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February 13, 2012
Binyamin Rose: Back to the Bunker: How a life-risking act by a Christian family during the Holocaust saved a family and built a thriving community a world away
Menachem Wecker: Business Schools Teach Real Estate Despite Troubled Housing Market
February 10, 2012
Lisa M. Krieger: Man with defibrillator demands access to his own heart's information
David G. Savage: Why activists may not be in a hurry to have High Court rule on alternative marriage
February 9, 2012
Laura McMullen: 10 Least Expensive Public Schools for Out-of-State Students
Kimberly Palmer: How to actually enjoy -- relaxing, financially -- your vacation
February 8, 2012
Warren Richey: Why momentous Prop. 8 ruling might not satisfy gay-rights groups
Menachem Wecker: Though Controversial, LL.M.'s Can Lead to Specialized Legal Jobs
The Kosher Gourmet byDana Velden: Going to the bother of making soup? You know it better be good. This CREAM OF TOMATO SOUP certainly is! And it's a cinch to make, too (Includes techinques and serving secrets)
February 7, 2012
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Caught off-guard? President's Super Bowl interview with Matt Lauer gives those who need a reason not to vote for him, a darn good one
Suzanne Bohan: Leaping lizards! Tiny reptiles advancing robot design
February 6, 2012
Jonathan Tobin: Iran Threatens Israel With Destruction, But the New York Times Doesn't Hear It
Jeffrey Fleishman: In newly democratic Egypt, tens of democracy activists jailed, to stand trial; their groups are 'threatening the stability of the homeland'
Julie Deardorff : Researchers say antioxidants may not be that effective and could do more harm than good
Mark Clayton: How did Anonymous hackers eavesdrop on FBI and Scotland Yard?
February 3, 2012
Edmund Sanders : Israeli official says Iran is creating missile that could reach East Coast of US
Victoria Kim: Immigrant-smuggling ring used black drivers to avoid racial profiling
February 2, 2012
Jim Carney: Wrong number call may have saved her life
Reza Kahlili : Ex-CIA spy in Iran's Revolutionary Guard: What Obama doesn't grasp about striking deals with Tehran
Tina Susman: For woodchuck rescuer, every day is Groundhog Day
February 1, 2012
Brian Bennett: US officials see increasing threat of domestic attack from Iran
Emily Brandon: How to Take Advantage of New 401(k) Fee Disclosures
January 31, 2012
January 30, 2012
Paul Richter and Ramin Mostaghim: Misreading Teheran's limits -- deadly and economically devastating as they may be -- is a risk administration, Europe seem willing to take
Suzanne Bohan: Warning: Nap-deprived tots missing more than sleep, study finds
Meg Handley: Banks Revamping Rewards Programs to Woo Customers
January 27, 2012
Caroline B. Glick: Obama: Of course I intend to prevent a nuclear holocaust . . . in a few months
Yochonon Donn: In liberal New York City, fervently-Orthodox Jews may soon be getting a district to call their own
Jeannine Stein: An inflated ego and thinking you're 'all that' doesn't just make others sick of you, it can make you ill
Katy Hopkins: New budget rules may affect how much money you get for college
January 26, 2012
Ed Koch: To the New York Times, calling for the murder of Jews by those capable of having their incitement taken seriously isn't news
Jeannine Stein: Mental illness struck one in five U.S. adults in 2010: Report
January 25, 2012
Richard Simon: House passes two bills endorsing the use of religious symbols at military memorials
Fred Weir: Putin: Multiethnic Russia cannot survive as a US-style 'melting pot'; must find its own way
Susan Johnston: 5 Sneaky Coupon Strategies Consumers Should Watch Out For
January 24, 2012
Carol Clark: The price of your soul: How your brain decides whether to 'sell out'
Caroline B. Glick: America lost most in 'Arab Spring'. Sadly, many voters still don't grasp the extent
Warren Richey: Drug criminal scores win in GPS ruling from conservative-leaning high court
Erika Bolstad: Black conservatives gather to talk about gaining strength
January 23, 2012
Melissa Dribben: Jewish voters to play a key role in Florida's Republican primary
Jordan Rau: In quest to grow, Catholic hospital system will announce this morning its break from church
Ali Safi: U.S. envoy gives Taliban terms for peace talks
January 19, 2012
January 18, 2012
January 17, 2012
Frank J. Gaffney Jr.: No-kidding red lines: U.S. response to an Iranian nuke may be bluster, but Israel's won't be
David G. Savage: They sued their principals after slandering them online --- now the cases are headed to the Supreme Court
David Francis: Where to Invest in 2012: With stocks expected to rebound, opportunity abounds for investors
January 13, 2012
Ben Lynfield: Israeli lawmakers move to annex Jewish Judea, one museum at a time
Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz: Thriving through touch: Gentle massage helps older people with low mobility improve in mind and body
January 12, 2012
Warren Richey: Landmark Supreme Court ruling a 'resounding win' for religious groups
Warren Richey: Supreme Court says no to new rule on eyewitness testimony
John Fauber : Statins found to raise diabetes risk in postmenopausal women
Katy Hopkins : Consider This Before You Pay for an Online Degree
The Kosher Gourmet by Joseph Erdos: This mushroom and barley soup has an intense -- almost nutty -- flavor that mixes robust with Middle East. It has creaminess without cream
January 11, 2012
Shari Roan: Millions of atrial fibrillation sufferers at risk for devastating, but preventable, stroke
