short biography of albert einstein in english

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Childhood and education

• From graduation to the “miracle year” of scientific theories
• General relativity and teaching career
• World renown and Nobel Prize
• Nazi backlash and coming to America
• Personal sorrow, World War II, and the atomic bomb
• Increasing professional isolation and death

What did Albert Einstein do?

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Albert Einstein

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• Wolfram Research - Eric Weisstein's World of Scientific Biography - Biography of Albert Einstein
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• DigitalCommons@CalPoly - Einstein’s 1935 Derivation of E=mc2
• Space.com - Albert Einstein: His life, theories and impact on science
• American Museum of Natural History - Albert Einstein
• Institute for Advanced Study - Albert Einstein: In Brief
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• The MY HERO Project - Albert Einstein
• Jewish Virtual Library - Biography of Albert Einstein
• Albert Einstein - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11)
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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.

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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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, who was albert einstein.

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 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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• January 11, 2019 3:00 PM

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• January 10, 2019 4:11 PM

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• December 23, 2018 8:06 PM

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• December 08, 2018 10:14 AM

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• November 15, 2018 7:03 PM
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Albert Einstein

By: History.com Editors

Updated: May 16, 2019 | Original: October 27, 2009

The German-born physicist Albert Einstein developed the first of his groundbreaking theories while working as a clerk in the Swiss patent office in Bern. After making his name with four scientific articles published in 1905, he went on to win worldwide fame for his general theory of relativity and a Nobel Prize in 1921 for his explanation of the phenomenon known as the photoelectric effect. An outspoken pacifist who was publicly identified with the Zionist movement, Einstein emigrated from Germany to the United States when the Nazis took power before World War II. He lived and worked in Princeton, New Jersey, for the remainder of his life.

Einstein’s Early Life (1879-1904)

Born on March 14, 1879, in the southern German city of Ulm, Albert Einstein grew up in a middle-class Jewish family in Munich. As a child, Einstein became fascinated by music (he played the violin), mathematics and science. He dropped out of school in 1894 and moved to Switzerland, where he resumed his schooling and later gained admission to the Swiss Federal Polytechnic Institute in Zurich. In 1896, he renounced his German citizenship, and remained officially stateless before becoming a Swiss citizen in 1901.

Did you know? Almost immediately after Albert Einstein learned of the atomic bomb's use in Japan, he became an advocate for nuclear disarmament. He formed the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists and backed Manhattan Project scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer in his opposition to the hydrogen bomb.

While at Zurich Polytechnic, Einstein fell in love with his fellow student Mileva Maric, but his parents opposed the match and he lacked the money to marry. The couple had an illegitimate daughter, Lieserl, born in early 1902, of whom little is known. After finding a position as a clerk at the Swiss patent office in Bern, Einstein married Maric in 1903; they would have two more children, Hans Albert (born 1904) and Eduard (born 1910).

Einstein’s Miracle Year (1905)

While working at the patent office, Einstein did some of the most creative work of his life, producing no fewer than four groundbreaking articles in 1905 alone. In the first paper, he applied the quantum theory (developed by German physicist Max Planck) to light in order to explain the phenomenon known as the photoelectric effect, by which a material will emit electrically charged particles when hit by light. The second article contained Einstein’s experimental proof of the existence of atoms, which he got by analyzing the phenomenon of Brownian motion, in which tiny particles were suspended in water.

In the third and most famous article, titled “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies,” Einstein confronted the apparent contradiction between two principal theories of physics: Isaac Newton’s concepts of absolute space and time and James Clerk Maxwell’s idea that the speed of light was a constant. To do this, Einstein introduced his special theory of relativity, which held that the laws of physics are the same even for objects moving in different inertial frames (i.e. at constant speeds relative to each other), and that the speed of light is a constant in all inertial frames. A fourth paper concerned the fundamental relationship between mass and energy, concepts viewed previously as completely separate. Einstein’s famous equation E = mc2 (where “c” was the constant speed of light) expressed this relationship.

From Zurich to Berlin (1906-1932)

Einstein continued working at the patent office until 1909, when he finally found a full-time academic post at the University of Zurich. In 1913, he arrived at the University of Berlin, where he was made director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics. The move coincided with the beginning of Einstein’s romantic relationship with a cousin of his, Elsa Lowenthal, whom he would eventually marry after divorcing Mileva. In 1915, Einstein published the general theory of relativity, which he considered his masterwork. This theory found that gravity, as well as motion, can affect time and space. According to Einstein’s equivalence principle–which held that gravity’s pull in one direction is equivalent to an acceleration of speed in the opposite direction–if light is bent by acceleration, it must also be bent by gravity. In 1919, two expeditions sent to perform experiments during a solar eclipse found that light rays from distant stars were deflected or bent by the gravity of the sun in just the way Einstein had predicted.

The general theory of relativity was the first major theory of gravity since Newton’s, more than 250 years before, and the results made a tremendous splash worldwide, with the London Times proclaiming a “Revolution in Science” and a “New Theory of the Universe.” Einstein began touring the world, speaking in front of crowds of thousands in the United States, Britain, France and Japan. In 1921, he won the Nobel Prize for his work on the photoelectric effect, as his work on relativity remained controversial at the time. Einstein soon began building on his theories to form a new science of cosmology, which held that the universe was dynamic instead of static, and was capable of expanding and contracting.

Einstein Moves to the United States (1933-39)

A longtime pacifist and a Jew, Einstein became the target of hostility in Weimar Germany, where many citizens were suffering plummeting economic fortunes in the aftermath of defeat in the Great War. In December 1932, a month before Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany, Einstein made the decision to emigrate to the United States, where he took a position at the newly founded Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey . He would never again enter the country of his birth.

By the time Einstein’s wife Elsa died in 1936, he had been involved for more than a decade with his efforts to find a unified field theory, which would incorporate all the laws of the universe, and those of physics, into a single framework. In the process, Einstein became increasingly isolated from many of his colleagues, who were focused mainly on the quantum theory and its implications, rather than on relativity.

