Albert Einstein

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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, on 27 January 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 13 April 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 on 18 April 1955 in Princeton, NJ, 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. Link to Wikipedia biography Link to Astrodienst discussion forum