2005-2006 Colloquium Series

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NAU Liberal Arts (Bldg 18, Rm 135), Tuesday, April 4, 2006, 7:00 PM

Don Howard
University of Notre Dame

Abstract

Two-thousand-five was the centenary of Albert Einstein's "miracle year": in 1905, the 26-year-old patent clerk from Bern, Switzerland published papers that shook the foundations of physics, including papers on special relativity and quantum theory. This talk traces young Einstein's path to that remarkable achievement. What kind of brother was Einstein to his sister, Maja? What kind of education did he get as a teenager? Why did he drop out of high school? Did he really resign his German citizenship to protest German militarism? Did he cut classes regularly during his university studies in Zurich? Did he so annoy his major professor, H. F. Weber, that Weber worked behind Einstein's back to block his attempts to get a regular university job? How, then, did Einstein learn physics so well? How was he affected by the Bohemian student life of Zurich? And how did he write revolutionary papers while working in a dreary patent office? We'll look at things like Einstein's high school transcript, letters to his high school sweetheart (and her mother), and love letters that he exchanged with his first wife while they were both physics students.

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