Games Elementary Particles Play

Abstract

In 1900, after completing his studies at the Federal Polytechnic Institute in Zurich, Albert Einstein applied throughout Europe, without success, for an academic position. He then accepted a modestly remunerated but not very stressful job at the patent office in Bern, which provided a suitable environment for him to think about both the direction of his life and the conundrums of physics. In 1905 he published three papers, each of which solved one of the three fundamental problems of contemporary physics. Each of these papers was worthy of a Nobel Prize, and indeed, in 1921 Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize, not for develo** the theory of Brownian motion nor for his revolutionary special theory of relativity (which even then was still controversial), but for solving the problem of the photoelectric effect. We shall soon look into the essence of this problem.