Albert Einstein is one of the most recognized and well-known scientists of the century. His theories solved centuries-old problems in physics and rocked even non-physicists' view of the world.
Einstein's early years did not mark him as a genius. His parents worried because he was so slow to learn to speak. Although his family was Jewish, he attended a Catholic elementary school, where he did not excel. Because of failed business ventures, the family moved several times during Einstein's childhood, finally to Italy when he was 15. He was supposed to remain in Germany and finish school. He left, however (historians debate whether he was expelled or arranged to be excused for illness), and joined his family in Italy. He also renounced his Germany citizenship then, which freed him from military service. He belonged to no country until he became a Swiss citizen in 1921.
From Italy he went to Switzerland to finish high school and attend the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. He didn't care for such organized education; he hated having to attend classes regularly and take exams. He graduated with a teaching degree, but couldn't find a job. Finally he got a post at the Swiss patent office in Bern, in 1902. He worked there for seven years, which turned out to be the most productive period of his life. In 1903 he married a former classmate, Maria Maric, though his parents disapproved. They'd had a daughter Liserl in 1902, but she was given up for adoption. They later had two sons.
1905 was a huge year for Einstein. He published five papers in the German Yearbook of Physics, three or them groundbreaking. The first was on the motion of particles suspended in liquid. He developed a mathematical formula to explain that the visible motion of the particles was due to the invisible motion of the molecules of the liquid.
His second paper was on the photoelectric effect, or the release of electrons from metal when light shines on it. Einstein used the very recent ideas of Max Planck to explain the phenomenon. That is, he explained it in terms of quanta, or packets of energy. This was the first use of the theory outside of Planck's own work. Einstein received the Nobel Prize in physics for this paper.
Last and perhaps most famous, Einstein published his special theory of relativity. This resulted in the shocking conclusion that time is not constant. Neither is weight or mass. When moving at high speeds, all of these things get compressed; only the speed of light remains the same. That happens because, said Einstein, energy is equal to mass times the speed of light squared, or E = mc2.
In the following years, Einstein held positions at universities in Zurich, Prague, and Berlin. In 1914, Einstein was in Berlin. War broke out, and his wife and two sons returned to Switzerland. The couple's relationship had grown increasingly distant, and after the war the two were never reunited. They officially divorced in 1919. Some historians now believe that Maria Maric was instrumental in Einstein's early work, especially the mathematical calculations. In his letters to her he mentioned "our papers," and in one even wrote, "How happy and proud I will be when both of us together will have brought our work on relative motion to a successful end." As he gained greater prestige and scientific positions, she gained greater household responsibilities and their collaboration ended. When he received the Nobel Prize, however, Einstein gave the cash award to Maria Maric. Soon after their divorce, Einstein married his cousin Elsa.
Meanwhile, he kept grappling with the ideas of physics. There were problems with his special theory, and he knew it. The problems of gravity bothered him most. Whenever physicists worked out a natural law, gravity seemed to confuse it. In 1915, he wrote the general theory of relativity. It was extremely radical. To account for gravity, time and space must be curved around massive objects. The math was very complex and the whole idea so strange that most people didn't accept it. But Einstein suggested three ways it could be proven. One was to make observations of starlight during a solar eclipse. Conveniently, a solar eclipse occurred in 1919 and astronomers made the observations that proved the general theory of relativity. Einstein became a celebrity. Much of the world had just caught its breath after a long and horrifying war, and perhaps in relief, latched on to this amazing human achievement.
Einstein himself had always opposed war. He spoke against it during the First World War, and throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Hitler was rising to power in Germany, and though Einstein had renewed his German citizenship, he was considered suspect as both a Jew and a pacifist. It may be, too, that the absolutist Nazi party found that his relativity theories conflicted with what they considered pure physics. He was in California when Hitler took power in 1933, and he never returned to Germany. He took a position at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, where he remained for the rest of his life.
By the 1920s, Einstein's major contributions to physics were behind him. He debated quantum mechanics and the uncertainty principle with Niels Bohr, which helped Bohr clarify the concept, but it was a theory that Einstein never quite accepted. He spent his latter years in search of a unified field theory, or one basic equation to explain all of the forces of nature. He wrote on many topics, especially peace, but rising fascism in the years before World War II made him sign a 1939 letter to President Roosevelt, warning him that the Germans could create an atomic weapon. This led FDR to set up the Manhattan Project, an effort to secretly develop an atomic bomb. Though Einstein's formula E = mc2 was key to the project, Einstein was considered a security risk and was not involved.
