On this day 106 years ago, the scientific journal Annalen der Physik published in its latest issue a paper entitled Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content? The paper was one of four published during 1905 authored by a patent examiner named Albert Einstein. The other papers related to the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, and special relativity, and all four papers had a profound impact on modern physics.
The paper on the photoelectric effect indicated that energy comes in the form of discrete quanta, and this subsequently led to quantum theory. The paper on Brownian motion provided a substantial contribution to the field of statistical physics. The paper on special relativity showed how mechanics change significantly as motion approaches the speed of light and demonstrated the importance of frames of reference. The paper on inertia and energy content showed the equivalence of matter and energy, E = mc2.
In the course of a single year, 1905, while Einstein was employed full-time as a patent examiner, he managed to complete his PhD thesis and publish four scientific paper which are regarded collectively as making the greatest-ever contribution to scientific advancement by a single person. In 1921 Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for “services to theoretical physics and especially for the discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect”.