Albert Einstein

14 Sep, 2023 500 Science

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the man who, in 1905, produced several papers that were to change the world of physics and whose name went on to become a byword for genius. This was Albert Einstein, then still a technical expert at a Swiss patent office, and that year of 1905 became known as his annus mirabilis (‘miraculous year’). While Einstein came from outside the academic world, some such as Max Planck championed his theory of special relativity, his principle of mass-energy equivalence that followed, and his explanations of Brownian Motion and the photoelectric effect. Yet it was not until 1919, when a solar eclipse proved his theory that gravity would bend light, that Einstein became an international celebrity and developed into an almost mythical figure.

→ Play on BBC Sounds website

Guests

  • Richard Staley No other episodes
    Professor in History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge and Professor in History of Science at the University of Copenhagen
  • Diana Kormos Buchwald No other episodes
    Robert M. Abbey Professor of History and Director and General Editor of The Einstein Papers Project at the California Institute of Technology
  • John Heilbron 2 episodes
    Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley

Reading list

  • Einstein: The Life and Times
    Ronald W. Clark (HarperPaperbacks, 2011) Google Books →
  • Relativity: The Special and the General Theory - 100th Anniversary Edition
    Albert Einstein (eds. Jurgen Renn and Hanoch Gutfreund) (Princeton University Press, 2019) Google Books →
  • Out of My Later Years
    Albert Einstein (Citadel Press, 1974) Google Books →
  • Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist: The Library of Living Philosophers Volume VII
    Albert Einstein (ed. Paul A. Schilpp) (Open Court, 1970)
  • Einstein on Peace
    Albert Einstein (eds. Otto Nathan and Heinz Norden) (Literary Licensing, 2011) Google Books →
  • Albert Einstein: A Biography
    Albrecht Folsing (Viking, 1997) Google Books →
  • Niels Bohr: A Very Short Introduction
    J. L. Heilbron (Oxford University Press, 2020) Google Books →
  • Einstein: His Life and Universe
    Walter Isaacson (Simon & Schuster, 2008) Google Books →
  • Einstein and Religion
    Max Jammer (Princeton University Press, 2002) Google Books →
  • The Cambridge Companion to Einstein
    Michel Janssen and Christoph Lehner (eds.) (Cambridge University Press, 2014) Google Books →
  • Einstein in Love: A Scientific Romance
    Dennis Overbye (Viking, 2000) Google Books →
  • Subtle Is the Lord: The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein
    Abraham Pais (Oxford University Press, 1982) Google Books →
  • Einstein on Politics: His Private Thoughts and Public Stands on Nationalism, Zionism, War, Peace, and the Bomb
    David E. Rowe and Robert Schulmann (eds.) (Princeton University Press, 2007)
  • Einstein's War: How Relativity Triumphed Amid the Vicious Nationalism of World War I
    Matthew Stanley (Dutton, 2019) Google Books →
  • Einstein's German World
    Fritz Stern (Princeton University Press, 1999) Google Books →
  • Einstein and the Quantum: The Quest of the Valiant Swabian
    A. Douglas Stone (Princeton University Press, 2013) Google Books →
  • Einstein's Opponents: The Public Controversy About the Theory of Relativity in the 1920s
    Milena Wazeck (trans. Geoffrey S. Koby) (Cambridge University Press, 2014) Google Books →

Related episodes

Programme ID: m001qdx1

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001qdx1

Auto-category: 500 (Natural Sciences and Mathematics)

Hello (First sentence from this episode) Hello, everyone.