100 Years of Special Relativity

phrotoma writes "Wikipedia notes in their Selected Anniversaries section that today marks the 100th anniversary of Albert Eintein's publication of the third of his four Annus Mirabilis Papers entitled On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies; the seminal work that introduced the concepts which would come to be known as Special Relativity. This event is also being commemorated in a UN endorsed celebration of physics: World Physics Year 2005 with talks and events at public schools, museums, and universities the world over."

Comments

Three cheers for the public domain.

[Anonymous Coward]

And just think -- under today's copyright laws of life+70, these papers would still be under copyright until 2025. Wikipedia is able to publish these today because copyright law was more sane a century ago.

I am sorry, nothing deserves 120 years of copyright protection. I doubt almost anything needs even 28 years. I weep for those who will be looking back 100 years from now.

This is just one third of the World Year

[hubie]

The World Year of Physics is celebrating the year that Einstein put out three of his best papers: Special Relativity, brownian motion, and the photoelectric effect. In addition to the importance of relativity, he also confirmed the existence of atoms with the brownian motion paper, and the existence of quantized energy with the photoelectric effect.

That was one hell of a year. Any one of those would have established his reputation, but all three, and in the same year!!

Re:Einstein's centenary - big in the UK

[rumblin'rabbit]

Einstein fled Germany in 1933 when fascism and anti-semitism become intolerable. Indeed, Einstein may have died in a concentration camp had he stayed. Thus Germany's handling of one of the great scientists of all time is not a proud one.

Perhaps that is why they are hesitant. Brings up bad memories.