Einstein’s Later Life (1939-1955)

In the late 1930s, Einstein’s theories, including his equation E=mc2, helped form the basis of the development of the atomic bomb. In 1939, at the urging of the Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard, Einstein wrote to President Franklin D. Roosevelt advising him to approve funding for the development of uranium before Germany could gain the upper hand. Einstein, who became a U.S. citizen in 1940 but retained his Swiss citizenship, was never asked to participate in the resulting Manhattan Project , as the U.S. government suspected his socialist and pacifist views. In 1952, Einstein declined an offer extended by David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s premier, to become president of Israel .

Throughout the last years of his life, Einstein continued his quest for a unified field theory. Though he published an article on the theory in Scientific American in 1950, it remained unfinished when he died, of an aortic aneurysm, five years later. In the decades following his death, Einstein’s reputation and stature in the world of physics only grew, as physicists began to unravel the mystery of the so-called “strong force” (the missing piece of his unified field theory) and space satellites further verified the principles of his cosmology.

HISTORY Vault: Secrets of Einstein's Brain

Originally stolen by the doctor trusted to perform his autopsy, scientists over the decades have examined the brain of Albert Einstein to try and determine what made this seemingly normal man tick.

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• Albert Einstein - Biographical

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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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.

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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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Biography: Albert Einstein

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Legendary scientist Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955) first gained worldwide prominence in 1919 after British astronomers verified predictions of Einstein's general theory of relativity through measurements taken during a total eclipse. Einstein's theories expanded upon universal laws formulated by physicist Isaac Newton in the late seventeenth century.

Before E=MC2

Einstein was born in Germany in 1879. Growing up, he enjoyed classical music and played the violin. One story Einstein liked to tell about his childhood was when he came across a magnetic compass. The needle's invariable northward swing, guided by an invisible force, profoundly impressed him as a child. The compass convinced him that there had to be "something behind things, something deeply hidden."

Even as a small boy Einstein was self-sufficient and thoughtful. According to one account, he was a slow talker, often pausing to consider what he would say next. His sister would recount the concentration and perseverance with which he would build houses of cards.

Einstein's first job was that of patent clerk. In 1933, he joined the staff of the newly created Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. He accepted this position for life, and lived there until his death. Einstein is probably familiar to most people for his mathematical equation about the nature of energy, E = MC2.

E = MC2, Light and Heat

The formula E=MC2 is probably the most famous calculation from Einstein's special theory of relativity . The formula basically states that energy (E) equals mass (m) times the speed of light (c) squared (2). In essence, it means mass is just one form of energy. Since the speed of light squared is an enormous number, a small amount of mass can be converted to a phenomenal amount of energy. Or if there's a lot of energy available, some energy can be converted to mass and a new particle can be created. Nuclear reactors, for instance, work because nuclear reactions convert small amounts of mass into large amounts of energy.

Einstein wrote a paper based on the new understanding of the structure of light. He argued that light can act as though it consists of discrete, independent particles of energy similar to particles of a gas. A few years before, Max Planck's work had contained the first suggestion of discrete particles in energy. Einstein went far beyond this though and his revolutionary proposal seemed to contradict the universally accepted theory that light consists of smoothly oscillating electromagnetic waves. Einstein showed that light quanta, as he called the particles of energy, could help to explain phenomena being studied by experimental physicists. For example, he explained how light ejects electrons from metals.

While there was a well-known kinetic energy theory that explained heat as an effect of the ceaseless motion of atoms, it was Einstein who proposed a way to put the theory to a new and crucial experimental test. If tiny but visible particles were suspended in a liquid, he argued, the irregular bombardment by the liquid's invisible atoms should cause the suspended particles to move in a random jittering pattern. This should be observable through a microscope. If the predicted motion is not seen, the whole kinetic theory would be in grave danger. But such a random dance of microscopic particles had long since been observed. With the motion demonstrated in detail, Einstein had reinforced the kinetic theory and created a powerful new tool for studying the movement of atoms.

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Who was Albert Einstein? (Short biography)

Albert Einstein was a German physicist of the XIX and XX centuries. He was born on March 14, 1879 and died on April 18, 1955. Einstein was known mainly for the development of the theory of relativity (special and general), the theoretical explanation of the Brownian motion and the photoelectric effect .

Einstein was born in the German city of Ulm, but one year later his family moved to Munich, where he would live until he was 15 years old. At 17, he entered the Federal Polytechnic School of Zurich to study mathematics and physics. Five years later, when he was a graduate, he obtained Swiss citizenship and in 1902 he began to work in the Federal Office of Intellectual Property in Switzerland. He worked this job until his 30s and was able to combine is with his scientific research.

1905 was his most successful year . He published four scientific articles on the photoelectric effect, the Brownian motion, the theory of special relativity and the mass-energy equivalence (E = mc²). The first earned him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921, the second the degree of doctor and the last two, over time, would make him the greatest scientist of the twentieth century .

In 1908 he began to practice as a professor of physics at the University of Bern, a position he would continue later in Prague and finally in Berlin. He lived there until the rise of the Nazi regime made him leave Germany and move to the United States (1932). There he taught at the Institute of Advanced Studies in Princeton and became an American citizen (obtaining dual Swiss-American citizenship). He spent the rest of his life trying to integrate the physical laws of gravity and electromagnetism. He also spread pacifist, socialist and Zionist values. He died as a result of an internal hemorrhage on April 18, 1955 (76 years old).

2. ALBERT EINSTEIN DOCUMENTARY

3. REFERENCES

• Saber es práctico (2018). ¿Quién fue Albert Einstein? ¿Qué hizo? (Resumen) . Text in Spanish. Avaliable [ HERE ].
• ScienceNet – Youtube (2014).  Albert Einstein Documentary HD .
• Sofi – Flickr (2009). Albert Einstein by Philippe Halsman, 1947 . Avaliable [ HERE ].

