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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

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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Biography of Albert Einstein, Theoretical Physicist

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

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

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

Fast Facts: Albert Einstein

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

Early Life and Education

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Einstein the Patent Clerk

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

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

Influential Theories

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

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

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

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

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

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

Scientists Take Notice

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

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

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

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

Achieves Worldwide Fame

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Becomes an Enemy of the State

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

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

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

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

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

The Atomic Bomb

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

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

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

Later Years and Death

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

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

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

Resources and Further Reading

• “ The Year Of Albert Einstein. ”  Smithsonian.com , Smithsonian Institution, 1 June 2005.
• “ Albert Einstein. ”  Biography.com , A&E Networks Television, 14 Feb. 2019.
• Kuepper, Hans-Josef. “ The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein. ”  Albert Einstein - Honours, Prizes and Awards.
• Albert Einstein Printables
• The Life and Work of Albert Einstein
• Ancestry of Albert Einstein
• Biography: Albert Einstein
• 10 Things You Don't Know About Albert Einstein
• Einstein's Theory of Relativity
• Leo Szilard, Creator of Manhattan Project, Opposed Use of Atomic Bomb
• Erwin Schrödinger and the Schrödinger's Cat Thought Experiment
• Most Influential Scientists of the 20th Century
• Max Planck Formulates Quantum Theory
• Edward Teller and the Hydrogen Bomb
• 14 Notable European Scientists Throughout History
• James Clerk Maxwell, Master of Electromagnetism
• Introduction to the Major Laws of Physics
• Heinrich Hertz, Scientist Who Proved Existence of Electromagnetic Waves
• Georges-Henri Lemaitre and the Birth of the Universe

Albert Einstein

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

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