ALBERT EINSTEIN (1879 – 1955)

ALBERT EINSTEIN ( – ) Albert Einstein ( – ) Einstein, one of the greatest physicists of all time, was born in Ulm, Germany. In , he published three path- breaking papers. In the first paper, he introduced the notion of light quanta (now called photons) and used it to explain the features of photoelectric effect. In the second paper, he developed a theory of Brownian motion, confirmed experimentally a few years later and provided a convincing evidence of the atomic picture of matter. The third paper gave birth to the special theory of relativity. In , he published the general theory of relativity. Some of Einstein’s most significant later contributions are: the notion of stimulated emission introduced in an alternative derivation of Planck’s blackbody radiation law, static model of the universe which started modern cosmology, quantum statistics of a gas of massive bosons, and a critical analysis of the foundations of quantum mechanics. In , he was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for his contribution to theoretical physics and the photoelectric effect.