Current Events Lesson Plan: November 19-December 2, 2015
Current Event: General Relativity Turns 100
Nov. 25, 2015, marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity. Einstein presented the mathematical equations for his theory at the Prussian Academy. The theory explains how the force of gravity emerges from the curvature of space and time. Einstein’s theory explains many puzzling facts about the universe. For example, it predicts the existence of such unusual phenomena as black holes. General relativity is actually the second of Einstein’s “theories of relativity.” He published the first, called special relativity, in 1905. Special relativity explains the relationship between matter and energy—popularized with the equation E=mc2—and shows that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light (in a vacuum, that speed is 186,282 miles, or 299,792 kilometers, per second). General relativity remains the best explanation in physics for the behavior of the universe at large scales. But at the smallest scales, such as inside the nuclei (cores) of atoms, the laws of general relativity break down. At such scales, the universe obeys a different set of rules—quantum mechanics, which lacks a good description of gravity. Resolving the contradictions between general relativity and quantum mechanics remains one of the biggest goals in physics.
Objective:
Albert Einstein was one of the greatest and most famous scientists of all time. Einstein was born on March 14, 1879, in Ulm, Germany. After graduating from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (Switzerland), Einstein worked at the Swiss Federal Patent Office in Bern. In 1905, he obtained a Ph.D. degree in physics from the University of Zurich. The year 1905 is known as Einstein’s year of marvels. In that year, the German scientific periodical the Annalen der Physik (Annals of Physics) published three of his papers that were among the most revolutionary in the history of science. The papers dealt with the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, and the special theory of relativity. Einstein received the 1921 Nobel Prize in physics for his photoelectric effect paper. In 1911, he became a professor at the German University in Prague, Austria-Hungary (now Charles University in the Czech Republic). Einstein moved to Berlin in 1914 to become a member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences, a professor at the University of Berlin, and the director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics. Einstein was of Jewish descent, and with anti-Semitism (prejudice against Jews) increasing in Germany, especially after the Nazi Party seized power, Einstein left the country. In September 1933, Einstein sailed to the United States to work at the Institute for Advanced Study, an independent community of scholars and scientists doing advanced research and study in Princeton, New Jersey. Princeton would be Einstein’s home for the rest of his life. Einstein died on April 18, 1955. The Behind the Headlines news story and related World Book articles explore Albert Einstein and other scientists.
Words to know:
- Albert Einstein
- Black hole
- E = mc-squared
- Gravitation
- Light
- Photoelectric effect
- Physics
- Princeton University
- Quantum mechanics
- Relativity
- Sir Isaac Newton
Discussion Topics:
1. Ask your students to name some famous scientists. (Students might say George Washington Carver, Nicolaus Copernicus, Marie Curie, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Galileo, Stephen Hawking, Gregor Mendel, Sir Isaac Newton, Louis Pasteur, Carl Sagan, Neil deGrasse Tyson.)
2. Albert Einstein lived much of his life in Germany. Ask your students to name some other famous Germans. (Students might say Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Pope Benedict XVI, Otto von Bismarck, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Johannes Gutenberg, Adolf Hitler, Martin Luther, Karl Marx, Angela Merkel, Richard Wagner.)
3. Ask your students to debate, “Four years of science should be mandatory for all high school students.”
4. Ask your students to use World Book’s Timelines feature to view or add to the Albert Einstein timeline. (Students may wish to use World Book’s Albert Einstein article for help.)