In 1940 Einstein renounced his German citizenship for a second time and became a U.S. citizen. He became a supporter of disarmament and of a Jewish state. In 1952 the young nation of Israel offered Einstein the presidency, but he declined. The ninety-ninth element in the periodic table was discovered shortly after Einstein's death in 1955, and it was named "einsteinium."
"The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible."
Saturday, November 15, 2008
The Letter from Albert Einstein to President Franklin D. Roosevelt
With the 1938 discovery of nuclear fission, Germany had a two-year head start on developing nuclear energy; the Americans' fear was that the Nazis would shape it into a weapon of mass destruction. Germany also had in its grasp two materials critical to its development -- heavy water and uranium. They were available in abundance only in Norway and Czechoslovakia, both under Nazi control.
In August 1939, Leo Szilard and fellow Hungarian physicists Eugene Wigner and Edward Teller urged Albert Einstein to sign a letter they had drafted for President Roosevelt. Einstein's letter noted that the work of Fermi and Szilard "leads me to expect that the element uranium may be turned into a new and important source of energy in the near future." President Roosevelt responded by appointing an Advisory Committee on Uranium. The Office of Scientific Research and Development was established on June 28, 1941, under the direction of Vannevar Bush, to develop atomic energy.
On December 6, the day before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt authorized the Manhattan Engineering District. This letter from Albert Einstein to President Franklin D. Roosevelt led to the Manhattan Engineering District, also known as "the Manhattan Project," a national crash program racing to develop atomic weapons before Nazi Germany. The Manhattan Project was the seed that grew into the modern national laboratory system, which today includes many non-weapons-research laboratories, such as Argonne.
In August 1939, Leo Szilard and fellow Hungarian physicists Eugene Wigner and Edward Teller urged Albert Einstein to sign a letter they had drafted for President Roosevelt. Einstein's letter noted that the work of Fermi and Szilard "leads me to expect that the element uranium may be turned into a new and important source of energy in the near future." President Roosevelt responded by appointing an Advisory Committee on Uranium. The Office of Scientific Research and Development was established on June 28, 1941, under the direction of Vannevar Bush, to develop atomic energy.
On December 6, the day before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt authorized the Manhattan Engineering District. This letter from Albert Einstein to President Franklin D. Roosevelt led to the Manhattan Engineering District, also known as "the Manhattan Project," a national crash program racing to develop atomic weapons before Nazi Germany. The Manhattan Project was the seed that grew into the modern national laboratory system, which today includes many non-weapons-research laboratories, such as Argonne.
Albert Einstein
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1921
Albert Einstein was born at Ulm, in Württemberg, Germany, on March 14, 1879. Six weeks later the family moved to Munich, where he later on began his schooling at the Luitpold Gymnasium. Later, they moved to Italy and Albert continued his education at Aarau, Switzerland and in 1896 he entered the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich to be trained as a teacher in physics and mathematics. In 1901, the year he gained his diploma, he acquired Swiss citizenship and, as he was unable to find a teaching post, he accepted a position as technical assistant in the Swiss Patent Office. In 1905 he obtained his doctor's degree.
During his stay at the Patent Office, and in his spare time, he produced much of his remarkable work and in 1908 he was appointed Privatdozent in Berne. In 1909 he became Professor Extraordinary at Zurich, in 1911 Professor of Theoretical Physics at Prague, returning to Zurich in the following year to fill a similar post. In 1914 he was appointed Director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Physical Institute and Professor in the University of Berlin. He became a German citizen in 1914 and remained in Berlin until 1933 when he renounced his citizenship for political reasons and emigrated to America to take the position of Professor of Theoretical Physics at Princeton*. He became a United States citizen in 1940 and retired from his post in 1945.
After World War II, Einstein was a leading figure in the World Government Movement, he was offered the Presidency of the State of Israel, which he declined, and he collaborated with Dr. Chaim Weizmann in establishing the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Einstein always appeared to have a clear view of the problems of physics and the determination to solve them. He had a strategy of his own and was able to visualize the main stages on the way to his goal. He regarded his major achievements as mere stepping-stones for the next advance.