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Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

Albert Einstein was born at Ulm in Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany, on March 14, 1879, into a non-observant Jewish family. At age five, his father showed him a pocket compass, and Einstein realized that something in "empty" space acted upon the needle; he would later describe the experience as one of the most revelatory of his life.

Although considered a slow learner, possibly due to dyslexia, simply shyness or the significantly rare and unusual structure his brain (examined after his death), Einstein built models and mechanical devices for fun. Another, more recent, theory about his mental development is that he had Asperger's syndrome, a condition related to autism.

Einstein began to learn mathematics around age 12. In 1894, his family moved from Munich to Pavia, Italy (near Milan), and this same year Einstein wrote his first scientific work, The Investigation of the State of Aether in Magnetic Fields. He continued his education at Aarau, Switzerland, and in 1896, he entered the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich to be trained as a teacher in physics and mathematics. In 1901, he gained his diploma and acquired Swiss citizenship. Unable to find a teaching post, he accepted a position as technical assistant in the Swiss Patent Office, obtaining his doctor's degree in 1905.

In 1908, Einstein was appointed Privadozent in Berne. The next year, he became Professor Extraordinary in Zurich, and in 1911 Professor of Theoretical Physics at Prague, returning to Zurich in 1912 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 U.S. citizen in 1940 and retired from his post in 1945.

In his early days in Berlin, Einstein postulated that they 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, he embarked on the construction of unified field theories, continuing to work on the probabilistic interpretation of quantum theory, and he persevered with this work in America. He won a Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921 "for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect." 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.

Einstein initially favored construction of the atomic bomb, in order to ensure that Hitler did not do so first, and even sent a letter, dated August 2, 1939, to President Roosevelt encouraging him to initiate a program to create a nuclear weapon. Roosevelt responded to this by setting up a committee for the investigation of using uranium as a weapon, which in a few years was superseded by the Manhattan Project.

After the war, however, Einstein lobbied for nuclear disarmament and a world government. Along with Albert Schweitzer and Bertrand Russell, he fought against nuclear tests and bombs. As his last public act, and just days before his death, he signed the Russell-Einstein Manifesto, which led to the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs.

Einstein's latter years were also spent searching for a unified field theory, for a universal force that would link gravitation with electromagnetic and subatomic forces, a problem on which no one to date has been entirely successful.

Einstein received honorary doctorate degrees in science, medicine and philosophy from many European and American universities. During the 1920s, he lectured in Europe, America and the Far East and was awarded Fellowships or Memberships to all of 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 married Mileva Maric in 1903, and they had a daughter and two sons; the marriage was dissolved in 1919, and that same year he married his cousin Elsa Lowenthal, who died in 1936. Einstein died on April 18, 1955, in Princeton, New Jersey. Element 99 was named einsteinium (Es) in his honor.

Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

This is Steve Ember. And this is Sarah Long with the VOA Special English program, EXPLORATIONS .

Today we tell about a scientist who changed the way we understand the universe, Albert Einstein.

In the year 1905, Albert Einstein published some important papers in a German scientific magazine. They included one of the most important scientific documents in history. It was filled with mathematics. It explained what came to be called his "Special Theory of Relativity." Ten years later he expanded it to a "General Theory of Relativity."

Albert Einstein's theories of relativity are about the basic ideas we use to describe natural happenings. They are about time, space, mass, movement, and gravity.

Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, Germany, in 1879. His father owned a factory that made electrical devices. His mother enjoyed music and books. His parents were Jewish but they did not observe many of the religion's rules.

Albert was a quiet child who spent much of his time alone. He was slow to talk and had difficulty learning to read.

When Albert was five years old, his father gave him a compass. The child was filled with wonder when he discovered that the compass needle always pointed in the same direction -- to the north. He asked his father and his uncle what caused the needle to move.

Their answers about magnetism and gravity were difficult for the boy to understand. Yet he spent a lot of time thinking about them. He said later that he felt something hidden had to be behind things.

Albert did not like school. The German schools of that time were not pleasant. Students could not ask questions.  Albert said he felt as if he were in prison.

One story says Albert told his Uncle Jacob how much he hated school, especially mathematics. His uncle told him to solve mathematical problems by pretending to be a policeman. "You are looking for someone," he said, "but you do not know who. Call him X. Find him by using the mathematical tools of algebra and geometry."

Albert learned to love mathematics. He was studying the complex mathematics of calculus when all his friends were still studying simple mathematics. Instead of playing with friends he thought about things such as: "What would happen if people could travel at the speed of light?"

Albert decided that he wanted to teach mathematics and physics. He attended the Federal Polytechnic Institute in Zurich, Switzerland. He graduated with honors, but could not get a teaching job. So he began working for the Swiss government as an inspector of patents for new inventions. The job was not demanding. He had a lot of time to think about some of his scientific theories.

From the time he was a boy, Albert Einstein had performed what he called "thought experiments" to test his ideas. He used his mind as a laboratory. By 1905, he had formed his ideas into theories that he published.

In one paper he said that light travels both in waves and in particles, called photons. This idea is an important part of what is called the quantum theory.

Another paper was about the motion of small particles suspended in a liquid or gas. It confirmed the atomic theory of matter.

The most important of Albert Einstein's theories published that year became known as his "Special Theory of Relativity." He said the speed of light is always the same -- almost three hundred thousand kilometers a second. Where the light is coming from or who is measuring it does not change the speed. However, he said, time can change. And mass can change. And length can change. They depend on where a person is in relation to an object or an event.

Imagine two space vehicles with a scientist travelling in each one. One spaceship is red. One is blue. Except for color, both spaceships are exactly alike. They pass one another far out in space.

