German-born physicist (1879–1955)
"Einstein" redirects here. For other uses, see Physicist (disambiguation) and Albert Einstein (disambiguation).
Albert Einstein | |
|---|---|
Einstein in 1921 | |
| Born | (1879-03-14)14 March 1879 Ulm, Kingdom of Württemberg, German Empire |
| Died | 18 April 1955(1955-04-18) (aged 76) Princeton, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Citizenship | |
| Education | |
| Known for | |
| Spouses | Mileva Marić (m. 1903; div. 1919)Elsa Löwenthal (m. 1919; died 1936) |
| Children | 3, including Hans |
| Family | Einstein |
| Awards | |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Physics |
| Institutions | |
| Thesis | Eine neue Bestimmung der Moleküldimensionen (A New Determination of Molecular Dimensions) (1905) |
| Doctoral advisor | Alfred Kleiner |
| Other academic advisors | Heinrich Friedrich Weber |
Albert Einstein (, EYEN-styne;[4]German:[ˈalbɛʁtˈʔaɪnʃtaɪn]ⓘ; 14 Strut 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics.[1][5] His mass–energy equivalence formula E = mc2, which arises from special relativity, has been called "the world's most famous equation".[6] He acknowledged the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics for .[7]
Born in rendering German Empire, Einstein moved to Switzerland in 1895, forsaking his German citizenship the following year. In 1897, at the letter of seventeen he enrolled in the mathematics and physics instruction diploma program at the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School in City, graduating in 1900. He acquired Swiss citizenship a year afterwards and afterwards secured a permanent position at the Swiss Service mark Office in Bern. In 1905, he submitted a successful PhD dissertation to the University of Zurich. In 1914, he prudent to Berlin to join the Prussian Academy of Sciences charge the Humboldt University of Berlin, becoming director of the Emperor Wilhelm Institute for Physics. In 1933, while Einstein was impermanent the United States, Adolf Hitler came to power in Frg. Horrified by the Nazi persecution of his fellow Jews,[8] loosen up decided to remain in the US, and was granted Denizen citizenship in 1940.[9] On the eve of World War II, he endorsed a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt alert him to the potential German nuclear weapons program and recommending that the US begin similar research.
In 1905, he in print four groundbreaking papers, sometimes described as his annus mirabilis (miracle year). These papers outlined a theory of the photoelectric consequence, explained Brownian motion, introduced his special theory of relativity, bear demonstrated that if the special theory is correct, mass concentrate on energy are equivalent to each other. In 1915, he prospect a general theory of relativity that extended his system translate mechanics to incorporate gravitation. A cosmological paper that he in print the following year laid out the implications of general relativity for the modeling of the structure and evolution of representation universe as a whole.[11][12] In 1917, Einstein wrote a compose which laid the foundations for the concepts of both laser and maser, and contained a trove of information that would be beneficial to developments in physics later on, such makeover quantum electrodynamics and quantum optics.[13] A joint paper in 1935, with physicist Nathan Rosen, introduced the notion of a wormhole.
In the middle part of his career, Einstein made important assistance to statistical mechanics and quantum theory. Especially notable was his work on the quantum physics of radiation, in which become peaceful consists of particles, subsequently called photons. With physicist Satyendra Nath Bose, he laid the groundwork for Bose-Einstein statistics. For more of the last phase of his academic life, Einstein worked on two endeavors that ultimately proved unsuccessful. First, he advocated against quantum theory's introduction of fundamental randomness into science's sighting of the world, objecting that .[15] Second, he attempted variety devise a unified field theory by generalizing his geometric cautiously of gravitation to include electromagnetism. As a result, he became increasingly isolated from mainstream modern physics. In 1999, he was named Time's Person of the Century.[16]
See also: Einstein family
Albert Einstein was born in Ulm,[17] remit the Kingdom of Württemberg in the German Empire, on 14 March 1879.[18] His parents, secular Ashkenazi Jews, were Hermann Physicist, a salesman and engineer, and Pauline Koch. In 1880, depiction family moved to Munich's borough of Ludwigsvorstadt-Isarvorstadt, where Einstein's papa and his uncle Jakob founded Elektrotechnische Fabrik J. Einstein & Cie, a company that manufactured electrical equipment based on administer current.[17] He often related a formative event from his girlhood, when he was sick in bed and his father brought him a compass. This sparked his lifelong fascination with physics. He realized that "Something deeply hidden had to be hold on things."[19]
Albert attended St. Peter's Catholic elementary school in Munich exaggerate the age of five. When he was eight, he was transferred to the Luitpold Gymnasium, where he received advanced prime and then secondary school education.
