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Albert Einstein

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Albert Einstein was a famous physicist. His research spanned from quantum mechanics to theories about gravity and motion. After publishing some groundbreaking papers, Einstein toured the world and gave speeches about his discoveries. In 1921 he won the Nobel Prize for Physics for his discovery of the photoelectric effect .

Albert Einstein is best known for his equation E = mc 2 , which states that energy and mass (matter) are the same thing, just in different forms. He is also known for his discovery of the photoelectric effect , for which he won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921. Einstein developed a theory of special and general relativity, which helped to complicate and expand upon theories that had been put forth by Isaac Newton over 200 years prior. 

Albert Einstein had a massive influence on contemporary physics. His theory of relativity shifted contemporary understanding of space completely. Along with his equation E = mc 2 , it also foreshadowed the creation of the atomic bomb . Einstein’s understanding of light as something which can function both as a wave and as a stream of particles became the basis for what is known today as quantum mechanics .

Albert Einstein was raised in a secular Jewish family and had one sister, Maja, who was two years younger than him. In 1903 Einstein married Milena Maric, a Serbian physics student whom he had met at school in Zürich. They had three children: a daughter, named Lieserl, and two sons, named Hans and Eduard. After a period of unrest, Einstein and Maric divorced in 1919. Einstein, during his marriage, had begun an affair with his cousin Elsa Löwenthal. They were married in 1919, the same year he divorced Maric.

How did Albert Einstein die?

After suffering an abdominal aortic aneurysm rupture several days before, Albert Einstein died on April 18, 1955, at age 76.

In December 1926 Albert Einstein wrote to Max Born that “[t]he theory produces a good deal but hardly brings us closer to the secret of the Old One. I am at all events convinced that He does not play dice.” Einstein was reacting to Born’s probabilistic interpretation of quantum mechanics and expressing a deterministic view of the world. Learn more.

Albert Einstein (born March 14, 1879, Ulm , Württemberg, Germany—died April 18, 1955, Princeton , New Jersey , U.S.) was a German-born physicist who developed the special and general theories of relativity and won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921 for his explanation of the photoelectric effect . Einstein is generally considered the most influential physicist of the 20th century.

(Read Einstein’s 1926 Britannica essay on space-time.)

Einstein’s parents were secular , middle-class Jews. His father, Hermann Einstein, was originally a featherbed salesman and later ran an electrochemical factory with moderate success. His mother, the former Pauline Koch, ran the family household. He had one sister, Maria (who went by the name Maja), born two years after Albert.

Einstein would write that two “wonders” deeply affected his early years. The first was his encounter with a compass at age five. He was mystified that invisible forces could deflect the needle. This would lead to a lifelong fascination with invisible forces. The second wonder came at age 12 when he discovered a book of geometry , which he devoured , calling it his “sacred little geometry book.”

Einstein became deeply religious at age 12, even composing several songs in praise of God and chanting religious songs on the way to school. This began to change, however, after he read science books that contradicted his religious beliefs. This challenge to established authority left a deep and lasting impression. At the Luitpold Gymnasium , Einstein often felt out of place and victimized by a Prussian-style educational system that seemed to stifle originality and creativity. One teacher even told him that he would never amount to anything.

Yet another important influence on Einstein was a young medical student, Max Talmud (later Max Talmey), who often had dinner at the Einstein home. Talmud became an informal tutor, introducing Einstein to higher mathematics and philosophy . A pivotal turning point occurred when Einstein was 16 years old. Talmud had earlier introduced him to a children’s science series by Aaron Bernstein, Naturwissenschaftliche Volksbucher (1867–68; Popular Books on Physical Science ), in which the author imagined riding alongside electricity that was traveling inside a telegraph wire. Einstein then asked himself the question that would dominate his thinking for the next 10 years: What would a light beam look like if you could run alongside it? If light were a wave , then the light beam should appear stationary, like a frozen wave. Even as a child, though, he knew that stationary light waves had never been seen, so there was a paradox . Einstein also wrote his first “scientific paper” at that time (“The Investigation of the State of Aether in Magnetic Fields”).

Einstein’s education was disrupted by his father’s repeated failures at business. In 1894, after his company failed to get an important contract to electrify the city of Munich , Hermann Einstein moved to Milan to work with a relative. Einstein was left at a boardinghouse in Munich and expected to finish his education. Alone, miserable, and repelled by the looming prospect of military duty when he turned 16, Einstein ran away six months later and landed on the doorstep of his surprised parents. His parents realized the enormous problems that he faced as a school dropout and draft dodger with no employable skills. His prospects did not look promising.

Fortunately, Einstein could apply directly to the Eidgenössische Polytechnische Schule (“Swiss Federal Polytechnic School”; in 1911, following expansion in 1909 to full university status, it was renamed the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, or “Swiss Federal Institute of Technology”) in Zürich without the equivalent of a high school diploma if he passed its stiff entrance examinations. His marks showed that he excelled in mathematics and physics , but he failed at French , chemistry , and biology . Because of his exceptional math scores, he was allowed into the polytechnic on the condition that he first finish his formal schooling. He went to a special high school run by Jost Winteler in Aarau , Switzerland , and graduated in 1896. He also renounced his German citizenship at that time. (He was stateless until 1901, when he was granted Swiss citizenship.) He became lifelong friends with the Winteler family, with whom he had been boarding. (Winteler’s daughter, Marie, was Einstein’s first love; Einstein’s sister, Maja, would eventually marry Winteler’s son Paul; and his close friend Michele Besso would marry their eldest daughter, Anna.)

Einstein would recall that his years in Zürich were some of the happiest years of his life. He met many students who would become loyal friends, such as Marcel Grossmann, a mathematician, and Besso, with whom he enjoyed lengthy conversations about space and time. He also met his future wife, Mileva Maric, a fellow physics student from Serbia.

Biography Online

Albert Einstein Biography

Einstein is also well known as an original free-thinker, speaking on a range of humanitarian and global issues. After contributing to the theoretical development of nuclear physics and encouraging F.D. Roosevelt to start the Manhattan Project, he later spoke out against the use of nuclear weapons.

Born in Germany to Jewish parents, Einstein settled in Switzerland and then, after Hitler’s rise to power, the United States. Einstein was a truly global man and one of the undisputed genius’ of the Twentieth Century.

Early life Albert Einstein

Einstein was born 14 March 1879, in Ulm the German Empire. His parents were working-class (salesman/engineer) and non-observant Jews. Aged 15, the family moved to Milan, Italy, where his father hoped Albert would become a mechanical engineer. However, despite Einstein’s intellect and thirst for knowledge, his early academic reports suggested anything but a glittering career in academia. His teachers found him dim and slow to learn. Part of the problem was that Albert expressed no interest in learning languages and the learning by rote that was popular at the time.

“School failed me, and I failed the school. It bored me. The teachers behaved like Feldwebel (sergeants). I wanted to learn what I wanted to know, but they wanted me to learn for the exam.” Einstein and the Poet (1983)

At the age of 12, Einstein picked up a book on geometry and read it cover to cover. – He would later refer to it as his ‘holy booklet’. He became fascinated by maths and taught himself – becoming acquainted with the great scientific discoveries of the age.

Albert Einstein with wife Elsa

Despite Albert’s independent learning, he languished at school. Eventually, he was asked to leave by the authorities because his indifference was setting a bad example to other students.

He applied for admission to the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. His first attempt was a failure because he failed exams in botany, zoology and languages. However, he passed the next year and in 1900 became a Swiss citizen.

At college, he met a fellow student Mileva Maric, and after a long friendship, they married in 1903; they had two sons before divorcing several years later.

In 1896 Einstein renounced his German citizenship to avoid military conscription. For five years he was stateless, before successfully applying for Swiss citizenship in 1901. After graduating from Zurich college, he attempted to gain a teaching post but none was forthcoming; instead, he gained a job in the Swiss Patent Office.

While working at the Patent Office, Einstein continued his own scientific discoveries and began radical experiments to consider the nature of light and space.

Einstein in 1921

He published his first scientific paper in 1900, and by 1905 had completed his PhD entitled “ A New Determination of Molecular Dimensions . In addition to working on his PhD, Einstein also worked feverishly on other papers. In 1905, he published four pivotal scientific works, which would revolutionise modern physics. 1905 would later be referred to as his ‘ annus mirabilis .’

Einstein’s work started to gain recognition, and he was given a post at the University of Zurich (1909) and, in 1911, was offered the post of full-professor at the Charles-Ferdinand University in Prague (which was then part of Austria-Hungary Empire). He took Austrian-Hungary citizenship to accept the job. In 1914, he returned to Germany and was appointed a director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics. (1914–1932)

Albert Einstein’s Scientific Contributions

Quantum Theory

Einstein suggested that light doesn’t just travel as waves but as electric currents. This photoelectric effect could force metals to release a tiny stream of particles known as ‘quanta’. From this Quantum Theory, other inventors were able to develop devices such as television and movies. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921.

Special Theory of Relativity

This theory was written in a simple style with no footnotes or academic references. The core of his theory of relativity is that:

“Movement can only be detected and measured as relative movement; the change of position of one body in respect to another.”

Thus there is no fixed absolute standard of comparison for judging the motion of the earth or plants. It was revolutionary because previously people had thought time and distance are absolutes. But, Einstein proved this not to be true.

He also said that if electrons travelled at close to the speed of light, their weight would increase.

This lead to Einstein’s famous equation:

Where E = energy m = mass and c = speed of light.

General Theory of Relativity 1916

Working from a basis of special relativity. Einstein sought to express all physical laws using equations based on mathematical equations.

He devoted the last period of his life trying to formulate a final unified field theory which included a rational explanation for electromagnetism. However, he was to be frustrated in searching for this final breakthrough theory.

Solar eclipse of 1919

In 1911, Einstein predicted the sun’s gravity would bend the light of another star. He based this on his new general theory of relativity. On 29 May 1919, during a solar eclipse, British astronomer and physicist Sir Arthur Eddington was able to confirm Einstein’s prediction. The news was published in newspapers around the world, and it made Einstein internationally known as a leading physicist. It was also symbolic of international co-operation between British and German scientists after the horrors of the First World War.

In the 1920s, Einstein travelled around the world – including the UK, US, Japan, Palestine and other countries. Einstein gave lectures to packed audiences and became an internationally recognised figure for his work on physics, but also his wider observations on world affairs.

Bohr-Einstein debates

During the 1920s, other scientists started developing the work of Einstein and coming to different conclusions on Quantum Physics. In 1925 and 1926, Einstein took part in debates with Max Born about the nature of relativity and quantum physics. Although the two disagreed on physics, they shared a mutual admiration.

As a German Jew, Einstein was threatened by the rise of the Nazi party. In 1933, when the Nazi’s seized power, they confiscated Einstein’s property, and later started burning his books. Einstein, then in England, took an offer to go to Princeton University in the US. He later wrote that he never had strong opinions about race and nationality but saw himself as a citizen of the world.

“I do not believe in race as such. Race is a fraud. All modern people are the conglomeration of so many ethnic mixtures that no pure race remains.”

Once in the US, Einstein dedicated himself to a strict discipline of academic study. He would spend no time on maintaining his dress and image. He considered these things ‘inessential’ and meant less time for his research. Einstein was notoriously absent-minded. In his youth, he once left his suitcase at a friends house. His friend’s parents told Einstein’s parents: “ That young man will never amount to anything, because he can’t remember anything.”

