Albert Einstein was a German-born physicist who developed the general theory

of relativity, among other feats. He is considered the most influential physicist

of the 20th century.
Synopsis
Born in Ulm, Wrttemberg, Germany in 1879, Albert Einstein had a passion for
inquiry that eventually led him to develop the special and general theories of
relativity. In 1921, he won the Nobel Prize for physics for his explanation of the
photoelectric effect and immigrated to the U.S. in the following decade after
being targeted by the Nazis. Einstein is generally considered the most
influential physicist of the 20th century, with his work also having a major
impact on the development of atomic energy. With a focus on unified field
theory during his later years, Einstein died on April 18, 1955, in Princeton, New
Jersey.
Background and Early Life
Born on March 14 in 1879, Albert Einstein grew up in a Jewish family. His father,
Hermann Einstein, was a salesman and engineer and his mother, Pauline Koch,
ran the family household. Einstein had one sister, Maja, she was born two years
after him.
Einstein attended elementary school in Munich. He also had what was
considered to be 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 became an
informal tutor to young Albert. Talmud had introduced his pupil to a childrens
science text that inspired Einstein to dream about the nature of light.
Resident of Switzerland
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. Faced with military duty when he
turned the required age.
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.
Marriage and Family

While attending school in Zurich, Einstein developed lasting friendships and

alliances, also met his future wife, Mileva Maric, a Serbian physics student.
After graduating from Polytechnic, 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. Meanwhile,
Einstein continued to grow closer to Maric, but his parents were strongly
against the relationship due her ethnic background. Nonetheless, Einstein
continued to see her. In 1902 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 where abouts remain a mystery.
The young scientist married Milena Maric on Jan. 6, 1903. The couple went on
to have two sons, Hans and Eduard.
Miracle Year
While working at the patent office, Einstein had the time to further 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 1905seen by many as a "miracle year" for the theoristEinstein had four
papers published in the Annalen der Physik, one of the best known physics
journals of the era. The four papers focused on the photoelectric effect,
Brownian motion, the special theory of relativity (the most widely circulated of
the write-ups) and the matter/energy relationship, thus taking physics in an
electrifying new direction. In his fourth paper, Einstein came up with the
equation E=mc2, suggesting that tiny particles of matter could be converted
into huge amounts of energy, foreshadowing the development of atomic
power.
Relativity and Nobel Prize
In November, 1915, Einstein completed the general theory of relativity, which
he considered 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 Newtons theory, and
for a more expansive, nuanced explanation of how gravitational forces worked.
A global science icon was born.
In 1921, Einstein won the Nobel Prize for Physics though he wasn't actually
given the award until the following year due to a bureaucratic ruling. Because
his ideas on relativity were still considered questionable, he received the prize
for his explanation of the photoelectric effect though Einstein still opted to
speak about relativity during his acceptance speech.

In the development of his general theory, Einstein had held on to the belief that
the universe was a fixed, static entity, such as "cosmological constant," though
his later theories directly contradicted this idea and asserted that the universe
could be in a state of flux.
Move to U.S. and Atomic Energy
In 1933, Einstein took on a position at the Institute for Advanced Study at
Princeton, New Jersey and never went back to his native land. It was here that
he would spend the rest of his life working on a unified field theoryan allembracing paradigm meant to unify the varied laws of physics. Other European
scientists also left regions threatened by Germany and immigrated to the
states, with there being concern over Nazi strategies to create an atomic
weapon.
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.
Global and Domestic Activism
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.
Around this time, Einstein also became a member of the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People, seeing the parallels between the
treatment of Jews in Germany and African Americans in the United States. He
campaigned for civil rights, calling racism a "disease" in a 1946 Lincoln
University speech.
After the war, 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.
Final Years and Legacy
On April 17, 1955, while working on a speech to honor Israel's seventh
anniversary, Einstein suffered an abdominal aortic aneurysm. He was taken to
the University Medical Center at Princeton 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 died at the
university medical center early the next morningApril 18, 1955at the age of
76.
During the autopsy, Thomas Stoltz Harvey removed Einstein's brain, reportedly
without the permission of his family, for preservation and future study by
doctors of neuroscience. Einstein's remains were cremated and his ashes were
scattered in an undisclosed location, following his wishes. After decades of
study, Einstein's brain is now located at the Princeton University Medical
Center. 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 Jrgen Neffe, both from 2007. Einstein's own words are presented
in the collection The World as I See It.