INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, KANPUR
& S.N. BOSE NATIONAL CENTRE FOR BASIC SCIENCES, KOLKATA
	Physics 2005
	100 YEARS AFTER EINSTEIN’S REVOLUTION
	A National Conference to celebrate the World Year of Physics 2005
	Dates: Nov 3 ─ 6, 2005
	Venue: I.I.T., Kanpur
	2005 : World Year of Physics
The UN has declared the World Year of Physics to commemorate the three papers that Albert Einstein, then a humble technical clerk (third class) in the Swiss patent office at Berne, wrote in 1905. These were to change the face of Science completely. Each of the three papers that earned Einstein such undying fame built the foundations for a different subject. The first dealt with the photo-electric effect, where materials emit electrons when light shines on them. Einstein was the first to use the fledgling quantum theory, to explain this phenomenon. His discovery of particles of light ¾ photons ¾ makes Einstein the true father of Quantum Mechanics. It is to Einstein, then, that we owe our understanding of the atomic world and ultimately the semiconductor revolution which affects our life in so many ways. The second paper, established the foundations of the theory of Special Relativity, which made Einstein’s name a household word. It changed forever the way we think about space, time and matter. Contrary to the popular belief that “everything is relative” Einstein showed that while space and time may change depending on the motion of the observer, the laws of physics are fixed and eternal, and work in the same way on cosmic scales as they do in the laboratory. Relativity also leads to the famous equation , suggesting a method for the generation of energy by mass conversion, which is used in nuclear reactors (and also, unfortunately, in nuclear weapons). The third of these wonderful papers showed that Brownian motion, the tiny jerky movements which are seen under the microscope to be executed by minute colloidal particles suspended in a fluid., arise from random collisions with the atoms of the fluid. This proved beyond doubt that the atomic theory of matter is the correct picture. Before this. many scientists did not believe in the existence of atoms and molecules. Today, when we can actually manipulate clumps of atoms and call it nanotechnology, it is appropriate to remember that it is Einstein who set the ball rolling in this direction. Of course, Einstein’s creative rage did not stop in 1905. He went on to lay the foundations for General Relativity, Cosmology, Lasers, Quantum Statistics, Solid State Physics and the Unified Field Theory ¾ in short, most of modern physics ¾ apart from establishing himself as a great humanist and man of vision. Today, it is impossible to be a physicist or a layman and not encounter some application of Einstein’s ideas every single day. If we can also adopt some of his noble ideas on universal peace and pan-humanism, the world would become a much better place to live in.

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