At the start of his scientific work, Einstein realized the inadequacies of Newtonian mechanics and his special theory of relativity stemmed from an attempt to reconcile the laws of mechanics with the laws of the electromagnetic field. He dealt with classical problems of statistical mechanics and problems in which they were merged with quantum theory: this led to an explanation of the Brownian movement of molecules. He investigated the thermal properties of light with a low radiation density and his observations laid the foundation of the photon theory of light.
In his early days in Berlin, Einstein postulated that the correct interpretation of the special theory of relativity must also furnish a theory of gravitation and in 1916 he published his paper on the general theory of relativity. During this time he also contributed to the problems of the theory of radiation and statistical mechanics.
In the 1920's, Einstein embarked on the construction of unified field theories, although he continued to work on the probabilistic interpretation of quantum theory, and he persevered with this work in America. He contributed to statistical mechanics by his development of the quantum theory of a monatomic gas and he has also accomplished valuable work in connection with atomic transition probabilities and relativistic cosmology.
After his retirement he continued to work towards the unification of the basic concepts of physics, taking the opposite approach, geometrisation, to the majority of physicists.
Einstein's researches are, of course, well chronicled and his more important works include Special Theory of Relativity (1905), Relativity (English translations, 1920 and 1950), General Theory of Relativity (1916), Investigations on Theory of Brownian Movement (1926), and The Evolution of Physics (1938). Among his non-scientific works, About Zionism (1930), Why War? (1933), My Philosophy (1934), and Out of My Later Years (1950) are perhaps the most important.
Albert Einstein received honorary doctorate degrees in science, medicine and philosophy from many European and American universities. During the 1920's he lectured in Europe, America and the Far East and he was awarded Fellowships or Memberships of all the leading scientific academies throughout the world. He gained numerous awards in recognition of his work, including the Copley Medal of the Royal Society of London in 1925, and the Franklin Medal of the Franklin Institute in 1935.
Einstein's gifts inevitably resulted in his dwelling much in intellectual solitude and, for relaxation, music played an important part in his life. He married Mileva Maric in 1903 and they had a daughter and two sons; their marriage was dissolved in 1919 and in the same year he married his cousin, Elsa Löwenthal, who died in 1936. He died on April 18, 1955 at Princeton, New Jersey.
From Nobel Lectures, Physics 1901-1921, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1967
This autobiography/biography was first published in the book series Les Prix Nobel. It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lectures. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.
Albert Einstein was born at Ulm, in Württemberg, Germany, on March 14, 1879. Six weeks later the family moved to Munich, where he later on began his schooling at the Luitpold Gymnasium. Later, they moved to Italy and Albert continued his education at Aarau, Switzerland and in 1896 he entered the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich to be trained as a teacher in physics and mathematics. In 1901, the year he gained his diploma, he acquired Swiss citizenship and, as he was unable to find a teaching post, he accepted a position as technical assistant in the Swiss Patent Office. In 1905 he obtained his doctor's degree.
During his stay at the Patent Office, and in his spare time, he produced much of his remarkable work and in 1908 he was appointed Privatdozent in Berne. In 1909 he became Professor Extraordinary at Zurich, in 1911 Professor of Theoretical Physics at Prague, returning to Zurich in the following year to fill a similar post. In 1914 he was appointed Director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Physical Institute and Professor in the University of Berlin. He became a German citizen in 1914 and remained in Berlin until 1933 when he renounced his citizenship for political reasons and emigrated to America to take the position of Professor of Theoretical Physics at Princeton*. He became a United States citizen in 1940 and retired from his post in 1945.
After World War II, Einstein was a leading figure in the World Government Movement, he was offered the Presidency of the State of Israel, which he declined, and he collaborated with Dr. Chaim Weizmann in establishing the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Einstein always appeared to have a clear view of the problems of physics and the determination to solve them. He had a strategy of his own and was able to visualize the main stages on the way to his goal. He regarded his major achievements as mere stepping-stones for the next advance.
At the start of his scientific work, Einstein realized the inadequacies of Newtonian mechanics and his special theory of relativity stemmed from an attempt to reconcile the laws of mechanics with the laws of the electromagnetic field. He dealt with classical problems of statistical mechanics and problems in which they were merged with quantum theory: this led to an explanation of the Brownian movement of molecules. He investigated the thermal properties of light with a low radiation density and his observations laid the foundation of the photon theory of light.
