Miracle Year Papers of Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein (14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist. He is best known for his theory of relativity and specifically mass–energy equivalence, expressed by the equation E = mc2.

In 1905, while he was working in the patent office, Einstein had published four papers in a leading German physics journal. These are the papers that history has come to call the Miracle Year Papers. These four articles contributed substantially to the foundation of modern physics and changed views on space, time, and matter.

1. Paper on the particulate nature of light put forward the idea that certain experimental results, notably the photoelectric effect, could be simply understood from the postulate that light interacts with matter as discrete "packets" (quanta) of energy.
2. Paper on Brownian motion explained the random movement of very small objects as direct evidence of molecular action, thus supporting the atomic theory.
3. Paper on the electrodynamics of moving bodies introduced the radical theory of special relativity, which showed that the observed independence of the speed of light on the observer's state of motion required fundamental changes to the notion of simultaneity. Consequences of this include the time-space frame of a moving body slowing down and contracting (in the direction of motion) relative to the frame of the observer.
4. Paper on mass–energy equivalence, Einstein deduced from his equations of special relativity what has been called the twentieth century's most well known equation: E = mc2. This suggests that tiny amounts of mass could be converted into huge amounts of energy and presaged the development of nuclear power.

Revolution in Science – New Theory of the Universe - Newtonian Ideas Overthrown

In 1911, Einstein published a paper about the effects of gravity on light, specifically the gravitational redshift and the gravitational deflection of light. The paper appealed to astronomers to find ways of detecting the deflection during a solar eclipse. In May 1919, a team led by British astronomer Arthur Stanley Eddington claimed to have confirmed Einstein's prediction of gravitational deflection of starlight by the Sun while photographing a solar eclipse. On 7 November 1919, leading British newspaper The Times printed a banner headline that read: "Revolution in Science – New Theory of the Universe – Newtonian Ideas Overthrown". In an interview Nobel laureate Max Born praised general relativity as the "greatest feat of human thinking about nature"; fellow laureate Paul Dirac was quoted saying it was "probably the greatest scientific discovery ever made".