Einstein manuscript found
30 Aug 2005 by Evoluted New Media
The original manuscript of a paper Albert Einstein published in 1925 has been found in the archives of the Lorentz Institute for Theoretical Physics in the Netherlands
The original manuscript of a paper Albert Einstein published in 1925 has been found in the archives of the Lorentz Institute for Theoretical Physics in the Netherlands.
The handwritten manuscript titled “Quantum theory of the monatomic ideal gas” is considered one of Einstein's last great breakthroughs. It was published in the proceedings of the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin in January 1925.
The paper predicted that at temperatures near absolute zero – around 273 degrees Celsius below zero - particles in a gas can reach a state of such low energy that they clump together in one larger mono-atom.
The idea was developed in collaboration with Indian physicist Satyendra Nath Bose and the then theoretical state of matter was dubbed a Bose-Einstein condensation.
The observation of this state in 1995 using a gas of the element rubidium won Eric Cornell and Carl Wiemann the Nobel Prize for physics in 2001, along with Wolfgang Ketterle.
The manuscript was found by a Rowdy Boeyink, a master’s student, while searching the archives at the institute. He also found other important documents, including a letter from Danish physicist Niels Bohr, and is said to be confident of receiving top marks in his thesis.