Neither scientist feels that his ship is moving. To each, it seems that the other ship is moving, not his. As they pass at high speed, the scientist in each ship measures how long it takes a beam of light to travel from the floor to the top of his spaceship, hit a mirror and return to the floor. Each spaceship has a window that lets each scientist see the experiment of the other.

They begin their experiments at exactly the same moment. The scientist in the blue ship sees his beam of light go straight up and come straight down. But he sees that the light beam in the red ship does not do this. The red ship is moving so fast that the beam does not appear to go straight up. It forms a path up and down that looks like an upside down "V".

The scientist in the red ship would see exactly the same thing as he watched the experiment by the other scientist. He could say that time passed more slowly in the other ship. Each scientist would be correct, because the passing of time is linked to the position of the observer.

Each scientist also would see that the other spaceship was shorter than his own. The higher the speeds the spaceships were travelling, the shorter the other ship would appear. And although the other ship would seem shorter, its mass would increase. It would seem to get heavier.

The ideas were difficult to accept. Yet other scientists did experiments to prove that Einstein's theory was correct.

Ten years after his paper on the special theory of relativity, Albert Einstein finished work on another theory. It described what he called his "General Theory of Relativity." It expanded his special theory to include the motion of objects that are gaining speed. This theory offered new ideas about gravity and the close relationship between matter and energy. It built on the ideas about mass he had expressed in 1905.

Einstein said that an object loses mass when it gives off light, which is a kind of energy. He believed that matter and energy were different forms of the same thing. That was the basis of his famous mathematical statement E equals m-c squared (energy equals mass times the speed of light squared). This statement or formula explained that a great amount of energy could come from a small piece of matter. It explained how the sun could give off heat and light for millions of years. This formula also led to the discovery of atomic energy.

In his general theory of relativity, Einstein said that gravity, like time, is not always the same. Gravity changes as observers speed up or slow down. He also said that gravity from very large objects, such as stars, could turn the path of light waves that passed nearby. This seemed unbelievable. But in 1919, British scientists confirmed his theory when the sun was completely blocked during a solar eclipse. Albert Einstein immediately became famous around the world.

In 1921, he won the Nobel Prize in Physics. It was given to him, not for his theories of relativity, but for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect. This scientific law explained how and why some metals give off electrons after light falls on their surfaces. The discovery led to the development of modern electronics, including radio and television.

Albert Einstein taught in Switzerland and Germany. He left Germany when Adolph Hitler came to power in 1933. He moved to the United States to continue his research. He worked at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Einstein became a citizen of the United States in 1940.

Einstein was a famous man, but you would not have known that by looking at him. His white hair was long and wild. He wore old clothes. He showed an inner joy when he was playing his violin or talking about his work. Students and friends said he had a way of explaining difficult ideas using images that were easy to understand.

Albert Einstein opposed wars. Yet he wrote to President Franklin Roosevelt in 1939 to advise him that the United States should develop an atomic bomb before Germany did.

Einstein spent the last twenty-five years of his life working on what he called a "unified field theory." He hoped to find a common mathematical statement that could tie together all the different parts of physics. He did not succeed.

Albert Einstein died in 1955. He was seventy-six years old.

This Special English program was written by Marilyn Christiano and produced by Paul Thompson. This is Sarah Long. And this is Steve Ember.

This page is part of Stories About People which is part of Interesting Things for ESL Students .

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“Let me tell you what I look like: pale face, long hair, and a tiny beginning of a paunch. In addition, an awkward gait, and a cigar in the mouth …”

Albert Einstein, 1920

Albert Einstein was born as the first child of the Jewish couple Hermann and Pauline Einstein, nee Koch, in Ulm on March 14, 1879. When Albert’s grandmother saw him for the first time she is said to have cried continuously: “Much too thick! Much too thick!” But despite all fear the development of young Albert was a normal one. In November 1881 Albert’s sister Maria – called Maja – was born.

A short time later the Einstein family went to Munich where Albert first attended elementary school and subsequently Luitpold grammar school. He was an “average” pupil but already very early interested in science and mathematics. He did not like lessons in grammar school as they were held with strict discipline and as he was forced to learn. When he turned 15 he left school without any degree and followed his family to Milan. To make up for the missed degree he attended school in Aarau (Switzerland) from 1895 to 1896 when he successfully took his A-levels and began to study in Zurich. His ambition was to obtain the diploma of a subject teacher for mathematics and physics. He successfully finished his studies in July 1900.

He moved to Bern and was given work at the Patent Office. In his leisure time he worked in the area of theoretical physics. In 1905 he published several of his important scientific works. One of them deals with the ground-breaking special theory of relativity. Another work contains the most famous formula of the world “E = m · c 2 “. This formula states that matter can be converted into energy.

In this mathematical equation, E stands for energy, m for mass and c for the speed of the light in a vacuum (ca. 300,000 km/s).

In 1903 he married his college mate Mileva Maric. One year later Einstein’s first son, Hans Albert, was born and his second son Eduard followed in 1910. In 1909 he became professor for theoretical physics at the University of Zurich. After that time he was given a professorship in Prague and then again in Zurich. In 1914 Einstein was called to Berlin to work there scientifically. In the same year World War I broke out.

After Einstein had separated from his wife Mileva he married his cousin Elsa Löwenthal in 1919. From 1909 to 1916 Albert Einstein worked on a generalisation of the special theory of relativity, the general theory of relativity. After this theory was proven right in an experiment in 1919 (deflection of light by the sun’s gravitational field) Einstein became famous over night. He received invitations and honours from all over the world. There was hardly any magazine which did not report about him and praise his work to the skies. For the year 1921 he received the Nobel Prize for Physics.

