With the sun soon to set on 2005, I cannot resist the temptation of devoting this week’s column to a man, one of my heroes, whose memory was honoured by the United Nations by observing this year as the International Year of Physics. The UN used 2005 as a peg to commemorate 100 years of one of the greatest breakthroughs in the world of science—namely, Albert Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity.Together with his own General Theory of Relativity a decade later, it marked a revolutionary departure from Newtonian physics, changing our understanding of the laws governing physical entities from quanta to the cosmos.Scientists have called 1905 the ‘Miraculous Year’ because Einstein, who was then all of 26 years old, wrote three pathbreaking scientific papers while working in his spare time in a patent office in Switzerland. The miracle mesmerized the world. How can mass and energy be interchanged as per the absurdly simple-sounding equation E=mc2? How can time expand and contract? Can nothing travel faster than the speed of light (186,282 miles per second)? Initially, even scientists couldn’t quite get it. A popular joke in physics is attributed to Britain’s witty physicist Arthur Eddington who, when asked if it was true that only three persons in the world understood Einstein’s theory of relativity, shot back, ‘‘Who is the third person?’’Over the last 100 years, a huge superstructure of technologies—ranging from nuclear energy to space travel; from scanning machines in hospitals to radiocarbon dating used in measuring the antiquity of archeological findings—has been erected over the edifice of Einstein’s discoveries. But as David Hogg, a cosmologist at New York University, has said, ‘‘Einstein’s legacy is also sociological: his equation E = mc2 captured the imagination of everyone.’’ Even ordinary people, who have not studied physics beyond their school years, came to know of E = mc2 and his relativity theory as something ‘‘great and mysterious.’’ It is this sense of awe and thrill about the unknown which creates an aura around science and scientists in the minds of ordinary people.If physics were a marketable product, then the world has not seen a better brand ambassador for it after Newton. Which is what the UN recognized in launching IYP 2005. The idea was not only to honour Einstein, but also to reactivate the global community’s interest in the subject whose frontiers he breathtakingly breached. Strange though it may seem, physics is not getting as much attention as it deserves—either in schools and colleges or in cutting-edge research. Most people think that physics (and its inseparable twin, mathematics) is difficult to understand, what with its abstract ideas and mind-numbing equations. Even as a career prospect, an MSc or PhD in physics or mathematics is not as attractive as an MBA in hotel management. In Europe, the number of physics graduates declined by 15 per cent from 1998 to 2002. In our own country, bright students, in spite of a genuine aptitude for physics or mathematics, do not pursue them for higher studies. Reason: no job prospects. The India Science Report 2005, published by the National Council of Applied Economic Research, has some disturbing findings. 63 per cent of the unemployed postgraduates and 53 per cent of the unemployed diploma holders have studied physics and other science subjects. A fifth of the total science graduates and almost 14 per cent of Ph.Ds are either unemployed or housewives. Many people with scientific qualifications are not engaged in S&T jobs. One hopes that our policy makers take note of NCAER’s findings and recommendations.The Indian Physics Association and the Indian Association of Physics Teachers deserve plaudits for organising yearlong programmes in schools and colleges during IYP 2005. However, our political and governing elite showed little interest in the event, exhibiting appalling apathy and ignorance about the fact that physics holds the key to solving many of the major problems facing the world today, be it energy security, public transport, environment protection or healthcare. Woefully, with the media too ignoring it, IYP 2005 went almost unnoticed beyond the circle of physics enthusiasts. What is as woeful is that we lost an opportunity to popularise Einstein, the man who was much more than a scientist. His concerns went far beyond physics, and embraced the most vital questions before mankind in modern times. His was a powerful voice for world peace and international cooperation. He believed that ‘‘concern for man himself must always constitute the chief objective of all technological effort, so that the results of our scientific thinking may be a blessing to mankind, and not a curse.’’ Not many know that Einstein was an ardent votary of socialism, though not of the communist variety. In a brilliant and courageous essay ‘‘Why Socialism?’’ in 1949, he wrote: ‘‘I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate the grave evils created by the anarchy of capitalism—namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. Socialism is directed towards a social-ethical end. Science cannot create ends; science, at most, can supply the means by which to attain certain ends. But the ends themselves are conceived by personalities with lofty ethical ideals.’’Postscript: India’s joining the ambitious multi-country International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) energy project (also known as the ‘Fusion Project’ to build ‘a star on Earth’) last week is wonderful news to round off IYP 2005 with. Estimated to cost about 10 billion Euros (Rs 55,000 crore), ITER, an application of Einstein’s theory of relativity, aims to produce clean nuclear energy equivalent to that of the Sun.
