M.I.T. Professor David Kaiser to Lecture on Einstein's Legacy

The United Nations has declared 2005 the "World Year of Physics" to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Albert Einstein's scientific breakthrough year. This talk examines some of Einstein's later work: his theory of gravity, known as general relativity, arguably his most important scientific legacy. Einstein's beautiful theory, completed in 1915, was born in a time of war, which shaped how other physicists and astronomers came to learn about it. Over the course of the 20th century, the fortunes of general relativity continued to be shaped by worldly matters: first by Einstein's Nazi detractors, later by a new generation of American physicists immersed in the Cold War. Rather than remaining an ivory-tower curiosity, Einstein's work evolved in lockstep with some of the most dramatic developments of the 20th century.