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In 1905, Albert Einstein published a series of papers
在1905年，阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦发表了一系列论文，
that many consider a starting point for the modern age of physics.
被公认为是物理新时代的开端。
But other than "E equals m c squared", most people only know that Einstein was famous, not for what he was famous.
但是除了“E=mc2”，大多数人都只知道爱因斯坦很著名，却并不知道他因何而著名。
Since this week marks the 133rd anniversary of his birth,
这周恰好是爱因斯坦的133个诞辰，
as is customary in western traditions we will celebrate by taking a brief tour of his scientific publications.
按照西方的惯例，我们来回顾一下他的科学成就，以此纪念这位伟人。
Today, his paper from March, 1905 on why light is a particle.
今天的内容是他在1905年3月发表的关于光为什么是粒子的论文。
Einstein didn't just pull this idea out of thin air –
爱因斯坦并非凭空想出了这么一个观点，
he first noted that the light emitted from something hot (like a lightbulb filament), actually has the same energy distribution as a gas,
他首先注意到从一个热的物体中发出的光（比如灯泡）带有类似于气体的能量，
which is somewhat surprising if you're a nineteenth century physicist
这对于19世纪的物理学家来说简直不可理喻，
who thinks that light is a continuous wave and very much not a gas composed of individual molecules.
他们觉得光是一种波，与由单一的分子构成的气体全然不同。
And while the idea that "light behaves kind of like a gas" was already well known before Einstein,
虽然“光的性状有点类似气体”的观点在爱因斯坦之前已经十分著名，
no one had taken the logical but crazy next step to conclude that
但没有人敢于得出一个合乎逻辑而疯狂的结论：
light must then be made of individual particles, too!
光也由粒子构成。
So Einstein proposed that these "light-quanta" were in fact real particles
因此爱因斯坦认为这些“光子”真实存在，
that could account for a few recent and unexplained experiments
并可以用于解释一些最近的奇怪的实验。
having to do with knocking electrons off of metals or gas molecules.
比如，光能把金属或气体分子表面的电子撞下来。
He turned out to be right on all counts and got a nobel prize for his work…
他的结论是正确的，因而得到了一个崇高的奖励。
but that's a story for another day.
至于这个故事，我们下次再讲。
