Albert Einstein biography, inventions, secrets. "Einstein: inventions and experiment" Einstein inventions and discoveries
Without a doubt, Albert Einstein- one of the greatest scientists in the entire history of mankind. But, as often happens, history distorts facts, and some are simply erased from memory. Once again studying the biography of Einstein, we were able to discover some information about the great physicist, which can still surprise.
Challenging the authorship of the theory of relativity
When the great physicist discovered the theory of relativity, his copyright was questioned. The facts confirming this were quite serious, although not widely known.
The accusation came from David Gilbert and his supporters. Hilbert believed that he was the first to discover the theory, and Einstein used his work and did not leave a single reference to the true author. Einstein himself responded that his early works were copied by Hilbert, thereby denying the accusations.
When they began to understand the situation, they decided that the two scientists worked separately, but Hilbert submitted his work before Einstein. When historians began to understand the problem further, they found out that some of Einstein’s work was borrowed by his colleague. However, Einstein's name was never mentioned.
Historians suggest that Hilbert's proofs lacked sufficient data to produce a correct solution. By the time of publication, the scientist managed to correct the errors. And although Einstein's work was published much earlier, Hilbert contrasted it with his own work.
The famous physicist was a good student
Many people believe that Einstein was a bad student. However, it is not. Even while studying at school, he knew mathematics extremely well. Einstein learned mathematical analysis at the age of 12, and three years later he composed an essay, which in the future became the basis for the development of the theory of relativity.
Rumors about the scientist’s poor grades arose due to different classifications of grades in schools in Germany and Switzerland. The grades were given from 1 to 6, where 6 was initially a bad grade, and then the system was inverted and 6 became the highest score. In this case, instead of the highest score, one turned out to be the lowest.
But Einstein could not enter the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School. From there rumors began about the poor studies of the great genius. The future scientist was able to excel in scientific subjects such as physics and mathematics, but he received low marks in social exams, in particular in French.
Einstein's inventions
A physicist has managed to create a refrigerator that does not require electricity to operate. The authorship belongs to the scientist himself, as well as to his colleague and friend Leo Szilard.
Cooling of the products took place through the absorption process. During the change in pressure between gases and liquids, which the scientist used in his development, the temperature in the refrigeration chamber decreases.
The scientist decided to create such a device after learning about an accident with a German family. A familiar refrigerator leaked toxic gases that poisoned an entire family. At that time, problems such as defective fillings occurred. And then toxic substances, sulfur dioxide and methyl chloride, flowed out.
Einstein's inventions included a pump and a blouse. At the same time, there were two rows of fasteners on the blouse. The first row was intended for a thin person, and the second for heavier people. A very economical item that allows you, in case of weight loss or, conversely, significant gain, to simply move from one row of fasteners to another without changing the item itself.
Dictatorial regime due to amendments to the US Constitution
During World War II, many luminaries of science and culture fled to the United States. Among them was Kurt Gödel. However, it was very difficult for him to obtain citizenship in this country. When it was his turn to be interviewed to become an American citizen, Kurt Gödel had to come accompanied by two people who took upon themselves the responsibility of vouching for him. Then he called his friends - Oscar Morgenstern and Einstein.
The interview was conducted by Philip Foreman, also a friend of Einstein, but this coincidence was accidental. Gödel prepared long enough to finally obtain citizenship. During the interview, Foreman stated that the United States has never been and will never be a dictatorial country. Gödel, on the other hand, countered by saying that in the US it is easy for a dictator to implement it thanks to a loophole in the Constitution. The scientist wanted to explain what kind of loophole this was, but Einstein did not allow his friend to speak out, otherwise it could hinder his further prosperous fate in America. The judge completed the interview, and Godel received the status of an American citizen.
This situation became known from Morgenstern's diary. However, no details were provided there. To this day, no one knows for sure what Gödel was talking about. Now they assume that the conversation then was about Article 5, which allows changes to be made. It turns out that with just a few amendments, the Constitution can be legally destroyed.
The FBI spied Einstein, accusing him of spying for the USSR
From 1933 to 1955, as soon as Einstein arrived in America, and until his death, the scientist was subject to constant surveillance by the FBI. His phone was tapped, and his letters often fell into the hands of investigators. The Bureau even searched the scientist's trash, trying to find any evidence of suspicious activity. Most of all, the scientist was suspected of spying for the Soviet Union.
The FBI also involved the immigration service to find a reason to deport Einstein. The reason for this attitude was his pacifist views and human rights position. All this made him an anti-government radical and gave rise to suspicion.
Even before the famous physicist arrived in the States, the Women's Patriotic Corporation sent a letter to the government, expressing protest against the scientist's arrival. The Women's Party wrote there that even Stalin was not a communist like Einstein.
