November 02, 2017 Thursday
Bedtime Story
Publishing Four Original Papers in a Single Year
If there is something really original in a
published paper it might get picked up by the masters or other researchers in
that area to use it for their work.
After all this narration, I am sure your
dreamy views about science and its working would have evaporated with a wiff.
How difficult it is to be a serious
scientist, serious enough to have an impact.
With this perspective in your mind, let me
for a brief period take you to the year 1905.
It was a year when not one but four
original papers were published in four different months in the German physics
journal Annalen der Physik.
All these four papers came not from a
University based lab such as Cambridge or London or Göttingen (United States
then was still an insignificant player when it came to pure science and research)
but from an examiner at a patent office in Bern, Switzerland.
Just this one man in a patent office
publishing four papers in pure physics is remarkable enough.
But that fact that these four papers would fundamentally
alter the way we would see universe from then on was stupefyingly extraordinary!
The patent clerk was of course Albert
Einstein and perhaps now you may understand why this man is rated so highly by
his peers (most ordinary human apes have no or very little idea about his work
and worse, are least interested in knowing about it).
By the way, Einstein in writing his papers
almost had no one to discuss his ideas with.
Wait a sec, did I say no one?
Well, in that patent office where was a coworker
of his by the name of Michele Besso, an Italian Jew who also was his close friend
during their student days at the ETH Zurich.
Besso is a typical forgotten ape in the
history of humanity but let’s see what Einstein had to say about him.
In a biography of Einstein, it is stated
that Einstein called Besso “the best sounding board in Europe” for scientific
ideas.
In the third of the four papers that was on
special relativity, Einstein ended it with this statement:
“In conclusion I wish to say that in
working at the problem here dealt with I have had the loyal assistance of my
friend and colleague M. Besso, and that I am indebted to him for several
valuable suggestions.”
If you have doubt, you can actually check
out the paper that has the title “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies” By
A. Einstein June 30, 1905.
In fact, I implore you to briefly glance through
the paper and you will see the quality of genius still sparkles bright in it.
You can peruse the paper via the following link:
This of course is an English translation of
the original German-language paper with very slight modifications.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling
chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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