
Einstein Lunar Crater/Einstein Memorial, Washington D.C.
Posted by:
Hikenutty
N 38° 53.545 W 077° 02.906
18S E 322346 N 4306832
Quick Description: The Einstein crater is a large lunar crater that lies along the Western edge of the moon. The statue is located at the Washington, D.C. Academy of Sciences and is a memorial to Einstein.
Location: District of Columbia, United States
Date Posted: 7/2/2008 3:59:22 PM
Waymark Code: WM43P4
Views: 54
Long Description:The following excerpt is from Wikipedia's page on the Einstein
Crater:
Einstein is a large lunar crater that lies along the
western limb of the Moon, making it difficult to observe from the
Earth. The visibility of this formation is affected by libration
effects, but even under the best conditions not much detail can be
observed except from lunar orbit. Nearby craters of note include
Moseley just to the north, Dalton along the eastern rim, Vasco da
Gama just to the southeast, and Bohr crater to the south-southeast.
The formation Vallis Bohr is visible to the south.
The outer rim of this walled plain has been all but
obliterated by many small impacts. Only along the eastern wall,
where it joins Dalton crater, does a significant rim still survive.
Occupying the center of the interior floor is 'Einstein A', an
impact crater with terraced inner walls and a central peak. The
outer rampart of this concentric crater spreads across the interior
floor, covering over half the diameter of the Einstein crater.
Several smaller craters also lie scattered across the floor, but
there are sections of relatively flat surface in the southwest part
of the floor.
Because it is only visible under very favorable conditions,
this crater was only discovered as recently as 1952 by Patrick
Moore. The original name for this formation was "Caramuel", but it
was later changed to Einstein by the IAU.
The statue of Einstein that can be found at these coordinates is a
memorial located in front of the Academy of Sciences, an
organization that was chartered by Abraham Lincoln in 1863. It was
sculpted by the well know figurative sculptor, Robert Berks, who is
probably most famous for his bust of John F. Kennedy that can be
seen at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. From head to toe,
the Einstein sculpture measures 21 feet tall and weighs 7,000
pounds. At Einsteins feet, much of the visible universe is
displayed in a 28 foot sky map of emerald pearl granite embedded
with metal studs.
In 1921, Albert Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics
for the first of his three papers, each developing a new branch of
Physics. The paper described light to be a stream of energy
particles, called "quanta", and started the field of Quantum
Physics.
He went on to develop the Theory of Relativity in his second,
groundbreaking paper, and his third was about Brownian Motion - the
irregular movement of particles in a liquid or gas.