The Einstein solid is a model of a solid based on two assumptions:
- Each atom in the lattice is an independent 3D quantum harmonic oscillator
- All atoms oscillate with the same frequency (contrast with the Debye model)
While the assumption that a solid has independent oscillations is very accurate, these oscillations are sound waves or phonons, collective modes involving many atoms. In the Einstein model, each atom oscillates independently. Einstein was aware that getting the frequency of the actual oscillations would be different, but he nevertheless proposed this theory because it was a particularly clear demonstration that quantum mechanics could solve the specific heat problem in classical mechanics.
Read more about Einstein Solid: Historical Impact, Heat Capacity (microcanonical Ensemble), Heat Capacity (canonical Ensemble)
Famous quotes containing the words einstein and/or solid:
“When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That’s relativity.”
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955)
“Now, we deny not, but that politicians may sometimes abuse religion, and make it serve for the promoting of their own private interests and designs; which yet they could not do so well neither, were the thing itself a mere cheat and figment of their own, and had no reality at all in nature, nor anything solid at the bottom of it.”
—Ralph J. Cudworth (1617–1688)