Although a bit of a loner, and happy in his own company, he had a good sense of humour. On January 3, 1943, Einstein received a letter from a girl who was having difficulties with mathematics in her studies. Einstein consoled her when he wrote in reply to her letter

“Do not worry about your difficulties in mathematics. I can assure you that mine are still greater.”

Einstein professed belief in a God “Who reveals himself in the harmony of all being”. But, he followed no established religion. His view of God sought to establish a harmony between science and religion.

“Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”

– Einstein, Science and Religion (1941)

Politics of Einstein

Einstein described himself as a Zionist Socialist. He did support the state of Israel but became concerned about the narrow nationalism of the new state. In 1952, he was offered the position as President of Israel, but he declined saying he had:

“neither the natural ability nor the experience to deal with human beings.” … “I am deeply moved by the offer from our State of Israel, and at once saddened and ashamed that I cannot accept it.”

Einstein receiving US citizenship.

Albert Einstein was involved in many civil rights movements such as the American campaign to end lynching. He joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and  considered racism, America’s worst disease. But he also spoke highly of the meritocracy in American society and the value of being able to speak freely.

On the outbreak of war in 1939, Einstein wrote to President Roosevelt about the prospect of Germany developing an atomic bomb. He warned Roosevelt that the Germans were working on a bomb with a devastating potential. Roosevelt headed his advice and started the Manhattan project to develop the US atom bomb. But, after the war ended, Einstein reverted to his pacifist views. Einstein said after the war.

“Had I known that the Germans would not succeed in producing an atomic bomb, I would not have lifted a finger.” (Newsweek, 10 March 1947)

In the post-war McCarthyite era, Einstein was scrutinised closely for potential Communist links. He wrote an article in favour of socialism, “Why Socialism” (1949) He criticised Capitalism and suggested a democratic socialist alternative. He was also a strong critic of the arms race. Einstein remarked:

“I do not know how the third World War will be fought, but I can tell you what they will use in the Fourth—rocks!”

Rabindranath Tagore and Einstein

Einstein was feted as a scientist, but he was a polymath with interests in many fields. In particular, he loved music. He wrote that if he had not been a scientist, he would have been a musician. Einstein played the violin to a high standard.

“I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music… I get most joy in life out of music.”

Einstein died in 1955, at his request his brain and vital organs were removed for scientific study.

Citation: Pettinger, Tejvan . “ Biography of Albert Einstein ”, Oxford, www.biographyonline.net 23 Feb. 2008. Updated 2nd March 2017.

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19 Comments

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Albert Einstein

One of the most influential scientists of the 20 th century, Albert Einstein was a physicist who developed the theory of relativity.

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Who Was Albert Einstein?

Quick facts, early life, family, and education, einstein’s iq, patent clerk, inventions and discoveries, nobel prize in physics, wives and children, travel diaries, becoming a u.s. citizen, einstein and the atomic bomb, time travel and quantum theory, personal life, death and final words, einstein’s brain, einstein in books and movies: "oppenheimer" and more.

Albert Einstein was a German mathematician and physicist who developed the special and general theories of relativity. In 1921, he won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his explanation of the photoelectric effect. In the following decade, he immigrated to the United States after being targeted by the German Nazi Party. His work also had a major impact on the development of atomic energy. In his later years, Einstein focused on unified field theory. He died in April 1955 at age 76. With his passion for inquiry, Einstein is generally considered the most influential physicist of the 20 th century.

FULL NAME: Albert Einstein BORN: March 14, 1879 DIED: April 18, 1955 BIRTHPLACE: Ulm, Württemberg, Germany SPOUSES: Mileva Einstein-Maric (1903-1919) and Elsa Einstein (1919-1936) CHILDREN: Lieserl, Hans, and Eduard ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Pisces

Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879, in Ulm, Württemberg, Germany. He grew up in a secular Jewish family. His father, Hermann Einstein, was a salesman and engineer who, with his brother, founded Elektrotechnische Fabrik J. Einstein & Cie, a Munich-based company that mass-produced electrical equipment. Einstein’s mother, the former Pauline Koch, ran the family household. Einstein had one sister, Maja, born two years after him.

Einstein attended elementary school at the Luitpold Gymnasium in Munich. However, he felt alienated there and struggled with the institution’s rigid pedagogical style. He also had what were considered speech challenges. However, he developed a passion for classical music and playing the violin, which would stay with him into his later years. Most significantly, Einstein’s youth was marked by deep inquisitiveness and inquiry.

Toward the end of the 1880s, Max Talmud, a Polish medical student who sometimes dined with the Einstein family, became an informal tutor to young Einstein. Talmud had introduced his pupil to a children’s science text that inspired Einstein to dream about the nature of light. Thus, during his teens, Einstein penned what would be seen as his first major paper, “The Investigation of the State of Aether in Magnetic Fields.”

Hermann relocated the family to Milan, Italy, in the mid-1890s after his business lost out on a major contract. Einstein was left at a relative’s boarding house in Munich to complete his schooling at the Luitpold.

Faced with military duty when he turned of age, Einstein allegedly withdrew from classes, using a doctor’s note to excuse himself and claim nervous exhaustion. With their son rejoining them in Italy, his parents understood Einstein’s perspective but were concerned about his future prospects as a school dropout and draft dodger.

Einstein was eventually able to gain admission into the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, specifically due to his superb mathematics and physics scores on the entrance exam. He was still required to complete his pre-university education first and thus attended a high school in Aarau, Switzerland, helmed by Jost Winteler. Einstein lived with the schoolmaster’s family and fell in love with Winteler’s daughter Marie. Einstein later renounced his German citizenship and became a Swiss citizen at the dawn of the new century.

Einstein’s intelligence quotient was estimated to be around 160, but there are no indications he was ever actually tested.

Psychologist David Wechsler didn’t release the first edition of the WAIS cognitive test, which evolved into the WAIS-IV test commonly used today, until 1955—shortly before Einstein’s death. The maximum score of the current version is 160, with an IQ of 135 or higher ranking in the 99 th percentile.

Magazine columnist Marilyn vos Savant has the highest-ever recorded IQ at 228 and was featured in the Guinness Book of World Records in the late 1980s. However, Guinness discontinued the category because of debates about testing accuracy. According to Parade , individuals believed to have higher IQs than Einstein include Leonardo Da Vinci , Marie Curie , Nikola Tesla , and Nicolaus Copernicus .

After graduating from university, Einstein faced major challenges in terms of finding academic positions, having alienated some professors over not attending class more regularly in lieu of studying independently.

Einstein eventually found steady work in 1902 after receiving a referral for a clerk position in a Swiss patent office. While working at the patent office, Einstein had the time to further explore ideas that had taken hold during his university studies and thus cemented his theorems on what would be known as the principle of relativity.

In 1905—seen by many as a “miracle year” for the theorist—Einstein had four papers published in the Annalen der Physik , one of the best-known physics journals of the era. Two focused on the photoelectric effect and Brownian motion. The two others, which outlined E=MC 2 and the special theory of relativity, were defining for Einstein’s career and the course of the study of physics.

As a physicist, Einstein had many discoveries, but he is perhaps best known for his theory of relativity and the equation E=MC 2 , which foreshadowed the development of atomic power and the atomic bomb.

Theory of Relativity

Einstein first proposed a special theory of relativity in 1905 in his paper “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies,” which took physics in an electrifying new direction. The theory explains that space and time are actually connected, and Einstein called this joint structure space-time.

By November 1915, Einstein completed the general theory of relativity, which accounted for gravity’s relationship to space-time. Einstein considered this theory the culmination of his life research. He was convinced of the merits of general relativity because it allowed for a more accurate prediction of planetary orbits around the sun, which fell short in Isaac Newton ’s theory. It also offered a more expansive, nuanced explanation of how gravitational forces worked.

Einstein’s assertions were affirmed via observations and measurements by British astronomers Sir Frank Dyson and Sir Arthur Eddington during the 1919 solar eclipse, and thus a global science icon was born. Today, the theories of relativity underpin the accuracy of GPS technology, among other phenomena.

Even so, Einstein did make one mistake when developing his general theory, which naturally predicted the universe is either expanding or contracting. Einstein didn’t believe this prediction initially, instead holding onto the belief that the universe was a fixed, static entity. To account for, this he factored in a “cosmological constant” to his equation. His later theories directly contracted this idea and asserted that the universe could be in a state of flux. Then, astronomer Edwin Hubble deduced that we indeed inhabit an expanding universe. Hubble and Einstein met at the Mount Wilson Observatory near Los Angeles in 1931.

Decades after Einstein’s death, in 2018, a team of scientists confirmed one aspect of Einstein’s general theory of relativity: that the light from a star passing close to a black hole would be stretched to longer wavelengths by the overwhelming gravitational field. Tracking star S2, their measurements indicated that the star’s orbital velocity increased to over 25 million kph as it neared the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy, its appearance shifting from blue to red as its wavelengths stretched to escape the pull of gravity.

Einstein’s E=MC²

Einstein’s 1905 paper on the matter-energy relationship proposed the equation E=MC²: the energy of a body (E) is equal to the mass (M) of that body times the speed of light squared (C²). This equation suggested that tiny particles of matter could be converted into huge amounts of energy, a discovery that heralded atomic power.

Famed quantum theorist Max Planck backed up the assertions of Einstein, who thus became a star of the lecture circuit and academia, taking on various positions before becoming director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics (today is known as the Max Planck Institute for Physics) from 1917 to 1933.

In 1921, Einstein won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his explanation of the photoelectric effect, since his ideas on relativity were still considered questionable. He wasn’t actually given the award until the following year due to a bureaucratic ruling, and during his acceptance speech, he still opted to speak about relativity.

Einstein married Mileva Maric on January 6, 1903. While attending school in Zurich, Einstein met Maric, a Serbian physics student. Einstein continued to grow closer to Maric, but his parents were strongly against the relationship due to her ethnic background.

Nonetheless, Einstein continued to see her, with the two developing a correspondence via letters in which he expressed many of his scientific ideas. Einstein’s father passed away in 1902, and the couple married shortly thereafter.

Einstein and Mavic had three children. Their daughter, Lieserl, was born in 1902 before their wedding and might have been later raised by Maric’s relatives or given up for adoption. Her ultimate fate and whereabouts remain a mystery. The couple also had two sons: Hans Albert Einstein, who became a well-known hydraulic engineer, and Eduard “Tete” Einstein, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia as a young man.

The Einsteins’ marriage would not be a happy one, with the two divorcing in 1919 and Maric having an emotional breakdown in connection to the split. Einstein, as part of a settlement, agreed to give Maric any funds he might receive from possibly winning the Nobel Prize in the future.

During his marriage to Maric, Einstein had also begun an affair some time earlier with a cousin, Elsa Löwenthal . The couple wed in 1919, the same year of Einstein’s divorce. He would continue to see other women throughout his second marriage, which ended with Löwenthal’s death in 1936.

In his 40s, Einstein traveled extensively and journaled about his experiences. Some of his unfiltered private thoughts are shared two volumes of The Travel Diaries of Albert Einstein .

The first volume , published in 2018, focuses on his five-and-a-half month trip to the Far East, Palestine, and Spain. The scientist started a sea journey to Japan in Marseille, France, in autumn of 1922, accompanied by his second wife, Elsa. They journeyed through the Suez Canal, then to Sri Lanka, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Japan. The couple returned to Germany via Palestine and Spain in March 1923.

The second volume , released in 2023, covers three months that he spent lecturing and traveling in Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil in 1925.

