Dr Faustus of Modern Physics - Department of Speech, Music and ...

186 CHAPTER 40. NOBEL PRIZE: EINSTEIN + BOHR
Gullstrand thus had demolished Einstein’s relativity theory and Einstein’s 1905
work on the photoelectric effect was by Arrhenius put into perspective as follows:
• It cannot be denied that Einstein’s idea (the law of the photoelectric effect)
was a stroke of genius. However, it was natural and lay close to hand after
the results of Leonard’s, J-J- Thompson’s and Planck’s great contributions.
When it was formulated it was only a tentatively poorly developed hunch,
based on qualitative and partially correct observations. It would look peculiar
if a prize was awarded to this particular work.
The negative attitude to Einstein changed with the report by the new member
of the Committee Oseen entitled Einstein’s law of the photoelectric effect plus a
second report that also landed Bohr a prize [1]:
• Convincing the other three members that Einstein’s “law” was a fundamental
law of Nature . and that Bohr’s atomic theory directly rested on it, he
managed to pilot the two cases through unproven waters into a new and safe
harbor where fundamental laws and constants still counted as benchmarks.
• It was formally decided that an official clarification should be inserted into
Einstein’s diploma saying that the prize had nothing to do with either of the
man’s theories of relativity.
In his report to the committee Oseen argues as follows:
• The one who pulled the theory of heat radiation out of that isolation (blackbody
radiation), the first one to show that the magnitude of (Planck’s constant)
h has a radical significance for the whole of atomic physics, is Einstein.
• This, the very first of his contributions to quantum theory is the one that
reaches deepest, his proposition that the emission and absorption of light
occurs in such a way that light quanta with energy hν are emitted and absorbed.
The law of the photoelectric effect was an immediate application of
this proposition...an analysis which in its originality and penetrating mind
has few equals in theoretical physics.
• The validity of Einstein’s original proposition regarding the quantum character
of absorption and emission of light (at its microphysical interface with
matter) quantitatively expressed in his law of the photoelectric effect was one
of the prerequisite conditions on which Bohr built his atomic theory. Almost
all confirmations of Bohr’s theory and with it all spectroscopic confirmations
are at the same time confirmation’s of Einstein’s law.