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Jews Create Their Own Legends
by Chris Verral
The Case of Einstein
In popular culture, as well as in academic circles, Einstein's name is
synonymous with genius. " Are you some kind of Einstein?"
The purpose of this article is to examine closely Einstein's work and explore
Einstein as a phenomenon.
His Early Life
He was born is Switzerland, did not do very well in school. He failed his
entrance exams to Zurich Polytechnic Institute. In 1895,
Einstein failed a simple entrance exam to an engineering school in Zurich.
This exam consisted mainly of mathematical problems, and Einstein showed
himself to be mathematically inept in this exam. Most of the literature
about his life tends to ignore the fact that he failed
mathematics. It is rather curious that someone of his stature would fail
mathematics. He then entered a lesser school hoping to use it as a
stepping stone to the engineering school he could not get into, but after
graduating in 1900, he still could not get a position at the engineering
school!
Unable to go to the school as he had wanted, he got a job at the
patent office in Berne. He was to be a technical expert third class, a
rather low class. This could have been due to anti-Semitism of that era.
Even after publishing his so-called groundbreaking papers of 1905 and after
working in the patent office for six years, he was only elevated to a second
class standing. The work he was doing at the patent office was not quantum
mechanics or theoretical physics, but was reviewing technical documents for patents of everyday things.
He would work at the patent office until 1909, all the while continuously
trying to get a position at a university, but without success.
Among the general population Einstein is known for his theory of relativity
(although most people don't really know what that is), and he is credited with
the equation most are now familiar with: E=mc2; that is, energy in body of mass m is
equal to its mass times the square of speed of light.
I will now comment on his scholarly work and its relation to the work of other
scientists, as well as curious and unexplained events related to his work. There
are five major papers and results that established Einstein's fame. These are:
The foundation of the photon theory of light (1905);
The equivalence of energy and mass (1905);
The explanation of Brownian motion in liquids (1905);
The special theory of relativity (1905);
General theory of relativity (1915).
The foundation of the photon theory of light (1905)
The main point of Einstein's paper, and the point for which he is given
credit, is that light is emitted and absorbed in finite packets called
quanta. This was the explanation for the photoelectric effect. The
photoelectric effect had been explained by Heinrich Hertz in 1888. Hertz and
others, including Philipp Lenard, worked on understanding this phenomenon.
Lenard was the first to show that the energy of the electrons released in
the photoelectric effect was not governed by the intensity of the light but
by the frequency of the light.
However, the two men who are considered to be the originators of quantum
theory are Wien and Planck. They were colleagues, and generally are viewed
as the fathers of modern-day quantum theory. By 1900, Max Planck, based
upon his and Wien's work, had shown that radiated energy was absorbed and
emitted in finite units called quanta. The only difference in his work of
1900 and Einstein's work of 1905 was that Einstein limited himself to
talking about one particular type of energy, namely, light energy. But
Planck had deduced the general principles and equations governing the
process by 1900. Einstein himself admitted that the obvious conclusion of
Planck's work was that light also existed in discrete packets of energy.
Thus, nothing in this paper of Einstein's was original.
To this day I am puzzled by the importance given to this and the paper on
special theory of relativity. While results in both papers are of great
importance, THEY HAD BEEN KNOWN. Indeed, the work of Planck, Maxwell,
Wien, Lenard and almost all physicists of the era originated in attempts to understand
light. With his famous equations (Maxwell's equation of electromagnetic
fields), light was considered just another electromagnetic field with
frequency in optical range. Therefore, all of the deductions made by Planck
and Wien would also apply to light.
So why isn't Planck credited with quanta theory even though he observed it
experimentally and later developed its foundation?
This is the only explanation that I have found so far: "Not even Planck dared
to take quantum hypothesis seriously at the time. The only person to take it
seriously was patent examiner, Einstein. In his 1905 papers he proposed
something related that was even more drastic." The problem with this
assertion is that there is no basis for it. So far I have not found any
documents or articles or "confessions" by Planck -- or that matter any of
his contemporaries -- to suggest that Planck had reservations about his
theories. On the contrary, Henry Poincaré, one of the foremost mathematicians
and physicists of that era, gave numerous lectures about Planck's quanta
theory. In short, there is no evidence of any sort suggesting any reservations on Planck's
part. Planck was the typical of German scientists of his time, in that they
simply worked and published quietly in academic
circles and did not venture outside of the closed walls of University and
academia.
What rubbish! The man (Planck) experimentally observes the quanta phenomena,
derives the mathematical theory of quantum physics, but somehow he doesn't
believe in it, and the patent clerk "with his deep insight" sees it ever so
clearly! Why not? -- he was a genius, he could see things so clearly! Who needs
experiments? Who needs mathematics? And what was "even more drastic"? The
more drastic was the part about light emitting energy in quantas. In Planck
and Maxwell's world, light is simply another form of electromagnetic field.