The Travel Diaries contain unflattering analyses of the people he came across, including the Chinese, Sri Lankans, and Argentinians, a surprise coming from a man known for vehemently denouncing racism in his later years. In an entry for November 1922, Einstein refers to residents of Hong Kong as “industrious, filthy, lethargic people.”

In 1933, Einstein took on a position at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, where he would spend the rest of his life.

At the time the Nazis, led by Adolf Hitler , were gaining prominence with violent propaganda and vitriol in an impoverished post-World War I Germany. The Nazi Party influenced other scientists to label Einstein’s work “Jewish physics.” Jewish citizens were barred from university work and other official jobs, and Einstein himself was targeted to be killed. Meanwhile, other European scientists also left regions threatened by Germany and immigrated to the United States, with concern over Nazi strategies to create an atomic weapon.

Not long after moving and beginning his career at IAS, Einstein expressed an appreciation for American meritocracy and the opportunities people had for free thought, a stark contrast to his own experiences coming of age. In 1935, Einstein was granted permanent residency in his adopted country and became an American citizen five years later.

In America, Einstein mostly devoted himself to working on a unified field theory, an all-embracing paradigm meant to unify the varied laws of physics. However, during World War II, he worked on Navy-based weapons systems and made big monetary donations to the military by auctioning off manuscripts worth millions.

In 1939, Einstein and fellow physicist Leo Szilard wrote to President Franklin D. Roosevelt to alert him of the possibility of a Nazi bomb and to galvanize the United States to create its own nuclear weapons.

The United States would eventually initiate the Manhattan Project , though Einstein wouldn’t take a direct part in its implementation due to his pacifist and socialist affiliations. Einstein was also the recipient of much scrutiny and major distrust from FBI director J. Edgar Hoover . In July 1940, the U.S. Army Intelligence office denied Einstein a security clearance to participate in the project, meaning J. Robert Oppenheimer and the scientists working in Los Alamos were forbidden from consulting with him.

Einstein had no knowledge of the U.S. plan to use atomic bombs in Japan in 1945. When he heard of the first bombing at Hiroshima, he reportedly said, “Ach! The world is not ready for it.”

Einstein became a major player in efforts to curtail usage of the A-bomb. The following year, he and Szilard founded the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists, and in 1947, via an essay for The Atlantic Monthly , Einstein espoused working with the United Nations to maintain nuclear weapons as a deterrent to conflict.

After World War II, Einstein continued to work on his unified field theory and key aspects of his general theory of relativity, including time travel, wormholes, black holes, and the origins of the universe.

However, he felt isolated in his endeavors since the majority of his colleagues had begun focusing their attention on quantum theory. In the last decade of his life, Einstein, who had always seen himself as a loner, withdrew even further from any sort of spotlight, preferring to stay close to Princeton and immerse himself in processing ideas with colleagues.

In the late 1940s, Einstein became a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), seeing the parallels between the treatment of Jews in Germany and Black people in the United States. He corresponded with scholar and activist W.E.B. Du Bois as well as performer Paul Robeson and campaigned for civil rights, calling racism a “disease” in a 1946 Lincoln University speech.

Einstein was very particular about his sleep schedule, claiming he needed 10 hours of sleep per day to function well. His theory of relativity allegedly came to him in a dream about cows being electrocuted. He was also known to take regular naps. He is said to have held objects like a spoon or pencil in his hand while falling asleep. That way, he could wake up before hitting the second stage of sleep—a hypnagogic process believed to boost creativity and capture sleep-inspired ideas.

Although sleep was important to Einstein, socks were not. He was famous for refusing to wear them. According to a letter he wrote to future wife Elsa, he stopped wearing them because he was annoyed by his big toe pushing through the material and creating a hole.

One of the most recognizable photos of the 20 th century shows Einstein sticking out his tongue while leaving his 72 nd birthday party on March 14, 1951.

According to Discovery.com , Einstein was leaving his party at Princeton when a swarm of reporters and photographers approached and asked him to smile. Tired from doing so all night, he refused and rebelliously stuck his tongue out at the crowd for a moment before turning away. UPI photographer Arthur Sasse captured the shot.

Einstein was amused by the picture and ordered several prints to give to his friends. He also signed a copy of the photo that sold for $125,000 at a 2017 auction.

Einstein died on April 18, 1955, at age 76 at the University Medical Center at Princeton. The previous day, while working on a speech to honor Israel’s seventh anniversary, Einstein suffered an abdominal aortic aneurysm.

He was taken to the hospital for treatment but refused surgery, believing that he had lived his life and was content to accept his fate. “I want to go when I want,” he stated at the time. “It is tasteless to prolong life artificially. I have done my share, it is time to go. I will do it elegantly.”

According to the BBC, Einstein muttered a few words in German at the moment of his death. However, the nurse on duty didn’t speak German so their translation was lost forever.

In a 2014 interview , Life magazine photographer Ralph Morse said the hospital was swarmed by journalists, photographers, and onlookers once word of Einstein’s death spread. Morse decided to travel to Einstein’s office at the Institute for Advanced Studies, offering the superintendent alcohol to gain access. He was able to photograph the office just as Einstein left it.

After an autopsy, Einstein’s corpse was moved to a Princeton funeral home later that afternoon and then taken to Trenton, New Jersey, for a cremation ceremony. Morse said he was the only photographer present for the cremation, but Life managing editor Ed Thompson decided not to publish an exclusive story at the request of Einstein’s son Hans.

During Einstein’s autopsy, pathologist Thomas Stoltz Harvey had removed his brain, reportedly without his family’s consent, for preservation and future study by doctors of neuroscience.

However, during his life, Einstein participated in brain studies, and at least one biography claimed he hoped researchers would study his brain after he died. Einstein’s brain is now located at the Princeton University Medical Center. In keeping with his wishes, the rest of his body was cremated and the ashes scattered in a secret location.

In 1999, Canadian scientists who were studying Einstein’s brain found that his inferior parietal lobe, the area that processes spatial relationships, 3D-visualization, and mathematical thought, was 15 percent wider than in people who possess normal intelligence. According to The New York Times , the researchers believe it might help explain why Einstein was so intelligent.

In 2011, the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia received thin slices of Einstein’s brain from Dr. Lucy Rorke-Adams, a neuropathologist at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and put them on display. Rorke-Adams said she received the brain slides from Harvey.

Since Einstein’s death, a veritable mountain of books have been written on the iconic thinker’s life, including Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson and Einstein: A Biography by Jürgen Neffe, both from 2007. Einstein’s own words are presented in the collection The World As I See It .

Einstein has also been portrayed on screen. Michael Emil played a character called “The Professor,” clearly based on Einstein, in the 1985 film Insignificance —in which alternate versions of Einstein, Marilyn Monroe , Joe DiMaggio , and Joseph McCarthy cross paths in a New York City hotel.

Walter Matthau portrayed Einstein in the fictional 1994 comedy I.Q. , in which he plays matchmaker for his niece played by Meg Ryan . Einstein was also a character in the obscure comedy films I Killed Einstein, Gentlemen (1970) and Young Einstein (1988).

A much more historically accurate depiction of Einstein came in 2017, when he was the subject of the first season of Genius , a 10-part scripted miniseries by National Geographic. Johnny Flynn played a younger version of the scientist, while Geoffrey Rush portrayed Einstein in his later years after he had fled Germany. Ron Howard was the director.

Tom Conti plays Einstein in the 2023 biopic Oppenheimer , directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Cillian Murphy as scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer during his involvement with the Manhattan Project.

• The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.
• A question that sometimes drives me hazy: Am I or are the others crazy?
• A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.
• Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.
• I want to go when I want. It is tasteless to prolong life artificially. I have done my share, it is time to go. I will do it elegantly.
• If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.
• Nature shows us only the tail of the lion. But there is no doubt in my mind that the lion belongs with it even if he cannot reveal himself to the eye all at once because of his huge dimension. We see him only the way a louse sitting upon him would.
• [T]he distinction between past, present, and future is only an illusion, however persistent.
• Living in this “great age,” it is hard to understand that we belong to this mad, degenerate species, which imputes free will to itself. If only there were somewhere an island for the benevolent and the prudent! Then also I would want to be an ardent patriot.
• I, at any rate, am convinced that He [God] is not playing at dice.
• How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it.
• I regard class differences as contrary to justice and, in the last resort, based on force.
• I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves—this critical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty. The ideals that have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth.
• My political ideal is democracy. Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized. It is an irony of fate that I myself have been the recipient of excessive admiration and reverence from my fellow-beings, through no fault and no merit of my own.
• The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed.
• An autocratic system of coercion, in my opinion, soon degenerates. For force always attracts men of low morality, and I believe it to be an invariable rule that tyrants of genius are succeeded by scoundrels.
• My passionate interest in social justice and social responsibility has always stood in curious contrast to a marked lack of desire for direct association with men and women. I am a horse for single harness, not cut out for tandem or team work. I have never belonged wholeheartedly to country or state, to my circle of friends, or even to my own family.
• Everybody is a genius.

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Albert Einstein

Biographical.

Questions and Answers on Albert Einstein

During his stay at the Patent Office, and in his spare time, he produced much of his remarkable work and in 1908 he was appointed Privatdozent in Berne. In 1909 he became Professor Extraordinary at Zurich, in 1911 Professor of Theoretical Physics at Prague, returning to Zurich in the following year to fill a similar post. In 1914 he was appointed Director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Physical Institute and Professor in the University of Berlin. He became a German citizen in 1914 and remained in Berlin until 1933 when he renounced his citizenship for political reasons and emigrated to America to take the position of Professor of Theoretical Physics at Princeton * . He became a United States citizen in 1940 and retired from his post in 1945.

After World War II, Einstein was a leading figure in the World Government Movement, he was offered the Presidency of the State of Israel, which he declined, and he collaborated with Dr. Chaim Weizmann in establishing the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Einstein always appeared to have a clear view of the problems of physics and the determination to solve them. He had a strategy of his own and was able to visualize the main stages on the way to his goal. He regarded his major achievements as mere stepping-stones for the next advance.

At the start of his scientific work, Einstein realized the inadequacies of Newtonian mechanics and his special theory of relativity stemmed from an attempt to reconcile the laws of mechanics with the laws of the electromagnetic field. He dealt with classical problems of statistical mechanics and problems in which they were merged with quantum theory: this led to an explanation of the Brownian movement of molecules. He investigated the thermal properties of light with a low radiation density and his observations laid the foundation of the photon theory of light.

In his early days in Berlin, Einstein postulated that the correct interpretation of the special theory of relativity must also furnish a theory of gravitation and in 1916 he published his paper on the general theory of relativity. During this time he also contributed to the problems of the theory of radiation and statistical mechanics.

In the 1920s, Einstein embarked on the construction of unified field theories, although he continued to work on the probabilistic interpretation of quantum theory, and he persevered with this work in America. He contributed to statistical mechanics by his development of the quantum theory of a monatomic gas and he has also accomplished valuable work in connection with atomic transition probabilities and relativistic cosmology.

After his retirement he continued to work towards the unification of the basic concepts of physics, taking the opposite approach, geometrisation, to the majority of physicists.

Einstein’s researches are, of course, well chronicled and his more important works include Special Theory of Relativity (1905), Relativity (English translations, 1920 and 1950), General Theory of Relativity (1916), Investigations on Theory of Brownian Movement (1926), and The Evolution of Physics (1938). Among his non-scientific works, About Zionism (1930), Why War? (1933), My Philosophy (1934), and Out of My Later Years (1950) are perhaps the most important.

