Albert Einstein and the Contemporary Macromolecular Science

IMCH AS CR and Word Year of Physics 2005

From molecular dynamics...

When thinking seriously about Einstein’s impact on macromolecular science, we have to start at the beginning, with his thesis and associated studies of Brownian motion of molecules. It is difficult to imagine today that a not very long time ago the general scepticism about the existence of molecules and their definite size and mass led Boltzmann to the limits of despair. Einstein laid a solid foundation for dynamic measurement of the molecular size and thus enabled people like Staudinger to recognize, a quarter of century later, the existence of macromolecules differing by several orders of magnitude in their mass from the usual molecules. This is commonplace today - but it is not senseless to bear in mind the importance for understanding the ability to discern a grain of simple truth from chimerical though elegant theories and to stick to it; sometimes, it amounts to be a genius.