Einstein's Nobel Prize: Not For What You Thought

Albert Einstein, Swiss patent examiner

Albert Einstein is generally accepted as the greatest thinker of all time. Even his name is synonymous with "genius." Most of us are familiar with his famous concepts -- even if we don't completely understand them. You've heard of E=MC², the Theory of Relativity, the Theory of Special Relativity, the Unified Field Theory and others; and you've heard of the many scientific truths that his concepts predicted: black holes, nuclear weapons, the time-space continuum, and the very nature of the Universe. In fact, in 1921 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics. However, did you know that he was awarded the prize for something completely different, which had nothing to do with any of the theories and concepts I've just mentioned? First, let's review the work he did that apparently was not impressive enough to win the Nobel Prize (don't worry if you don't understand a lot of it; nobody really does):  

[Note: If you would prefer to skip all of the following rocket-scientist explanation, continue uneducated, and go straight to where I divulge what Einstein did to receive the Nobel Prize, scroll down until you get to this symbol: ∞] 

Special Theory of Relativity (1905)
"On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies"

Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, proposed in 1905, came up with two primary concepts:

1. Principle of Relativity -- The laws of physics are constant, as long as two objects are relatively constant with each other. 

Example: Two people are on a train traveling at 100mph, and PersonA, at the back of the car, tosses a ball at 10mph to PersonB, at the front. To StationmasterC -- someone at a train station who sees the train pass by --  the ball is observed to be traveling at 110mph. However, to both persons having the catch, the ball's speed appears to be only 10mph, because both of them are in the same frame of reference regarding the space they are in (the train car) and the velocity of that space (100mph). To them, their relative experience (not looking out the window, of course) is that they are stationary.

2. Speed of Light -- The Speed of Light (c) cannot be altered by the speed of the light source or an observer. In other words, light can never go faster than c, even if it is being emitted by an object moving in the same direction as the light. For all observers, no matter their own relative velocities, c is always constant. 

Example: If a train traveling at 100mph turns on its headlight, the emitted light still travels at c, not at c+100mph. ConductorA on the train, and StationmasterC at the train station who sees the train rush by, both observe the light to be traveling at the same speed, c.

These two simple notions lead to conclusions that matter and energy are equivalent, and the existence of the space-time continuum -- which basically adds a fourth dimension to the three-dimensional world we are familiar with. E=MC². Yes, this is where it comes from. Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity explains or predicts the following (these defy common sense or our everyday experience, because the effects are significant only when speeds near c are attained, and this does not happen to most of us during our dull, very slow lives):

Time Dilation -- The time lapse between two events is dependent upon the relative speeds of different observers. Time moves relatively more slowly for Person A who is traveling at a speed relatively faster than Person B.

Example: AstronautA travels to the Moon and back at a very high speed. EarthlingB remains on Earth. Relative to EarthlingB, AstronautA has traveled much faster. A clock aboard his ship will be behind a clock that had been on Earth. The time it took the ship to depart Earth and return will seem longer to EarthlingB than it will to AstronautA.

Relativity of Simultaneity -- Two events that are observed to occur at the same time by PersonA might be observed to occur at different times by PersonB, who is in relative motion to PersonA.

Example: A flash of light goes off in the middle of a car on a train that is going 100mph. PassengerA, standing in the middle of the car, observes that the light from the flash (traveling at c) reaches the back and the front of the car at the same time. StationmasterB, standing at a station as the train goes by at 100mph, observes that the flash hits the back of the car before it hits the front of the car. Why? Because from his vantage point, it looks like the back of the car is moving toward the flash at 100mph while the front of the car is moving away from the flash at the same speed, so the light from the flash will hit the rear sooner. The speed of the light is constant, and is not affected by the speed of the train.

Non-Addition of Velocities -- The speed of an object sent forward from another object is not the exact total of the two speeds added together.

Example: A jet fighter is traveling at .66c. It shoots a missile at .66c relative to its own speed. While the pilot sees the missile fly forward at .66c, an observer on the ground does not see the missile traveling at 1.32c (.66c+.66c). First, nothing can travel faster than 1.0c; second, the missile will appear to the observer to be traveling at about .92c. There's a mathematical formula for that, which I will not share with you.

Lorentz Contraction -- The size of a speeding object as measured by one observer may be different than the measurements of the same object by another observer, because an object contracts the faster it is traveling.

Example: A twist on the famous "ladder paradox" (ok, it's "famous" only to rocket scientists): A 12-ft. long car is traveling near c toward a 10-ft. long garage. Because objects contract as they near c, the back of the car will actually fit inside the front door of the garage before the front of the car crashes into the back wall of the garage. The crash can be avoided, of course, if the car has really, really good brakes. Even then, the car will fit into the garage for a moment, but once it's at rest, it will be 2 feet too long to fit. Lesson learned? Keep the garage door open after parking your car.