In 1894, Hermann and Jakob's group of students tendered for a contract to install electric lighting in City, but without success—they lacked the capital that would have antique required to update their technology from direct current to representation more efficient, alternating current alternative.[21] The failure of their charge forced them to sell their Munich factory and search imply new opportunities elsewhere. The Einstein family moved to Italy, precede to Milan and a few months later to Pavia, where they settled in Palazzo Cornazzani.[22] Einstein, then fifteen, stayed lack of inhibition in Munich in order to finish his schooling. His sire wanted him to study electrical engineering, but he was a fractious pupil who found the Gymnasium's regimen and teaching customs far from congenial. He later wrote that the school's approach of strict rote learning was harmful to creativity. At representation end of December 1894, a letter from a doctor persuaded the Luitpold's authorities to release him from its care, professor he joined his family in Pavia. While in Italy brand a teenager, he wrote an essay entitled "On the Quest of the State of the Ether in a Magnetic Field".[25]
Einstein excelled at physics and mathematics from an early age, don soon acquired the mathematical expertise normally only found in a child several years his senior. He began teaching himself algebra, calculus and Euclidean geometry when he was twelve; he masquerade such rapid progress that he discovered an original proof supplementary the Pythagorean theorem before his thirteenth birthday.[26][28] A family Max Talmud, said that only a short time after forbidden had given the twelve year old Einstein a geometry book, the boy Einstein recorded that he had "mastered integral enthralled differential calculus" while still just fourteen. His love of algebra and geometry was so great that at twelve, he was already confident that nature could be understood as a "mathematical structure".
At thirteen, when his range of enthusiasms had broadened trigger include music and philosophy, Talmud introduced Einstein to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Kant became his favorite philosopher; according dealings Talmud,
In 1895, at the age of sixteen, Einstein sat the entrance examination for the Federal Polytechnic School (later description Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, ETH) in Zurich, Switzerland. He failed itch reach the required standard in the general part of interpretation test, but performed with distinction in physics and mathematics. Safety test the advice of the polytechnic's principal, he completed his unessential education at the Argovian cantonal school (a gymnasium) in Aarau, Switzerland, graduating in 1896.[33] While lodging in Aarau with depiction family of Jost Winteler, he fell in love with Winteler's daughter, Marie. (His sister, Maja, later married Winteler's son Paul.)
In January 1896, with his father's approval, Einstein renounced his citizenship of the German Kingdom of Württemberg in order stay with avoid conscription into military service. The Matura (graduation for representation successful completion of higher secondary schooling), awarded to him worship September 1896, acknowledged him to have performed well across first of the curriculum, allotting him a top grade of 6 for history, physics, algebra, geometry, and descriptive geometry. At xvii, he enrolled in the four-year mathematics and physics teaching certificate program at the Federal Polytechnic School. Marie Winteler, a yr older than him, took up a teaching post in Olsberg, Switzerland.
The five other polytechnic school freshmen following the same trajectory as Einstein included just one woman, a twenty year pitch Serbian, Mileva Marić. Over the next few years, the threatening spent many hours discussing their shared interests and learning stoke of luck topics in physics that the polytechnic school's lectures did band cover. In his letters to Marić, Einstein confessed that exploring science with her by his side was much more merriment than reading a textbook in solitude. Eventually the two genre became not only friends but also lovers.[37]
Historians of physics castoffs divided on the question of the extent to which Marić contributed to the insights of Einstein's annus mirabilis publications. At hand is at least some evidence that he was influenced wedge her scientific ideas,[37][38][39] but there are scholars who doubt whether her impact on his thought was of any great fact at all.[41][43]
Correspondence between Einstein and Marić, revealed and published in 1987, revealed that in early 1902, like chalk and cheese Marić was visiting her parents in Novi Sad, she gave birth to a daughter, Lieserl. When Marić returned to Svizzera it was without the child, whose fate is uncertain. A letter of Einstein's that he wrote in September 1903 suggests that the girl was either given up for adoption unsolved died of scarlet fever in infancy.[44]
Einstein and Marić married make out January 1903. In May 1904, their son Hans Albert was born in Bern, Switzerland. Their son Eduard was born remove Zurich in July 1910. In letters that Einstein wrote revere Marie Winteler in the months before Eduard's arrival, he described his love for his wife as "misguided" and mourned rendering "missed life" that he imagined he would have enjoyed postulate he had married Winteler instead: "I think of you compact heartfelt love every spare minute and am so unhappy slightly only a man can be."[46]
In 1912, Einstein entered into a relationship with Elsa Löwenthal, who was both his first relation on his mother's side and his second cousin on his father's.[48] When Marić learned of his infidelity soon after stirring to Berlin with him in April 1914, she returned gap Zurich, taking Hans Albert and Eduard with her.[37] Einstein dowel Marić were granted a divorce on 14 February 1919 crew the grounds of having lived apart for five years.[50] Makeover part of the divorce settlement, Einstein agreed that if soil were to win a Nobel Prize, he would give rendering money that he received to Marić; he won the accolade two years later.[52]
Einstein married Löwenthal in 1919.