
friends.
I have based my own presentation on
Einstein's 1905 paper and on his popular
book which closely follows the outline of
the 1905 paper.
A. Einsteinefal., THEPRINCIPLEOF
RELATIVITY, Dover, New York 1952. A
collection of papers on special and
general relativity.
London 1916/Crown, New York 1961,
J. Bernstein, EINSTEIN, Fontana, Collins
Glasgow/New York 1973. An overview
of all of Einstein'S work.
L. Landau and Y. Rumer, WHAT IS THE
THEORY OF RELATIVITY?, MIR
Publishers, Moscow 1970/Basic Books,
New York 1971. A popular Soviet
account.
If you're not put off by the math,
textbooks can be quite helpful because
the accounts are nice and brief. Here are
another two somewhat advanced but
useful books:
THE FEYNMAN LECTURES ON
PHYSICS, volume 1, Addison Wesley,
London/Reading, Mass. 1963. Chapters
15-16contain Feynman'scomments
about relativity.
L. Landau and E. Lifschitz, THE
CLASSICAL THEORY OF FIELDS,
Addison Wesley, London/Reading,
Mass. 1951. A graduate level text, but
pages 1-4 are an exceptionally clear
outline of the theory.
ADDITIONAL BACKG ROUND
READING
(0) advanced texts
W. Abendroth, A SHORT HISTORY OF
THE EUROPEAN WORKING CLASS,
New Left Books, London 1965/Monthly
Review, New York 1972.
E.Anderson, HAMMER OR ANVIL: The
Story of the German Working Class
Movement, Victor Gollancz, London
1945/0riole Editions, New York 1973.
 E. T. Bell, THE DEVELOPMENT OF
MATHEMATICS, McGraw-Hili,
London/New York, 1940.
J. D. Bernal, THE SOCIAL FUNCTION
OF SCIENCE, MIT Press, 1967.
G. Barraclough, ORIGINS OF MODERN
GERMANY, Blackwell, Oxford
1947/Putnam, New York 1973.
C. B. Boyer, A HISTORY OF
MATHEMATICS, Wiley, London/New
York,l968.
R. Courant and H. Robbins, WHAT IS
MATHEMATICS?, Oxford Univ. Press,
London/NewYork,1941.
H. Cuny, ALBERT EINSTEIN, Souvenir
Press, Paris 1961.
P. Dunsheath, A HISTORY OF
ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING, Faber and
Faber, London 1962/MIT, 1969.
A. Einstein, LETTRES A MAURICE
SOLOVINE, GauthierVillars, Paris 1956.
ENCYCLOPEDIA JUDAICA, Macmillan,
Jerusa lem 1971.
* J. D. Jackson, CLASSICAL
ELECTRODYNAMICS, Wiley,
London/ New York 1972.
H. G. Garbedian, ALBERT EINSTEIN
MAKER OF UNIVERSES, Funk and
Wagnalls, New York 1939.
C. C. Gillespie, ed., DICTIONARY OF
SCIENTIFIC BIOGRAPHY, Scribners,
New York 1972.
B. Hoffman, ALBERT EINSTEIN,
CREATOR AND REBEL, Hart Davis,
LondonlViking Press, New York 1972.
* M. Jammer, CONCEPTS OF MASS,
Harper Torchbooks, New York 1964.
*F. A. Jenkinsand H. E.White,
FUNDAMENTALS OF OPTICS,
McGraw-Hili, London/New York 1965.
D. K. C. MacDonald, FARADAY,
MAXWELL AND KELVIN, Anchor
Books, New York 1964.
P. W. Massing, REHEARSAL FOR
DESTRUCTION: AStudy of Political
Anti-Semitism, Harpers, New York 1949.
oW. D. Niven ed., THE SCIENTIFIC
PAPERS OF JAMES CLERK
MAXWELL, Dover, New York 1965.
V.1. Lenin, IMPERIALISM, THE
HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM,
Foreign Languages Press, Peking. 1965.
* A. O'Rahilly, ELECTROMAGNETICS,
Longmans Green and Co., London 1938.
* W. K. H. Panofsky and M. Phillips,
CLASSICAL ELECTRICITY AND
MAGNETISM, Addison Wesley,
London/Reading. Mass. 1955.
E. J. Passant, A SHORT HISTORY OF
GERMANY 1815-1945, Cambridge Univ.
Press, Cambridge/New York, 1959.
oW. Pauli, THETHEORYOF
RELATIVITY, Pergamon, New York
1921.
P. G. J. Pulzer, THE RISE OF POLITICAL
ANTI-SEMITISM IN GERMANY AND
AUSTRIA, Wiley, London/NewYork
1964.
E. Sagarra, A SOCIAL HISTORY OF
GERMANY 1648-1914, Methuen,
London 1977.
H. Schwab,JEWISH RURAL
COMMUNITIES IN GERMANY, Cooper
Book Co., London 1956.
* A. Sommerfeld,
ELECTRODYNAMICS, Academic Press,
London/NewYork 1952.
F. Stern, GOLD AND IRON, Georg,e
Allen and Unwin, London/Knopf, New
York 1977.
D. Struik, A CONCISE HISTORY OF
MATHEMATICS,3rded., Dover, NY 1967.
* E. F. Taylor and J. A. Wheeler,
SPACETIME PHYSICS, W. H. Freeman,
London/San Francisco 1963.
* S. Weinberg, GRAVITATION AND
COSMOLOGY, Wiley, London/New
York 1972.
1;3