Biography
German-Swiss-American scientist, a physicist who developed the theory
of relativity in 1905, and the general theory in 1916, laying the
groundwork for 20th century physics and providing the essential structure
of the cosmos. He was awarded the 1922 Nobel Prize for his contributions
to theoretical physics, especially for his discovery of the photo-electric
effect law. His name has been synonymous with genius, and the scientific
definitions of the modern age--ranging from the Bomb to space travel,
electronics and quantum physics - all bear the stamp of his
conceptualizations.
Einstein was born with a misshapen head and abnormally large body to
Hermann Einstein and Pauline Koch in Ulm, an old city on the Danube, lying
in the foothills of the Swabian Alps. In 1880, his father moved to Munich
to start an electronics business. He learned to talk so late that his
parents feared that he was mentally retarded, not until he was three, and
was not fluent until he was nine. For awhile, he was considered subnormal
because of his slow development, and his teachers were continually saying
that he would never amount to anything. He had begun his education in 1884
at a Catholic school near his home, but in 1889 was transferred from the
school to the rigid discipline at Lluitpold Gymnasium. He was kicked out
of that school for disrupting class but by the time he was 13 he had read
Euclid's geometry and Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, two major influences
on him.
His youth seemed to be one of deliberate rebellion against the
establishment of his times. At age 16 he quit school, joined his parents
in Milan, Italy, where they had moved, and renounced his German
citizenship. At 17, he entered the Zurich Polytechnic Institute after
having failed on the first try, and graduated in 1900 with a mathematics
teaching degree. The next year he took Swiss citizenship, and the year
after that, 1902, a post at the Swiss patent office. It was while at the
Swiss patent office, in a clerical position, that Einstein began the work
that would make him a legend.
In 1905, he published three seminal papers on theoretical physics in a
single volume of the German scientific journal, "Annalen der Physik."
The papers were: (1) "On the Motion of Small Particles Suspended in a
Stationary Liquid According to the Molecular Kinetic Theory of
Induction;" (2) "On a Heuristic Viewpoint Concerning the
Production and Transformation of Light" and (3) "On the
Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies.
In 1907, he came up with the immortal e=mc2, better known as
the Special Theory of Relativity, encapsulating energy and matter as
aspects of a single phenomenon. In 1908, while still at the patent office,
he began work on his major achievement, the general theory of relativity,
which he officially proposed in 1916. The theories were the greatest
challenge to Newtonian mechanics that the modern world had ever
known.
Very quotable, Einstein described relativity thus: "Put your hand
on a hot stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty
girl for an hour and it seems like a minute."
Over the next decade, Einstein took visiting professorships in England
and America and gave many speeches. He refused to live in Hitler's Reich
and in 1933 moved permanently to Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study,
where he sponsored a steady stream of refugees from Nazism. He became a
U.S. citizen in either 1936 or 1940: two dates exist in his biographical
material. He used his fame in the interests of pacifism and Zionism, but
began to reject some of his pacifist ideals with his growing concern with
Hitler's terror. In 1939, he urged President Roosevelt to move towards
construction of a uranium bomb, since there was some evidence other
countries were also moving in that direction.
In 1952, he was offered the presidency of Israel, but he declined. His
first wife, Mileva Maric, was a Serbian who dreamed of becoming a
physicist. She was 21 when she entered the Swiss Federal Institute of
Technology in Zurich. She had met Einstein when she was 17 and they were
married in 1903. Contemporary research has shown some indication that
Mileva may have helped Einstein in his work, but it has not been
thoroughly substantiated. In 1987 his letters to her were published and
refer frequently to "our research" and "our work."
They separated in 1914, the same year that Einstein accepted a position at
the Prussian Academy of Science in Berlin, and divorced in 1919. As part
of his alimony, he promised his future Nobel Prize money, and delivered it
three years later. The couple had two sons, Hans Albert, and Edward. One
died in a mental institution, the other became an engineering professor.
New evidence has surfaced that Mileva gave birth to a baby girl,
1/27/1902, before their marriage. The daughter was named Lieserl and soon
mysteriously vanished. The knowledge of this daughter did not come forward
until 30 years after Einstein's death. There is some speculation as to the
daughter being retarded or having Down Syndrome. There is also speculation
that the daughter died at 21 months and speculation that she may still be
alive. No evidence is available at this time. Mileva died in 1948.
He married his second wife, Elsa Lowenthal, after he divorced Milefa.
She was the widowed mother of two daughters, and they had known each other
as children. Elsa died in 1936.
At Princeton for the last 22 years of his life, estranged from the
mainstream of contemporary physics, Einstein spent his final years working
on a unified field theory, with faith that there was an ultimate principle
that would unite the four major forces of nature. He was not always
comfortable with the theories and findings in physics for which he had
laid the groundwork. A musician by hobby, he gave up the violin in the
last few years of his life, but enjoyed playing Bach and Mozart on his
grand piano.
He was admitted to the hospital on 4/13/1955. He had been at home
drafting a statement for Israel's Independence Day. He had an aortic
aneurysm that could burst at any time, and this is what eventually killed
him. At about 1:15 AM, 4/18/1955, he was heard muttering in German. A
nurse left his room to find a doctor. They returned to find him
dead.
Just before New Year of 2000, Einstein's picture appeared on the cover
of Time magazine as Person of the Century.
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