Einstein's Universe via Art
Abraham Tamir, Department of Chemical Engineering, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel.
Fax: +972-7-647-2916. E-mail: atamir@bgumail.bgu.ac.il

Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, Germany, on March 14, 1879, and died on April 18, 1955, in Princeton, USA. Many of his teachers thought he was a slow learner, partly because he could not talk until the age of 3. However, when Einstein was just 12 years old, he asked his teacher what would he look like through a mirror he was carrying if he traveled at the speed of light - a nice story showing how Einstein came up with his Special Theory of Relativity in 1905. In 1917 he suggested his General Relativity, which was the first major new theory of gravity since Newton, postulated more than 250 years before.
The essence of Einstein's world lies in the concept of relativity. He described it once in the following way: "When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes. When you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it seems like two hours; that's relativity he said." Einstein also boldly stated that there are no absolute quantities, that the magnitude of quantities depends on the relative velocity between an object and the observer, and that every event and measurement is viewed differently depending on the observer's velocity. However, the only measurement that remains constant is the speed of light C in vacuum. The astounding results of his Theory of Special Relativity indicated the following. If an object neared the speed of light: 1) it would appear shorter, while appearing of zero length at the speed of light; 2) the passage of time for the object would appear to be slower than what we would see; time becomes infinite slow if the object moves at the speed of light with respect to an observer; 3) as the object gets nearer and nearer to the speed of light it begins to gain energy and, therefore, mass. If it ever got to the light speed it would have an infinite mass (and energy). All these statements are demonstrated through art by the paintings on the back page.
Rene Magritte (1898-1967), a Belgian, one of the most important surrealist artists contributes unknowingly three paintings to our subject. That a traveler moving at the speed of light becomes totally flattened, so that his face could be seen in the rear of his skull, can be demonstrated in Magritte's playful painting "The House of Glass"(1939), left top. At first glance the painting creates ambiguity in the observer, however, once he relates it to Einstein's relativity, it may be considered very plausible.
"The Listening Room"(1952), left bottom, shows how the size of the apple in relation to the room can create a sensation that at the speed of light the mass of the apple approaches infinity as predicted by the theory.
"The Persistence of Memory" (1931), left middle, by Salvador Dali, (1904-1989), born in Spain and one of the most controversial and paradoxical surrealist artists of the 20th century, demonstrates the stretch ability of time. In this picture the remains and super-softness of a Camembert cheese he saw after dinner when he stayed at home with migraine inspired him to paint the extraordinary soft watches. The softness of the watches in the painting creates a sensation of stretching of time and consequently, a time interval of, say, one second, will extend to infinity if an identical watch would have been be traveling at the speed of light. At this point, it is interesting to mention that Einstein was not the first one to point out that a time interval does not remain always constant. Already in Genesis 29:19-21 the following is emphasized: "So Jacob served seven years to get Rachel, but they seemed like only a few days for him because of his love for her."
Other aspects of Einstein's world demonstrated by art are the following ones. Magritte's picture on the bottom right, "The Pleasure Principle" (1937) may describe two scientific subjects related to Einstein's universe, whereas people will also tell you that it reminds them so much Einstein's image. The first subject is Einstein's energy-mass equivalence where mass is transformed into energy by explosion according to E = mC2, like an atomic bomb. According to Einstein, mass is concentrated energy, simulated by the person's body in the painting, where energy is dispersed mass, like his face. The second subject in the picture may demonstrate, noting in it an explosion effect, the creation of the universe by a Big Bang. According to accepted theories, it all began with a dramatic Big Bang self-explosion, which happened about 15 milliard years ago. The story behind the "The Pleasure Principle" is that while working on the portrait of his friend, Edward James, after a photograph by Man Ray, Magritte substituted the explosion of light produced by a camera flash device for the face of his model.
The key idea of Einstein's General Relativity, called the Equivalence Principle, is that gravity pulling in one direction is completely equivalent to acceleration in the opposite direction. Einstein also visualized that if one travels in a satellite moving at a constant speed far from the influence of gravity, he would hover freely. Moreover, in such a satellite there is no "upwards" or "downwards". This situation is demonstrated in the painting, right middle, of Stella Zak, born in Ukraine and presently living and working in Israel. Stella specialized herself in painting Albert Einstein shown here hovering and demonstrating the absence of "upwards" or "downwards".
A black hole is one of the construction elements of the universe possessing a gravitational field so intense that no matter can escape from it, as well as light. Thus, we cannot see it. Einstein's general theory of relativity made black holes more possible and understandable. Scientists think that deep inside the black hole we would come to its center, called the singularity, where all things disappear from our universe. However, on the basis of a theoretical hypothesis there is a possibility that a thing will escape from the singularity and will fall through a wormhole and get out through a white hole. Hieronymus Bosch (c.1450-1516), a Netherlands painter, was probably the first who's painting "Hell", right top, demonstrates the black hole and the white hole. The latter is a through out way, and follows the black hole that surrounds it.
In conclusion, we see how art may serve to make Einstein's scientific ideas, which are frequently beyond human conception, more perceptible.