Tom Hussain: Pakistan -- recipient of more than $21 billion in civilian and military aid -- speeds pursuit of Iranian pipeline, defying US
David G. Savage: High court signals it won't be loosening TV's 'indecency' rules
Stephen Ceasar: Oklahoma's Islamic law amendment can't go into effect, court rules
January 10, 2012
Reza Kahlili: From an ex-CIA spy: US must exploit new split in Iran's Revolutionary Guard
Karen Kaplan: Study: Nicotine replacement products ineffective when used in real-life situations
January 9, 2012
Michael Doyle: Put through legal hell over dream home, couple fought back hard --- all the way to Supreme Court
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Jewish World Review
March 12, 2004
/ 20 Adar, 5764
99 years of proof: Albert Einstein is still right after decades of verification
By
Bill Tammeus
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http://www.jewishworldreview.com |
People who care even half a fig about science — me, for instance — this year will celebrate the 99th anniversary of the publication of Albert Einstein's papers containing most of his great theories.
We'd wait a year to celebrate the 100th anniversary except we know that life is fickle and we're not guaranteed even tomorrow. So we'll raise a toast this year to 1905, which was also the year Einstein earned a doctorate.
The thing about Einstein that sets my socks aflame is that he's not just an interesting historical figure. Rather, he's the reason thousands and thousands of scientists have jobs today. Around the globe, researchers galore work long and odd hours trying to verify what Einstein proposed. Time and again, it turns out, they discover that what Einstein guessed was happening in this strange cosmos is exactly what's happening.
The old boy may have been a little eccentric-looking, but since when do odd looks mean someone is daft, a head case, a meshugena? Looking hair-brained doesn't mean you're harebrained.
Hardly a week passes that doesn't bring news of some new confirmation of Einstein's work. I became a journalist instead of a physicist because I'm math-challenged, so I don't understand a lot of the science news I read. But it's still clear to me that Einstein was amazingly prophetic, to say nothing of being right most of the time. Never mind his hair.
This fall, for instance, researchers at Duke University and the University of Arizona found evidence that Einstein was right in his Special Theory of Relativity when he declared that information cannot travel faster than the speed of light in a vacuum. (In the vacuum I sometimes get roped into using, things occasionally don't travel at all because of a blockage in the hose, but never mind that.)
I read some of the details about the smooth blips of light known as Gaussian pulses these scientists used to figure all this out, but I had to quit before my cranium blew up. However, I did understand this sentence in a press release from the University of Arizona: "Einstein does, in fact, continue to be right."
Imagine, 50 years after your death, someone issuing that statement with your name in it instead of Einstein's. I have trouble imagining anyone saying that about me 50 days after my death. Except, maybe, about the previous sentence.
Just a few weeks ago, this news flashed through cyberspace: Scientists have determined that Einstein's principle of the constancy of the speed of light is still a reliable guide to reality.
"What Einstein worked out with a pencil and paper nearly a century ago continues to hold up to scientific scrutiny," said Floyd Stecker of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
That pencil and piece of paper should be in one of the Smithsonian museums in Washington. Maybe it is, though I was there a couple of months ago and didn't see them. I did, however, see the red shoes Judy Garland wore in "The Wizard of Oz." This was the second time in my life that I've seen those shoes in person. I'm tired of them, though I bet light reflects off of them at the speed of light.
Stecker and some colleagues observed high-energy gamma rays to figure out that, once more, Einstein knew his stuff. Their work required them to test such concepts as the "Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle" and the "Lorentz Invariance." I'm uncertain and at variance about how to explain them to you, so I'll let you look them up.
Other recent scientific work indicated Einstein's Theory of General Relativity was right in predicting that the gravitational pull of a massive body (no, not Shaq) can behave like a lens that bends and distorts light coming from a distant object.
A team from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey reported that light from a quasar split into four separate images because of this "gravitational lensing" effect.
This kind of confirmation has become so routine that I have almost ceased to be amazed by the amazing Einstein. Even something he once called his biggest blunder — a fudge factor he dreamed up (and then later abandoned) to help explain the expansion of the universe — turned out, decades after his death, to be right.
Einstein's birthday is March 14. Plan to toast him then — unless, of course, it interferes with your celebration of the 171st birthday that day of America's first female dentist, Lucy Hobbs Taylor. Or unless the speed of light slows to a crawl.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in Washington and in the media consider "must reading."
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© 2004, All rights reserved Reprinted by permission, The Kansas City Star
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