- With his shock of white hair, woolly moustache and amiable,
distracted air, Albert Einstein has given society its defining image of
an eccentric scientist: lovable, brilliant but unworldly.
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- Things are about to change, however. Next year a global
campaign is to be launched to mark Einstein Year. An unprecedented fusillade
of shows, exhibitions and products will be unleashed round the world, each
aimed at turning the great physicist into one of the sexiest figures of
the 20th century. Make way, Che Guevara.
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- Apart from the Einstein posters, mugs, T-shirts, calendars,
and bookmarks already churning off production lines, there will be an Einstein
experiment pack for Glastonbury festival-goers; an Einstein screen saver
that will help computer owners track down gravitation waves; kiddies' Einstein
party packs; an Einstein ballet by the Rambert dance group; and a series
of concerts, in Israel, to mark his lesser-known achievements - as a violin
player.
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- Major exhibitions dedicated to the Swiss-born physicist
have already opened in the United States, and journals - including the
current Scientific American - have dedicated entire issues to the great
man's life and works. That soup-strainer moustache and floppy white mane
will be hard to avoid in the next few months.
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- 'This is a chance to get people to appreciate what physics
has done for the modern world,' said Caitlin Watson, Einstein Year co-ordinator
for the UK Institute of Physics. 'There is nobody to touch Einstein for
that.'
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- Scientists have chosen 2005 to be Einstein Year (as well
as International Year of Physics) because four of his greatest scientific
papers were published in 1905. They included his theory of relativity,
which redefined our ideas about space and time, and the paper that introduced
the idea that energy and matter are interchangeable. This notion is summed
up by his equation E=mc <+>2 , the most enduring, scientific icon
of the last century.
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- For physics, 1905 was an annus mirabilis , thanks to
an unprepossessing Swiss patent office clerk who, working quietly on his
own, utterly changed our ideas about the universe. Within 10 years, Einstein
had been made a professor at the University of Berlin. A few years later
he won the Nobel Prize, and not long after he published his general theory
of relativity, which transformed our ideas about gravity and the universe.
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- This was a man who stretched time and bent space. As
Scientific American puts it: 'Albert Einstein looms over 20th-century physics
as its defining, emblematic figure.' Hence the lavish nature of next year's
celebrations, although not every plan has been welcomed universally.
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- An Austrian proposal to mark the 50th anniversary of
Einstein's death, which falls on 18 April, 2005, by holding a 'light relay'
- a sort of astronomical Mexican wave in which thousands of people round
the world will shine torches into the night sky - is to be boycotted by
British astronomers. Light pollution is already ruining our study of the
heavens, they say. However, most other ideas have been enthusiastically
seized on by scientists - such as the Einstein at Home project. 'People
will be able to send off for software that will allow their computers to
operate at night using data, automatically downloaded from observatories,
to spot minute fluctuations in data that reveal the existence of gravitational
waves,' said Professor Jim Hough, of Glasgow University.
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- Gravitational waves, predicted by Einstein's general
theory of relativity, are ripples in the curvature of space-time triggered
by massive energetic events, such as supernovae - when stars explode and
destroy themselves. None has ever been detected. 'There could be no better
way to celebrate Einstein's great year than finding one this way,' added
Hough.
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- Then there is the 'Einstein at Glastonbury' pack which
physics students will display at the festival next June. Among the marvels
of modern physics to be demonstrated will be rockets powered by water and
fizzy Alka-Seltzer tablets and a levitating lemon that will be raised by
some strange use of pint glasses, ashtrays and water. Normal fare for Glastonbury,
in short.
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- The Einstein pack for kiddies' parties will include games
for sticking kebab sticks through balloons without bursting them. 'You
can learn a lot of physics this way,' said Caitlin Watson.
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- All of which should make Einstein a new folk hero as
well as making the Hebrew University of Israel very rich. Through a Californian
law firm, they control use of Einstein's image, and have to give permission,
often in exchange for royalties, for the use of the great man's face or
name on any products. Given what is about to be unleashed, things can only
get better for them.
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- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2004 http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/science/story/0,12996,1318526,00.html
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