When the 12-year-old Eduard asked his father why he was so famous he got the answer:

“When a blind beetle crawls over the surface of a curved branch, it doesn’t notice that the track it has covered is indeed curved. I was lucky enough to notice what the beetle didn’t notice.”

quoted in Max Flückiger, Albert Einstein in Bern , Bern 1974

Through the political situation in Nazi Germany Einstein left the country in December 1932 and never again entered German ground. From 1933 Einstein and his family lived in Princeton, USA. At the “Institute for Advanced Study” he found ideal working conditions. In December 1936 Einstein’s wife Elsa died. In 1939 World War II broke out. Because of his fear that Germany was working on atomic bombs he wrote a letter to Franklin D. Roosevelt, the president of the United States of America, to tell him about the possibility of atomic weapons. In 1946 he proposed a world government in which he saw the only way to achieve continuous peace.

Einstein spent the last years of his life reclusively in Princeton. Until his last breath he worked on a new theory, the unified field theory, which however was not successful. Albert Einstein died on April 18, 1955. He was 76 years old.

Illustrations Credits: FamousBrick, Lindau (Bodensee): 1 ETH-Bibliothek, Zurich: 2 Archive of the author: 3 Albert Einstein-Society, Bern: 4

Bibliography:

Albert Einstein

This brilliant physicist worked to crack open the mysteries of the universe. Check out the time line below to learn about the life of this legend.

Albert Einstein is born in Ulm, Germany . As a child, the prodigy enjoys solving math riddles and building skyscrapers out of playing cards. Some of his card creations are 14 mini-stories tall!

Sixteen-year-old Einstein writes his first scholarly paper on the force of magnetism. Bet that pulled in a lot of readers. Ha-ha. Get it?

Living in Switzerland , the physicist figures out that matter—the tiny particles that form objects—can be turned into energy, and vice versa. He also comes up with the famous formula E=mc2, which calculates the energy produced by converting a given amount of matter. He’s now a star!

Einstein wows the world by publishing his theory of relativity. The theory explains gravity—basically ginormous objects such as planets bend the space around them as they travel or pulsate. These curves in space then produce a gravitational pull toward the planet.

Einstein receives the Nobel Prize in physics—an award for major scientific accomplishments.

The science genius continues his research at Princeton University in New Jersey , and his life’s work helps completely change people’s understanding of the universe. The contributions of this brainy guy are mind-blowing.

more to explore

Women heroes, african american heroes, native americans.

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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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• Albert Einstein Essay

Read Albert Einstein Essay on Vedantu

Albert Einstein was a Theoretical Physicist of German origin. He is the one who developed a pillar of modern Physics, the Theory of Relativity. Be it his mass-energy equivalence formula or his law of photoelectric effect, the theories he postulated changed the history of science forever. His works are still studied in standard institutions of learning throughout the world.

About Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein was born on 14th March 1879 in Ulm in the Kingdom of Wurttemberg in the German empire. His father's name was Herman Einstein and his mother's name was Pauline Koch. His father worked as a salesman and as an engineer. In 1880, his father along with his family moved to Munich. His father and his uncle founded Elektrotechnische Fabrik J. Einstein & Cie. It is a company that manufactures electrical equipment based on direct current.

After birth, Albert Einstein's head was much larger than his body and he was born as a deformed abnormal child. Usually, children start speaking at the age of 2, but Albert Einstein started speaking after 4 years of age. When Einstein was 5 years old, his father gifted him with a magnetic compass on his birthday. The needle of the compass used to be in the North Direction, and seeing this, he became very fascinated and developed an interest to explore science well.

His Childhood

Albert Einstein was born on 14th March 1879, in Ulm, where his family ran a small shop. He had two siblings, an elder sister named Maja and a younger brother named Hans Albert. The Einsteins were non-observant Jews and moved to Munich when Albert was one year old. His parents wanted him to become a businessman, but he showed scientific inclinations from his childhood days. From 1890, the family resided in Milan where Einstein underwent Technical High School education. Since his father had relocated to Italy for work purposes, Albert Einstein decided not to move with his family to Berlin after matriculating from the Zurich Polytechnic in 1896.

He had problems with authority and left his academic institutions without a degree on several occasions. He started working as a patent clerk at the Swiss Patent Office in 1902, where he spent most of his time on theoretical physics. In 1905, he published four papers that revolutionized Physics. They were on (I) Brownian motion, (ii) photoelectric effect, (iii) special relativity and (iv) equivalence of mass and energy, which is famously known as the E=mc 2 equation. He worked on unified field Theory for more than ten years but was unable to complete it.

At the age of 5, he joined the Catholic Elementary School in Munich. After that, he enrolled in Luitpold Gymnasium, where he received his primary and secondary school education. When Albert Einstein was 15 years old, his father wanted him to do electrical engineering but Einstein used to fight with the authority of his school, about their way of teaching. He believed that due to so many strict rules and regulations in the school, the creative mind of children was lost and they only knew the strict rote learning. Einstein was thrown out of school too many times due to this behavior of his. He used to fight with his teachers, he also raised questions about their way of teaching.

At the age of 12, Einstein started learning Calculus on his own, and when he became 14 years old, he mastered Integral and Differential Calculus. Einstein got married in 1903 to Marci. In 1904 his son named Hans Albert Einstein was born, and in 1910 his second son Eduard was born.

Contribution Towards Science

Albert received a patent officer job at the Federal Office for Intellectual Property in Bern, Switzerland, at the age of 23, after completing college. While working there, he completed his Ph.D., after which he became a professor at the University of Zurich. During this period he gave the theory of mass-energy (E = mc 2 ). The atomic bombs dropped in Japan were built on this principle. However, throughout his life, Albert Einstein was against the atomic bomb dropped on Japan. He then gave a new theory of relativity, falsifying the old rules of relativity given by Isaac Newton, which proved that time and light are not constant. If traveling at the speed of light, i.e. 300000 km, it will be slow, and millions of years have passed on Earth. That is, he proved that time travel can be done. However, till date scientists have not been able to build a spaceship that can travel at the speed of light. 

