The alternative, having light propagating in empty space, sounded even crazier.Įnter Einstein. Even as attempts to find it failed, physicists would not let go. With hindsight, we could call it magical stuff. Its sole purpose was to allow light to propagate. What kind of medium could this be? Stumped, the greatest physicists of the 19th century came up with a wild idea: Imagine that all of space is filled with an imponderable medium called the ether. Finally, it had to be very rigid, so as to allow for the propagation of very fast waves: It was well-known by then that light traveled at about 186,000 miles per second in empty space. It also had to be very light so as not to slow down the orbits of planets. Light? Well, for us to see light from distant stars, the medium had to be transparent. Water waves, for example, travel in water sound waves in air. (The other option, defended by Issac Newton, was that light was made of little bulletlike particles.) That being the case, and as with any other wave, light had to propagate in a material medium.

After a debate that lasted for centuries, people were convinced that light was a wave. It was the perfect moment for a trailblazer.įirst, there was trouble with light and its propagation. New ideas were badly needed, but not much was coming forth. And the three pillars were on shaky ground, as physicists couldn't use them to explain a series of phenomena that had been recently discovered in the lab and in the skies. The physics developed from Galileo up to 1899 had three pillars: mechanics, electromagnetism and thermodynamics, the study of heat.

When Einstein came into the science scene at the turn of the 20th century, physics was in crisis. In the sciences, to be successful in shaking the foundations of knowledge so as to promote change, one also needs to be right. To shake the foundations of knowledge one needs at least two things: to believe deeply in his ideas and to have the courage to go against the established order. Einstein epitomizes the intellectual freedom and courageous creativity that, combined with an unbeatable work ethic, defines true genius. He lived in very different times, and - right or wrong from our current standards - we must analyze facts within their cultural context. He was an absent father and unfaithful husband. Happy Birthday!Įinstein's science, and general views on humanity, have profoundly changed the way we see ourselves and the world we live in. Albert Einstein would have been 139 years old Wednesday.

Albert einstein theory