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Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist widely considered one of the greatest scientists of all time. He developed the theory of relativity and made important contributions to quantum mechanics, revolutionizing modern physics in the early 20th century. His mass-energy equivalence formula E=mc2, which arises from relativity theory, is one of the most famous equations in history. Einstein received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of the photoelectric effect, which helped establish quantum theory. He spent much of his later career unsuccessfully attempting to develop a unified field theory combining electromagnetism and gravitation.

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33 views2 pages

Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist widely considered one of the greatest scientists of all time. He developed the theory of relativity and made important contributions to quantum mechanics, revolutionizing modern physics in the early 20th century. His mass-energy equivalence formula E=mc2, which arises from relativity theory, is one of the most famous equations in history. Einstein received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of the photoelectric effect, which helped establish quantum theory. He spent much of his later career unsuccessfully attempting to develop a unified field theory combining electromagnetism and gravitation.

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Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein (/ˈaɪnstaɪn/ EYEN-styne;[4] German: [ˈalbɛɐt ˈʔaɪnʃtaɪn] ⓘ; 14


March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is
widely held to be one of the greatest and most influential scientists of all time. Best
known for developing the theory of relativity, Einstein also made important
contributions to quantum mechanics, and was thus a central figure in the
revolutionary reshaping of the scientific understanding of nature that modern
physics accomplished in the first decades of the twentieth century.[1][5] His mass–
energy equivalence formula E = mc2, which arises from relativity theory, has been
called "the world's most famous equation".[6] He received the 1921 Nobel Prize in
Physics "for his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of
the law of the photoelectric effect",[7] a pivotal step in the development of
quantum theory. His work is also known for its influence on the philosophy of
science.[8][9] In a 1999 poll of 130 leading physicists worldwide by the British
journal Physics World, Einstein was ranked the greatest physicist of all time.[10]
His intellectual achievements and originality have made the word Einstein broadly
synonymous with genius.[11]

Born in the German Empire, Einstein moved to Switzerland in 1895, forsaking his
German citizenship (as a subject of the Kingdom of Württemberg)[note 1] the
following year. In 1897, at the age of seventeen, he enrolled in the mathematics
and physics teaching diploma program at the Swiss Federal polytechnic school in
Zürich, graduating in 1900. In 1901, he acquired Swiss citizenship, which he kept
for the rest of his life. In 1903, he secured a permanent position at the Swiss Patent
Office in Bern. In 1905, he submitted a successful PhD dissertation to the
University of Zurich. In 1914, he moved to Berlin in order to join the Prussian
Academy of Sciences and the Humboldt University of Berlin. In 1917, he became
director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics; he also became a German
citizen again, this time as a subject of the Kingdom of Prussia.[note 1]

In 1933, while he was visiting the United States, Adolf Hitler came to power in
Germany. Horrified by the Nazi "war of extermination" against his fellow
Jews,[12] Einstein decided to remain in the US, and was granted American
citizenship in 1940.[13] On the eve of World War II, he endorsed a letter to
President Franklin D. Roosevelt alerting him to the potential German nuclear
weapons program and recommending that the US begin similar research. Einstein
supported the Allies but generally viewed the idea of nuclear weapons with great
dismay.[14]

In 1905, sometimes described as his annus mirabilis (miracle year), Einstein


published four groundbreaking papers.[15] These outlined a theory of the
photoelectric effect, explained Brownian motion, introduced his special theory of
relativity—a theory which addressed the inability of classical mechanics to account
satisfactorily for the behavior of the electromagnetic field—and demonstrated that
if the special theory is correct, mass and energy are equivalent to each other. In
1915, he proposed a general theory of relativity that extended his system of
mechanics to incorporate gravitation. A cosmological paper that he published the
following year laid out the implications of general relativity for the modeling of the
structure and evolution of the universe as a whole.[16][17] The middle part of his
career also saw him making important contributions to statistical mechanics and
quantum theory. Especially notable was his work on the quantum physics of
radiation, in which light consists of particles, subsequently called photons. For
much of the last phase of his academic life, Einstein worked on two endeavors that
proved ultimately unsuccessful. Firstly, he advocated against quantum theory's
introduction of fundamental randomness into science's picture of the world,
objecting that "God does not play dice".[18] Secondly, he attempted to devise a
unified field theory by generalizing his geometric theory of gravitation to include
electromagnetism too. As a result, he became increasingly isolated from the
mainstream of modern physics.

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