Full Name: Mr. Albert Einstein
Date of Birth: March 14, 1879
Place of Birth: Ulm, Württemberg, Germany
Died: April 18, 1955
Place of Death: Princeton, New Jersey, USA
Classification: Scientists & Thinkers
Receiving a compass at the age of five from his father ignited the passion to learn about the invisible forces of nature in young Albert Einstein. As the compass pointed northward, he gasped in disbelief that something unseen should have such a profound affect. From that time on, his voracious appetite involving the physical world around him would control his destiny.
As a calm, collect and patient child, Einstein spent long hours reading books. He also attended a Catholic elementary school, even though his family was of Jewish descent. Further enhancing his intellectual upbringing, his uncles provided him with books on philosophy, math, and science. With a fortitude in science and math coupled with an open-minded upbringing in education, Einstein taught himself Euclidean Geometry and Calculus before the age of fourteen. At the age of 16, after quitting school he came up with one of his first theories of light and relativity – that the speed of light is separate from the observer – as he looked into a mirror, an experiment often dubbed “Albert Einstein’s Mirror”.
After finishing secondary school, Albert attended the Federal Polytechnic Institute and went on to teach there in 1900. After his teaching sting, Einstein went on to work for the Swiss Patent Office where he would examine other’s applications. He soon married Mileva Marić who, as it has been often debated, collaborated or was at least influential on Einstein’s publications.
Just five years later, Einstein obtained his doctorate from the University of Zurich with his theory about the molecular dimensions. In this same year, he published four groundbreaking papers. In these papers, he discusses the photoelectric effect (for which he would be awarded a Nobel Prize), relativity, and the movement of molecules. But, by 1911, Einstein was focusing more on his theories of relativity, which would only be measurable during a solar eclipse. Scientists and physicists all around the globe stood by to wait for the measurable outcome that would prove that light could bend in a gravitational field. Einstein’s theory proved correct, which would solidify his place as the world’s top physicists.
Albert Einstein received more honorary doctorate degrees than can be counted on both hands. For his work in science, mathematics, and philosophy, Einstein not only became a popular icon of the time, which included recognition of his famed E=MC2 theory, but gave him the freedom to work and lecture in the United States, where he became a citizen.
Albert Einstein rejected violent governments and renounced his own nationality on more than two occasions while living in Europe. During Germany’s rise to power, before World War II, Einstein and other scientists knew it was using Uranium in an attempt to make an atomic weapon. Although not directly involved in its manufacturing, Einstein’s theories of molecular movement and energy were used to create the first atomic weapon, dubbed the “Manhattan Project” for the United States.
While no one biography written about Einstein could cover all his contributions to science and humanity, the impact he had over mankind is undisputed. In the mid-1900s, Einstein was invited to become the second president of Israel, which he declined in order to remain in the United States to continue his studies. He did, however, help establish the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. And, even though he died in 1955, Albert Einstein was named Person of the Century by TIME Magazine in 1999.