In 1977, NASA conducted an experiment to prove this theory in which they set the clock in a satellite and were left to orbit the Earth. After a few years, when the satellite's clock was checked, it was much slower than the Earth's clock. In this theory of quantum physics, Indian scientist Satyendra Nath Bose wrote a letter from India to Albert Einstein in which he said that Newton's relativity theory is wrong. Albert Einstein then agreed to the letter of Satyendra Nath Bose, and he published that paper and later gave a new theory of relativity. Albert Einstein made many other inventions with this theory. 

He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1981 for his photoelectric effect. In 1933, Hitler killed millions of people in Germany, and at the same time, Albert Einstein was changing the whole world with science. He went to America from Europe forever, taking the citizenship there because Hitler placed a reward of \[$\]5000 on Albert Einstein's head and burned all his research books.

Moving to the United States

During World War-I, he was invited to join the Bureau of Standards in Washington before accepting its offer officially. He moved to the United States of America with his family in April 1933 after Hitler's rise to power.

He advised breaking up Bell Labs and nationalizing the electricity supply industry, worked on defense projects during World War II, and became a citizen of the United States in 1940.

In 1951, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics "for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect."

Albert Einstein died on 18th April 1955 at Princeton Hospital, New Jersey. He was 76 years old.

Death and Awards

On 17th April 1955, Einstein underwent internal bleeding in the Lower Abdominal, and he was taken to a hospital where the doctor asked him to undergo a surgery. Albert Einstein refused to undergo the surgery, and said that he would go when he wanted, and that it is tasteless to prolong life artificially. He told me that he would like to die like that. Later research was done on Albert Einstein's brain and it was found that the parts of Einstein's brain that were for mathematical calculus had developed 15% more as compared to the brains of normal people.

The whole world celebrates Albert Einstein's birthday on 14th March as World Genius Day. He had published more than 300 research papers on science in his life and had contributed to the advancement of science. This is the reason that Times magazine has awarded Albert Einstein the title of Person of the Century. Einstein received numerous awards and honors, and in 1922, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics "for his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect".

Conclusion  

Albert Einstein was one of the best scientists, mathematicians, and physicists of the 20th century. In the early twentieth century, Albert Einstein formulated theories that changed the thinking of physicists and non-specialists alike. He will always be remembered for his law of photoelectric effect and mass-energy equivalence formula. His body of work is studied in universities across the world to this day. He is a famous and known name in the world of Physics, he also achieved a lot, and was awarded the Nobel Prize for his commendable research and accomplishments.

FAQs on Albert Einstein Essay

1. Why did Albert Einstein Have No Social Life?

Albert Einstein was a very intelligent person. He had no time for a social life because he was always busy with his research and work. Albert Einstein had more than 40 publications to his credit. His life and work were on research and inventions. His life revolved around his work and family. The work-life of Albert Einstein is an inspiration to all the people who are working day and night to achieve something great in their lives. One of the best scientists, mathematicians and physicists of the 20th century was none other than Albert Einstein. His achievement includes the most discussed formula in his name- the mass-energy equivalence equation. He was known for the impact he made on the world of physics and also for the awards and honors he received in his lifetime.

2. What Was the Theory of Relativity by Albert Einstein?

The theory of relativity is the scientific theory developed by Albert Einstein between 1905 and 1915. It is a theory of gravity and space-time. The theory revolutionized physics by proposing that the laws of physics are the same for all inertial frames of reference. That is, the laws of physics are the same whether an observer is stationary or in motion. The theory also proposed that the speed of light is a constant for all observers, regardless of their relative motion. This was a radical departure from classical mechanics and Newton's view of the universe. His theory is the basis for many features of our modern life and is used in daily applications. You can learn more about the theory of relativity in any good physics textbook.

3. What Did Albert Einstein Do for Science?

Albert Einstein was a German theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. He is best known in popular culture for his mass-energy equivalence formula E = mc 2 (which has been dubbed "the world's most famous equation"). He received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect". This makes Einstein the only physicist to win twice. He is also known for his other great works, such as the world's smallest unit of time and explaining the Brownian motion of particles. His life's work has had a great impact on the modern world and the way we see things.

4. What Awards Did Albert Einstein Receive in His Lifetime?

Albert Einstein was one of the most genius scientists of all time. He is known for his great works in Physics. He also received a lot of awards in his lifetime. Albert Einstein won the Nobel Prize in 1921 for physics "for his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect". He is the only physicist to have been awarded a Nobel Prize twice. In 1921, he received the Nobel Prize in physics. In his acceptance lecture, titled "The Field Theory of Matter", he provided what is now viewed as a foundation for relativistic quantum field theory. Einstein was voted number 3 in BBC's poll of the 100 Greatest Britons.

5. Why Was Einstein Thought of as a Genius?

Albert Einstein was a brilliant and intelligent man. He changed the world because of his scientific ideas and theories. He is known for the mass-energy equivalence formula (E=mc 2 ); he came up with it in 1905; before coming to this theory, he did not have any notable publications. However, by the end of this year, he had already submitted two articles to Annalen der Physik. One of these was on the photoelectric effect, while the other was on "A new determination of molecular dimensions". Albert Einstein is considered a genius because he looked at things in an entirely different way than anyone else did before him. He also had wonderful ideas about space and time that changed the way we think about those things.

6. What Were the Names of Albert Einstein’s Father and Mother?

Albert Einstein was born on 14th March 1879 in Ulm in the Kingdom of  Wurttemberg in the German empire. His father’s name was Herman Einstein and His Mother’s name was Pauline Koch.

7. How Albert Einstein Was Different from Normal Kids?

After birth, Albert Einstein's head was much larger than his body and he was born as a deformed abnormal child. Usually, children start speaking at the age of 2, but in the case of Albert Einstein, he started speaking after 4 years of age. At the age of 12, Einstein learning Calculus and when he became 14 years old he had mastered Integral and Differential Calculus which is obviously not normal for any other kid.

