Albert Einstein Biography

Physicist, Scientist(1879–1955)

Albert Einstein was a German-born physicist who developed the

general theory of relativity. He is considered one of the most influential
physicists of the 20th century.
Who Was Albert Einstein?

Albert Einstein (March 14, 1879 to April 18, 1955) was a German mathematician and physicist
who developed the special and general theories of relativity. In 1921, he won the Nobel Prize for
physics for his explanation of the photoelectric effect. In the following decade, he immigrated to
the U.S. after being targeted by the Nazis. His work also had a major impact on the development
of atomic energy. In his later years, Einstein focused on unified field theory. With his passion for
inquiry, Einstein is generally considered the most influential physicist of the 20th century.

Albert Einstein’s Inventions and Discoveries

As a physicist, Einstein had many discoveries, but he is perhaps best known for his theory of
relativity and the equation E=MC2, 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,” taking physics in an electrifying new direction. By
November 1915, Einstein completed the general theory of relativity. 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, and for 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.

Einstein’s E=MC2
Einstein’s 1905 paper on the matter/energy relationship proposed the equation E=MC2: 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 from
1913 to 1933.

Family

Albert Einstein 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 manufactured electrical equipment. Albert’s mother, the
former Pauline Koch, ran the family household. Einstein had one sister, Maja, born two years
after him.

Einstein’s Wives and Children

Albert Einstein married Milena Maric on Jan. 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
thereafter.

That same year the couple had a daughter, Lieserl, who might have been later raised by Maric's
relatives or given up for adoption. Her ultimate fate and whereabouts remain a mystery. The
couple went on to have two sons, Hans and Eduard. The 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.

When and Where Was Albert Einstein Born?

Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879 in Ulm, Württemberg, Germany.

When Did Albert Einstein Die?

Albert Einstein died at the University Medical Center at Princeton early in the morning on April
18, 1955 at the age of 76. 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."

Einstein’s Brain

During Albert Einstein’s autopsy, Thomas Stoltz Harvey removed his brain, reportedly without
the permission of his family, for preservation and future study by doctors of neuroscience.
However during his life Einstein participated in brain studies, and at least one biography says he
hoped researchers would study his brain after he died. Einstein's brain is now located at the
Princeton University Medical Center, and his remains were cremated and his ashes scattered in
an undisclosed location, following his wishes.

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 with normal intelligence. According to The New York
Times, the researchers believe it may help explain why Einstein was so intelligent.

Early Life and Education

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, though he developed a passion for classical music and playing the
violin that would stay with him into his later years. Most significantly, Einstein's youth was
marked by deep inquisitiveness and inquiry.

Towards the end of the 1880s, Max Talmud, a Polish medical student who sometimes dined with
the Einstein family, became an informal tutor to young Albert. 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 Einstein relocated the family to Milan, Italy, in the mid-1890s after his business lost
out on a major contract. Albert was left at a relative's boarding house in Munich to complete his
schooling at the Luitpold Gymnasium. Faced with military duty when he turned of age, Albert
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 Polytechnic School 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.

After graduating, 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 studies at Polytechnic 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
photoelectric effect and Brownian motion. The two others, which outlined E=MC2 and the
special theory of relativity, were defining for Einstein’s career and the course of the study of
physics.

Nobel Prize for Physics

In 1921, Einstein won the Nobel Prize for 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.

In the development of his general theory, Einstein had held onto the belief that the universe was
a fixed, static entity, aka a "cosmological constant," though his later theories directly
contradicted this idea and asserted that the universe could be in a state of flux. Astronomer
Edwin Hubble deduced that we indeed inhabit an expanding universe, with the two scientists
meeting at the Mount Wilson Observatory near Los Angeles in 1930.

Becoming a U.S. Citizen

In 1933, Einstein took on a position at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, New
Jersey. At the time the Nazis, led by Adolf Hitler, were gaining prominence with violent
propaganda and vitriol in an impoverished post-WWI Germany. The 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 U.S., with
concern over Nazi strategies to create an atomic weapon. After moving, Einstein never went
back to his native land. It was at Princeton that Einstein would spend the rest of his life working
on a unified field theory—an all-embracing paradigm meant to unify the varied laws of physics.
Not long after he began his career at Princeton, 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 a few years later. During WWII, he worked on Navy-
based weapons systems and made big monetary donations to the military by auctioning off
manuscripts worth millions.

Einstein and the Atomic Bomb

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 U.S. would eventually initiate the Manhattan Project, though Einstein
would not take 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.

After learning of the 1945 bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, 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.

Member of the NAACP

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
African Americans in the United States. He corresponded with scholar/activist W.E.B. Du
Bois as well as performing artist Paul Robeson and campaigned for civil rights, calling racism a
"disease" in a 1946 Lincoln University speech.

Time Travel and Quantum Theory

After World War II, Einstein continued to work on his unified field theory and key aspects of the
theory of general relativity, such as wormholes, the possibility of time travel, the existence of
black holes and the creation of the universe. However, he became increasingly isolated from the
rest of the physics community, whose eyes were set 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.
Legacy

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.