Saturday, March 14, 2015

Happy Birthday Albert Einstein

Born on π day! 
Albert Einstein during lecture in Vienna, 1921 by F. Schmutzer

"The cult of individual personalities is always, in my view, unjustified. To be sure, nature distributes her gifts variously among her children. But there are plenty of the well-endowed ones too, thank God, and I am firmly convinced that most of them live quiet, unregarded lives. It strikes me as unfair, and even in bad taste, to select a few of them for boundless admiration, attributing superhuman powers of mind and character to them. This has been my fate, and the contrast between the popular estimate of my powers and achievements and the reality is simply grotesque." - Albert Einstein, 14 March 1879 - 18 April 1955

Year 2015 marks a very special anniversary. Hundred years ago, in 1915, Albert Einstein published his general theory of relativity. This theory described gravity as a fundamental quality of space-time. It provides foundation for our current view of the expanding universe.  

Image source here