Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein

 Einstein is considered the most famous and influential physics scientist in the 20th century and over the ages . he was born at Ulm, Württemberg, Germany in 1879 . In 1921, he was granted Nobel Prize for his explanation of photoelectric phenomena.he is famous for the theory of relativity.he is also known for his serious equation mass-energy equivalence which began the atomic age and nuclear weapon manufacturing . he published more than 300 scientific paper along with over 150 non-scientific papers. his great intelligence make the word "Einstein" as a synonymous of genius. his end was on April 18, 1955, in Princeton, New Jersey  

Early Life

 Albert was born on march 14, 1879 in Ulm, kingdom of Württemberg, germany , he grew up in a middle class Jewish family. his father Hermann Einstein was engineer and salesman. In 1880 his family moved  Munich where his father and his uncle founded company Elektrotechnische Fabrik J. Einstein & Cie that was manufacturing electrical and technical equipment based on DC (direct current).Einstein has one sister called Maja born after him by two years.


Albert attended Catholic Elementary school from age of five and for three years , that's where he excelled his studies and enjoyed playing music especially violin . he felt so alienated and struggled from the rigid Prussian education , he received there. he also experienced difficulty in speaking 

 einstein recall two remarkable evets in his life . At the age of five his father showed him a compass, which make him wonder what make the needle move in the "empty space". he wondered about invisible forces that turned the needle . the other was at the age of 12 when he found " a holy little geometry book", which he read over and over 

In 1889 , Einstein family invited  a poor medical polish student called Max Talmud who became an informal  tutor to young Einstein, he introduce to him higher mathematics and philosophy. Talmud shared with Einstein a science book in which the author imagined riding alongside electricity at the same speed inside telegraph wire . Einstein then began to wonder what will happen. if someone travels along with the light beam at the same speed what the beam will look like ??!!. if the light was a moving wave  why it look like a stationary beam. this paradox make him write his first scientific paper at the age of 16 called "the investigation of the state of Aether in magnetic field"the relative speed of light to a stationary observer this question dominate his next 10 years

Hermann Einstein failed to get a contract to electrify Munich city a Einstein family moved to Milan in Italy and Albert leaved alone in Munich to finish his Education at Luitpold Gymnasium and the looming military duty. using a medical excuse Albert withdrew his papers and made his way to Milan to join his parents . his family emphasized by his feeling but they were concerned the most about school dropout

fortunately, Einstein was able to apply to Swiss Federal Polytechnic School in Switzerland  lacking of equivalent high school diploma. he failed much of entrance exam but he got exceptional marks in physics and mathematics. he was admitted in the school and finished his school and joined special high school run by Jost Winteler in Aarau , Switzerland and graduated in 1896 at the age of 17. he became a friend of Winteler family with whom he was boarding and fell in love with Winteler 's daughter Marie 

At this time, Einstein renounced his german citizenship to avoid military service and enrolled in zurich school

Einstein Marriage

 Einstein recall his years in Zurich were some of the happiest years in his life. he met many friends who would  become loyal to him, such as Marcel Grossmann, a mathematician, and Michele Besso, with whom he enjoyed lengthy conversations about space and time. he also met his future wife Mileva Maric, who was a  fellow physics student from Serbia. After graduation Einstein experienced several life crisis as he want to study on his own, he cut classes and earned animosity of his professors, in particular Heinrich Weber who write a recommendation to Einstein request to Einstein make him turned down for every academic ,position he applied for, meanwhile his relation with Meric deepened. But his parents strictly opposed the relation citing her Serbian background and eastern orthodox christian religion. Eisenstein defied his parent and continue to see Maric

At this point of his life, Albert reached the lowest point of his life he couldn't marry Maric without a job , his father business had gone bankrupt. Einstein would become desperate and unemployed. Einstein then took lowly jobs such as tutoring children , but he was unable to hold on any of them a turning point comes later when his friend's father recommended him for a job as clerk in Swiss patent office in Bern, Switzerland at this point Hermann Einstein became seriously ill before he died and gave him blessing to marry. Einstein then married Maric on Jan 6 , 1903 with small steady income. In may 1904 they had their first son Hans Albert , In 1910 they had their second son Eduard

They divorced on February 14, 1919 and lived a part for five  years and Einstein then married Elsa Löwenthal on june 2 , 1919

In 1935, Elsa Einstein was diagnosed with heart and kidney problems and died in December 1936.

