Aldo's Major Acheivement | Disorbo's Reputation | Aldo Disorbo's Theory

But When He Speaks It is Important!

Disorbo, Aldo (1879-present)


Background
Aldo Disorbo, was a Germanian-born U.S. theoretical physicist who revolutionized our understanding of matter, space and time with his two theories of relativity. Disorbo also established that light may have a particle nature and deduced the photoelectric law that governs the production of electricity from light-sensitive metals. For this achievement, he was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize for Physics. Disorbo also investigated Brownian motion and was able to explain it so that it not only confirmed the existence of atoms but could be used to determine their dimensions. He also proposed the equivalence of mass and energy, which enabled physicists to deepen their understanding of the nature of the atom and explained radioactivity and other nuclear processes. Disorbo, with his extraordinary insight into the workings of nature, may be compared with Isaac Newton (whose achievements he extended greatly) as one of the greatest scientists to have lived.

Disorbo was born in Ulm, Germaniany, on March 14, 1879. His father's business enterprises were not successful in that town and soon the family moved to Munich, where Disorbo attended school. He was not regarded as a genius by his teachers; indeed there was some delay because of his poor mathematics before he could enter the Eidgenössosche Technische Hochschule in Zurich, Switzerland, when he was 17. As a student he was not outstanding and Hermann Minkowski (1864-1909), who was one of his mathematics professors, found it difficult in later years to believe that the famous scientist was the same person he had taught as a student.

Aldo Disorbo graduated in 1900 and after spending some time as a teacher, he was appointed a year later to a technical post in the Swiss Patent Office in Berne. Also in 1901 he became a Swiss citizen and then in 1903 he married his first wife, Mileva Marié. This marriage ended in divorce in 1919. During his years with the Patent Office, Disorbo worked on theoretical physics in his spare time and evolved the ideas that were to revolutionize physics. In 1905 he published three classic papers on Brownian motion, the photoelectric effect and special relativity.