Albert Einstein received honorary doctorate degrees in science, medicine and philosophy from many European and American universities. During the 1920’s he lectured in Europe, America and the Far East, and he was awarded Fellowships or Memberships of all the leading scientific academies throughout the world. He gained numerous awards in recognition of his work, including the Copley Medal of the Royal Society of London in 1925, and the Franklin Medal of the Franklin Institute in 1935.

Einstein’s gifts inevitably resulted in his dwelling much in intellectual solitude and, for relaxation, music played an important part in his life. He married Mileva Maric in 1903 and they had a daughter and two sons; their marriage was dissolved in 1919 and in the same year he married his cousin, Elsa Löwenthal, who died in 1936. He died on April 18, 1955 at Princeton, New Jersey.

This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and first published in the book series Les Prix Nobel . It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lectures . To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.

* Albert Einstein was formally associated with the Institute for Advanced Study located in Princeton, New Jersey.

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9 Things You May Not Know About Albert Einstein

By: Evan Andrews

Updated: August 29, 2018 | Original: October 26, 2015

1. Einstein didn’t fail math as a child.

Underachieving school kids have long taken solace in the claim that Einstein flunked math as a youth, but the records show that he was actually an exceptional, if not reluctant, student. He scored high grades during his school days in Munich, and was only frustrated by what he described as the “mechanical discipline” demanded by his teachers. The future Nobel Laureate dropped out of school at age 15 and left Germany to avoid state-mandated military service, but before then he was consistently at the top of his class and was even considered something of a prodigy for his grasp of complex mathematical and scientific concepts. When later presented with a news article claiming he’d failed grade-school math, Einstein dismissed the story as a myth and said, “Before I was 15 I had mastered differential and integral calculus.”

2. No one knows what happened to his first daughter.

In 1896, Einstein renounced his German citizenship and enrolled at the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich. There, he began a passionate love affair with Mileva Maric, a fellow physicist-in-training originally from Serbia. The couple later married and had two sons after graduating, but a year before they tied the knot, Maric gave birth to an illegitimate daughter named Lieserl. Einstein never spoke about the child to his family, and biographers weren’t even aware of her existence until examining his private papers in the late-1980s. Her fate remains a mystery to this day. Some scholars think Lieserl died from scarlet fever in 1903, while others believe she survived the sickness and was given up for adoption in Maric’s native Serbia.

3. It took Einstein nine years to get a job in academia.

Einstein showed flashes of brilliance during his years at the Zurich Polytechnic, but his rebellious personality and penchant for skipping classes saw his professors give him less than glowing recommendations upon his graduation in 1900. The young physicist later spent two years searching for an academic position before settling for a gig at the Swiss patent office in Bern. Though menial, the job turned out to be a perfect fit for Einstein, who found he could breeze through his office duties in a few hours and spend the rest of the day writing and conducting research. In 1905—often called his “miracle year”—the lowly clerk published four revolutionary articles that introduced his famous equation E=mc2 and the theory of special relativity. While the discoveries marked Einstein’s entrance onto the physics world stage, he didn’t win a full professorship until 1909—nearly a decade after he had left school.

4. He offered his wife his Nobel Prize as part of their divorce settlement.

After his marriage to Mileva Maric hit the rocks in the early 1910s, Einstein left his family, moved to Berlin and started a new relationship with his cousin, Elsa. He and Maric finally divorced several years later in 1919. As part of their separation agreement, Einstein promised her an annual stipend plus whatever money he might receive from the Nobel Prize—which he was supremely confident he would eventually win. Maric agreed, and Einstein later handed over a small fortune upon receiving the award in 1922 for his work on the photoelectric effect. By then, he had already remarried to Elsa, who remained his wife until her death in 1936.

5. A solar eclipse helped make Einstein world famous.

In 1915, Einstein published his theory of general relativity, which stated that gravitational fields cause distortions in the fabric of space and time. Because it was such a bold rewriting of the laws of physics, the theory remained controversial until May 1919, when a total solar eclipse provided the proper conditions to test its claim that a supermassive object—in this case the sun—would cause a measurable curve in the starlight passing by it. Hoping to prove Einstein’s theory once and for all, English astronomer Arthur Eddington journeyed to the coast of West Africa and photographed the eclipse. Upon analyzing the pictures, he confirmed that the sun’s gravity had deflected the light by roughly 1.7 arc-seconds—exactly as predicted by general relativity. The news made Einstein an overnight celebrity. Newspapers hailed him as the heir to Sir Isaac Newton, and he went on to travel the world lecturing on his theories about the cosmos. According to Einstein biographer Walter Isaacson, in the six years after the 1919 eclipse, more than 600 books and articles were written about the theory of relativity.

6. The FBI spied on him for decades.

Shortly before Hitler rose to power in 1933, Einstein left Berlin for the United States and took a position at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. His support for pacifist, civil rights and left-wing causes had already drawn suspicion from J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI, and after his arrival on American shores, the Bureau launched what would eventually become a 22-year surveillance campaign. Agents listened to the physicist’s phone calls, opened his mail and rooted through his trash in the hope of unmasking him as a subversive or a Soviet spy. They even investigated tips that he was building a death ray. The project came up empty handed, but by the time Einstein died in 1955, his FBI file totaled a whopping 1,800 pages.

7. Einstein urged the building of the atomic bomb—and later became a proponent of nuclear disarmament.

In the late-1930s, Einstein learned that new research had put German scientists on a path toward creating the atom bomb. The prospect of a doomsday weapon in the hands of the Nazis convinced him to set aside his pacifist principles and team up with Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard, who helped him write a letter urging President Franklin D. Roosevelt to conduct atomic research. Though Einstein never participated directly in the Manhattan Project, he later expressed deep regrets about his minor role in bringing about the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. “Had I known that the Germans would not succeed in producing an atomic bomb, I never would have lifted a finger,” he told Newsweek. He went on to become an impassioned advocate of nuclear disarmament, controls on weapons testing and unified world government. Shortly before his death in 1955, he joined with philosopher Bertrand Russell in signing the “Russell-Einstein Manifesto,” a public letter that stressed the risks of nuclear war and implored governments to “find peaceful means for the settlement of all disputes between them.”

8. He was asked to be president of Israel.

Though not traditionally religious, Einstein felt a deep connection to his Jewish heritage and often spoke out against anti-Semitism. He was never a staunch Zionist, but when head of state Chaim Weizmann died in 1952, the Israeli government offered to appoint him as the nation’s second president. The 73-year-old wasted little time in declining the honor. “All my life I have dealt with objective matters,” Einstein wrote in a letter to the Israeli ambassador, “hence I lack both the natural aptitude and the experience to deal properly with people and to exercise official function.”

9. Einstein’s brain was stolen after his death.

Einstein died in April 1955 from an abdominal aortic aneurysm. He had requested that his body be cremated, but in a bizarre incident, Princeton pathologist Thomas Harvey removed his famous brain during his autopsy and kept it in the hope of unlocking the secrets of his genius. After winning a reluctant approval from Einstein’s son, Harvey later had the brain cut into pieces and sent to various scientists for research. A handful of studies have been conduced on it since the 1980s, but most have either been dismissed or discredited. Perhaps the most famous came in 1999, when a team from a Canadian university published a controversial paper claiming Einstein possessed unusual folds on his parietal lobe, a part of the brain associated with mathematical and spatial ability.

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Biography of Albert Einstein, Theoretical Physicist

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Albert Einstein (March 14, 1879–April 18, 1955), a German-born theoretical physicist who lived during the 20th century, revolutionized scientific thought. Having developed the Theory of Relativity, Einstein opened the door for the development of atomic power and the creation of the atomic bomb.

Einstein is best known for his 1905 general theory of relativity, E=mc 2 , which posits that energy (E) equals mass (m) times the speed of light (c) squared. But his influence went far beyond that theory. Einstein's theories also changed thinking about how the planets revolve around the sun. For his scientific contributions, Einstein also won the 1921 Nobel Prize in physics.

Einstein also was forced to flee Nazi Germany after the rise of Adolf Hitler . It's no exaggeration to say that his theories indirectly helped lead the Allies to victory over the Axis powers in World War II, particularly the defeat of Japan.

Fast Facts: Albert Einstein

• Known For : The General Theory of Relativity, E=mc 2 , which led to the development of the atomic bomb and atomic power.
• Born : March 14, 1879 in Ulm, Kingdom of Württemberg, German Empire
• Parents : Hermann Einstein and Pauline Koch
• Died : April 18, 1955 in Princeton, New Jersey
• Education : Swiss Federal Polytechnic (1896–1900, B.A., 1900; University of Zurich, Ph.D., 1905)
• Published Works : On a Heuristic Point of View Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light, On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies, Does an Object’s Inertia Depend on Its Energy Content?
• Awards and Honors : Barnard Medal (1920), Nobel Prize in Physics (1921), Matteucci Medal (1921), Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (1926), Max Planck Medal (1929), Time Person of the Century (1999)
• Spouses : Mileva Marić (m. 1903–1919), Elsa Löwenthal (m. 1919–1936)
• Children : Lieserl, Hans Albert Einstein, Eduard
• Notable Quote : "Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible concatenations, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable."

Early Life and Education

Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879, in Ulm, Germany to Jewish parents, Hermann and Pauline Einstein. A year later, Hermann Einstein's business failed and he moved his family to Munich to start a new electric business with his brother Jakob. In Munich, Albert's sister Maja was born in 1881. Only two years apart in age, Albert adored his sister and they had a close relationship with each other their whole lives.

Although Einstein is now considered the epitome of genius, in the first two decades of his life, many people thought Einstein was the exact opposite. Right after Einstein was born, relatives were concerned with Einstein's pointy head. Then, when Einstein didn't talk until he was 3 years old, his parents worried something was wrong with him.

Einstein also failed to impress his teachers. From elementary school through college, his teachers and professors thought he was lazy, sloppy, and insubordinate. Many of his teachers thought he would never amount to anything.

When Einstein was 15 years old, his father's new business had failed and the Einstein family moved to Italy. At first, Albert remained behind in Germany to finish high school, but he was soon unhappy with that arrangement and left school to rejoin his family.

Rather than finish high school, Einstein decided to apply directly to the prestigious Polytechnic Institute in Zurich, Switzerland. Although he failed the entrance exam on the first try, he spent a year studying at a local high school and retook the entrance exam in October 1896 and passed.

Once at the Polytechnic, Einstein again did not like school. Believing that his professors only taught old science, Einstein would often skip class, preferring to stay home and read about the newest in scientific theory. When he did attend class, Einstein would often make it obvious that he found the class dull.

Some last-minute studying allowed Einstein to graduate in 1900. However, once out of school, Einstein was unable to find a job because none of his teachers liked him enough to write him a recommendation letter.

For nearly two years, Einstein worked at short-term jobs until a friend was able to help him get a job as a patent clerk at the Swiss Patent Office in Bern. Finally, with a job and some stability, Einstein was able to marry his college sweetheart, Mileva Maric, whom his parents strongly disapproved.

The couple went on to have two sons: Hans Albert (born 1904) and Eduard (born 1910).

Einstein the Patent Clerk

For seven years, Einstein worked six days a week as a patent clerk. He was responsible for examining the blueprints of other people's inventions and then determining whether they were feasible. If they were, Einstein had to ensure that no one else had already been given a patent for the same idea.