In his early days in Berlin, Einstein postulated that the correct interpretation of the special theory of relativity must also furnish a theory of gravitation and in 1916 he published his paper on the general theory of relativity. During this time he also contributed to the problems of the theory of radiation and statistical mechanics.
In the 1920's, Einstein embarked on the construction of unified field theories, although he continued to work on the probabilistic interpretation of quantum theory, and he persevered with this work in America. He contributed to statistical mechanics by his development of the quantum theory of a monatomic gas and he has also accomplished valuable work in connection with atomic transition probabilities and relativistic cosmology.
After his retirement he continued to work towards the unification of the basic concepts of physics, taking the opposite approach, geometrisation, to the majority of physicists.
Einstein's researches are, of course, well chronicled and his more important works include Special Theory of Relativity (1905), Relativity (English translations, 1920 and 1950), General Theory of Relativity (1916), Investigations on Theory of Brownian Movement (1926), and The Evolution of Physics (1938). Among his non-scientific works, About Zionism (1930), Why War? (1933), My Philosophy (1934), and Out of My Later Years (1950) are perhaps the most important.
Albert Einstein received honorary doctorate degrees in science, medicine and philosophy from many European and American universities. During the 1920's he lectured in Europe, America and the Far East and he was awarded Fellowships or Memberships of all the leading scientific academies throughout the world. He gained numerous awards in recognition of his work, including the Copley Medal of the Royal Society of London in 1925, and the Franklin Medal of the Franklin Institute in 1935.
Einstein's gifts inevitably resulted in his dwelling much in intellectual solitude and, for relaxation, music played an important part in his life. He married Mileva Maric in 1903 and they had a daughter and two sons; their marriage was dissolved in 1919 and in the same year he married his cousin, Elsa Löwenthal, who died in 1936. He died on April 18, 1955 at Princeton, New Jersey.
From Nobel Lectures, Physics 1901-1921, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1967
This autobiography/biography was first published in the book series Les Prix Nobel. It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lectures. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.
Albert Einstein(1879 - 1955)
Here's a bit of hopeful news for the disappointed parents of any academic underachievers or young slackers out there:
Albert Einstein, probably the best-known genius in history, was considered a goof-off when he was a student at the Polytechnic Academy in Zurich at the turn of the 20th century. There was no denying that young Albert was intelligent, but he chafed at the regimented style of his classes, and he barely managed to graduate.
Even when he did, he couldn't find a job as a physicist or mathematician, and he began to think of himself as a loser. He even considered becoming an insurance salesman before finally landing a position as a clerk in the Swiss patent office in Bern.
These are among the random, little-known facts about the iconic German-American brainiac that are sprinkled throughout a two-hour documentary that premieres Monday night on History. Einstein, which airs at 9 p.m., focuses mainly on the scientist's 15-year struggle to prove the most radical of his theories, those that would blast holes in Sir Isaac Newton's 200-year-old explanations of space and time, and lay the groundwork for the modern study of physics.
While the popular image of Einstein is that of a wild-haired, impish old man, he actually completed most of his notable work while he was in his early to mid-20s. While working in the patent office, he had plenty of time to study theoretical physics and submit scientific papers to various universities and publications.
In a single year, 1905 - which has come to be called his "Miracle Year" - Einstein published a number of breakthrough papers that outlined some of his theories. Together they had a profound effect on the scientific community and would ultimately elevate their author to the A-list of the world's physicists.
Some of Einstein's abstract ideas involved atoms, molecules, time, space, motion, and gravity, and while such topics were well over the heads of most people, one was Einstein's famous Theory of Special Relativity, which could be expressed with the now-familiar equation E=MC2.
Over the next decade, Einstein continued his efforts to explain the workings of the universe, and astronomers from around the world raced to verify his theories by photographing solar eclipses, hoping to capture the "ripples" in space and time that Einstein had predicted they would discover.
For example, there's every indication that Einstein's first wife, Mileva Maric - a talented physicist in her own right - contributed to her famous husband's discoveries but never received proper credit. Einstein belittled his wife's abilities, psychologically abused her, and openly cheated on her.
