Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879, in Ulm, in Wurttemberg (German Empire), and died on April 18, 1955, in Princeton, New Jersey (United States), was a theoretical physicist. He was successively German, stateless (1896), Swiss (1901), and of dual Swiss – American nationality (1940). He married Mileva Einstein-Maric, then his cousin Elsa Einstein.
He published his theory of special relativity in 1905 and his theory of gravitation called general relativity in 1915. He contributed greatly to the development of quantum mechanics and cosmology and received the Nobel Prize in physics of 1921 for his explanation of the photoelectric effect.
His work is notably known to the general public for the equation E = mc², which establishes an equivalence between the mass and the energy of a system.
He is considered today as one of the greatest scientists in history, and his fame goes far beyond the scientific community. It is the personality of the 20th century according to the weekly Time. In popular culture, his name and his person are directly linked to the notions of intelligence, knowledge, and genius.
Early Life and Training of Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, Germany, on March 14, 1879. Son of a small Jewish industrialist, in 1880 he moved with his family to the city of Munich.
At the age of six, encouraged by his mother, he began to study the violin. Early on, he excelled in the study of physics, mathematics, and philosophy. After secondary school in Ulm, he joined the Polytechnic Institute of Zurich, Switzerland, wherein 1900 he completed his degree in Physics.
In 1901 he wrote his first scientific article “Investigation of the State of the Ether in a Magnetic Field”. In February of that same year, he received Swiss citizenship. He accepted a place in the patent department in Bern. On January 6, 1903, he married Mileva Maric, with whom he had three children.
Theory of Relativity (initial formulation)
In 1905, the year in which he completed his doctorate, Albert Einstein sent thirty pages with four articles to the “Annalen der Physik”, Leipzig, Germany, among them the “initial formulation” of his famous “Theory of Relativity”, which revealed to the world an entirely new view of the Universe.
He proposed a formula for the equivalence between mass and energy the famous equation E = mc², whereby the energy (E) of a quantity of matter, with mass (m), is equal to the product of mass by the square of the speed of light, represented by (c).
After the articles were published, his talent was recognized. In 1909, at the age of 30, he became a professor of physics at the University of Zurich, and the following year he was teaching at the University of Prague (which was part of the Auto-Hungarian Empire).
In 1912 he held the chair of Physics at the Federal Polytechnic School of Switzerland. In 1913, he was appointed professor for the University of Berlin and director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Physics. Becomes a member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences.
Theory of General Relativity
On November 25, 1915, he took the stage at the Prussian Academy of Sciences and claimed to have completed his exhaustive decade-long search for a new and deeper understanding of gravity. The Theory of General Relativity, Einstein said, was ready.
The radical new vision of the interactions between space, time, matter, energy, and gravity was a feat recognized as one of the greatest intellectual achievements of mankind.
Albert Einstein Get Nobel Prize in Physics
In 1919, Einstein became known around the world, after his theory was proven in an experiment carried out during a solar eclipse. In 1921, Albert Einstein was awarded the “Nobel Prize in Physics” for his contributions to theoretical physics and, especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect.
On November 10, 1922, during the Nobel Prize in Physics, Einstein was in Japan and cannot receive it in person. He was represented at the delivery ceremony by the German ambassador in Sweden.
Albert Einstein Last years
In 1933, Albert Einstein resigned from Germany, where the Nazis were already in power and returned to the United States. He started teaching at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton University, of which he would become a director.
In 1940 he gained American citizenship. In 1946 he supported projects for the formation of a world government and the exchange of secrets between the great atomic powers, aiming for world peace.
Albert Einstein died in Princeton, United States, on April 18, 1955.
Death
Albert Einstein died on April 18, 1955, at the age of 76 years at Princeton from internal bleeding caused by the rupture of an aneurysm of the aorta had been caused, which is at the time did not dare to treat surgically. Einstein had suffered from an aneurysm for years.
It was discovered during laparotomy in late 1948 after Einstein complained repeatedly about abdominal pain. Due to health problems, he had hardly left Princeton since the late 1940s Alberta Roszel, Princeton Hospital’s night nurse, was with Einstein when he died.
She reported that he mumbled something in German shortly before his death. The pathologist Thomas Harvey took Albert Einstein’s brain and eyes after the autopsy. His main intention was to preserve the brain for further studies of its possibly unique structure for posterity.
The bereaved gave him their retroactive consent. Most of the brain today is preserved in the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Chicago, the eyes in New York. According to Einstein’s request, his body was burned and the ashes were scattered to an unknown location.
Albert Einstein quotes
- I salute the man who is going through life always helpful, knowing no fear, and to whom aggressiveness and resentment are alien. Albert Einstein
- A happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell too much on the future. Albert Einstein
- Don’t listen to the person who has the answers; listen to the person who has the questions. Albert Einstein
- If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.
- Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius, and a lot of courage, to move in the opposite direction.
- The world is not dangerous because of those who harm but because of those who look at it without doing anything.