Albert Einstein

Physicist

• Born: March 14, 1879
• Birthplace: Ulm, Württemberg, Germany
• Died: April 18, 1955
• Place of death: Princeton, New Jersey

German physicist

Widely regarded as the most important scientist of the twentieth century, German physicist Albert Einstein received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921. While he made many contributions to the fields of physics, quantum mechanics, and statistics, he is best known for his theory of relativity.

Primary field: Physics

Specialty: Theoretical physics

Early Life

Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879, in Ulm, Württemberg, Germany, to Hermann and Pauline Einstein, both of whom were secular Jews. Einstein’s family moved to Munich shortly after his birth and continued to move around throughout his childhood. They later moved to Milan, Italy, leaving Einstein behind to attend high school in Munich.

With the help of his scientifically minded father, Einstein became intrigued by complex scientific and mathematical concepts at a very early age. His curiosity and scientific ability clearly showed an advanced mind at work, though he disliked formal education. He wrote his first scientific paper on ether in magnetic fields when he was a teenager.

Dissatisfied with the level of education offered to students at his high school in Munich, Einstein joined his parents and sister in Milan in 1894. He renounced his German citizenship, thereby excusing himself from military service, and finished his schooling at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. He earned his teaching certificate and became a Swiss citizen in 1901. That same year, unable to find work as a teacher, Einstein became a patent clerk, a job he would hold for the next seven years. It was during those years that he would complete his most profound work in physics.

In 1903, one year after the birth of their daughter (who either died in infancy or was given up for adoption), Einstein married Mileva Maric, a fellow student. Einstein and Maric spent a great deal of time discussing physics, and although the extent of her involvement in Einstein’s work cannot be proved, there is a high probability that, at the very least, she helped him work out some of the ideas that would later make him famous. Einstein and Maric would have two more children, sons Hans Albert and Eduard, before divorcing in 1919.

In 1905, Einstein earned his doctorate at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. He left the patent office in 1908 to become a privatdozent (a professor who is paid by his students). In 1909, he became professor extraordinary in Zurich, and in 1911 he moved to Prague, Czechoslovakia (later the Czech Republic), to become a professor of theoretical physics. He then returned to Germany as the head of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Physics.

Life’s Work

Albert Einstein’s first important works in physics were the four papers, called the Annus Mirabilis (Latin for “year of wonder”) papers, that he submitted to the German physics journal Annalen der Physik in 1905. The subjects of these papers include Brownian motion (which, among other things, allowed scientists to begin thinking of atoms as real, not theoretical, objects) and thephotoelectric effect (which helped create the field of quantum mechanics).

In the third of these papers, entitled “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies,” Einstein laid out his theory for what would become known as the special relativity, the first part of his theory of relativity. The special theory of relativity expresses the relationship between space and time. At a very basic level, it explains that two fundamental physics concepts, Newtonian mechanics and electromagnetism, are incompatible. Einstein’s theory says that in order to arrive at answers to certain questions of physics, one must factor in the relativity of objects to each other and the constancy of the speed of light. A short time later, as an afterthought, Einstein added an essential element to the special theory of relativity: the equation E = mc², which expresses the equivalence between energy (E) and mass (m) by factoring in the velocity of light (c). This theory altered the very boundaries of physics and mathematics as they were understood at the time.

Einstein expanded his special theory of relativity into a more universal theory, the general theory of relativity. The general theory of relativity removes any restrictions of relative motion from the earlier theory and suggests a curvature in space and time. This general theory added to Einstein’s previous work by proposing a theory of gravitation (simply put, the movement of masses toward each other, as opposed to gravity, which causes gravitation). Although his revolutionary ideas were controversial at the time of publication, the scientific world eventually came to accept them as the basis for almost all further work in physics.

Einstein presented his general theory of relativity in 1915 as a series of lectures and published it in 1916. Over the next few years, as physicists and others worked their own way through Einstein’s theory, his extraordinary intelligence became widely known, first within the scientific and mathematics communities and then far beyond. In 1921, Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work on the photoelectric effect, described in his Annus Mirabilis papers of 1905.

Between 1915 and the mid-1930s, Einstein spent much of his time defending his theories from his critics. Resistance to his work, he felt, was due to a failure among many of his peers to understand the mathematics involved. Opposition to Einstein and his work also stemmed from the anti-Semitism rampant throughout Germany and other parts of Europe during this period. In Germany, the Nazi Party began enforcing anti-Jewish laws soon after gaining power in 1933, and Einstein left Europe for the United States that same year. His second wife, his cousin Elsa Lowenthal, died soon after, in 1936. In 1940, he became a US citizen.

