The German born
physicist Albert Einstein was born on March 14th 1879 in Württemberg, six
weeks after his birth he moved to Munich, where he later on began his schooling
at Luitpold Gymnasium. As a child he enjoyed classical music and even played
the violin.
One story that
Einstein enjoyed telling about his childhood was of a wonder that he saw when
he was about four or five years old: a magnetic compass. Okay this may not seem
much with today's technology but the compasses needle's northward swing, guided
by an invisible force fascinated Einstein, this wonder could even
have been what inspired him to bigger and better things in his adulthood.
In 1896 he entered
the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich where he trained as a teacher in
physics and maths. Later, in 1901 he gained a diploma which went on to earn him
a Swiss Citizenship. Unfortunately he was unable to
find a teaching post so he accepted a position as a technical assistant in the
Swiss Patent Office. This led him to work towards a doctor's degree in
1905.
During his time at
the Swiss Patent office, and his spare time he produced a lot of his remarkable
work including his famous equation. He also became 'Professor Extraordinary' at
Zurich. In 1911 he became 'Professor of Theoretical Physics' at Prague. When he
returned to Zurich he was appointed Director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Physical
Institute and a Professor at the University of Berlin.
When anyone
mentions Einstein, his famous equation - E= mc squared is probably one of the
first things to jump into your head, but what does it mean?
This famous
equation pops up everywhere, it even appears as the title of one of Mariah
Carey's 2008 albums. For starters the 'E' part of the equation stands for
energy and the "M" mass (which is a measurement of the quantity of
matter inside something). The C squared part of the equation stands for
the speed of light squared. The whole equation breaks down into this: Energy is
equal to matter multiplied by the speed of light squared.
The speed of light
is a colossal number, illustrating just how much energy there is in just a tiny
amount of water. One common example that physicists use is just 1 gram of water
(1 ml). If the entire mass of the water (1 gram) was converted into pure energy
using Einstein's equation, then the water could contain as much energy as
20,000 tons of TNT (which is an explosive) exploding. This is why such a small
amount of Uranium or Plutonium can create such disastrous effects, such as the
1986 Chernobyl disaster where one of four nuclear reactors at the Chernobyl
power station exploded.
Einstein's equation
does actually have relevance to twenty first century science. Einstein has
provided, via his equation, a huge advancement in various fields of science
including nuclear power. He has also allowed us to discover more about the
inner workings of the Sun. This equation has shown us the relationship between
Energy, matter and the speed of light like we have never before and this could
well help us research into other areas of science in the future.
If we're trying to work out how much his sleigh actually weighs, you need to make a lot of assumptions. Lets say that every child on Earth receives Buzz Lightyears - these have a boxed weight of 1.2kg - in total that's 840,000 tonnes of toys. These require a staggering 5.6 million reindeer to pull. Each reindeer weighs around 600lb - so the whole procession has a mass of 2,363,310.33 tonnes - Santa needs a few more than 7 reindeer!
