![]() Mileva Marić originally came from the Vojvodina area – now in northern Serbia, then in Austro-Hungary – and was one of the first women to study physics and mathematics in Zurich, where she met Albert. Now that he could expect to win the Nobel Prize, Mileva was promised the prize money of 180,000 Swiss francs and finally agreed to divorce him – a unique event, for Einstein hadn’t received the prize yet! Because of exchange rates, Einstein had to send a large part of his Berlin income to support his family in Zurich. Originally she didn’t want a divorce, and a final settling was difficult due to financial issues. With his growing popularity, he was able to finalise his divorce from his first wife Mileva who lived in Switzerland with their two sons. The year 1919 not only meant a scientific and personal breakthrough for Einstein – it was also the year of some radical private changes. The older became a professor for hydraulics at the University of California in Berkeley. She received the Nobel prize money but spent most of it on the care of her younger son who suffered from schizophrenia. Mileva Einstein with her two sons Hans Albert (right) and Eduard in 1914. For satellite clocks, the gravitational effect is stronger, so when the clocks are built on Earth they need to run “slower” than the clocks that remain on the ground. At the same time, their travelling speed makes the clocks run slower (Einstein’s famous twin paradox predicts how a space travelling twin would probably age slower than the twin who stayed at home). The satellites have high-precision clocks on board, but due to their altitude – 20,000 kilometres above sea level – they run faster than similar clocks on the surface of the earth this effect needs to be compensated. These systems rely on data from GPS satellites – and for these satellites, “a few nanoseconds” make all the difference, at least if you don’t want to end up in a ditch. Well, these same people probably have a satnav system in their cars. “But what are a few nanoseconds?” some will ask now. After returning a few days later, the travelling clocks had gained a few nanoseconds, meaning they had run faster in the mountains because the gravity there was slightly lower than at home. Ten years ago, an amateur researcher made an interesting experiment: He took his children and his best atomic clocks on a camping trip to the mountains. But what about time? How can time be accelerated or slowed down? This sure is difficult to imagine. So now we know that great masses can curve space. ![]() (In the upper half, the relevant star positions are marked.) Photo: F.W. The expedition’s goal was to prove or disprove Einstein’s predictions. Sir Arthur Eddington led the expedition to the West-African island of Principe where this photo of a total solar eclipse was taken on May 19th, 1919. The Nobel Prize in Physics was only a matter of time, he was awarded the prize in 1922. Virtually over night, the physicist became world famous. The measurements pretty much coincided with Einstein’s predictions. With these photographs, Einstein could prove that the starlight was diverted by the Sun’s mass – spacetime is curved by the presence of matter. During a total solar eclipse, star positions near the Sun were photographed that are normally invisible in daylight. This changed dramatically in May 1919 when measurements during a solar eclipse confirmed Einstein’s predictions and theories. Photo: Ferdindand Schmutzer, public domainīut what does this shocking, earth-shaking theory mean in practice, in everyday life? Not only we are wondering about this, also his contemporaries had difficulties understanding him, and only experts read his writings. And gravitation is not a force, but only a property of spacetime.Īlbert Einstein (1879-1955) in Vienna in 1921, at the height of his career. “Space” and “time” are not considered absolute anymore, but can be “curved” or “dilated” in the four dimensional fabric of spacetime. ![]() 60th anniversary of the death of Albert Einstein: How his general relativity theory changed the world.Īlbert Einstein was a true revolutionary: he challenged Newtonian physics, and won.
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