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Albert Einstein Biography: Birth, Early Life, Education, Scientific Career, Inventions, Awards, and Honours, Legacy, and More

Albert einstein biography: he was born on 14 march 1879 in ulm, wurttemberg, germany. he was a physicist who developed the special and general theories of relativity. in 1921, he won the nobel prize for physics. read more about his early life, education, his inventions, scientific career, awards, honours, and more..

Albert Einstein Biography 

Albert Einstein: Early Life, Education, Marriage, Children, Teaching Career

He was born on 14 March 1879 in Ulm, Württemberg, Germany, to a secular, middle-class Jews . His father was Hermann Einstein, and his mother was Pauline Koch. His father was a featherbed salesman, and later he ran an electrochemical factory with moderate success. Albert Einstein had one sister, named Maria. His family moved to Munich, where he started his schooling at the Luitpold Gymnasium. Later, his parents moved to Italy, where he continued his education at Arau, Switzerland. He went to the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich in 1896. There, he was trained as a teacher in physics and mathematics. In 1901, Albert gained his diploma and acquired Swiss citizenship. At that time, he didn't get the teaching post, but he took a position as a technical assistant in the Swiss Patent Office. He gained his doctor's degree in 1905.

Albert Einstein would write that in his early years, two wonders deeply affected him. The first was his encounter with the compass. At that time, he was five years old. He was puzzled that invisible forces could deflect the needle. And the second one was when he discovered a book of geometry at the age of 12 and called it his "sacred little geometry book".

In the Swiss Patent Office, when he got spare time, he produced much of his remarkable work. He was appointed Privatdozent in Berne in 1908. He became Professor Extraordinary at Zurich in 1909 and Professor of Theoretical Physics at Prague in 1911. In the following year, he returned to Zurich to fill a similar post. 

He was also appointed Director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Physical Institute in 1914 and Professor at the University of Berlin. In 1914, he became a citizen of Germany and remained in Berlin until 1933. In 1940, he became a United States citizen and retired from his post in 1945. 

Albert Einstein married Mileva Maric in 1903. The couple had a daughter and two sons. In 1919, they divorced. In the same year, Albert married his cousin, Elsa Lowenthal, who died in 1936. 

Albert Einstein: Scientific Career and Inventions

Albert Einstein was a leading figure in the World Government Movement after World War II. He was also offered the Presidency of the State of Israel, but he declined it, and he collaborated with Dr. Chaim Weizmann in developing the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

He was always interested in solving the problems of physics and also had a clear view and determination to solve them. He made his strategy his own and was able to visualise the main stages on the way to his goal. In fact, he saw his critical achievements as merely one more step toward the next level of advancement.

When his scientific work started, Albert Einstein realised the inadequacies of Newtonian mechanics and his special theory of relativity emanated from an attempt to reconcile the laws of mechanics with the laws of the electromagnetic field. 

He worked on classical problems of statistical mechanics and problems in which they were merged with quantum theory. This paved the way for an explanation of the Brownian movement of molecules. He explored the properties of light with a low radiation density, and his observations and survey laid the foundation of the photon theory of light.

He postulated the correct interpretation of the special theory of relativity in the early days of Berlin and also furnished a theory of gravitation. He published his paper on the general theory of relativity in 1916. At this point in time, he also contributed to the problems of the theory of radiation and statistical mechanics.

He embarked on the construction of unified field theories in the 1920s, and he was also working on the probabilistic interpretation of quantum theory. He preserved this work in America. 

By developing a quantum theory of monoatomic gas, he contributed to statistical mechanics. He also did valuable work in connection with atomic transition probabilities and relativistic cosmology.

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

Albert Einstein: Important Works

His 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).

Non-scientific works are:

About Zionism (1930),

Why War? (1933),

My Philosophy (1934), and

Out of My Later Years (1950)

Albert Einstein: Awards and Honours

Barnard Medal (1920) Nobel Prize in Physics (1921) Matteucci Medal (1921) ForMemRS (1921) Copley Medal (1925) Gold Medal (1926) Max Planck Medal (1929)

Albert Einstein: Legacy

The work of Einstein continues to win Nobel Prizes for successful physicists. 

A Nobel Prize was awarded for the discovery of Bose-Einstein condensates in 1995.

Black holes are now known to number in the thousands.

Also, new generations of space satellites have continued to verify the cosmology of Einstein.

Without Nobel Laureate Albert Einstein’s many contributions to theory of quantum mechanics, enhanced oil recovery in Oil & Gas Industry would be but a dream. On his birthday & International Day of #Mathematics , #ONGCCelebrates India’s pivotal role in its development. @g20org pic.twitter.com/z1tCPSnX1Y — Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC) (@ONGC_) March 14, 2023

Warm tributes to Nobel laureate Albert Einstein, 20th century’s most celebrated scientist.After contributing to theoretical development of nuclear physics,he later spoke out against the use of nuclear weapons & started believing in the Gandhian philosophy preaching non-violence. pic.twitter.com/TovBlAavDj — Dr Harsh Vardhan (@drharshvardhan) March 14, 2023

Albert Einstein, born on this day, met fellow Nobel Prize laureate Rabindranath Tagore at his home in Germany on 14 July 1930. The two minds explored the concepts of science, religion and philosophy. Read an excerpt from their conversation: https://t.co/h638caaAYZ #Einstein144 pic.twitter.com/GeCjDSX8A0 — The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) March 14, 2023

On April 17, 1955, Einstein experienced internal bleeding caused by a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm that Rudolph Nissen had previously surgically confirmed in 1948. He brought with him to the hospital a speech that he had prepared for a television show to celebrate the seventh anniversary of the State of Israel, but he did not finish it in time. Einstein refused the operation, saying: "I want to go when I want. It is tasteless to prolong life artificially. I've done my part; it's time to go. I'll do it elegantly."

