Word: einsteins
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Einstein's solution of this dilemma was characteristically bold. "Light," he said, "is both corpuscles and waves." A light ray is a shower of energy particles called "photons" whose energy increases with the wave frequency of the light...
Photons and Quanta. In that same year, 1905, Einstein advanced another theory which many historians of science consider even more important than Relativity. The ether was gone, and although Relativity established the velocity of light as the firmest figure in the universe, it did not supply any medium to carry the waves of light...
Gravitation and Starlight. "Special Relativity," though it stood many rigorous tests, was not accepted at once. For ten years Einstein worked, extending his theory to cover more varied "frames of reference." In 1915, he published his "General Relativity." It explained the force of gravitation itself, which Newton had merely pointed...
Here was a chance for a final, convincing test. According to Einstein, light carried energy. Therefore it had mass. Therefore rays of light from a star should be bent by a definite amount when they passed through the strong gravitational field near the sun. A convenient solar eclipse provided the opportunity to test the theory. Star images near the rim of the blacked-out sun were displaced by almost exactly the amount which Einstein predicted, proving that their rays had been bent...
From that day, Relativity was the basic law of the universe. Einstein's photons, too, grew into the head-splitting Quantum Mechanics, which teaches that all matter is nothing but waves, crossing and interacting! Little by little, both theories have worked their way into nearly all branches of science...