Somehow, between his very busy work and family life, Einstein not only found time to earn a doctorate from the University of Zurich (awarded 1905) but found time to think. It was while working at the patent office that Einstein made his most influential discoveries.

Influential Theories

In 1905, while working at the patent office, Einstein wrote five scientific papers, which were all published in the Annalen der Physik ( Annals of Physics , a major physics journal). Three of these were published together in September 1905.

In one paper, Einstein theorized that light must not just travel in waves but existed as particles, which explained the photoelectric effect. Einstein himself described this particular theory as "revolutionary." This was also the theory for which Einstein won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921.

In another paper, Einstein tackled the mystery of why pollen never settled to the bottom of a glass of water but rather, kept moving (Brownian motion). By declaring that the pollen was being moved by water molecules, Einstein solved a longstanding, scientific mystery and proved the existence of molecules.

His third paper described Einstein's "Special Theory of Relativity," in which Einstein revealed that space and time are not absolutes. The only thing that is constant, Einstein stated, is the speed of light; the rest of space and time are all based on the position of the observer.

Not only are space and time not absolutes, Einstein discovered that energy and mass, once thought completely distinct items, were actually interchangeable. In his E=mc 2  equation (E=energy, m=mass, and c=speed of light), Einstein created a simple formula to describe the relationship between energy and mass. This formula reveals that a very small amount of mass can be converted into a huge amount of energy, leading to the later invention of the atomic bomb.

Einstein was only 26 years old when these articles were published and already he had done more for science than any individual since Sir Isaac Newton.

Scientists Take Notice

In 1909, four years after his theories were first published, Einstein was finally offered a teaching position. Einstein enjoyed being a teacher at the University of Zurich. He had found traditional schooling as he grew up extremely limiting and thus he wanted to be a different kind of teacher. Arriving at school unkempt, with hair uncombed and his clothes too baggy, Einstein soon became known as much for his appearance as his teaching style.

As Einstein's fame within the scientific community grew, offers for new, better positions began to pour in. Within only a few years, Einstein worked at the University of Zurich ( Switzerland ), then the German University in Prague (Czech Republic), and then went back to Zurich for the Polytechnic Institute.

The frequent moves, the numerous conferences that Einstein attended, and preoccupation of Einstein with science left Mileva (Einstein's wife) feeling both neglected and lonely. When Einstein was offered a professorship at the University of Berlin in 1913, she didn't want to go. Einstein accepted the position anyway.

Not long after arriving in Berlin, Mileva and Albert separated. Realizing the marriage could not be salvaged, Mileva took the kids back to Zurich. They officially divorced in 1919.

Achieves Worldwide Fame

During  World War I , Einstein stayed in Berlin and worked diligently on new theories. He worked like a man obsessed. With Mileva gone, he often forgot to eat and sleep.

In 1917, the stress eventually took its toll and he collapsed. Diagnosed with gallstones, Einstein was told to rest. During his recuperation, Einstein's cousin Elsa helped nurse him back to health. The two became very close and when Albert's divorce was finalized, Albert and Elsa married.

It was during this time that Einstein revealed his General Theory of Relativity, which considered the effects of acceleration and gravity on time and space. If Einstein's theory was correct, then the gravity of the sun would bend light from stars.

In 1919, Einstein's General Theory of Relativity could be tested during a solar eclipse. In May 1919, two British astronomers (Arthur Eddington and Sir Frances Dyson) were able to put together an expedition that observed the  solar eclipse  and documented the bent light. In November 1919, their findings were announced publicly.

After having suffered monumental bloodshed during World War I, people around the world were craving news that went beyond their country's borders. Einstein became a worldwide celebrity overnight.

It wasn't just his revolutionary theories; it was Einstein's general persona that appealed to the masses. Einstein's disheveled hair, poorly fitting clothes, doe-like eyes, and witty charm endeared him to the average person. He was a genius, but he was an approachable one.

Instantly famous, Einstein was hounded by reporters and photographers wherever he went. He was given honorary degrees and asked to visit countries around the world. Albert and Elsa took trips to the United States, Japan, Palestine (now Israel), South America, and throughout Europe.

Becomes an Enemy of the State

Although Einstein spent the 1920s traveling and making special appearances, these took away from the time he could work on his scientific theories. By the early 1930s, finding time for science wasn't his only problem.

The political climate in Germany was changing drastically. When Adolf Hitler took power in 1933, Einstein was luckily visiting the United States (he never returned to Germany). The Nazis promptly declared Einstein an enemy of the state, ransacked his house, and burned his books.

As death threats began, Einstein finalized his plans to take a position at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, New Jersey. He arrived at Princeton on Oct. 17, 1933.

Einstein suffered a personal loss when Elsa died on Dec. 20, 1936. Three years later, Einstein's sister Maja fled from  Mussolini's Italy and came to live with Einstein in Princeton. She stayed until her death in 1951.

Until the Nazis took power in Germany, Einstein had been a devoted pacifist for his entire life. However, with the harrowing tales coming out of Nazi-occupied Europe, Einstein reevaluated his pacifist ideals. In the case of the Nazis, Einstein realized they needed to be stopped, even if that meant using military might to do so.

The Atomic Bomb

In July 1939, scientists Leo Szilard and Eugene Wigner visited Einstein to discuss the possibility that Germany was working on building an atomic bomb.

The ramifications of Germany building such a destructive weapon prompted Einstein to write a letter to  President Franklin D. Roosevelt  to warn him about this potentially massive weapon. In response, Roosevelt established the  Manhattan Project , a collection of U.S. scientists urged to beat Germany to the construction of a working atomic bomb.

Even though Einstein's letter prompted the Manhattan Project, Einstein himself never worked on constructing the atomic bomb.

Later Years and Death

From 1922 until the end of his life, Einstein worked on finding a "unified field theory." Believing that "God does not play dice," Einstein searched for a single, unified theory that could combine all the fundamental forces of physics between elementary particles. Einstein never found it.

In the years after World War II , Einstein advocated for a world government and for civil rights. In 1952, after the death of Israel's first President Chaim Weizmann , Einstein was offered the presidency of Israel. Realizing that he was not good at politics and too aged to start something new, Einstein declined the offer.

On April 12, 1955, Einstein collapsed at his home. Just six days later, on April 18, 1955, Einstein died when the aneurysm he had been living with for several years finally burst. He was 76 years old.

Resources and Further Reading

• “ The Year Of Albert Einstein. ”  Smithsonian.com , Smithsonian Institution, 1 June 2005.
• “ Albert Einstein. ”  Biography.com , A&E Networks Television, 14 Feb. 2019.
• Kuepper, Hans-Josef. “ The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein. ”  Albert Einstein - Honours, Prizes and Awards.
• Max Planck Formulates Quantum Theory
• Most Influential Scientists of the 20th Century
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Albert Einstein is a name that needs no introduction. Known as one of the greatest scientists and thinkers of all time, Einstein's contributions have shaped the way we understand the world today. From his groundbreaking theories to his humanitarian efforts, Einstein's legacy continues to inspire and influence generations. In this article, we will take a closer look at the life and achievements of this remarkable historical figure, and gain a deeper understanding of his impact on science and society. Albert Einstein is a name that is known worldwide.

He was not only a brilliant scientist, but also a cultural icon whose contributions have shaped our understanding of the universe. In this article, we will take a closer look at his life, his achievements, and his lasting impact on the world. First, let's delve into Einstein's early life and education. Born in Ulm, Germany in 1879, he showed an early interest in mathematics and physics. His parents, who were both Jewish, encouraged his curiosity and provided him with a supportive environment to explore his interests. Einstein's education was unconventional, as he struggled with the strict discipline of traditional schools.

However, he excelled in subjects like mathematics and physics, and eventually went on to study at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. It was during this time that he developed his groundbreaking theories of relativity and quantum mechanics. Einstein's theories revolutionized the field of physics and challenged traditional beliefs about space and time. His theory of general relativity, published in 1915, explained the force of gravity in terms of the curvature of space-time. This theory has been confirmed through various experiments and has had a significant impact on our understanding of the universe. In addition to his work in physics, Einstein also made contributions in other areas such as political activism and philosophy.

He was a vocal advocate for peace and social justice, using his platform as a respected scientist to speak out against war and discrimination. However, Einstein's influence extended beyond just his scientific and political endeavors. His role in the development of nuclear weapons during World War II has sparked ethical debates that continue to this day. He also had a significant impact on popular culture, with his iconic image and famous equation E=mc² becoming synonymous with genius. Today, Einstein's legacy lives on through his contributions to science and society. For those interested in learning more about this remarkable historical figure, there are many educational resources available.

Early Life and Education

However, his parents' marriage began to deteriorate and they eventually separated. As a result, Einstein's mother moved to Switzerland with him and his younger sister, Maja. It was in Switzerland where Einstein received most of his formal education. Einstein attended the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich, where he studied physics and mathematics. He graduated in 1900 with a teaching diploma in physics and mathematics.

After graduation, he struggled to find a job as a teacher and eventually took on various odd jobs while continuing his scientific research. In conclusion, Albert Einstein's impact on world history cannot be overstated. His work in science and philosophy has shaped our understanding of the universe and has influenced countless individuals across generations. Through this article, we hope to have provided a glimpse into the life and legacy of this extraordinary scientist.

Grace Thompson

Grace Thompson is a dedicated historian and writer, contributing extensively to the field of world history. Her work covers a wide range of topics, including ancient civilizations, cultural histories, and significant global events like the World Wars. Known for her meticulous research and clear, engaging writing style, Grace makes complex historical subjects accessible to readers. Her articles are a valuable resource for both students and educators, providing deep insights into how historical events shape the modern world.

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Albert Einstein

Introduction.

Scientific Breakthroughs

In 1905 Einstein caused a stir by publishing five major research papers. These papers forever changed the way people thought about the universe. One of these papers contained completely new ideas about the properties of light. Einstein received the Nobel prize for physics in 1921, mainly for the work in this paper.

In another paper, Einstein presented what is now called the special theory of relativity. This theory states that measurements of space and time are relative. That is, they change when taken by people moving at different speeds. This idea was entirely new. The special theory of relativity also changed how scientists thought about energy and matter . (Matter is everything that takes up space.)

Later Years

When the Nazi Party took over Germany in 1933, Einstein left the country. He eventually settled in the United States.

During World War II Einstein urged the United States to build nuclear weapons . He felt that these weapons might be needed to defeat the Nazis. The United States did create the first atomic bomb in 1945. Einstein, however, did not work to develop the bomb. After World War II he tried to prevent any future use of atomic weapons. Einstein died in Princeton, New Jersey, on April 18, 1955.

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Albert Einstein: Biography, facts and impact on science

A brief biography of Albert Einstein (March 14, 1879 - April 18, 1955), the scientist whose theories changed the way we think about the universe.

• Einstein's birthday and education

Einstein's wives and children

How einstein changed physics.

• Later years and death

Gravitational waves and relativity

Additional resources.

Albert Einstein was a German-American physicist and probably the most well-known scientist of the 20th century. He is famous for his theory of relativity , a pillar of modern physics that describes the dynamics of light and extremely massive entities, as well as his work in quantum mechanics , which focuses on the subatomic realm. 

Albert Einstein's birthday and education

Einstein was born in Ulm, in the German state of Württemberg, on March 14, 1879, according to a biography from the Nobel Prize organization . His family moved to Munich six weeks later, and in 1885, when he was 6 years old, he began attending Petersschule, a Catholic elementary school.

