Happy Birthday: Albert Einstein (14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum theory. His mass–energy equivalence formula E = mc2, which arises from special relativity, has been called "the world's most famous equation". He received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics for "his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect".

Born in the German Empire, Einstein moved to Switzerland in 1895, forsaking his German citizenship the following year. In 1897, at the age of seventeen, he enrolled in the mathematics and physics teaching diploma program at the Swiss federal polytechnic school in Zurich, graduating in 1900. He acquired Swiss citizenship a year later, which he kept for the rest of his life, and afterwards secured a permanent position at the Swiss Patent Office in Bern. In 1905, he submitted a successful PhD dissertation to the University of Zurich. In 1914, he moved to Berlin to join the Prussian Academy of Sciences and the Humboldt University of Berlin, becoming director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics in 1917; he also became a German citizen again. In 1933, while Einstein was visiting the United States, Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany. Horrified by the Nazi persecution of his fellow Jews, he decided to remain in the US, and was granted American citizenship in 1940. On the eve of World War II, he endorsed a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt alerting him to the potential German nuclear weapons program and recommending that the US begin similar research, later carried out as the Manhattan Project.

In 1905, sometimes described as his annus mirabilis (miracle year), he published four groundbreaking papers. In them, he outlined a theory of the photoelectric effect, explained Brownian motion, introduced his special theory of relativity, and demonstrated that if the special theory is correct, mass and energy are equivalent to each other. In 1915, he proposed a general theory of relativity that extended his system of mechanics to incorporate gravitation. A paper that he published the following year laid out the implications of general relativity for the modeling of the structure and evolution of the universe as a whole. It introduced the cosmological constant and is further regarded as the first step in the field of modern theoretical cosmology. In 1917, Einstein wrote a paper which introduced the concepts of spontaneous emission and stimulated emission, the latter of which is the core mechanism behind the laser and maser, and which contained a trove of information that would be beneficial to developments in physics later on, such as quantum electrodynamics and quantum optics.

In the middle part of his career, Einstein made important contributions to statistical mechanics and quantum theory. Especially notable was his work on the quantum physics of radiation, in which light consists of particles, subsequently called photons. With physicist Satyendra Nath Bose, he laid the groundwork for Bose–Einstein statistics. For much of the last phase of his academic life, Einstein worked on two endeavors that ultimately proved unsuccessful. First, he advocated against quantum theory's introduction of fundamental randomness into science's picture of the world, objecting that "God does not play dice". Second, he attempted to devise a unified field theory by generalizing his geometric theory of gravitation to include electromagnetism. As a result, he became increasingly isolated from mainstream modern physics. Many things are named after him, including the element Einsteinium. In 1999, he was named Time's Person of the Century.

Just Finished Reading: Witchcraft – A History by P G Maxwell-Stuart (FP: 2000) [150pp] 

Witchcraft and the witches who perform it have been around for a very long time. They were written about in Antiquity and, no doubt, existed long before the written word. So why is it that the European witch ‘craze’ and the trials that followed suddenly explode in the Late Medieval/Early Modern Period? It's a very good question and the lack of a glib answer impressed me. 

As with most cultural phenomena, the ideas circulating around witchcraft are complex. The turn against the practice has no easy answer. No doubt the turmoil of the period heated up any witch hunting – we are notorious for our scapegoats after all – but it was more than that. Extra complexity is provided by the fact that not all countries, or regions within a country, or towns within a region responded to the ‘problem’ in the same way. There was a similar diversity of opinion both between and within Catholic and Protestant beliefs after the Great Schism. An equally complex and rather mysterious question is why the craze for witch trials passed into history after around 150 years of periods of panic and recovery. Was it the growing so-called Enlightenment which resulted in a feeling of scepticism sweeping across Europe? Was it growing prosperity or a feeling of being more in control? Was it growing literacy and a more general understanding of how things worked without the need to conceive of magic or supernatural interventions? The author was brave enough to leave the answer largely unconfirmed. Both the origins and demise of the witch panic in Europe are complicated, diverse and unconfirmed. 

Magic, in its MANY forms, has existed for as long as humanity itself. It did not emerge in the late Middle Ages, nor did it vanish with the coming of the Enlightenment and the Modern age. Magic, and indeed witchcraft, is still practiced today all across the world. Even so-called ‘normal’ people cross their fingers, throw salt over their left shoulder, avoid cracks in the pavement and a thousand other things that humans have been doing to ward off ‘bad luck’ or evil spirits all across the globe. Nothing has really changed. Modern witchcraft, often referred to as Wicca, is a booming business with books, websites, conferences, equipment and consumables available at the touch of a button. Without an overarching belief system or dogma witches, in groups or solitary, can create a system that fulfils their needs and craft both spells and ceremonies that works for them. Defining a witch today is no easy task!  

I picked up this slim hardback book decades ago and have only just plucked it off my shelves. I was impressed by the author’s even handedness as well as his clear acknowledgement that the subject is complex and that research into it is far from complete. It was both a useful refresher for me and a prompt to read further into this fascinating subject. Recommended and much more to come.

"Cartography is another name for stories told by winners."

Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees.

Just Finished Reading: American Cultural History – A Very Short Introduction by Eric Avila (FP: 2018) [126pp] 

American culture has dominated the world throughout most of the 20th century and beyond with movies, music and other media being instantly recognisable in country after country despite cultural and language barriers. Part of the reason for such a wide appeal has been the cultural melting pot in the US itself aided by the original mix of cultures from England, Spain and France as well as local Native culture and the, no doubt unintentional, importation of African culture from the slave population. 

With the arrival of newspapers, the railroads and increased immigration the culture of America both exploded and diversified across the continent along with the waves of migration westwards supported by ideas of ‘Manifest Destiny’ and the idea of the Frontier. The following ‘Gilded Age’, fuelled in no small part by the philanthropy of Robber Barons resulted in some of the iconic architecture still standing today as well as the rise of advertising, magazine culture and lavish events such as World’s Fairs.  

The post-WW2 suburbanization of American culture produced Film Noir, TV and Disney. But it also produced The Twilight Zone and the House Committee on Un-American Activities and shopping malls – to say nothing of Motown music and Las Vegas gambling.  

Covering this and much else – I don’t intend to precis the entire (if short) book – this is a fast, high-level and broad brush look at American culture from its earliest days to the edge of the 21st century. For those paying attention I don’t think you’ll learn much new here. We’ve been drowning in American culture, from Coca-Cola to Hollywood blockbusters for generations now. But this does provide some structure to the outpouring and, as is often the case, a more than decent Bibliography to dig deeper into the subject if so desired. As both a long-time fan, and long-time critic, of American culture I shall be doing just that. More to come. Reasonable.