Bulletin of the American Physical Society
2005 APS March Meeting
Monday–Friday, March 21–25, 2005; Los Angeles, CA
Session N7: Einstein and Friends II |
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Sponsoring Units: FHP Chair: Alex Maradudin, UCLA-Irvine Room: LACC 408B |
Wednesday, March 23, 2005 8:00AM - 8:36AM |
N7.00001: Einstein and Boltzmann Invited Speaker: In 1916 Einstein published a remarkable paper entitled ``On the Quantum Theory of Radiation''\footnote{A. Einstein ``On the Quantum theory of Radiation,'' Phys. Zeitschrift 18 (1917) 121. First printed in Mitteilungender Physikalischen Gesellschaft Zurich. No 18, 1916. Translated into English in Van der Waerden ``Sources of Quantum Mechanics'' (North Holland 1967) pp. 63-77.} in which he obtained Planck's formula for black-body radiation by introducing a new statistical hypothesis for the emmision and absorption of electromagneic radiation based on discrete bundles of energy and momentum which are now called photons. Einstein radiation theory replaced Maxwell's classical theory by a stochastic process which, when properly interpreted, also gives well known statistics of massless particles with even spin.$^{2}$ This quantum distribution, however, was not discovered by Einstein but was communicated to him by Bose in 1924. Like Boltzmann's classical counterpart, Einstein's statistical theory leads to an irreversible approach to thermal equilibrium, but because this violates time reversal, Einstein theory can not be regarded as a fundamental theory of physical process.\footnote{M. Nauenberg ``The evolution of radiation towards thermal equilibrium: A soluble model which illustrates the foundations of statistical mechanics,'' American Journal of Physics 72 (2004) 313} Apparently Einstein and his contemporaries were unaware of this problem, and even today this problem is ignored in contemporary discussions of Einstein's treatment of the black-body spectrum. [Preview Abstract] |
Wednesday, March 23, 2005 8:36AM - 9:12AM |
N7.00002: Einstein, Bohr \& Born: Scientific Friendships and their Vagaries Invited Speaker: Diana Buchwald Einstein, Bohr and Born, individually and also as members of a generation, founded modern physics as we know it today. We shall explore some of the threads that connected their life and work across several decades, the personal closeness but also the disagreements so vital to scientific discourse. [Preview Abstract] |
Wednesday, March 23, 2005 9:12AM - 9:48AM |
N7.00003: Einstein and Planck Invited Speaker: As an editor of the Annalen der Physik, Max Planck published Einstein's early papers on thermodynamics and on special relativity, which Planck probably was the first major physicist to appreciate. They respected one another not only as physicists but also, for their inspired creation of world pictures, as artists. Planck helped to establish Einstein in a sinecure at the center of German physics, Berlin. Despite their differences in scientific style, social life, politics, and religion, they became fast friends. Their mutual admiration survived World War I, during which Einstein advocated pacifism and Planck signed the infamous Manifesto of the 93 Intellectuals supporting the German invasion of Belgium. It also survived the Weimar Republic, which Einstein favored and Planck disliked. Physics drew them together, as both opposed the Copenhagen Interpretation; so did common decency, as Planck helped to protect Einstein from anti-semitic attacks. Their friendship did not survive the Nazis. As a standing secretary of the Berlin Academy, Planck had to advise Einstein to resign from it before his colleagues, outraged at his criticism of the new Germany from the safety of California, expelled him. Einstein never forgave his old friend and former fellow artist for not protesting publicly against his expulsion and denigration, and other enormities of National Socialism. . [Preview Abstract] |
Wednesday, March 23, 2005 9:48AM - 10:24AM |
N7.00004: Einstein and Ehrenfest Invited Speaker: After Paul Ehrenfest's untimely death, Albert Einstein wrote about their first meeting more than twenty years earlier. ``Within a few hours we were true friends – as though our dreams and aspirations were meant for each other.'' In fact, this warm friendship with a fellow theoretical physicist of his own age was unique in Einstein's life. I shall try to characterize it in this talk. [Preview Abstract] |
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