Einstein and the Atom

Wayne Myrvold (University of Western Ontario), Wayne Myrvold

Einstein’s name is widely associated with the “atom bomb,” via the formula E = MC2. Less widely known is that he played a key role in providing evidence that atoms exist at all. One of Einstein’s early papers was an analysis of Brownian motion, the ceaseless dance of tiny particles, such as pollen grains, suspended in a fluid. The dance of pollen grains, Einstein realized, was evidence that they are being buffeted by smaller particles, beyond microscopic resolution. This talk will be about the ingenuity required to turn the visible into evidence about the invisible.