Y. S. Kim's Einstein Page


Einstein formulated his special relativity in 1905. One hundred years later, in 2005, he came back to me and asked me what I have done to make him happy. I told him I constructed this website for him, and I obtained the following research results for him.

  1. Einstein developed his relativistic dynamics for point particles. However, what happens when the particle has internal space-time degrees of freedom or an internal space-time extension? His energy-momentum relation, known as E = mc2 , seems to work for all particles. Can then his special relativity explain the internal space-time symmetry and space-time extension? This has been and still is my main subject of interest. Click here for details.

    These days, some people say that we need a new Einstein (Einstein of the 21st-century) to solve the the mystery inside the relativistic extended particles. I do not agree with them. I like the original Einstein, and he prevails both in and outside the relativistic particle.

    The most important addition to special relativity in the 20th Century was of course quantum mechanics based on

    Wave-particle Duality.

  2. When Isaac Newton formulated his physical laws, he had to invent a new mathematics now called calculus. Not only in mechanics, calculus is the indispensable mathematical tool for all branches of science. When Einstein formulated relativity, he needed a new mathematics now called the Lorentz group. Thus, it is not crazy to expect that the Lorentz group is applicable to branches of physics other than relativity.

    It is remarkable that classical ray optics, as well as quantum optics, can be formulated in terms of the Lorentz group. Special relativity explains what happens in optics, and optics can provide analog computers for special relativity. Click here for some of the recent results on this subject.

Einstein would be very happy to read this webpage, because he learned Lorentz transformations not through his relativistic dynamics, but from the transformation laws governing electromagnetic potentials and electromagnetic fields. Indeed, the Lorentz covariance of Maxwell's equations led him to complete the covariant formulation relativistic dynamics, hence to E = mc2 .

Click here for more about Einstein.

Einstein photo from the "Six Einstein Cards" (Dover 1993) purchased from the Historical Society of Princeton (Princeton, New Jersey, U.S.A.)