Before receiving a visa, the scientist was questioned at length about his political priorities. Then Einstein said unrestrainedly that the people of America begged him to come, and he should not tolerate such an attitude towards himself. The scientist always knew that he was being watched. He once admitted to the Polish ambassador that their conversation had been recorded.
Einstein regretted being involved in the creation of atomic weapons
Scientists involved in the Manhattan Project, which allowed America to create nuclear weapons, never contacted Einstein. They were not allowed to communicate with him, and Einstein himself, even if he suddenly expressed a desire, would also not receive permission.
However, Einstein, together with physicist Leo Szilard, sent a letter to American President Roosevelt, expressing a request to create atomic weapons. Einstein did this after learning that the Germans had split the uranium atom. The physicist feared that Germany would be the first to create such a weapon.
When was the United States the first to not only develop, but also drop an atomic bomb? Einstein said that he would not have signed that letter, knowing what consequences it would have.
Einstein's son - Eduard
Einstein and his wife Mileva Maric had several children. Their second son is Edward. He was born in 1910. He was also called "Tete" or "Tetel". As a child he was sick a lot. At the age of 20 he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Mileva separated from Einstein in 1919, and at first Eduard remained with her. But he was soon sent to a psychiatric hospital.
The scientist himself was not surprised by this diagnosis. Mileva's sister suffered from schizophrenia, and Einstein often noticed similar signs of the disease in Tete.
Einstein ended up in America a year after his son was admitted to a hospital. And although the scientist often visited children in Europe, Einstein no longer came from America to see his sons. He rarely wrote to Edward. But all his letters always remained sincere. On the eve of World War II, the scientist wrote that he would like to meet him in the spring. But the war got in the way, and they were able to see each other again.
Mileva died in 1948. Tete continued to live in the hospital, he spent some time in a foster family, but then he had to return to the hospital. Edward died in 1965.
Einstein smoked nonstop
It is a well-known fact that Einstein loved nothing more than his violin and pipe. His smoking habit earned him a lifetime membership in the Montreal Pipe Smokers' Club. The scientist considered smoking his best means of relaxation. He also noted that this allows him to think objectively.
The attending physician persistently advised Einstein to quit smoking, in response to which the scientist lit a pipe. Even when Einstein fell from a boat during one of his trips, he protected his favorite pipe from the water.
Manuscripts, letters and a pipe remained the few personal belongings that were in the use of the physicist.
The physicist adored women
When the scientist was not working or smoking, he became interested in women. This can be seen from his letters. And, perhaps, it was not so much the scientist himself who was attached to women as they loved him.
Hanoch Gutfreund, who studied Einstein's life and is chairman of the World Exhibition at the Hebrew University, described his life with his second wife, Elsa. Not long ago, all the letters of the physicist were published, which, according to Hanoch Gutfreund, represent him as not the worst husband and father.
However, he admitted that he could not be faithful to his wife. In his letters, he spoke frankly about all his women, nevertheless noting their interest as unwanted. During his marriage he had at least six of them.
Einstein's biggest mistake
The brilliant physicist made at least seven mistakes in his work during his scientific career.
In 1917, Einstein admitted his greatest mistake. In the theory of relativity, he put the cosmological constant - the symbol lambda. This made it possible to consider the Universe to be stable, as previously believed among scientists of that time. Lambda is a force that can counteract the force of gravity. When the physicist discovered that the Universe was still expanding, he removed the symbol. But in 2010, researchers came to the conclusion that the physicist was right in his original version. Lambda is that theoretical “dark energy” that resists gravity and under the influence of which the Universe is expanding at an accelerated pace.
Based on materials: hi-news.ru
V. Ya. Frenkel, B. E. Yavelov
Magnetostrictive loudspeaker
On January 10, 1934, the German Patent Office, based on an application filed on April 25, 1929, issued patent No. 590783 for “A device, in particular for a sound reproduction system, in which changes in electric current due to magnetostriction cause the movement of a magnetic body.” One of the two authors of the invention was listed as Dr. Rudolf Goldschmidt from Berlin, and the other was written as follows: “Dr. Albert Einstein, formerly residing in Berlin; present residence unknown.”
Magnetostriction, as is known, is the effect of reducing the size of magnetic bodies (usually referring to ferromagnets) when they are magnetized. In the preamble to the patent description, the inventors write that the magnetic compression forces are hampered by the rigidity of the ferromagnet. In order to “make magnetostriction work” (in this case, to set the speaker cone into oscillatory motion), this rigidity must be somehow neutralized and compensated. Einstein and Goldschmidt offer three options for this seemingly intractable problem.