Thomas Precession -- According to Wikipedia, this is a "special relativistic correction that applies to the spin of an elementary particle or the rotation of a macroscopic gyroscope and relates the angular velocity of the spin of a particle following a curvilinear orbit to the angular velocity of the orbital motion," which is explained geometrically as a consequence that "the space of velocities in relativity is hyperbolic, and so parallel transport of a vector (the gyroscope's angular velocity) around a circle (its linear velocity) leaves it pointing in a different direction, or understood algebraically as being a result of the non-associativity of the relativistic velocity-addition formula." Ok. Well, since that seems to sum it up in a way that anyone can understand, I will not add any additional explanations.

Inertia/Momentum -- From an observer's point of view, as an object approaches c, its mass appears to increase. This makes it more difficult to accelerate further or to slow it down, since increased mass tends to resist an increase in its inertia and tends to continue its momentum. This concept, along with the Lorentz Contraction, seems to indicate that the faster an object is traveling, the shorter and larger it gets. To me, this sounds like a fancy way to explain human aging.

E=MC² -- How many of you have seen or heard of this, but can't really explain what it means to anyone? Basically, it's stating that energy and matter are interchangeable. In other words, you can change matter into energy (look up how to create a nuclear bomb), and you change energy into matter (after spending billions of dollars to build an accelerator to smash photons into atoms to create stuff you cannot use). For related information, see the blog entry "Spooky Action at a Distance: Communication Faster Than the Speed of Light."

The General Theory of Relativity (1916)
"The Field Equations of Gravitation"  

Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, proposed in 1916, is a series of 10 field equations that are aimed at including the factor of gravity in his earlier Special Relativity Theory. These equations led to the following predictions:

Gravitational Time Dilation -- First described in 1907, it is the concept that gravity slows time. Time passes at different rates according to the gravitational force upon a given object: The lower the gravitational force, the more slowly time passes; the greater the gravitational force, the faster time passes. This concept was finally proven in 1959 (52 years after it was first described). You can see it being employed today by GPS satellites -- onboard clocks are set at very slightly different times than those on Earth, because the Earth's gravity has less strength hundreds or thousands of miles above its surface.

Gravitational Lensing -- This is the concept that gravity bends light. This concept was proven in 1919, when the location of known stars behind the Sun were observed in different places during a solar eclipse. In 1936, Einstein theorized that Gravitational Lensing could allow us to observe objects further away than we normally would be able to see. This concept was finally proven in 1979 (43 years after it was first theorized).

Gravitational Time Delay -- This is the concept that light is slowed when is passes through the gravitational field of a large mass. This was proven in 1964 (48 years after it was first theorized), when radar was bounced off the surfaces of Mercury and Venus, and the roundtrip of the waves were slowed by the gravity of the Sun by a precisely predicted amount.

Gravitational Redshift of Light -- Light originating from a source that is in a region of a stronger gravitational field appears to be of longer wavelength, or redshifted, when seen or received by an observer who is in a region of a weaker gravitational field. This was not fully confirmed until after 1959 (43 years after it was first theorized). I would explain to you why this knowledge is important to you, but, well, I can't.

Thermodynamic Fluctuations, Statistical Physics, Brownian Motion (1905)
"On the Motion of Small Particles Suspended in a Stationary Liquid, as Required by the Molecular Kinetic Theory of Heat"

Without going into details (I'm running out of blog space), Einstein basically was the first person to indirectly confirm the existence of atoms and molecules. Incorporating mathematics and theoretical physics, Einstein was able to calculate the size of atoms, and even the molecular weight in grams of a gas.

∞ [For you very lazy readers who have skipped all the best parts, you have come to where the shortcut reconnects to the main road of learning. How does it feel to have missed all that knowledge? For those of you who forced yourself to read all the confusing reams of data, congratulations on your intrepid spirit of learning. How does it feel to have not understood anything that you read?]

Ok, I'll stop. You get the point, right? Einstein was a smart guy. So, after all of this brainy work, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921. Was it for his Theory of Special Relativity? No. His Theory of General Relativity? No. His discoveries of the interrelationships between light, speed, time, gravity, and atoms? No. Any of the above insights, which were decades ahead of their time? None of the above. So, what did he do to earn the Nobel Prize, if not for those views into the nature of the Universe?

He explained the Photoelectric Effect. What?!   

Photoelectric Effect (1905)

"On a Heuristic Viewpoint Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light"

In 1905, Einstein published a paper that explained a process whereby electrons are emitted by metal whenever light is shined upon its surface, creating an electric current. His proposals changed the way light itself was conceptualized: Instead of believing that light consists of waves, it was determined that light has distinct, measurable units of energy that became known as "photons." He also explained that high-frequency light (i.e., blue or green) held more energy than low-frequency light (i.e., red or orange), and therefore is able to dislodge more electrons, creating stronger currents. The intensity of the light source (brightness) has no effect. So, a dull blue light has more energy than a very bright red one. His theories were proven just 9 years later in 1914. His work in this field led to the development of Quantum Theory, which involves the study of the smallest units of matter and energy.

So, that's it. Forget about the discovery and explanation of the very nature of the time-space continuum, or the possibility of time travel, or the prediction of black holes, or many other genius insights that took the rest of Humankind's best scientists over 40 years to catch up to him. Einstein was honored because a green light is more awesome than a red one -- something any novice teen driver who received a D+ in Algebra can tell you, after they cannot test their new overhead cam engines because the darn traffic lights are not timed correctly.