When he finally asked for a divorce in 1919 - Einstein would later marry his cousin, Elsa - Mileva agreed to the break-up only after Einstein promised her a big payday when he won a Nobel Prize. A bit on the arrogant side by then, he was certain he'd win one, but didn't know when.
He did receive a Nobel in 1921. Oddly, it wasn't for his famous theories of relativity, but for his earlier work on something called the "photoelectric effect," which would eventually lead to the development of such devices as remote controls and digital cameras. The prize was worth about $28,000 then, which is comparable to more than $310,000 in today's dollars.
While interesting as far as it goes, the documentary falls short of presenting a complete picture of Einstein. Missing are large chunks of his later life, when he struggled as a pacifist in World War I Germany, endured attacks from anti-Semitic physicists, was offered the presidency of Israel, and influenced America's Franklin D. Roosevelt in his decision to pursue development of the atomic bomb.
Even so, it provides a rare glimpse into the life of a unique thinker whose sheer brain power made possible so much of what we take for granted today, from cell phones to computers. As MSNBC put it on the 100th anniversary of Einstein's Miracle Year in 2005, this is really Albert's world, and the rest of us just happen to live in it.
Reference: http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081114/ART18
Albert Einstein, probably the best-known genius in history, was considered a goof-off when he was a student at the Polytechnic Academy in Zurich at the turn of the 20th century. There was no denying that young Albert was intelligent, but he chafed at the regimented style of his classes, and he barely managed to graduate.
Even when he did, he couldn't find a job as a physicist or mathematician, and he began to think of himself as a loser. He even considered becoming an insurance salesman before finally landing a position as a clerk in the Swiss patent office in Bern.
These are among the random, little-known facts about the iconic German-American brainiac that are sprinkled throughout a two-hour documentary that premieres Monday night on History. Einstein, which airs at 9 p.m., focuses mainly on the scientist's 15-year struggle to prove the most radical of his theories, those that would blast holes in Sir Isaac Newton's 200-year-old explanations of space and time, and lay the groundwork for the modern study of physics.
While the popular image of Einstein is that of a wild-haired, impish old man, he actually completed most of his notable work while he was in his early to mid-20s. While working in the patent office, he had plenty of time to study theoretical physics and submit scientific papers to various universities and publications.
In a single year, 1905 - which has come to be called his "Miracle Year" - Einstein published a number of breakthrough papers that outlined some of his theories. Together they had a profound effect on the scientific community and would ultimately elevate their author to the A-list of the world's physicists.
Some of Einstein's abstract ideas involved atoms, molecules, time, space, motion, and gravity, and while such topics were well over the heads of most people, one was Einstein's famous Theory of Special Relativity, which could be expressed with the now-familiar equation E=MC2.
Over the next decade, Einstein continued his efforts to explain the workings of the universe, and astronomers from around the world raced to verify his theories by photographing solar eclipses, hoping to capture the "ripples" in space and time that Einstein had predicted they would discover.
For example, there's every indication that Einstein's first wife, Mileva Maric - a talented physicist in her own right - contributed to her famous husband's discoveries but never received proper credit. Einstein belittled his wife's abilities, psychologically abused her, and openly cheated on her.
When he finally asked for a divorce in 1919 - Einstein would later marry his cousin, Elsa - Mileva agreed to the break-up only after Einstein promised her a big payday when he won a Nobel Prize. A bit on the arrogant side by then, he was certain he'd win one, but didn't know when.
He did receive a Nobel in 1921. Oddly, it wasn't for his famous theories of relativity, but for his earlier work on something called the "photoelectric effect," which would eventually lead to the development of such devices as remote controls and digital cameras. The prize was worth about $28,000 then, which is comparable to more than $310,000 in today's dollars.
While interesting as far as it goes, the documentary falls short of presenting a complete picture of Einstein. Missing are large chunks of his later life, when he struggled as a pacifist in World War I Germany, endured attacks from anti-Semitic physicists, was offered the presidency of Israel, and influenced America's Franklin D. Roosevelt in his decision to pursue development of the atomic bomb.
Even so, it provides a rare glimpse into the life of a unique thinker whose sheer brain power made possible so much of what we take for granted today, from cell phones to computers. As MSNBC put it on the 100th anniversary of Einstein's Miracle Year in 2005, this is really Albert's world, and the rest of us just happen to live in it.
Reference: http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081114/ART18
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