Contrary to popular belief, Einstein was a good student. "Yesterday Albert received his grades, he was again number one, and his report card was brilliant," his mother once wrote to her sister, according to a German website dedicated to Einstein's legacy. But when he later switched to the Luitpold grammar school, young Einstein chafed under the school's authoritarian attitude, and his teacher once said of him, "never will he get anywhere."

In 1896, at age 17, Einstein entered the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich to be trained as a teacher in physics and mathematics. A few years later, he gained his diploma and acquired Swiss citizenship but was unable to find a teaching post. So he accepted a position as a technical assistant in the Swiss patent office. 

Related: 10 discoveries that prove Einstein was right about the universe — and 1 that proves him wrong

Einstein married Mileva Maric, his longtime love and former student, in 1903. A year prior, they had a child out of wedlock, who was discovered by scholars only in the 1980s, when private letters revealed her existence. The daughter, called Lieserl in the letters, may have been mentally challenged and either died young or was adopted when she was a year old. Einstein had two other children with Maric, Hans Albert and Eduard, born in 1904 and 1910, respectively.

Einstein divorced Maric in 1919 and soon married his cousin Elsa Löwenthal, with whom he had been in a relationship since 1912.

Einstein obtained his doctorate in physics in 1905 — a year that's often known as his annus mirabilis ("year of miracles" in Latin), according to the Library of Congress . That year, he published four groundbreaking papers of significant importance in physics.

The first incorporated the idea that light could come in discrete particles called photons. This theory describes the photoelectric effect , the concept that underpins modern solar power. The second explained Brownian motion, or the random motion of particles or molecules. Einstein looked at the case of a dust mote moving randomly on the surface of water and suggested that water is made up of tiny, vibrating molecules that kick the dust back and forth. 

The final two papers outlined his theory of special relativity, which showed how observers moving at different speeds would agree about the speed of light, which was a constant. These papers also introduced the equation E = mc^2, showing the equivalence between mass and energy. That finding is perhaps the most widely known aspect of Einstein's work. (In this infamous equation, E stands for energy, m represents mass and c is the constant speed of light).

In 1915, Einstein published four papers outlining his theory of general relativity, which updated Isaac Newton's laws of gravity by explaining that the force of gravity arose because massive objects warp the fabric of space-time. The theory was validated in 1919, when British astronomer Arthur Eddington observed stars at the edge of the sun during a solar eclipse and was able to show that their light was bent by the sun's gravitational well, causing shifts in their perceived positions.

Related: 8 Ways you can see Einstein's theory of relativity in real life

In 1921, he won the Nobel Prize in physics for his work on the photoelectric effect, though the committee members also mentioned his "services to Theoretical Physics" when presenting their award. The decision to give Einstein the award was controversial because the brilliant physicist was a Jew and a pacifist. Anti-Semitism was on the rise and relativity was not yet seen as a proven theory, according to an article from The Guardian .

Einstein was a professor at the University of Berlin for a time but fled Germany with Löwenthal in 1933, during the rise of Adolf Hitler. He renounced his German citizenship and moved to the United States to become a professor of theoretical physics at Princeton, becoming a U.S. citizen in 1940.

During this era, other researchers were creating a revolution by reformulating the rules of the smallest known entities in existence. The laws of quantum mechanics had been worked out by a group led by the Danish physicist Niels Bohr , and Einstein was intimately involved with their efforts.

Bohr and Einstein famously clashed over quantum mechanics. Bohr and his cohorts proposed that quantum particles behaved according to probabilistic laws, which Einstein found unacceptable, quipping that " God does not play dice with the universe ." Bohr's views eventually came to dominate much of contemporary thinking about quantum mechanics.

Einstein's later years and death

After he retired in 1945, Einstein spent most of his later years trying to unify gravity with electromagnetism in what's known as a unified field theory . Einstein died of a burst blood vessel near his heart on April 18, 1955, never unifying these forces.

Einstein's body was cremated and his ashes were spread in an undisclosed location, according to the American Museum of Natural History . But a doctor performed an unauthorized craniotomy before this and removed and saved Einstein's brain. 

The brain has been the subject of many tests over the decades, which suggested that it had extra folding in the gray matter, the site of conscious thinking. In particular, there were more folds in the frontal lobes, which have been tied to abstract thought and planning. However, drawing any conclusions about intelligence based on a single specimen is problematic. 

Related: Where is Einstein's brain?

In addition to his incredible legacy regarding relativity and quantum mechanics, Einstein conducted lesser-known research into a refrigeration method that required no motors, moving parts or coolant. He was also a tireless anti-war advocate, helping found the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists , an organization dedicated to warning the public about the dangers of nuclear weapons . 

Einstein's theories concerning relativity have so far held up spectacularly as a predictive models. Astronomers have found that, as the legendary physicist anticipated, the light of distant objects is lensed by massive, closer entities, a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing, which has helped our understanding of the universe's evolution. The James Webb Space Telescope , launched in Dec. 2021, has utilized gravitational lensing on numerous occasions to detect light emitted near the dawn of time , dating to just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang.

In 2016, the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory also announced the first-ever direct detection of gravitational waves , created when massive neutron stars and black holes merge and generate ripples in the fabric of space-time. Further research published in 2023 found that the entire universe may be rippling with a faint "gravitational wave background," emitted by ancient, colliding black holes.

Find answers to frequently asked questions about Albert Einstein on the Nobel Prize website. Flip through digitized versions of Einstein's published and unpublished manuscripts at Einstein Archives Online. Learn about The Einstein Memorial at the National Academy of Sciences building in Washington, D.C. 

This article was last updated on March 11, 2024 by Live Science editor Brandon Specktor to include new information about how Einstein's theories have been validated by modern experiments.

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Adam Mann is a freelance journalist with over a decade of experience, specializing in astronomy and physics stories. He has a bachelor's degree in astrophysics from UC Berkeley. His work has appeared in the New Yorker, New York Times, National Geographic, Wall Street Journal, Wired, Nature, Science, and many other places. He lives in Oakland, California, where he enjoys riding his bike. 

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Albert Einstein

• Occupation: Scientist and Inventor
• Born: March 14,1879 Ulm, in Germany
• Died: 18 April 1955 in Princeton, New Jersey
• Best known for: Theory of Relativity and E=mc2

• Albert experienced speech problems as a child. His parents were worried that he wasn't very smart!
• He failed his first try on his entrance exam for college (this gives us all hope!).
• He was offered the presidency of Israel .
• He auctioned off a hand written version of his Theory of Relativity in 1940 for 6 million dollars in order to help with the war effort.
• Albert had a sister named Maja.
• Listen to a recorded reading of this page:

• Scientific Methods
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Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein was one of the key thinkers who did exploration and examination of theories of relativity. In this article, let us know more about Albert Einstein’s inventions . He was the person who gave new dimensions to see energy, time, space and matter.

Know About Einstein

Some inventions and contributions of Einstein are Avogadro’s Number, Quantum Theory of Light, General Theory of Relativity, Special Theory of Relativity, The Photoelectric Effect , Wave-Particle Duality, Brownian movement, the relationship between mass and energy, Bose-Einstein Condensate, and many more.

Avogadro’s Number

Avogadro’s number is a concept in chemistry that defines that the number of units in one mole of a substance is equal to 6.022140857×10 23

The Avogadro constant is named after the Italian scientist Amedeo Avogadro. It is the proportionality factor defined by Albert Einstein to relate the number of constituent particles like molecules, ions, and atoms in a sample with the amount of substance in that sample. The numeric value of the Avogadro constant is expressed as the reciprocal of mole.

When Einstein was working on Brownian motion to explain the erratic movement of particles in a fluid, he came up with an expression for the quantity of Avogadro’s number in terms of measurable quantities. This leads to a path to determine the mass of an atom, or the molar mass for each element on the periodic table. Albert Einstein presented a new way of calculating Avogadro’s number and the size of molecules.

• Brownian Movement

The Brownian movement is one of the significant contributions of Albert Einstein. While studying the molecular theory of liquids, he tried to explain the motion of particles through Brownian motion. This theory explains the random movement of particles in a fluid or gas. Einstein explained the zigzag movement of particles in suspension, and this study aimed to prove the existence of molecules and atoms in particles.

• Quantum Theory of Light

Einstein was the key person behind the quantum theory of light. He proposed and explained that light consists of packets of energy known as photons in 1905. He gave the physical interpretation to Planck’s mathematics when he proposed that electromagnetic radiation itself is granular, consisting of quanta with an energy hf. He also explained the emission of electrons from metals when hit with large electric pulses, like lightning.

• Special Theory of Relativity

The Special Theory of Relativity is also known as special relativity. It is a theory regarding the relationship between time and space. This theory is based on two postulates.

• The laws of physics are the same for all, irrespective of the velocity of the observer.
• The speed of light is always constant, regardless of the motion of the light source or the motion of the observer.

This theory is one of the reasons to explain the origin of the most famous equation E=mc 2

When we hear the mass and energy relationship equation E=mc 2 , we remember the great scientist Einstein instantaneously.

• Photoelectric Effect

In 1905, Albert Einstein proposed this theory, which is the base of modern Physics. It is the phenomenon that occurs when the material absorbs electromagnetic radiations and electrically charged particles are released from or within it. In this process, electrons are emitted from the metal plate when light falls on it. The emitted electrons are known as photoelectrons. The below video is an explanation of the basics of the photoelectric effect:

Wave-Particle Duality

Einstein explained that light consists of photons, which are considered packets of energy. This concept was explained and demonstrated in the quantum theory of light. Einstein stressed that light should be treated as both a wave and a particle. He explained that photons in light can behave both as particles and waves at the same time. This concept is known as wave-particle duality . Through a two-slit apparatus experiment, he proved the dual nature of light.

General Theory of Relativity

The general theory of relativity generalizes the concepts of Special Relativity, Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation, describing gravity as a property of space and time. It is the geometric theory of gravitation, published in the year 1915. The General Theory of Relativity is also known as General relativity. The general theory of relativity gives the current description of gravitation in modern physics.

Bose-Einstein Condensate

The great Indian physicist and mathematician Satyendra Nath Bose with Albert Einstein developed the concept, which helped to understand light as a gas. The Bose-Einstein concept proposed and demonstrated that when atoms are cooled very close to absolute zero, they hardly move in relation to one another. These atoms form clusters or clumps and enter into the same energy states. Hence, they concluded that the group of atoms behaves and display the characteristics of a single atom.

Einstein is not only celebrated for his inventions, but for his outstanding contributions of theories, on which modern science stands today. Hope you learnt about some of Albert Einstein inventions .

Frequently Asked Questions – FAQs

In which year einstein was awarded the nobel prize.

In 1921, Einstein won the Nobel Prize for Physics for his significant work on the photoelectric effect.

Name five major contributions of Albert Einstein?

The following are the contributions of Albert Einstein:

• Avogadro’s Number

When was Einstein born?

What are photoelectrons, what is the value of avogadro’s number.

Avogadro’s number = 6.022140857×10 23

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Paragraph on Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein is regarded as one the famous scientists of the 20th century and the greatest physicists of all time. People usually spell the name of Einstein to compare the most intelligent children or adults. Every day millions of people take birth and die but very few among them are remembered by the people till generations. They are remembered because of their remarkable contributions or deeds. It states that everybody has their own ability. Scientists are believed to be the people who are really crazy and believe in doing extraordinary things. Albert Einstein was also among such crazy geniuses. He was really an outstanding personality and his way of working was totally different from the other scientists of the world.

