Fascinating facts about Albert Einstein, perhaps the most well-known scientist of the 20th century.
Einstein, Albert German-born American physicist and Nobel laureate, best known as the creator of the special and general theories of relativity and for his bold hypothesis concerning the particle nature of light. He is perhaps the most well-known scientist of the 20th century. Einstein was born in Ulm on March 14, 1879, and spent his youth in Munich, where his family owned a small shop that manufactured electric machinery. He did not talk until the age of three, but even as a youth he showed a brilliant curiosity about nature and an ability to understand difficult mathematical concepts. At the age of 12 he taught himself Euclidean geometry. Einstein hated the dull regimentation and unimaginative spirit of school in Munich. When repeated business failure led the family to leave Germany for Milan, Italy, Einstein, who was then 15 years old, used the opportunity to withdraw from the school. He spent a year with his parents in Milan, and when it became clear that he would have to make his own way in the world, he finished secondary school in Arrau, Switzerland, and entered the Swiss National Polytechnic in Zurich. Einstein did not enjoy the methods of instruction there. He often cut classes and used the time to study physics on his own or to play his beloved violin. He passed his examinations and graduated in 1900 by studying the notes of a classmate. His professors did not think highly of him and would not recommend him for a university position. For two years Einstein worked as a tutor and substitute teacher. In 1902 he secured a position as an examiner in the Swiss patent office in Bern. In 1903 he married Mileva Mariç, who had been his classmate at the polytechnic. They had two sons but eventually divorced. Einstein later remarried. In 1905 Einstein received his doctorate from the University of Zurich for a theoretical dissertation on the dimensions of molecules. 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. Early Scientific Publications He published three theoretical papers of central importance to the development of 20th-century physics. In the first of these papers, on Brownian motion, he made significant predictions about the motion of particles that are randomly distributed in a fluid. These predictions were later confirmed by experiment. The second paper, on the photoelectric effect, contained a revolutionary hypothesis concerning the nature of light. Einstein proposed that under certain circumstances light can be considered as consisting of particles. In fact, when the American physicist Robert Andrews Millikan experimentally confirmed the theory almost a decade later, he was surprised and somewhat disquieted by the outcome. Einstein, whose prime concern was to understand the nature of electromagnetic radiation, subsequently urged the development of a theory that would be a
fusion of the wave and particle models for light. Again, very few physicists understood or were sympathetic to these ideas. Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity: Einstein's third major paper in 1905, "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies," contained what became known as the special theory of relativity After 1919, Einstein became internationally renowned. He accrued honors and awards, including the Nobel Prize in physics in 1921. 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. In the 1920's, Einstein embarked on the construction of unified field theories, and he has also accomplished valuable work in connection with atomic transition probabilities and relativistic cosmology. 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 retired from his post of Professor of Theoretical Physics at Princeton in 1945. 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 dwelled much in intellectual solitude and, for relaxation, music played an important part in his life. Einstein died on April 18, 1955 at Princeton, New Jersey.