Professor Einstein and the Quantum Mechanics

摘要

A side from being the son of the most famous scientist of the twentieth century, Hans Albert Einstein was a brilliant researcher in his own right. As vividly told in a new biography by Robert Ettema and Cornelia Mutel (ASCE Press, 2104), Einstein applied the latest research on turbulence to the complex problem of sediment resuspension and transport in flowing water bodies. Over the course of a career spanning four decades, he helped transform fluid mechanics from a discipline that relied upon empirical relationships to a modem science in which accurate predictions about complex natural phenomena could be made without resorting to laboratory experimentation. Although Einstein was not particularly interested in contaminants that might be present on those suspended sediments, I believe that his career is instructive to today's environmental chemists.