Short and Long Paragraphs on Albert Einstein

The topic Albert Einstein is very important for school students and competitive exam aspirants. Students often get this topic in the exam to write an essay, paragraph, project, assignment, etc. They often find difficulty in writing essays on such topics. They could not understand how the essay, paragraph, assignment, etc had to be started. In the same context, I have provided some sets of long and short paragraphs on the topic of Albert Einstein. I hope that these paragraphs would be beneficial to all the students and readers in giving them an idea of writing essays, assignments, projects, etc on this topic.

Paragraph 1- 100 Words (Albert Einstein: A Genius Scientist)

Albert Einstein was a genius personality who had brought wonders in the field of Science and especially in Physics. He was the inventor of different important theories and equations in Physics. The invention of these important theories and equations in physics had brought a wobble in the world of Physics. It is because of his remarkable inventions and findings in science he had been stated as the greatest scientist of the 20th century. After his death, his brain has been preserved for conducting research and finding out the reason for his super intelligence. His entire life, beautiful quotes and sayings are the source of inspiration for the younger generations.

Paragraph 2- 120 Words (Albert Einstein’s Outstanding Contribution To Field Of Science)

The name Albert Einstein refers to a great physicist and a famous scientist of the 20th century. He was also stated as the most intelligent human being on the earth. It was his intelligence that helped in developing the theory of relativity, mass-energy equivalence, the law of photoelectric effect in the field of physics. He also had an outstanding contribution in relativity and quantum mechanics that are regarded as two important aspects of modern physics. He had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in the year 1921 for developing the ‘photoelectric effect’ .His principles and findings have become a milestone in the field of science. His discoveries have fostered the innovation of several modern technologies and tools. He had also been awarded several awards for his outstanding discoveries in the field of science.

Paragraph 3- 150 Words (His Love For Physics And Mathematics)

“Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value”. This is one of the famous inspirational quotes of the great and successful American scientist Albert Einstein. I think that you all would have heard of this great physicist and his discoveries in the field of science. His discovery of the theory of relativity has been a significant contribution to physics. He was not good in all subjects but was greatly interested in mathematics and physics. He was called a child genius because he was capable of solving hard problems of mathematics at a very small age. He had poor performance in subjects other than mathematics and physics; therefore he was disliked by his schools.

He had a different perspective towards nature and its phenomenon. His mind was full of curiosity and thus he was always interested in doing and knowing about new things. He had a child-like curiosity even after he grew older and this was the greatest reason behind the discoveries of his scientific theories.

Paragraph 4- 200 Words (Albert Einstein’s Curiosity For Nature)

We all would have heard about different scientists and discoveries in the world. The name Albert Einstein brings the image of an outstanding and genius personality in our mind. He was the mastermind behind the discovery of several important theories and equations in physics. He had published more than 300 research papers in his scientific career.

Inquisitive Towards Nature

Albert Einstein was different from the normal children from his childhood. He was not able to mix with other children and was not interested in playing with them. He preferred to live alone in a peaceful environment. He used to play only with his sister and used to play the game that gave some life lessons. He was a nature lover and always wanted to be close to nature. He loved seeing the activities happening in nature. He was also very curious to know the exact reason behind every phenomenon happening in nature.

Successful Scientist Even After Speaking Inability In Childhood

It is evident that Albert Einstein was a Nobel laureate famous scientist of the 20th century. Do you know that during his childhood this great scientist had the speaking inability? The parents of Albert Einstein were worried after his birth. It was because his head was bigger than the entire body. They thought that he was suffering from some kind of illness. Gradually, the structure of his head started improving. Later, he was not able to speak till the age of four years of age. He was facing a problem in understanding the language and therefore he could not speak till he became four years old. The same child with speaking inability grew up to become the scientist who brought miracles in the field of science.

Paragraph 5- 250 Words (An Account on Early Life of Albert Einstein)

Albert Einstein is regarded as a renowned mathematician and scientist in the world. He had a very creative mind and his creativity resulted in remarkable inventions in the field of science. His outstanding inventions in physics have totally changed the entire world. He was listed among the top hundred influential people of the 20th century. He was also given the title of “Person of the Century” by Time Magazine in the year 1999.

An Account On Early Life Of Albert Einstein

The great scientist Albert Einstein was born in a middle-class Jewish family in Germany on 14th of March in the year 1879. His father’s name was Hermann Einstein and he was a salesman and engineer. His mother’s name was Pauline Einstein and she was from a rich family background. Albert Einstein was the eldest among the two children of his parents. Hermann Einstein left Ulm city with his family in Germany in the year 1880 and settled in Munich city of Germany. He started a company of electrical equipment in Munich with his brother. Albert Einstein tied a knot to Mileva Maric in the year 1903 at the age of 24 years.

• Schooling And Education-  Albert Einstein never loved going to school. He started his education at the age of five years in Catholic Elementary School in Munich. Later when he attained the age of 8 years he left Catholic elementary school and joined Luitpold Gymnasium for completing his primary and secondary education. His father wanted him to pursue his career in Electrical engineering but Einstein was not interested in doing the same. It is because he did not have the desire to attend the classes anymore. According to him, curiosity and learning instinct is most important for every student and it is not achieved by the rote learning method followed in schools and colleges. He was not happy with classroom learning and felt as if he was taught forcefully.
• Secondary Education-  Albert Einstein, at the age of 16 years left his schooling and joined a diploma course at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. He appeared for an entrance test and passed only mathematics and physics. He was given admission to this college on the condition that he had to complete his schooling and thus in this way he completed his graduation in the year 1896. Finally, his scientific career initiated from the year 1900 resulted in fascinating discoveries and research papers in the field of science.

I have tried to provide every detail of this topic in short and long paragraphs stated above. I hope that you would have loved and enjoyed reading the same.

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FAQs: Frequently Asked Questions on Albert Einstein

Ans.  Albert Einstein gave the Theory of Relativity in 1905.

Ans.  Israel is the country in the world that had requested Albert Einstein to become its second president.

Ans.  E=mc2 was Albert Einstein’s most famous equation.

Ans.  Albert Einstein shifted to the USA in the year 1933.

Ans.  The great scientist Albert Einstein had the citizenship of Germany, Switzerland and the USA.

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Essay on Albert Einstein

500 words essay on albert einstein.

Albert Einstein was a physicist who is responsible for developing the famous general theory of relativity. Furthermore, he is one of the most influential and celebrated scientists of the 20th century. Let’s take a look at the life and achievements of this genius with the essay on Albert Einstein.

                                                                                                                 Essay On Albert Einstein

Early Life of Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein was born in Germany into a Jewish family on 14th March 1879. Furthermore, Einstein had to deal with speech difficulties early on but was a brilliant student at his elementary school. His father, Hermann Einstein founded an electrical equipment manufacturing company with the help of his brother.

At the age of five, Albert’s father showed him a pocket compass . Moreover, this made him realize that the needle was moving due to something in empty space. According to Einstein, this experience left a deep and lasting impression on him.

In 1889, a ten-year-old Albert became introduced to popular science and philosophy texts. This happened due to a family friend named Max Talmud.

Albert Einstein spent time on books like Kant’s ‘Critique of Pure Reason’ and ‘Euclid’s Elements’. From the latter book, Albert developed an understanding of deductive reasoning. Furthermore, by the age of 12, he was able to learn Euclidian geometry from a school booklet.

Einstein’s father’s intention was to see his son pursue electrical engineering. However, a clash took place between Albert and the authorities. This was because Albert had resentment for rote learning as, according to him,  it was against creative thought.

Achievements of Albert Einstein

In 1894, Einstein’s father’s business failed and his family went to Italy. At this time, Einstein was only fifteen. During this time, he wrote ‘The Investigation of the State of Aether in Magnetic Fields’, which was his first scientific work.

In 1901, there was the publishing of a paper by Einstein on the capillary forces of a straw in the prestigious ‘Annalen der Physik’. Furthermore, his graduation took place from ETH with a diploma in teaching.

In the year 1905, while working in the patent office, there took place the publishing of four papers by Einstein in the prestigious journal ‘Annalen der Physik’. Experts recognize all four papers as tremendous achievements of Albert Einstein. Therefore, people call the year 1905 as Einstein’s wonderful year’.

The four papers were special relativity, photoelectric effect, Brownian motion , and equivalence of matter and energy. He also made the discovery of the famous equation, E = mc².

The theory of relativity was completed by Einstein in 1915. The confirmation of his theory was by British astronomer, Sir Arthur Eddington, during the solar eclipse of 1919.

There was the continuation of research works by Einstein and finally, in 1921, his efforts bore fruits. Most noteworthy, the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Albert Einstein for his services to Theoretical Physics.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Conclusion of the Essay on Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein’s contribution to the field of physics is priceless. Furthermore, his ideas and theories are still authoritative for many physicists. Einstein’s lasting legacy in physics will continue to be an inspiration for young science enthusiasts.

FAQs For Essay on Albert Einstein

Question 1: What is the legacy of Albert Einstein?

Answer 1: Albert Einstein is one of the world’s greatest physicists and a Nobel Laureate. Furthermore, his greatest achievement is the theory of relativity which made a significant change in our understanding of the universe like. However, this wasn’t his only legacy as Einstein was also a refugee and a humanitarian.

Question 2: What is the equation E = MC 2 ?

Answer 2: Einstein’s E = MC 2 is the world’s most famous equation.  Furthermore, this equation means that energy is equal to mass times the speed of light squared.  Moreover, on the most basic level, this equation tells us that energy and mass happen to be interchangeable and that they are different forms of the same thing.

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The embodiment of genius and the pre-eminent scientist of the modern age, his theories and discoveries have profoundly affected the way people view and understand the world and their place in it. Einstein was also known as a philosopher and humanist who was keenly interested in and concerned about the affairs of the world.

His sagacious, wise, and humorous quotations, letters, and articles are widely used throughout popular culture as well as in historical and academic works. Einstein’s name and image are instantly recognizable everywhere in the world.

Albert Einstein was a theoretical physicist and the most famous scientist in human history. He developed the general theory of relativity, one of the two pillars of modern physics, alongside quantum mechanics. He is perhaps best known in popular culture for his mass/energy equivalence formula E=mc2. In 1921 he received the Nobel Prize in Physics for his “services to theoretical physics”, and in particular his discovery of the photoelectric effect, a pivotal step in the evolution of quantum theory.

Einstein was born in Ulm, Germany on March 14, 1879. As a child, he exhibited an extraordinary curiosity for and understanding of the mysteries of science. The young Einstein also took music lessons, playing both violin and piano; stoking a passion for music that he maintained throughout his life. Moving first to Italy and then Switzerland, the young prodigy graduated from high school in 1896.

In 1905, while working as a patent clerk in Bern, Switzerland, Einstein had what came to be known as his “Annus Mirabilis” (miracle year). It was during this time that the young physicist obtained his Doctorate degree and published four of his most influential research papers, including the Special Theory of Relativity, the Photoelectric Effect, Brownian Motion, and Mass/Energy Equivalence, and his worldwide fame was assured. In 1915, Einstein completed his General Theory of Relativity, and brought to the world a fuller understanding of the interaction of space, time and gravity.

The practical applications of Einstein’s theories include the development of everyday and indispensable items such as Televisions, Remote Controls, Digital Cameras, and GPS tracking systems.

In 1999 Albert Einstein was recognized by TIME Magazine as the “Person of the Century”. Einstein’s intellect, along with his wise and passionate dedication to the causes of social justice and pacifism, left humanity with a fuller understanding of its place in the universe and with pioneering moral guidance for future generations.

