BCA Semester II
Additional English Notes
ALBERT EINSTEIN
1) Why do you suppose the two world wars of this century had the effect of internationalizing science?
Ans. Science had been internationalized, in part because of the two great wars, and especially the second world war. One of its single greatest scientists really belonged to no country at all. At the beginning of this century, what science there was, was the European. It didn’t insult to the continent of Asia to suggest that science was at its most advanced in the west.
2) In what respects was Einstein a disappointing scholar and student?
Ans. Einstein was a disappointing scholar and student because he was impatient of rigid rules and authority, though he was excited by the abstract thought involved in geometry, and by music , he left school without a diploma.
3) In what respect was he unusual among scientists, in youth as in age?
Ans. Einstein supported himself by part-time teaching in Zurich, and all the while, he read, and he thought about the problems that were exercising the minds of the greatest physicists of the day. He was not an academic; he was a very cleat thinker. For him, physics was not a matter of hard work in a laboratory, messing about with elements, and pieces of apparatus, as it was for Curie and Rutherford; it was a matter of ideas, expressed on paper, or on a blackboard.
4) Why did the paper in which Einstein set forth his special theory of relativity come as something of a surprise to fellow scientists?
Ans. It was so dense with ideas was this paper, so original was it, and so unconventional its presentation, that it took many scientists years to work out all its implications.
5) Why were Newton’s laws beginning to look inadequate at his time?
Ans. Newton’s laws were found to be less and less useful, they could not account, for example; for bodies moving at or near the speed of light. It remained to be settled whether light was ‘corpuscular’ (that is, in the form of tiny solids), or whether it was emitted in waves; and it remained to be proved whether or not space was filled with light-bearing ether.
6) What was it that was ‘special’ about the special theory of relativity?
Ans. Special Theory of Relativity is called “Special” because it is limited to a special case of inertial frames of reference. An inertial frame of reference is a frame of reference in which the First Law of Newton holds true. Motion is inertial, if the moving object moves with constant velocity or is at rest. The theory of special relativity explains how space and time are linked for objects that are moving at a consistent speed in a straight line. One of its most famous aspects concerns objects moving at the speed of light.
7) What was it that Einstein disliked about the German system of education?
Ans. He saw education for what it has always been - a system that places a high premium on mastering fixed concepts, certainties and absolutes. He saw that education works on matching a student’s output with the standard expected answer. If the output matches the answer is correct. No tolerance for a ‘different’ answer. He saw that there is a rigid emphasis on classifications, categorizations and definitions to bring order which is one of the aims of education. However, this emphasis stifles creativity. He saw that education has no tolerance for uncertainty. Exploration of a subject is considered a waste of time and actively discouraged. Pursuit of accuracy and precision is handsomely rewarded.
8) What was attractive to him, nevertheless, about accepting the Chair of Physics at Berlin?
Ans. However, as this education was not to his liking and, in addition, he did not get, Through these publications Einstein attracted the attention of the scientific community, tempting that he accepted and in April 1914 moved to Berlin with his family. he was immediately attracted to the idea of matter waves
9) In what sense is Euclid’s geometry a purely abstract affair –a thing of the imagination?
Ans. Planets moved in curved orbits, Albert proposed, not because of the force of gravity, but because space itself curved. The universe is not a thing of three dimensions, but of four; height, breadth, depth and time. It is the presence of matter in space that interferes with the geometry of Euclid; and the mass of the sun, Einstein suggested, would have the effect of bending starlight on its path to Earth.
10) What was it that disturbed Einstein about the new direction physics was taking, in the hands of Bohr, Heisenberg, and others?
Ans. ‘Uncertainty principle’, (Quantum mechanics) was it that disturbed Einstein about the new direction physics was taking, in the hands of Bohr, Heisenberg, and others.
11) ‘God does not play dice’ what do you suppose Einstein meant by this remark?
Ans. “The theory produces a good deal but hardly brings us closer to the secret of the Old One,” wrote Albert Einstein in December 1926. “I am at all events convinced that God does not play dice.” Einstein was responding to a letter from the German physicist Max Born. The heart of the new theory of quantum mechanics, Born had argued, beats randomly and uncertainly, as though suffering from arrhythmia. Whereas physics before the quantum had always been about doing this and getting that, the new quantum mechanics appeared to say that when we do this, we get that only with a certain probability. And in some circumstances we might get the other.
12)Is it likely that Einstein would have agreed with those who regarded his theory as the ‘beginning of the end of all absolutes’?
Ans. No, it isn’t likely that Einstein would have agreed with those who regarded his theory as the ‘beginning of the end of all absolutes’. Einstein is generally considered the most influential physicist of the 20th century, if he had not gone into physics, he likely would have become a musician. Who developed the special and general theories of relativity and Einstein would write that two “wonders” deeply affected his early years.
13) Why might it be thought useful to be a philosopher as well as a physicist, in the 20th century?
Ans. In the 20th century, both major advances in physics were strongly influenced by philosophy. Philosophers have tools and skills that physics needs, but do not belong to methodological perspective, and did pretty good science as well. In philosophy, philosophy of physics deals with conceptual and interpretation issues in modern physics, and often overlaps with research done by certain kinds of theoretical physicists. Philosophy of physics can be very broadly lumped into three main areas.
14) Why had nobody observed an electron in orbit?
Ans. Particle-like properties: The number of electrons or biting the nucleus can only be an integer. Electrons jump between orbital like particles. For example, if a single photon strikes the electrons, only a single electron changes states in response to the photon. The electron has scattered off atoms in the chamber ionizing them and the bubbles are formed where the ions were. It is turning in the magnetic field imposed and is losing energy from the scatters. In contrast to the cloud picture, it is not light that scatters off the object, but the object scatters off matter, and light of that path is recorded. It is a more complicated path to a picture, but there is still a one to one correspondence of the object called electron,
15) How was the uncertainty principle received by non-physicists?
Ans. The uncertainty principle is at the heart of many things that we observe but cannot explain using classical (non-quantum)physics. Take atoms, for example, where negatively-charged electrons orbit a positively-charged nucleus. In that case, the electron could be moving fast enough to fly out of the atom altogether. Perhaps it was due to some critical preparation had received. These principles or concepts may indeed be fragmented and not fully consisted of evolutionary mechanisms may well bear fruit in suggesting a criticism.
