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Celebrations of the 100th anniversary of Einstein's Theory of Relativity will be given an added twist when a light beamed halfway across the world will shine on the controversy-prone Dokdo Islets.
North Gyeongsang Province and Pohang City announced Thursday the rocks in the East Sea lie in the path of the ¡°Light of Einstein¡± that will girdle the globe on April 19 at 8:00 p.m.
The light will travel from Princeton University in the United States, where Einstein found refuge from Nazi Germany, to the West Coast by a relay of flash lamps and headlights. Captured on a web camera in a coastal village, electric signboards will light up in Busan, Korea, when the light will be transformed into electromagnetic wave signals in Pohang to arrive on the Dokdo Islets. There they will be converted to light again, while illuminated fishing vessels will swarm the water around the islets. From there the light will be transmitted to Pohang.
¡°In order to help the light travel, we are going to register the location of Dokdo based on the global positioning system (GPS) at the headquarters of the festival organization agency,¡± said Kim Seung-hwan, professor of Pohang University of Science and Technology and organizer of the Dokdo light festival.
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The path of the ¡°Light of Einstein"
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Light is at the heart of Albert Einstein¡¯s relativity theory. The great scientist was studying what would happen if an object traveled at the speed of light, announcing in 1905 the Special Theory of Relativity that was to transform physics.
In Korea, where the light will stay for an hour, it will travel two different routes from Busan to Pohang, Dokdo, Pohang, Daegu, Daejon, Seoul and to Gwangju, Jeonju, Daejeon and Seoul. Members of the Korean Physics Society and professional mountaineers will relay the lights by halogen flash lamps at 40 mountainous locations.
Then, in the form of a picture taken by a digital camera, the light will travel on via Internet to China.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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