Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Monday, October 27, 2008
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Monday, September 29, 2008
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Test Your Knowledge: Einstein's Miraculous Year
For a long time, I've been wanting to post a sampling of things that I think you should know off the top of your head if you consider yourself well educated. Test Your Knowledge, or, Things Y'oughta Know. I know, it's rather presumptuous. Who am I to say? Of course I'll pick things that I already know. But you're here, so...
First up, Albert Einstein's "annus mirabilis," 1905. In that year, Einstein published not one, not two, but four amazing and ground-breaking papers in physics explaining physical phenomena or proposing new theories. What were the topics of at least two of the four papers? I only remembered three; only when I was checking my answers on Wikipedia did I learn of the one published September 27. I'm reading a book that mentioned the second one listed in the Wikipedia article, which prompted this post, but I would have known that one anyway.
First up, Albert Einstein's "annus mirabilis," 1905. In that year, Einstein published not one, not two, but four amazing and ground-breaking papers in physics explaining physical phenomena or proposing new theories. What were the topics of at least two of the four papers? I only remembered three; only when I was checking my answers on Wikipedia did I learn of the one published September 27. I'm reading a book that mentioned the second one listed in the Wikipedia article, which prompted this post, but I would have known that one anyway.