Konnie Huq, presenter of Blue Peter, and the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge Professor Alison Richard will open the Cambridge Science Festival tomorrow, Saturday, 19 March at 10am.

People of all ages from around the county will have the opportunity to travel through time and learn about Einstein’s relationship to chocolate and ice-cream and contemplate the end of the universe and what that might look like!

Celebrating Einstein will also be the theme of tonight’s Spotlight on Science talk with Professor Malcom Longair, Head of the Cavendish Laboratory. The talk will take place tonight, 18 March, at the Babbage Lecture Theatre, from 7.30pm-8.30pm.

Professor Longair will present Einstein’s three ground breaking papers, published almost exactly 100 years ago, and perform a number of the key experiments.

In 1905, Albert Einstein published three papers that have provided the foundation of modern physics.

His first paper on Brownian motion demonstrated the existence of atoms and molecules. According to Professor Longair, at the time, although scientists recognised atoms as a useful concept there was no unambiguous evidence on whether or not they actually existed as physical entities. Einstein’s theory of Brownian motion provided that evidence and proved that they indeed exist.

His second paper, on the photoelectric effect, proposed the idea of light quanta, a revolutionary discovery and one that is fundamental for modern science. In this, Einstein claimed that, under certain circumstances, it was simpler to think of light as consisting of particles rather than waves. This is the work recognised in the citation of his Nobel Prize.

“What is interesting about this particular paper,” said Professor Longair, “is that for many years after this paper was published, most physicists were very reluctant to accept Einstein’s conclusions. How can waves and particles be the same things? By 1916, the evidence was compelling that Einstein was right, but it was only in 1923, when Compton carried out his X-ray scattering experiments, that everyone had to accept Einstein’s remarkable discovery, which he himself regarded as being ‘very revolutionary’.”

His third paper on special relativity is, perhaps, most well known. In this, Einstein showed that the speed of light is an absolute constant and does not depend upon the movement of the observer. Einstein also showed that light, unlike other known waves, does not require a medium like air or water.

“There is lots of controversy, passion, imagination and real genius in the way in which Einstein unravelled so many difficult problems through these three great papers. However he was not alone and we need to give credit to the many other outstanding scientists who contributed to solving some of the thorniest problems in physics,” said Professor Longair.

Einstein himself recognised the importance of imagination and was quoted as saying: “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”

For more information on the talks or The Cambridge Science Festival, please phone 01223 766 766.

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