Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist and is generally considered the most influential physicist of the 20th century.
Einstein was born on March 14, 1879 in Ulm, Germany to secular, middle-class parents of Jewish descent. When Einstein was 2 years old, his family moved to Munich, Germany, where he attended the Luitpold Gymnasium. He became fascinated with science at a young age and excelled at physics and mathematics. In 1896, he completed secondary school in Switzerland and renounced his German citizenship. Einstein went on to receive his diploma as a mathematics teacher and officially became a Swiss citizen in 1901.
In 1902, Einstein was hired as a Patent Officer for the Swiss Patent Office in Bern. While working there, he developed his special theory of relativity. During 1905, he published four papers in the Annalen der Physik. The first explained the photoelectric effect, the second proved the existence of atoms, the third laid out the mathematical theory of special relativity, and the last showed the equivalence of matter and energy (E = mc^2). At first, Einstein’s 1905 papers were ignored by the physics community, but this began to change after he received the attention of physicist Max Planck, who was the founder of the quantum theory and was very influential at the time. As Einstein’s fame spread, he began giving lectures and attending conferences around the world.
Einstein lived in Switzerland from 1895 to 1914 then moved to Berlin, where he was elected to the Prussian Academy of Sciences. Einstein published a paper on general relativity in 1916, which included his theory of gravitation. He continued to deal with statistical mechanics and quantum theory problems, which led to his explanations of particle theory and the motion of molecules. Einstein also investigated the thermal properties of light and laid the foundation of the photon theory of light. In 1917, he applied the general theory of relativity to model the structure of the universe.
While Einstein was visiting the United States in 1933, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party rose to power. Since he was of Jewish descent, Einstein chose not to return to Germany and instead settled in the United States. He became an American citizen in 1940. On the eve of World War II, he endorsed a letter to President Roosevelt regarding the possibility of creating an extremely powerful bomb that utilized nuclear fission and recommended that the United States begin research, which eventually led to the Manhattan Project.
On April 17, 1955, Einstein was experienced internal bleeding and was hospitalized. However, he refused to undergo surgery. Einstein died in Princeton Hospital early the next morning at the age of 76. Over the course of his lifetime, Einstein published over 300 scientific papers and more than 150 non-scientific works.
Sources:
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Albert-Einstein
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/Einstein_1921_by_F_Schmutzer_-_restoration.jpg
I want more math
ReplyDeleteI really liked your post on Albert Einstein, as we usually associate him with science rather than history. One of the things I found most interesting about him was his ambivalence with regards to the building of the atomic bomb. His letter with Szilard was one of the biggest prompts for Roosevelt to up the research on nuclear weapons. Einstein later said that "I made one great mistake in my life—when I signed the letter to President Roosevelt recommending that atom bombs be made" (Wikipedia), which boils down to Einstein's pacifist roots. Einstein's regret about advising atomic bombs was in conflict with his even greater fear of "the danger that the Germans would make them". Like many leaders in WW2, perhaps this was an instance of Einstein possibly thinking past his own morals to pursue the lesser of two evils.
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