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The President Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam will release a Special Definitive Stamp to mark the hundred years of the turning point in Physics, here tomorrow. It was in the year 1905, often referred to as the ‘Miracle Year’, in which five papers on three major subjects by Albert Einstein on Special Theory of Relativity, Photoelectric Effect and Brownian Motion were published. These papers, published a century ago, changed our fundamental understanding of nature. In celebration of the centenary of these papers, the year 2005 has been declared as the World or International Year of Physics. The Definitive Stamp, brought out by the Department of Posts in the denomination of rupees five is ninth in the Definitive Series.
The three great pieces of work radically changed our views about the working of nature. Together they established the existence of atoms, of photons as packets of energy and proved that Newton’s mechanics is only an approximation on the working of nature. The total effect of these pieces of work subsequently led to the quantum theory that explained how matter is stable. The theory of Brownian Motion is now routinely used to understand natural processes including the manner in which liquid and solid particles mix with each other. Understanding Brownian Motion is vital to everything from cell function to traffic flow, from models of ecologies to stock market.
Now it is known to the entire world that in one single year i.e. 1905, Einstein changed our understanding of the fundamental laws of nature completely and even a hundred years later, we are still striving to grasp all the deep meanings of his work.
RM/AMA- 290305 Definitive Stamp
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