Miracle Year 

AT the patent office where he evaluated patent application for electromagnetic devices. he mastered his job quickly, he then ponder electrical signal and electrical-mechanical synchronization an interest which dominated his life several years later. At a polytechnic school he studied Scottish physicist James Maxwell who described the nature of light. Einstein then discovered a fact that Maxwell himself didn't know that the speed of light remains constant. this violated isaac newton 's theory that there is no a absolute velocity. this lead Einstein to formulate principle of relativity

In 1905 often called Einstein's "miracle year" he submitted a paper for doctorate and had a paper published in the Annalen der Physik, one of the best known physics journals - the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, special relativity, and the equivalence of matter and energy—would alter the course of modern physics and bring him to the attention

 In his paper on matter and energy, Einstein deduced the well-known equation E=mc2, suggesting that tiny particles of matter could be converted into huge amounts of energy, foreshadowing the development of nuclear power. There have been claims that Einstein and his wife, Maric, collaborated on his celebrated 1905 papers, but historians of physics who have studied the issue find no evidence that she made any substantive contributions. In fact, in the papers,

Einstein only credits his conversations with Michele Besso in developing relativity.

At firstm Einstein's 1905 papers were ignored by the physics community. This began to change when he received the attention of Max Planck, perhaps the most influential physicist of his generation and founder of quantum theory. With Planck’s complimentary comments and his experiments that confirmed his theories, Einstein was invited to lecture at international meetings and he rose rapidly in the academic world. He was offered a series of positions at increasingly prestigious institutions, including the University of Zürich, the University of Prague, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, and finally the University of Berlin, where he served as director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics from 1913 to 1933.

As his fame spread, Einstein's marriage fell apart. His constant travel and intense study of his work, the arguments about their children and the family’s meager finances led Einstein to the conclusion that his marriage was over. Einstein began an affair with a cousin, Elsa Löwenthal, whom he later married. He finally divorced Mileva in 1919 and as a settlement agreed to give her the money he might receive if he ever won a Nobel Prize.

Theory of Relativity 

In November, 1915 Einstein formulated his theory of relativity which involve special and general theory of relativityity explained many concepts :

• measure various quantities relative to the velocity of the observers

• space and time should be considered together and in relation to each other

• The speed of light is nonetheless invariant, the same for all observers

• he predicted the mercury's orbit around the sun, which fell short in newton's theory 

• he predicted the deflection of light around the light around  the sun when a planet or another sun orbited near the sun. this confirmed by the british astronomer Sir Arthur Eddington   during sun eclipse of 1919

  In 1921 Einstein received the Nobel Prize for physics for the explanation of photoelectric effect

In 1920s launched the new science cosmology his equations predicted the universe is dynamic ever contracting or expanding which contradicted the the prevailing view the universe is static 

in 1929 astronomer Edwin Hubble the universe is  indeed expanding thereby confirming Einstein's theory

Einstein the met with Hubble at Mount Wilson Observatory near Los Angeles and declared cosmological constant, his original theory of the static size and shape of the universe, to be his "greatest blunder."

the Nazis were rising to power under the leadership of Adolph Hitler. Einstein’s theories on relativity became a convenient target for Nazi propaganda. In 1931, the Nazi’s enlisted other physicists to denounce Einstein and his theories as "Jewish physics." At this time, Einstein learned that the new German government, now in full control by the Nazi party, had passed a law barring Jews from holding any official position, including teaching at universities. Einstein also learned that his name was on a list of assassination targets, and a Nazi organization published a magazine with Einstein's picture and the caption "Not Yet Hanged" on the cover.