Last -- and in my opinion the most important point -- regarding the quanta
phenomenon, is the complete lack of explanation or development of a theory in
Einstein's work as to how quantum energy is discharged. Perhaps Einstein
was not aware of Rutherford's work.
Now if I somehow "observe" the quantum phenomena, it would seem natural to
ask what is causing it, to give a picture of it, a
model, if you will. There is absolutely no indication of any such
explanation given by Einstein. Rutherford had taken Planck's mathematical
theory and developed a model of the atom in terms of electrons orbiting the nucleus
and shells (orbit). In his theory, when energized electrons are excited, they
hop into higher shells (excited states) and then release phonons (called
photons if the released energy is light energy in quantum) when they drop
back to their ground states (original shells). This is an important point
that I believe is turned upside down by Einstein's promoters. I will
explain this.
Planck, after developing his quanta theory, showed some dissatisfaction, for
although his mathematics fit well with his experimental observations of
quantum effect, he was unable to give the physical picture of it as
Rutherford did above. It is this sense of incompleteness that Planck felt in
his work that has been twisted into "his lack of complete trust in quanta
theory." Apparently, the fact that Einstein did not bother about physical
explanation of quanta effect is to be an attributed to his deeper insight,
What crock of a shit.
The equivalence of energy and mass. E=mc2 (1905)
Einstein derived these equations from Maxwell's equation. It took him three
pages.
The deduction is rather simple and quite obvious, and a better mathematician
would have simply stated the deduction in half a page. Maxwell, who was an
excellent mathematician, certainly knew about this, as well as many other
physicists. However, they did not make any claims because (it was stated in
their papers) they had no experimental method to verify this. Unlike
theoretical physicists of today, physicists in late 19th century did not
put forth claims without experimental evidence.
Some justifications that attribute the mass-energy formula to Einstein are
based on his presumed confidence and boldness in his belief in this
relationship because he had "deeper insight to nature of matter" (he was a
genius you know!). However, in scientific community "deeper insight" must
be backed by evidence (experimental evidence). In short, theoretical
prediction of mass-energy relationship is due to Maxwell, and the clinching
argument should be attributed to the scientist who comes up with an
experiment verifying this relationship.
So why Einstein is given credit for this mass-energy formula? This is the
explanation that I found. Einstein found this (mass-energy
relationship) to be true in the form of light -- "he changed the special case to
universal law."
How did he find it to be true for the case of light? He was a patent
clerk, working in an office. I doubt that patent office would had a
sophisticated physics lab. This is really absurd. Einstein's college friend
Grossman, who had helped him to obtain his job as patent clerk, was in touch
with Einstein during this time. Grossman was aware that mass-energy
equivalence had been observed, and numerically verified in Kirchoff's
examination of the so-called "black body" radiation in a cavity.
Two final points regarding the mass-energy relationship: (1) this relationship
can be obtained from Maxwell's equations, and that is what Einstein did.
It can also be obtained more directly and even by a first year student in
mathematics or physics from the so-called Lorentz transformations. This is
of some importance, because Lorentz transformations connecting time and
space in different inertial frames are the foundation of the special theory of
relativity - the theory attributed to Einstein. Einstein presented his special
theory of relativity before his presentation of mass-energy formula. This
seems really out of focus. Maxwell's equations are partial differential
equations, and require more than average mathematical sophistication, as
well as use of formulas of classical dynamics from physics. On the other
hand, I can present Lorentz transformations to a first year student in college
who has a sound grasp high school algebra and first two laws of Newton, and
he/she will be able derive the mass-energy relationship.
(2) Aside from the lack of physical evidence, another reason that men like
Planck and Maxwell, unlike Einstein, did not so boldly put forth the
mass-energy relationship was the problem of matter. Matter is the offspring of
field. What is commonly called matter is by its nature atomic. Atoms and
electrons are not, of course, ultimate invariable elements, but they are
themselves distributed continuously and subjected to minute changes of fluid
character in their smallest part. Maxwell and Lorentz theories cannot hold
for the interior of the electron; therefore, from the point of view of
ordinary electrons, one must treat the electron as something given a priori,
as a foreign body in the field. In non-technical terms, in Maxwell and
Lorentz theory, matter is not diffused and distributed, but invariable and
indivisible. In other words, the question of "what is matter?" should have
been resolved before "talking about it in precise terms." But our genius
could not be bothered by these side issues. It wasn't until 1916 when Mie
proposed a more general theory of electrodynamics by which it seems possible
to derive matter from field. This allowed the deduction of mass-energy
formula from either Lorentz' or Maxwell's equation. Thus mass-energy
relationship could be explained physically, not just as a consequence of
mathematical manipulation.
To be continued...
CHRIS VERRAL
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