• Albert Einstein - (1879-1955) The most respected scientist of the 20th century. Nobel Prize, 1921. Born in Germany, he left for the United States in 1933. I expect there are a few people who don't know that Einstein had to exile himself from his native country because he was Jewish. It is hard to know how to try and encapsulate the importance of a person whose influence on physics and science was as great as anyone since Newton. To those who follow these things casually, Time Magazine named Einstein their, "Person of the Century". Einstein was offered the Presidency of Israel in 1952 (a largely honorary office), but declined. While not an observant religious Jew, Einstein was a strong supporter of the right of Jews to have their own state--the Zionist dream. He said, “Zionism springs from an even deeper motive than Jewish suffering. It is rooted in a Jewish spiritual tradition whose maintenance and development are for Jews the basis of their continued existence as a community.” And since this is Einstein, after all, one more quote, "The pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, an almost fanatical love of justice, and the desire for personal independence—these are the features of the Jewish tradition which make me thank my lucky stars that I belong to it." The following link takes you to the first page of the Time magazine "spread" on Einstein. The full text of the essay on Einstein is easily found and there are other excellent links on the same page. You can even listen to Einstein speak. We might add that the basic premises of the theory of relativity are not that hard to grasp and there are many excellent films that demonstrate many of the theory's "applications" through animated and live action experiments and "real life" examples. PBS's Nova series made such a film. One final point: People often ask how Einsteinian physics affect them--besides the development of atomic power. Well, all the devices that depend on satellite technology--GPS positioning; cell phone use; etc. have to take account of Einstein's concept of the relationship between speed and time and gravity. Explained in the article on the last link, in quite understandable terms, is the importance of Einstein's theories of general and special relativity to the programming of GPS satellites. GPS satellites depend on clocks to create the information relayed to Earth that allows individuals, etc., to know precisely where they are. The theory of special relativity explains why clocks on a satellite in orbit, which move faster than the Earth revolves around the sun, tick more slowly than identical clocks on Earth. However, this "slow-down" is somewhat counter-balanced by the fact that clocks in orbit are subject to less gravity than their earthly counterparts. Einstein's general relativity theory explains that they gain some time because of this lower gravity. Taken together, scientists using the theories were able to calculate that the clocks on a GPS satellite would tick 38 milliseconds, per day, slower than a clock on Earth. This may not seem like much--but if it was not accounted for--the GPS system would be off 10 kilometers a day each day the clock was off! In other words, it would be useless in a matter of days. Einstein, actually, did not like the term "relative." He thought it gave the wrong impression: that anything goes, that any result was possible. That's not so. The predictions made through the theory are precise--as demonstrated by the programming for GPS satellites. This is but one example of the impact of Einstein upon our lives. Einstein Nova Program GPS and Einstein