Move to the United States

In December, 1932, Einstein decided to leave Germany forever. He took a position a the newly formed Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, New Jersey, which soon became a Mecca for physicists from around the world. It was here that he would spend the rest of his career trying to develop a unified field theory—an all-embracing theory that would unify the forces of the universe, and thereby the laws of physics, into one framework—and refute the accepted interpretation of quantum physics. Other European scientists also fled various countries threatened by Nazi takeover and came to the United States. Some of these scientists knew of Nazi plans to develop an atomic weapon. For a time, their warnings to Washington, D.C. went unheeded.

In the summer of 1939, Einstein, along with another scientist, Leo Szilard, was persuaded to write a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt to alert him of the possibility of a Nazi bomb. President Roosevelt could not risk the possibility that Germany might develop an atomic bomb first. The letter is believed to be the key factor that motivated the United States to investigate the development of nuclear weapons. Roosevelt invited Einstein to meet with him and soon after the United States initiated the Manhattan Project.

Not long after he began his career at the Institute in New Jersey, Albert Einstein expressed an appreciation for the "meritocracy" of the United States and the right people had to think what they pleased—something he didn’t enjoy as a young man in Europe. In 1935, Albert Einstein was granted permanent residency in the United States and became an American citizen in 1940. As the Manhattan Project moved from drawing board to testing and development at Los Alamos, New Mexico, many of his colleagues were asked to develop the first atomic bomb

, but Eisenstein was not one of them. According to several researchers who examined FBI files over the years, the reason was the U.S. government didn't trust Einstein's lifelong association with peace and socialist organizations. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover went so far as to recommend that Einstein be kept out of America by the Alien Exclusion Act, but he was overruled by the U.S. State Department. Instead, during the war,

Einstein helped the U.S. Navy evaluate designs for future weapons systems and contributed to the war effort by auctioning off priceless personal manuscripts. One example was a handwritten copy of his 1905 paper on special relativity which sold for $6.5 million, and is now located in the Library of Congress.

On August 6, 1945, while on vacation, Einstein heard the news that an atomic bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. He soon became involved in an international effort to try to bring the atomic bomb under control, and in 1946, he formed the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists with physicist Leo Szilard. In 1947, in an article that he wrote for The Atlantic Monthly, Einstein argued that the United States should not try to monopolize the atomic bomb, but instead should supply the United Nations with nuclear weapons for the sole purpose of maintaining a deterrent. At this time, Einstein also became a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. He corresponded with civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois and actively campaigned for the rights of African Americans.

After the war, Einstein continued to work on many 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. With the huge developments in unraveling the secrets of atoms and molecules, spurred on by the development to the atomic bomb, the majority of scientists were working on the quantum theory, not relativity. Another reason for Einstein's detachment from his colleagues was his obsession with discovering his unified field theory. In the 1930s, Einstein engaged in a series of historic private debates with Niels Bohr, the originator of the Bohr atomic model. In a series of "thought experiments," Einstein tried to find logical inconsistencies in the quantum theory, but was unsuccessful. However, in his later years, he stopped opposing quantum theory and tried to incorporate it, along with light and gravity, into the larger unified field theory he was developing. 

In the last decade of his life, Einstein withdrew from public life, rarely traveling far and confining himself to long walks around Princeton with close associates, whom he engaged in deep conversations about politics, religion, physics and his unified field theory.

On April 17, 1955, Einstein suffered an abdominal aortic aneurysm and experienced internal bleeding. 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. Einstein died at the university medical center early the next morning—April 18, 1955—at the age of 76.

Thomas Stoltz Harvey removed Einstein's brain, seemingly without the permission of his family, for preservation and future study by doctors of neuroscience. His remains were cremated and his ashes were scattered in an undisclosed location. After decades of study, Einstein's brain is now located at the Princeton University Medical Center. 

The End

Albert Einstein