![]() ![]() Albert Einstein.Ībsolute space, that is to say, the mark to which it would be necessary to refer the Earth to know whether it really moves, has no objective existence…. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion. Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. He sits on a hot stove for a minute, it's longer than any hour. ![]() Albert Einstein.Ī man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Length contraction: a merry go round is smaller than 2π r at its circumference. Time dilation: photons see eternity pass in an instant t = The important consequence of this has been the demolition of the concept of absolute time and absolute distance.The effect has been to define the meter as the distance light travels in 1/ 299 792 458 s. Since 1983, the speed of light in a vacuum has been assigned the exact value of 299 792 458 m/s.An inertial reference frame is one that is not accelerating.The speed of light in a vacuum has the same value in all inertial reference frames regardless of the velocity of the observer or the velocity of the source.This statement is known as the principle of relativity. The laws of physics must be the same in all inertial reference frames.Einstein developed a new view of time first and then space. This proved to be impossible using the traditional concepts of space and time. Problems trying to resolve the conflict between the two major realms of Classical physics: Newtonian mechanics and Maxwell's theory of electrodynamics. Relativity is almost entirely the work of Albert Einstein (1879–1955) Germany. discrete atomic spectra and the problem of how atoms manage to exist. ![]() blackbody radiation and the ultraviolet catastrophe.precession of the perihelion of mercury.It is said that Michelson's "eminent scientist" was Kelvin, but as I will discuss in a future chapter of this book, Kelvin did not seem to believe that physics was nearing its end.įrayed edges on the tapestry of Classical physics leading to Modern Physics… nstances might be cited, but these will suffice to justify the statement that "our future discoveries must be looked for in the sixth place of decimals". The more important fundamental laws and facts of physical science have all been discovered, and these are so firmly established that the possibility of their ever being supplanted in consequence of new discoveries is exceedingly remote…. An eminent physicist has remarked that the future truths of physical science are to be looked for in the sixth place of decimals. T seems probable that most of the grand underlying principles have now been firmly established and that further advances are to be sought chiefly in the rigorous application of these principles to all the phenomena which come under our notice…. A similar comment was made by the German-American scientist Albert Michelson (1852–1931) in 1894. This has been attributed to William Thomson, Lord Kelvin (1824–1907) in an address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1900, but I haven't been able to find a primary source to back this claim up. All that remains is more and more precise measurement. There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. Several people are reported to have said something like this They agree with reality to a high degree of accuracy as tested in experiment after experiment.Īt the end of the 19th century, physics appeared to be at an apex. They are mathematically consistent in the sense that no one rule would ever violate another. They can be used to deliver spacecraft to the ends of the solar system with hyper-pinpoint accuracy. ![]() They were used to create the machines that launched two waves of industrial revolution - the first one powered by steam and the second one powered by electric current. They describe a universe consisting of bodies moving with clockwork predicatability on a stage of absolute space and time. Newton's laws of motion and universal gravitation, the laws of conservation of energy and momentum, the laws of thermodynamics, and Maxwell's equations for electricity and magnetism were all more or less nearly complete at the end of the 19th century. ![]()
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