How about a tribute to Einstein? He died 50 years ago.

Not sure where computing would've been without him

[walkman]

[msnbc.msn.com...]
"Indeed, you can argue that the entire field of computers and semiconductors owes its existence to Einstein’s paper of March 17, 1905. That’s why it’s pointless to speculate about what he might have accomplished had he been born 75 or 80 years later and therefore been able to use computers. Without his having done the work he did when he did it, we might not have computers today, or at least not in the form we recognize."

[Debbie_King]

I always thought we owed modern-day computers to Charles Babbage and his 'analytical engine'...

[Syzygy]

Keep up..:-)

The World Year of Physics is an international celebration of physics, timed to coincide with the 100th anniversary of Albert Einstein's "miraculous year."

The United Nations has officially declared 2005 the International Year of Physics, and more than thirty nations are participating in the year-long celebrations with public lectures, museum exhibits, and educational projects.

Original Press Release [aps.org]

World Year of Physics website [wyp2005.org]

Einstein Year website [einsteinyear.org]

Syzygy

[ronin]

Not to denigrate anything else that old Albert investigated or otherwise observed - and I'm a big fan of his quotes about life and imagination - but the foundations of his general theory of relativity have been demonstrably shown to be very shaky indeed by the British mathematician CK Thornhill and others.

Thornhill has been working on this for more than thirty years, after he realised that electromagnetic equations derived by Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell at the end of the 19th century were later erroneously interpreted as general equations. Had they not been, discovery of the Lorentz transform and development of non-Newtonian relativity would not have been possible.

Thornhill concludes his latest paper (published in 2004 in the Hadronic Journal) with this comment:

"It would seem that the enunciated foundations of relativity are both mathematically and physically untenable. The time is now long overdue for this to be accepted, as the mathematics requires, or for it to be shown precisely what and where the error is in the basic mathematics. It has long been accepted that the primary duty of all scientists is to be continually examining and questioning the foundations of their subject."

[lawman]

Thread topic = How about a tribute to Einstein

Not much of a tribute there ronin. :(

[Chndru]

[pbs.org...]

[walkman]

"...the foundations of his general theory of relativity have been demonstrably shown to be very shaky "

when is ge going to go public and convince all the others who worship Einstein? You know they are are still people who belive that earth is 6000 years old and that we never went to the moon....

Whether his wife helped him or not (or the extent of the help) I guess we'll never really know. However, he was the dreamer type. If you come up with an idea and ask someone to run the math for you to see if it matches, It's not 50-50 to me. But once again, we'll never really know.

To the last post: Einstein was a quiet a ladies man ;). This makes me laugh [amnh.org...]
"You make sure . . . that I receive my three meals regularly in my room,"
and "You are neither to expect intimacy nor to reproach me in any way."

I read that he also said something like: "I have no time marital chatter". Plenty of us are stuck to the computer for 12-16 hours a day. Not exactly marriage material ;)