In addition to his continuing breakthroughs in physics, Einstein maintained a rich array of intellectual partnerships with other scientific luminaries of his age, including Niels Bohr, whom he famously debated on quantum mechanics, and the Indian physicist Satyendra Nath Bose. Physicist Leo Szilard, who worked on the Manhattan Project, helped Einstein draft a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt on the importance of nuclear development to counteract the Nazis’ atomic-weapon ambitions. Einstein applied for the security clearance to work on the Manhattan Project but was denied. In another letter to Roosevelt a few years later, he asked the president to resist using atomic weapons against Japan, but the president never read this letter (it was found unopened after Roosevelt’s death in April 1945, four months before the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan).

During Einstein’s tenure at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, he continued his work in physics by investigating the possibility of a unified field theory and the generalized theory of gravitation, but no breakthroughs along the lines of his earlier work were ever achieved. He died on April 18, 1955, by which time he had become famous not only for his work as a physicist but also for his staunch pacifism, his advocacy for the Jewish state of Israel, and his opposition to the use of nuclear weapons.

Upon his death, Einstein’s brain was removed by pathologist Dr. Thomas Harvey, who promised to study it and publish the results. He never did, and only relinquished the brain to Einstein’s heirs several decades later. Later studies of Einstein's brain tissue suggested some unusual features that might have played a role in his advanced intelligence, though such conclusions remained controversial.

Impact

Einstein is considered one of the most influential scientists of all time, and perhaps the most famous. His special and general theories of relativity corrected some of Sir Isaac Newton’s theories, which had until that time been highly respected by many physicists. Central to Einstein’s special theory, in particular, is his shattering of the Newtonian principle that space exists in three dimensions and that time exists in only one. Rather than thinking of space and time separately, Einstein saw space-time as a single four-dimensional system in which neither space nor time can exist without the other. These new ideas, once they became accepted, led other scientists to pursue studies that resulted in the splitting of the atom, the development of nuclear energy, space exploration, the development of a theory of superconductivity, and countless other accomplishments that have helped humankind explore the universe and understand it in much greater detail.

Einstein’s later research led him to conclude that moving particles such as protons and electrons, basic building blocks of the atom, travel in waves and are closely connected with photons, the basic particles of electromagnetic energy. This conclusion led to the development of the field of wave mechanics in physics and was a fundamental element in Einstein’s work with the photoelectric effect, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize. Although the prize did not come in recognition of Einstein’s work in relativity (his best-known achievement), his special theory established him as the most compelling and influential physicist of his day. It led to a total rethinking of the entire field of physics. n addition to his relativity experiments, Einstein also became well known for his work in cosmology, in which he attempted to tackle the problem of how the universe itself is structured and discover its physical limits, if any. His efforts to develop a unified field theory, though unsuccessful, continue to inspire twenty-first century attempts to establish a universal "theory of everything."

Many of Einstein's theories have proven very durable as new scientific findings have emerged over the decades. For example, his prediction that ripples in space-time could occur was validated in 2015 and 2016 when gravitational waves were first officially detected. In 2019 the first images ever made of a black hole provided further support for general relativity. However, it is important to note that Einstein was not infallible. He himself pointed out various errors he made throughout his career, including his use of a "cosmological constant" variable to make the general relativity theory work before it was understood that the universe is expanding. And while his major ideas remain widely accepted, later scientists have occasionally corrected or invalidated certain details. Some researchers go even further, suggesting that the entire general relativity concept of space-time may still prove to be incorrect due to the difficulty in reconciling it with quantum physics. Ideas such as string theory and loop quantum gravity have, somewhat controversially, sought to address this issue, with potential major implications for general relativity. Yet even if Einstein's theories are eventually heavily revised or replaced, his influence in progressing scientific thought remains secure.

With his reputation as an unconventional genius, Einstein remains highly influential not only in the scientific world but also as an icon of popular culture. Indeed, his name has come to be synonymous with heightened intelligence, and his distinctive appearance has influenced the archetypal image of an eccentric professor. He has been portrayed in many films, books, and other works of art.

Bibliography

Einstein, Albert. Relativity: The Special and General Theory. Trans. Robert W. Lawson. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print. Explains Einstein’s theories of special and general relativity in an accessible way for a general audience.

Einstein, Albert. The World As I See It. New York: Open Road, 2010. Print. A collection of Einstein’s writings on religion, politics, ethics, and other topics.

Ghose, Tia. "Einstein's Brain Reveals Clues to Genius." LiveScience, 19 Nov. 2012, www.livescience.com/24896-einstein-amazing-brain-photos.html. Accessed 7 Nov. 2022.

Harvey, Ailsa, and Elizabeth Howell. "Albert Einstein: His Life, Theories and Impact on Science." Space.com, 1 Feb. 2022, www.space.com/15524-albert-einstein.html#section-einstein-s-scientific-legacy. Accessed 7 Nov. 2022.

Isaacson, Walter. Einstein: His Life and Universe. New York: Simon, 2007. Print. A full biography of Einstein’s life and work.

Stuart, Colin. "Was Einstein Wrong? The Case Against Space-Time Theory." Space.com. 28 Feb. 2022, www.space.com/end-of-einstein-space-time. Accessed 7 Nov. 2022.