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Albert Einstein : a biography

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Essay On Albert Einstein – 10 Lines, Short and Long Essay for Children

Key Points to Remember When Writing Essay On Albert Einstein For Lower Primary Classes

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Albert Einstein is regarded as the foremost physicist of all time and among the most prominent scientists of the twentieth century. He had a unique character and worked differently from the other scientists. Writing an essay on Albert Einstein for classes 1, 2, and 3 is very important as they will improve writing skills and gain knowledge about a famous personality. The easy writing skills will be very useful in a child’s future. The below content is best for the children in grades 1, 2, and 3.

Below are some essential pointers which you should incorporate while writing the essay.

• Start the essay by writing an introduction about Albert Einstein
• Then move on to discuss his childhood, education, work-life, etc.
• Write what one should learn from him.
• And finally, summarise all your points.

People are usually fascinated by Einstein’s ideas, particularly those interested in science and physics. Now it is time for us to write essays for classes 1 and 2 talking about Albert Einstein in the 10 lines:

• Albert Einstein was a brilliant German physicist and scientist.
• On March 14, 1879, Einstein was born in the German Empire’s Ulm city.
• He earned a certificate and a PhD from the Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich.
• In school, his main interests were physics and maths.
• His first article, released in 1905, established Einstein among the world’s premier scientists.
• He made significant contributions to physics in 1905 when he discovered the Theory of Special Relativity.
• He published his ‘General Theory of Relativity’ in 1915.
• In 1921, he got the Nobel Prize in Physics for his law of photoelectric effect.
• He died on April 18, 1955, from an Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm.
• In 1999, he was named ‘Time Person of the Year’ following his demise.

The students of classes 1 and 2 can start writing an essay in 100 words; to inculcate the habit of writing articles. Let us write a short paragraph on Albert Einstein.

Albert Einstein was a brilliant mind who made significant contributions to science, particularly physics. Albert Einstein was the creator of numerous major physics concepts and formulas, which had thrown the field of physics into disarray. He was the most exemplary twentieth-century scientist who made extraordinary innovations and scientific discoveries. His brain was stored following his demise to undertake study and discover the cause of his incredible intellect. Beautiful statements and phrases from his life serve as a source of motivation for newer generations.

We’ve all read about various scientists and inventions around the globe. Albert Einstein’s name conjures up images of a remarkable and brilliant individual, and he was indeed the brains behind developing many major physics ideas and formulas.

Inquisitive Towards Nature

Albert Einstein was not like other youngsters during his boyhood. He could not interact with other children and had no intention of playing among kids. He adored the environment and wished to spend as much time as possible in nature. The sights and sounds of nature fascinated him. He was also particularly interested in learning the actual cause of every natural occurrence. 

Successful Scientist Even After Speaking Inability In Childhood

Albert Einstein was a winner of the Nobel Prize and a well-known researcher of the twentieth century. Are you aware that such a brilliant scientist couldn’t talk until he was four? It was because his skull was larger than the rest of the body. Everyone believed him to be sick until the shape of his head began to improve slowly. He had difficulty understanding the speech and could not speak until he was four.   He grew up to become an extraordinary physicist.

Here is a long essay for students of class 3. This comprehensive essay on Albert Einstein will assist all kids in excelling in essay contests.

Who Was Albert Einstein?

Albert Einstein was a prominent physicist who created the renowned theory of relativity. He was the twentieth century’s greatest, most well-known and famous researcher.

Early Life And Education Of Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein was born in a Jewish household in Germany on March 14, 1879, and despite initial speech issues, he was indeed a top student in primary school. His dad showed him a portable compass when he was five. He saw something moving the needle of the compass in space, and remarked that the incident had left a “meaningful and profound impression” on him. At twelve, Einstein started grasping logical reasoning and studied Euclidian geometry out of a classroom textbook. He joined the mathematics course at complete ETH after finishing secondary education. He earned a teaching certificate from ETH too.

Albert Einstein’s Contribution In Science

Einstein took the opportunity to solve the beam light problem he had been fascinated with since he was 16 while employed in the patent office. He eventually formulated the hypothesis of relativity based on his deep knowledge. He also published four publications in 1905 that changed the direction of physics. Several scientists attempted to work on the Theory of Special Relativity, but Einstein was the first to bring it all together. Both tactics earned him international acclaim and respect. Albert Einstein got the Nobel Prize in Physics for his study of the Photoelectric Effect, which won him prominence and respect.

Death And Legacy of Einstein

Albert Einstein died of internal bleeding in the lower abdomen on April 18, 1955, at Princeton Hospital, New Jersey. In Einstein’s era, the powerful force, a key component of any unifying general relativity, was always a complete mystery. With the quarks theory, physicists only began understanding the mystery of the huge force there in the 1970s and 1980s. Despite this, Albert Einstein’s work remains to garner Nobel Prizes for scientists after him. The explorers of gravity waves, anticipated by Einstein, received the Nobel Prize in 1993. In 2001, the explorers of Bose-Einstein water vapour received the Nobel Prize for Physics. The discovery of thousands of black holes and subsequent generations of satellite systems have proved Einstein’s theory.

• Albert Einstein was born in 1879 in Germany and was the eldest of two siblings, with one younger sister.
• Once his dad gave him a compass, he got passionate about science.
• Despite his dislike of education, Albert Einstein enjoyed reading and learning independently.
• He enjoyed classical music and was a pianist and violinist.
• When Albert Einstein was 16, he published his debut scientific work.
• He despised war and spent his entire life working for harmony. Albert believed in nonviolence and supported the American Civil Rights Movement.
• In 1915, after publishing his theory of general relativity, he got renowned. In 1921, he won a Nobel Prize in Physics.

Children will learn that being inquisitive isn’t enough; you must also be persistent. It would be great if you were determined to continue trying whenever things go wrong for you. If you don’t succeed right away, keep trying till you do.

Albert Einstein’s impact on physics is immeasurable. Moreover, several physicists regard his thoughts and concepts as legitimate. Younger science lovers will continue to get inspired by Einstein’s enduring contribution to physics.

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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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