Einstein as armchair detective: The case of stimulated radiation

Abstract

Einstein was in many ways like a detective on a mystery trail, though in his case he was on the trail of nature's mysteries and not some murder mystery! And like all good detectives he had a style. It consisted of taking facts that he knew were correct and forcing nature into a situation that would contradict this established truth. In this process she would be forced to reveal some new truths. Einstein's 1917 paper on the quantum theory of radiation is a classic example of this style and enabled him to predict the existence of stimulated radiation starting from an analysis of thermodynamic equilibrium between matter and radiation.