Rice. Three magpitostrictive loudspeaker options
The first option is illustrated in Fig. a. The ferromagnetic (iron) rod B carrying the needle C with the diffuser is screwed into a strong U-shaped magnetic yoke A in such a way that the axial forces compressing the rod are very close to the critical value at which Euler loss of stability occurs - bending of the rod in one direction or another. Windings D are placed on the yoke, through which an electric current passes, modulated by an audio signal. Thus, the stronger the sound, the more strongly the iron rod B is magnetized and, consequently, compressed. Since the rod is placed on the very verge of instability, these small variations in its length lead to strong vibrations in the vertical direction; in this case, a diffuser attached to the middle of the rod generates sound.
The second option (Fig. b) uses the instability of the compressed spring H - rod G system, resting its tip against the hole S. A current modulated by an audio signal passes through the winding D. The time-varying magnetization of the iron rod leads to small fluctuations in its length, which are amplified due to energy of a powerful spring losing stability.
In the third version of the magnetostrictive loudspeaker (Fig. c), a circuit is used with two iron rods B1 and B2, the windings of which are connected in such a way that when the magnetization of one rod increases, the magnetization of the other decreases. By means of rods C1 and C2, the rods are connected to a rocker arm G, suspended on a rod M and attached by guy wires F to the sides of the magnetic yoke A. The rocker arm is rigidly connected to the diffuser W. By screwing the nut P on the rod M, the system is transferred to a state of unstable equilibrium. Due to the antiphase magnetization of rods B1 and B2 with an audio frequency current, their deformations also occur in antiphase - one is compressed, the other is lengthened (the compression is weakened), and the rocker, in accordance with the sound signal, warps, turning relative to point R. In this case, also due to the use of a “hidden "instability, the amplitude of magnetostrictive oscillations increases.
X. Melcher, who got acquainted with the documents of the family of R. Goldschmidt and talked with his son, sets out the history of the appearance of this invention as follows.
R. Goldschmidt (1876-1950) was a good friend of Einstein. A well-known specialist in the field of electrical engineering, at the dawn of the radio era he supervised the installation of the first line of wireless telegraph communication between Europe and America (1914). In 1910, he designed and built the world's first high-frequency machine at 30 kHz with a power of 12 kW, suitable for radio engineering purposes. The machine for transatlantic transmissions already had a power of 150 kW. Goldschmidt was also the author of many inventions aimed at improving sound-reproducing devices (mainly for telephones), high-frequency resonators, etc.
Mutual friends of Einstein and Goldschmidt were the spouses Olga and Bruno Eisner, a famous singer and a famous pianist at that time. Olga Aizner was hard of hearing - a disadvantage that was especially annoying considering her profession. Goldschmidt, as a specialist in sound-reproducing equipment, undertook to help her. He decided to design a hearing aid (work on the creation of such devices was just beginning at that time). Einstein also took part in this activity.
Whether a functioning hearing aid was eventually constructed is unknown. As can be seen from the patent description, the inventors were fascinated by the idea of exploiting the previously unused magnetostriction effect, and they developed the loudspeakers we described based on this effect. As far as we know, this was the first sound-reproducing magnetostrictive device. Although magnetostrictive hearing aids have not become widespread and their current counterparts operate on different principles, magnetostriction is used with great success in ultrasonic emitters, which are used in many branches of industry and technology.
For Frau Olga, as Melcher reports, they planned to create a magnetostrictive hearing aid using the phenomenon of so-called bone conduction, i.e. exciting sound vibrations not of the air column in the ear, but directly of the cranial bones, which required great power. It seems that the Einstein-Goldschmidt device fully met this requirement. Perhaps the joint activity with Goldschmidt is not so accidental and, in doing it, Einstein was guided not only by the desire to ease the fate of Frau Eisner. It seems that he could not help but be interested in the technical task itself - after all, we know that he had some experience in designing sound-reproducing devices.
Automatic camera
Talking with Rabindranath Tagore in the early 30s, Einstein recalled his “happy Bern years” and said that, while working in the patent office, he invented several technical devices, including a sensitive electrometer (already discussed above) and a device determining the exposure time when taking photographs. Now such a device is called a photo exposure meter.
There is almost no doubt that the operating principle of Einstein's photoexposure meter was based on the photoelectric effect. And who knows, maybe this invention was a by-product of reflections that culminated in the famous 1905 article “On a Heuristic Point of View...”, in which the idea of light quanta was introduced and, with their help, the laws of the photoelectric effect were explained.
It is curious that Einstein retained his interest in devices of this kind for a long time, although, as far as is known, he was never an amateur photographer. Thus, his authoritative biographer F. Frank reports that somewhere in the second half of the 40s, Einstein and one of his closest friends, MD G. Bucchi, “invented a mechanism for automatically adjusting exposure time depending on illumination”)
