Dear friend of Arkadia, You are warmly invited to ‘Einstein, wave-particle duality and quantum mechanics’ by physicist Rose Lerner on Tuesday 29.11 at 6pm. Rose Lerner is a physicist, currently working as a researcher at Helsinki University. Her work is mostly on cosmology and the early Universe. This is the 400th event to be hosted by Arkadia International bookshop. Warm regards, Ian www.arkadiabookshop.fi –Entrance is free and green tea will be served. A donation of €2 (or more!)for the event is suggested and would be most welcome! Einstein, wave-particle duality and quantum mechanics by Rose LernerIn 1905, Albert Einstein published three scientific papers which each had a tremendous impact on physics in the subsequent century. These papers were on Brownian motion, special relativity and the photoelectric effect. Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for his explanation of the photoelectric effect. The photoelectric effect was the first example of the wave-particle duality of light. This means that light is both a wave and a particle. The discovery was shocking as it contradicted the ideas of classical physics. It could certainly be argued that this discovery was the birth of quantum theory. A quantum theory is probabilistic – a radical difference from classical theories, which are deterministic. In this talk, I will attempt to explain what the photoelectric effect is, and (more importantly) why it is interesting. We will then talk more about the meaning of wave-particle duality and the beginning of quantum theory. I hope the talk will be understandable by all – it is not necessary to have a scientific background. There should also be plenty of time for questions.