By manipulating it with a magnet, you readily conclude the magnet’s orientation determines the needle’s direction. In the case of a compass, disentangling the two is not difficult. It’s nature’s version of nature versus nurture. Nature’s patterns sometimes reflect two intertwined features: fundamental physical laws and environmental influences. The example is simple but the lesson profound. And Earth’s magnetic field happens to point north. When there is a magnetic field in a region, certain metallic objects experience a force that aligns them along the field’s direction, whatever that direction happens to be. I can imagine a young Einstein thinking there must be a general law stipulating that suspended metallic needles are pushed north. By carefully observing patterns, researchers uncover physical laws that can be expressed in the language of mathematical equations.Ī clear pattern is also evident in the case of a compass: Move it and the needle points north again. Increase the volume an object occupies while keeping its mass fixed, and the higher it floats in water. Stretch a spring twice as far, and feel twice the resistance. Science in general, and physics in particular, seek patterns. That experience, Einstein would later say, convinced him that there was a deep hidden order to nature, and impelled him to spend his life trying to reveal it.Īlthough the story is more than a century old, the conundrum young Einstein encountered resonates with a key theme in contemporary physics, one that’s essential to the most important experimental achievement in the field of the last 50 years: the discovery, a year ago this July, of the Higgs boson. The boy was both puzzled and mesmerized by the invisible forces at work, redirecting the compass needle to point north whenever its resting position was disturbed. Below, our science columnist Brian Greene explains the science behind the discovery.Ī famous story in the annals of physics tells of a 5-year-old Albert Einstein, sick in bed, receiving a toy compass from his father. Editor's note: On October 8, 2013, Peter Higgs and Francois Englert won the Nobel Prize in Physics for their work on the Higgs boson.
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