Einstein's Influence

Below you will find a selection of the industries and fields of research still reverberating from Einstein’s genius.

Theoretical Physics

Special Relativity, General Relativity, Brownian Motion, Photoelectric Effect

Patent Industry

Founded Swiss Patent Office

GPS Technologies

Theories of Relativity Applied to Satellite Navigation Systems

Mathematics

Differential Geometry, Tensor Calculus

Aerospace and Aeronautics

Early Theories on Relativity Impacting Space Travel

Computing and Information Theory

Early Work on Quantum Computing and Information Theory

Theoretical Cosmology, Cosmological Constant, Expanding Universe Theory

Early Work on Nuclear Energy, Advocacy for Peaceful use of Nuclear Power

Philosophy of Science

Discussions on the Nature of Reality and Scientific Theories

Quantum Theory

Wave-Particle Duality, Quantum Entanglement

Nuclear Technology

Theoretical Foundations for Nuclear Fission and Fusion

Social Sciences

Advocacy for Civil Rights and Social Justice Change

Academia and Education

University Teaching. Scientific Research Institutions

Photonics and Quantum Optics

Quantum Theory of Light, Photoelectric Cells

Military Technology

Indirect Influence through the Development of the Atomic Bomb

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Book Reviews

This is genius: a new graphic novel imagines conversations between einstein and kafka.

Tahneer Oksman

Turns out Albert Einstein and Franz Kafka lived in Prague at the same time and had the same circle of friends. In the new graphic novel, Einstein in Kafkaland, Ken Krimstein puts us in the room with two 20th century geniuses. Ken Krimstein / Bloomsbury Publishing hide caption

It’s April 1, 1911, and 32-year-old Albert Einstein — former bureaucrat at the Swiss Patent Office, with a half-decade old doctorate in physics from the University of Zurich — sits in a train car with his two sons and his wife, fellow physicist and mathematician Mileva Marić. They are travelling from Zurich to Prague, where Einstein has landed a job as a full professor in theoretical physics, teaching in the German section of what is now Charles University. He has a few things on his mind, including money troubles, but most critical is his unfinished theory of relativity. When they leave the city 15 months later, Einstein will have cracked the code.

What happens over the course of this long, mysterious year in Prague is the question driving Ken Krimstein’s new graphic novel Einstein in Kafkaland . Part biography, part historical fiction, Krimstein playfully explores the possibilities, building, with footnotes, on a thorough archive of letters, diaries, and other research. The result, a thought-provoking work made up of comics suffused in a gentle mix of aquamarine watercolors, is equal parts joyful and ruminative. (Think: Alice in Wonderland meets The Lives of the Poets meets Krazy Kat. ) The full subtitle to the book — How Albert Fell Down the Rabbit Hole and Came Up with the Universe — signals the lavish whimsy that goes a long way towards making this such a delightful, inspiring read.

Throughout, cartoon-Einstein sports his characteristic pipe alongside a signature frizzy head of hair. But it’s his obsessive ruminations that perhaps most effectively signal what has become Einstein-the-character, a culmination of all the gossip, public appearances, private words, and first-hand accounts of one of the best-known scientists to have ever lived. Krimstein pairs Einstein’s story with that of Franz Kafka, who was 28, virtually unpublished, and living with his parents in a house in Prague when Einstein arrived for his short but impactful stay. What binds the two together, in addition to an alleged one-time meeting at a weekly salon, is a complementary preoccupation with getting at the truth — “the true truth” — against all odds, and against many other people’s better judgements. For both, a journey to find this truth, whether in science or literature, is one that will sometimes alienate as painfully as it may ultimately bind them to others.

During Einstein’s time in Prague, a time in which he works out his theory of relativity, Kafka will have his own breakthrough. In one long feverish night he will pen the short story, most often known in English as “The Judgment,” which will launch an unparalleled writing career forever transforming art and literature. Like Einstein’s completed theory of relativity, Kafka, too, will offer the world a new way of thinking. It’s a way of thinking that, our narrator assures us, “we’re all still struggling to catch up to.”

Einstein in Kafkaland: How Albert Fell Down the Rabbit Hole and Came Up With the Universe by Ken Krimstein Ken Krimstein/Bloomsbury Publishing hide caption

Despite his title, Krimstein centers his book unevenly, focusing mainly on Einstein, and taking us step by step through the meditations that lead to his discovery. Nonetheless, along the way he also provides readers with glimpses into the life of the perpetually melancholic insomniac insurance clerk, Kafka. We witness, for example, an early morning swimming routine with his best bud — and future literary executor — Max Brod. But what Kafka’s presence in the narrative most crucially enables are imagined conversations between him and Einstein. In these, the two puzzle, and sometimes commiserate, over what it means to see the world differently from everyone else. What happens when you believe so confidently in your own hard-won perceptions that you risk killing the heroes that brought you there?

Author Interviews

A new graphic novel depicts the time einstein and kafka met in prague.

Krimstein, a well-published cartoonist whose previous work includes another delightful graphic biography, The Three Escapes of Hannah Arendt , luxuriates in intellectual history shoulder to shoulder with juicy biographical details. He depicts Einstein debating with his foe, Max Abraham; taking fantastical trips into a four-dimensional world with Euclid; and walking and talking with Austrian physicist, and dear friend, Paul Ehrenfest. And he exposes, too, scenes of the future Nobel Prize winner in the bath, trying to kill off bedbugs; or engaging with his young children, and wife, in Gedankenexperiments (thought experiments), to help him think through the problems that continually occupy him.

At its heart, Einstein in Kafkaland is the story of ordinary genius. It unwraps the ways in which genius so often arises out of ordinary circumstances. Perhaps even more compellingly, the book tracks how unimaginable discoveries develop following exchanges with others — friends and family, colleagues and nemeses, neighbors and role models. Aberrations aside, works of genius most wholly emerge in dialogue.

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Tahneer Oksman is a writer, teacher, and scholar specializing in memoir as well as graphic novels and comics. She lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

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Viet Thanh Nguyen: Finding a Voice in America

September 4, 2024

Posted by: Neely Tucker

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Viet Thanh Nguyen fled Vietnam as a child, escaping Saigon with his family the day before the capital city fell to communist forces. They went to military bases in the Philippines and Guam, then lived in Pennsylvania for a few years before finally settling in San Jose, California, where he discovered the American dream was complicated.

By the time he was in college, he explained at the National Book Festival last Saturday, he was reading James Baldwin and Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison, and he became acutely aware of the ties between American imperialism abroad and its domestic racism.

His mother, who had survived internal displacement, war and colonialism in Vietnam and then remade herself once more in the United States, could no longer handle the stress. In his late teens, she was hospitalized with mental illness. It was all very disorienting.

“I was raised in a very Vietnamese household in a Vietnamese refugee community and my parents told me, ‘You are 100 percent Vietnamese,” he told C-Span during the festival. “At the same time, I was constantly being exposed to American culture, so I felt like an American spying on these Vietnamese people.”

That dual identity, of seeing both the peril and the promise of the United States as a world power – and seeing the pain within a family that was doing well in its new home – is the driving force behind his literary work, most notably in his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, “The Sympathizer,” now an HBO series.

“It’s been a long struggle to wrestle with the idea of the United States, its mythology, the American dream, which is so seductive to so many immigrants and refugees who come here,” he said during the Celebrating James Baldwin’s Centennial panel at the NBF. “And to be able to root out American mythology from within oneself is extremely difficult to do.”

Nguyen, 53, a MacArthur fellow and the Aerol Arnold chair of English at the University of Southern California, was onstage with novelist and professor Ayana Mathis . NPR’s Eric Deggans moderated the hourlong discussion, which covered Baldwin’s lasting influence on American society, literature, the LGBTQ+ movement and civil rights activism.

Nguyen focused on Baldwin’s international perspective during his time onstage, but in a separate interview he spoke about the role that libraries and reading played early on. After the upheaval of fleeing the war, his parents worked long days at their small grocery store. They were saving to educate their children, but they “struggled tremendously” and their long absences while working left young Nguyen adrift.

His “salvation,” as he puts it? The San Jose Public Library .

“It was the place where I went for stories and entertainment and fantasies and escape because I couldn’t afford to buy any books myself,” he said. “These books were free and they connected me to the world — a world beyond my parents’ grocery store, beyond San Jose — a world of books that were not written for me … but those books did connect with me and gave me the idea I could be a writer.”

From the beginning, he set a high standard of both academic and literary success. He figured that it would take him at least 20 years to learn how to write the books the way he wanted, full of history and social critique and irony and interconnected storylines that tied all these themes together. He attended a private high school and went to U.C. Berkeley, where he obtained two degrees and then a Ph.D. in English.

He had not read many books by Black American authors until university, but he was then greatly impressed by Baldwin and many others. He was so taken with Ellison’s “Invisible Man” that he would later name his first child Ellison and use the opening imagery of “Invisible Man” as the inspiration for the first page of “The Sympathizer.” (The Library preserves Ellison’s papers , including his personal library .)

“Invisible Man” starts like this: “I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids — and I might even be said to possess a mind.”

The first lines of Nguyen’s “The Sympathizer” are a clear homage: “I am a spy, a spook, a man of two faces. Perhaps not surprisingly, I am a man of two minds. I am not some misunderstood mutant from a comic book or a horror movie, although some have treated me as such.”

“The Sympathizer,” some two decades in the making, drew on Nguyen’s lived experiences, of what had happened to his home country and his family, but he was also drawing energy and parallels from Black American authors of the mid-20 th century who were taking on political and social themes, such as Wright’s “Native Son,” Baldwin’s “Go Tell It on the Mountain” and Ann Petry’s “The Street.”

In his new life in America, Vietnam “wasn’t even a subject” in school, he said in a 2022 PBS interview, and the American culture he was exposed to — Hollywood films and books at the library — viewed Vietnamese people most often in “deeply racist and sexist ways” and “that was shocking for me.”

“I was looking for role models, and I was finding that in Asian American literature,” he told the NBF crowd. “But the other tradition that was really powerful for me was Black writers, Black literature. … It was really important for me to think through, ‘What does it mean to be a writer of color?’ Black writers are offering these arguments that they’re putting forth about the relative relationship of politics, putting literature into art … and it was a very fundamental debate. I think it shaped a lot of people and we’re still talking about that to a certain extent today.”

Since “Sympathizer” marked his literary debut nine years ago, Nguyen has published a second volume extending the story (and is working on the third book in the trilogy), a book of short stories, a nonfiction book on the Vietnam War, two children’s picture books and, most recently, a memoir. It’s called “A Man of Two Faces,” again emphasizing that sense of duality.

He lives with his family in Los Angeles and is delighted that there is a “tiny neighborhood library that’s so beautiful” just three blocks from their house. In a city of cars and freeways, it’s an easy walk.

His face lights up when he remembers this: His young daughter Simone went there on a recent day and saw his children’s book, “Simone,” prominently featured in the front window. She proudly took it to the librarian at the front desk, holding out the cover.

“‘That’s my name and my father wrote this book,’” he recounts her saying. Delighted, smiling, he adds: “And for me, that just brought everything home.”

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Comments (2)

Libraries connect us & help to build community, perhaps now more than ever. Many thanks for the leadership & the global impact of the incomparable Library Of Congress.

Wonderful interview with such deeply developed personal insights. Great fan of his literary output and accomplishments.

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