Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein was a theoretical physicist, philosopher and author who is widely regarded as one of the most influential and best known scientists and intellectuals of all time. A German-Swiss Nobel laureate, he is often regarded as the father of modern physics.[3] 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".[4]
Near the beginning of his career, Einstein thought that Newtonian mechanics was no longer enough to reconcile the laws of classical mechanics with the laws of the electromagnetic field. This led to the development of his special theory of relativity. He realized, however, that the principle of relativity could also be extended to gravitational fields, and with his subsequent theory of gravitation in 1916, he published a paper on the general theory of relativity. He continued to deal with problems of statistical mechanics and quantum theory, which led to his explanations of particle theory and the motion of molecules. He also investigated the thermal properties of light which laid the foundation of the photon theory of light. In 1917, Einstein applied the general theory of relativity to model the structure of the universe as a whole.[5]
On the eve of World War II in 1939, he personally alerted President Franklin D. Roosevelt that Germany might be developing an atomic weapon, and recommended that the U.S. begin uranium procurement and nuclear research. As a result, Roosevelt advocated such research, leading to the creation of the top secret Manhattan Project, and the U.S. becoming the first and only country to possess nuclear weapons during the war.
Einstein published more than 300 scientific along with over 150 non-scientific works, and received honorary doctorate degrees in science, medicine and philosophy from many European and American universities;[5] he also wrote about various philosophical and political subjects such as socialism and international relations.[6] His great intelligence and originality has made the word "Einstein" synonymous with genius.[7]
Early life and education
Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, in the Kingdom of Württemberg in the German Empire on 14 March 1879.[8] His father was Hermann Einstein, a salesman and engineer. His mother was Pauline Einstein (née Koch). In 1880, the family moved to Munich, where his father and his uncle founded Elektrotechnische Fabrik J. Einstein & Cie, a company that manufactured electrical equipment based on direct current.
The Einsteins were non-observant Jews. Their son attended a Catholic elementary school from the age of five until ten.[9] Although Einstein had early speech difficulties, he was a top student in elementary school.[10][11]His father once showed him a pocket compass; Einstein realized that there must be something causing the needle to move, despite the apparent "empty space".[12] As he grew, Einstein built models and mechanical devices for fun and began to show a talent for mathematics.[8] In 1889, Max Talmud (later changed to Max Talmey) introduced the ten-year old Einstein to key texts in science, mathematics and philosophy, including Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and Euclid's Elements (which Einstein called the "holy little geometry book").[13] Talmud was a poor Jewish medical student from Poland. The Jewish community arranged for Talmud to take meals with the Einsteins each week on Thursdays for six years. During this time Talmud wholeheartedly guided Einstein through many secular educational interests.[14][15]
In 1894, his father's company failed: direct current (DC) lost the War of Currents to alternating current (AC). In search of business, the Einstein family moved to Italy, first to Milan and then, a few months later, to Pavia. When the family moved to Pavia, Einstein stayed in Munich to finish his studies at the Luitpold Gymnasium. His father intended for him to pursue electrical engineering, but Einstein clashed with authorities and resented the school's regimen and teaching method. He later wrote that the spirit of learning and creative thought were lost in strict rote learning. In the spring of 1895, he withdrew to join his family in Pavia, convincing the school to let him go by using a doctor's note.[8] During this time, Einstein wrote his first scientific work, "The Investigation of the State of Aether in Magnetic Fields".[16]
Einstein applied directly to the Eidgenössische Polytechnische Schule (ETH) in Zürich, Switzerland. Lacking the requisite Matura certificate, he took an entrance examination, which he failed, although he got exceptional marks in mathematics and physics.[17] The Einsteins sent Albert to Aarau, in northern Switzerland to finish secondary school.[8] While lodging with the family of Professor Jost Winteler, he fell in love with the family's daughter, Marie. (His sister Maja later married the Wintelers' son Paul.)[18] In Aarau, Einstein studied Maxwell's electromagnetic theory. At age 17, he graduated, and, with his father's approval, renounced his citizenship in the German Kingdom of Württemberg to avoid military service, and in 1896 he enrolled in the four year mathematics and physics teaching diploma program at the Polytechnic in Zurich. Marie Winteler moved to Olsberg, Switzerland for a teaching post.
Einstein's future wife, Mileva Marić, also enrolled at the Polytechnic that same year, the only woman among the six students in the mathematics and physics section of the teaching diploma course. Over the next few years, Einstein and Marić's friendship developed into romance, and they read books together on extra-curricular physics in which Einstein was taking an increasing interest. In 1900 Einstein was awarded the Zurich Polytechnic teaching diploma, but Marić failed the examination with a poor grade in the mathematics component, theory of functions.[19] There have been claims that Marić collaborated with Einstein on his celebrated 1905 papers,[20][21] but historians of physics who have studied the issue find no evidence that she made any substantive contributions.
