Buildings from different time eras, side by side (see 10 May 1905)
Doorway in Berne
St. Vincent Cathedral, above the Aare
The GymnasiumEinstein's second paper, on the photoelectric effect, contained a revolutionary hypothesis concerning the nature of light for which he received the Nobel Prize in 1921. Einstein not only proposed that under certain circumstances light can be considered as consisting of particles, but he also hypothesized that the energy contained within a light beam is transferred in individual units--or quanta--contradicted a hundred-year-old tradition of considering light energy a manifestation of continuous processes. Virtually no one accepted Einstein's proposal.
The outdoor cafes in BarenplatzEinstein's third major paper in the spring of 1905, "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies," contained what became known as the special theory of relativity. After considering these problems for ten years, Einstein realized that the crux of the problem lay not in a theory of matter but in a theory of measurement. At the heart of his special theory of relativity was the realization that all measurements of time and space depend on judgments as to whether two distant events occur simultaneously.
The Stadttheater (City Theater)
Lamppost (see 17 June 1905, where the young lovers meet)
A municipal building.The year 1905 has been referred to as Einstein’s annus mirabilis, his "miracle year," for in that year he published four papers on physics with the German Annalen der Physik that were to change the nature of scientific research and knowledge. He was only 26. The special theory of relativity was the subject of the third of these papers, published in June 1905. The title of the paper was "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies." Einstein wrote it in five or seven weeks, later recalling, "When the Special Theory of Relativity began to germinate in me, I was visited by all sorts of nervous conflicts... I used to go away for weeks in a state of confusion." Alan Lightman explains that Einstein’s special theory of relativity "proposed that distance and time are not absolute. The ticking rate of a clock depends on the motion of the observer of that clock." Measurements of time and distance vary, space and time are relative to observers, and only the speed of light remains constant at 186,000 miles per second.
Challenge: Which chapter of Einstein’s Dreams encodes the Special Theory of Relativity?
The Kuntsmuseum (see 8 May 1905)
Kunstmuseum (Museum of Fine Arts)
An old street car
The facade of the church at Munsterplatz (St. Vincent Cathedral). On the back side of the church is a park that overlooks the Aare. There's an elevator on one side that will take you down to Aarestrasse, the street along the river (as it's pretty far below).
The Cathedral of St. Vincent--another picture of the facade.
Some lady wielding a golden sword, about to take the head off of some green-faced creature.