Einstein was a Dyslexic Genius

Via Sassy Lawyer and bits of chocolate we find that Einstein was dyslexic, as was also Leonardo da Vinci.

For more information on Dyslexia, see LexiLine.org.

A historical view of the Pharaohs as Dyslexics, based on their hieroglyphic script, is found here.

Einstein is in good company.
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NASA Gravity Probe-B and Einstein's General Theory of Relativity

Via the Stanford Newsletter, we are directed to Bog Kahn's article
"Gravity Probe-B data collection ends: Was Einstein correct?" about a currently ongoing experimental test of Einstein's postulated general theory of relativity, which Kahn calls "our current theory of gravity".

As Kahn writes:

"For the past 17 months, NASA's Gravity Probe-B (GP-B) satellite has been orbiting the Earth using four ultra-precise gyroscopes, about a million times better than the finest navigational gyroscopes, to generate the data required for this unprecedented test....

This year, physicists celebrate the 100th anniversary of Einstein's "miraculous year," in which he received his doctorate in physics from the University of Zurich and published four seminal papers, including the special theory of relativity and a paper on light that garnered him the Nobel Prize in 1921. But Einstein's crowning achievement came in 1916, with his publication of the general theory of relativity, in which he expanded the special theory of relativity to include the elusive concept of gravity. With general relativity, Einstein forever changed our Newtonian view of gravity as a force, postulating rather that space and time are inextricably woven into a four-dimensional fabric called spacetime, and that gravity is simply the warping and twisting of the fabric of spacetime by massive celestial bodies. Even though it has become one of the cornerstones of modern physics, general relativity has remained the least tested of Einstein's theories. The reason is, as Caltech physicist Kip Thorne once put it: "In the realm of black holes and the universe, the language of general relativity is spoken, and it is spoken loudly. But in our tiny solar system, the effects of general relativity are but whispers." And so, any measurements of the relativistic effects of gravity around Earth must be carried out with utmost precision. Over the past 90 years, various tests of the theory suggest that Einstein was on the right track. But, in most previous tests, the relativity signals had to be extracted from a significant level of background noise. The purpose of GP-B is to test Einstein's theory by carrying out the experiment in a pristine orbiting laboratory, thereby reducing background noise to insignificant levels and enabling the probe to examine general relativity in new ways."

Read Kahn's article for the full scoop.

Einstein on Edge

The Reality Club at Edge (Edge 170) has a special article on Einstein.

It is the story of E = mc².
by Brian Greene, which first appeared as a NY Times Op-Ed on September 30, 2005.

Greene titles it That Famous Equation and You. It is a great read.

E=energy
m=mass
c²=velocity of light squared

Here is a short excerpt from Greene to give you a taste for the entire article:

"Mass and energy are not distinct. They are the same basic stuff packaged in forms that make them appear different. Just as solid ice can melt into liquid water, Einstein showed, mass is a frozen form of energy that can be converted into the more familiar energy of motion. The amount of energy (E) produced by the conversion is given by his formula: multiply the amount of mass converted (m) by the speed of light squared (c²). Since the speed of light is a few hundred million meters per second (fast enough to travel around the earth seven times in a single second), c² , in these familiar units, is a huge number, about 100,000,000,000,000,000.

A little bit of mass can thus yield enormous energy. The destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was fueled by converting less than an ounce of matter into energy; the energy consumed by New York City in a month is less than that contained in the newspaper you're holding."

Think about it. It is astounding.
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