Emigration to the United States
In 1933, Einstein was compelled to emigrate to the United States due to the rise to power of the Nazis under Germany's new chancellor, Adolf Hitler.[42] While visiting American universities in April, 1933, he learned that the new German government had passed a law barring Jews from holding any official positions, including teaching at universities. A month later, the Nazi book burnings occurred, with Einstein's works being among those burnt, and Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels proclaimed, "Jewish intellectualism is dead."[41] Einstein also learned that his name was on a list of assassination targets, with a "$5,000 bounty on his head". One German magazine included him in a list of enemies of the German regime with the phrase, "not yet hanged".[41]In 1935, Einstein traveled to the United States via Albania. He stayed in Durrës for three days as a guest of the Albanian royal mansion. Equipped with an Albanian passport, he continued his journey to the United States.[1] The gesture of the Albanian royalty of King Zog is said to be part of the traditional Albanian besa (honor), according to which many Jews (including Einstein) were saved from Nazi forces prior to and during World War II.[43]
Among other German scientists forced to flee were fourteen Nobel laureates and twenty-six of the sixty professors of theoretical physics in the country. Among the other scientists who left Germany, or the other countries it came to dominate, were Edward Teller, Niels Bohr, Enrico Fermi, Otto Stern, Victor Weisskopf, Hans Bethe, and Lise Meitner, many of whom made certain that the Allies would develop nuclear weapons first, before the Nazis.[41] With so many other Jewish scientists now forced by circumstances to live in America, often working side by side, Einstein wrote to a friend, "For me the most beautiful thing is to be in contact with a few fine Jews—a few millennia of a civilized past do mean something after all." In another letter he writes, "In my whole life I have never felt so Jewish as now."[41]
He took up a position at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, New Jersey, an affiliation that lasted until his death in 1955. There, he tried unsuccessfully to develop a unified field theory and to refute the accepted interpretation of quantum physics. He and Kurt Gödel, another Institute member, became close friends. They would take long walks together discussing their work. His last assistant was Bruria Kaufman, who later became a renowned physicist.
World War II and the Manhattan Project
In the summer of 1939, a few months before the beginning of World War II in Europe, Einstein was persuaded to lend his prestige by writing a letter, with the help of Hungarian emigre physicist Leo Szilard, to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in order to alert him of the possibility that Nazi Germany might be developing an atomic bomb and ,also, recommending that the U.S. government should pay attention to and become directly involved with uranium possibilities and associated chain reaction research. Einstein and Szilard, along with other refugees such as Edward Teller and Eugene Wigner, according to F.G. Gosling, of the U.S. Department of Energy, "regarded it as their responsibility to alert Americans to the possibility that German scientists might win the race to build an atomic bomb, and to warn that Hitler would be more than willing to resort to such a weapon."[44]British columnist Ambrose Evans-Pritchard notes, however, that Washington at first "brushed off with disbelief" the fears they expressed. He then describes how quickly Roosevelt changed his mind:
- "Albert Einstein interceded through the Belgian queen mother, eventually getting a personal envoy into the Oval Office. Roosevelt initially fobbed him off. He listened more closely at a second meeting over breakfast the next day, then made up his mind within minutes. 'This needs action,' he told his military aide. It was the birth of the Manhattan Project."[45]
U.S. citizenship
Einstein became an American citizen in 1940. Not long after settling into his career at Princeton, he expressed his appreciation of the "meritocracy" in American culture when compared to Europe. According to Isaacson, he recognized the "right of individuals to say and think what they pleased", without social barriers, and as result, the individual was "encouraged" to be more creative, a trait he valued from his own early education. Einstein writes:- What makes the new arrival devoted to this country is the democratic trait among the people. No one humbles himself before another person or class. . . American youth has the good fortune not to have its outlook troubled by outworn traditions.[41]:432
After the death of Israel's first president, Chaim Weizmann, in November 1952, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion offered Einstein the position of President of Israel, a mostly ceremonial post.[50] The offer was presented by Israel's ambassador in Washington, Abba Eban, who explained that the offer "embodies the deepest respect which the Jewish people can repose in any of its sons".[40]:522 However, Einstein declined, and wrote in his response that he was "deeply moved", and "at once saddened and ashamed" that he could not accept it:
- All my life I have dealt with objective matters, hence I lack both the natural aptitude and the experience to deal properly with people and to exercise official function. I am the more more distressed over these circumstances because my relationship with the Jewish people became my strongest human tie once I achieved complete clarity about our precarious position among the nations of the world.[40]:522 [50][51]
Albert Einstein's Death
On April 17, 1955, Albert Einstein experienced internal bleeding caused by the rupture of an abdominal aortic aneurysm, which had previously been reinforced surgically by Dr. Rudolph Nissen in 1948.[52] He took the draft of a speech he was preparing for a television appearance commemorating the State of Israel's seventh anniversary with him to the hospital, but he did not live long enough to complete it.[53] Einstein refused surgery, saying: "I want to go when I want. It is tasteless to prolong life artificially. I have done my share, it is time to go. I will do it elegantly."[54] He died in Princeton Hospital early the next morning at the age of 76, having continued to work until near the end.Einstein's remains were cremated and his ashes were scattered around the grounds of the Institute for Advanced Study.[55][56] During the autopsy, the pathologist of Princeton Hospital, Thomas Stoltz Harvey, removed Einstein's brain for preservation, without the permission of his family, in hope that the neuroscience of the future would be able to discover what made Einstein so intelligent.[57]
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