El universo de Einstein: 1905 - annus mirabilis - 2005

Abstract

Year 2005 was the World Year of Physics, and it was commemorated worldwide as the 100th anniversary of Albert Einstein's legendary works in which the foundations of at least three areas of modern physics were laid: statistical mechanics, quantum mechanics and special relativity. These works turned year 1905 in what deservedly was called the "miraculous year" (annus mirabilis) of Einstein. However, the influence of this great mind was not limited to science. As it is well known, his fingerprint remains engraved in many aspects of our daily life. Because of that, in this work we have tried to cover almost all the subjects in which Einstein was involved during the last century and, of course, try and reveal the future projection his actions will have in this new century that has just begun. Among the subjects covered in the volume one can find the possible connection between Einstein and the artistic vanguard movement, his religiosity, his days in Argentina, the Nobel Prize, the Einstein-Freud correspondence, his pacifism and the nuclear energy, science and politics under the Second Empire and the Weimar Republic, and even a description of his patents and experiments, the studies performed to search for "built-in" features in his brain and the doubts many had regarding whether Einstein was a genius or a crank. Also included are essays on Einstein and Borges, philosophy and relativity, Mach's principle, the relation among science, arts and humanities, and, closer to Einstein's own theoretical research, the twin paradox, chance and quantum mechanics, the arrow of time, gravitational lenses, string theory, holography and black holes, gravitomagnetism, superconductivity, gravitational waves, the photoelectric effect and the alternative theories for gravitation.