It is not everyday that great theories are created by people working as a clerk at a patent office. But then Albert Einstein was not your everyday person either. You know the guy who came up with the theory of relativity. But it was not all that he contributed to physics. It was on this day back in 1908, that he presented his quantum theory of light. The theory basically stated that both, Newton's particle theory and the wave theory hold true for light. This effectively led to the birth of the field in physics called quantum physics. The theory explained that lights operated at a constant speed despite space and time and that it was composed of tiny particles which gave it a wavelike characteristic. This was the beginning of what led him to the discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect, which later earned him a Nobel Prize.
The day is also memorable for being the World Diabetes Day. The day falls on the birthday of Frederick Banting, who along with Charles Best and John James Rickard Macleod conceived the idea which later led to the synthesis of insulin. Led by the International Diabetes Federation, each World Diabetes Day focuses on a specific theme related to the disease. It was first observed in 1991 by IDF and the World Health Organization. It became an official United Nations Day in 2006. The theme for WDD for 2021-23 is Access to Diabetes Care – If Not Now, When? Today more than 460 million are living with diabetes and the campaign seeks to draw people's attention towards it.
