Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein



March 14, 1879 - April 18, 1955
Physicist and Mathematician
Nobel Laureate for Physics 1921
"There are only two ways to live your life.
One is as though nothing is a miracle.
The other is as if everything is."
- Albert Einstein -

Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who is widely considered one of the greatest physicists of all time.

While best known for the theory of relativity (and specifically mass-energy equivalence, E=mc2), he was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics for his 1905 (Annus Mirabilis) explanation of the photoelectric effect and "for his services to Theoretical Physics". In popular culture, the name "Einstein" has become synonymous with great intelligence and genius. Einstein was named Time magazine's "Man of the Century."

He was known for many scientific investigations, among which were: his special theory of relativity which stemmed from an attempt to reconcile the laws of mechanics with the laws of the electromagnetic field, his general theory of relativity which extended the principle of relativity to include gravitation, relativistic cosmology, capillary action, critical opalescence, classical problems of statistical mechanics and problems in which they were merged with quantum theory, leading to an explanation of the Brownian movement of molecules; atomic transition probabilities, the probabilistic interpretation of quantum theory, the quantum theory of a monatomic gas, the thermal properties of light with a low radiation density which laid the foundation of the photon theory of light, the theory of radiation, including stimulated emission; the construction of a unified field theory, and the geometrization of physics.

Einstein was born on March 14, 1879, to a Jewish family, in Ulm, Württemberg, Germany. His father was Hermann Einstein, a salesman who later ran an electrochemical works, and his mother was Pauline née Koch. They were married in Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt.

At his birth, Albert's mother was reputedly frightened that her infant's head was so large and oddly shaped. Though the size of his head appeared to be less remarkable as he grew older, it's evident from photographs of Einstein that his head was disproportionately large for his body throughout his life, a trait regarded as "benign macrocephaly" in large-headed individuals with no related disease or cognitive deficits. His parents also worried about his intellectual development as a child due to his initial language delay and his lack of fluency until the age of nine, though he was one of the top students in his elementary school.

In 1880, shortly after Einstein's birth the family moved to Munich, where his father and his uncle founded a company manufacturing electrical equipment (Elektrotechnische Fabrik J. Einstein & Cie). This company provided the first lighting for the Oktoberfest as well as some cabling in the suburb of Schwabing.

Albert's family members were all non-observant Jews and he attended a Catholic elementary school. At the insistence of his mother, he was given violin lessons. Though he initially disliked the lessons, and eventually discontinued them, he would later take great solace in Mozart's violin sonatas.

When Einstein was five, his father showed him a small pocket compass, and Einstein realized that something in "empty" space acted upon the needle; he would later describe the experience as one of the most revelatory events of his life. He built models and mechanical devices for fun and showed great mathematical ability early on.

In 1889, a medical student named Max Talmud (later: Talmey), who regularly visited the Einsteins, introduced Einstein to key science and philosophy texts, including Kant's Critique of Pure Reason.

Einstein attended the Luitpold Gymnasium, where he received a relatively progressive education. In 1891, he taught himself Euclidean geometry from a school booklet and began to study calculus; Einstein realized the power of deductive reasoning from Euclid's Elements, which Einstein called the "holy little geometry book" (given by Max Talmud). At school, Einstein clashed with authority and resented the school regimen, believing that the spirit of learning and creative thought were lost in such endeavors as strict rote learning.

From 1894, following the failure of Hermann Einstein's electrochemical business, the Einsteins moved to Milan and proceeded to Pavia after a few months. Einstein's first scientific work, called "The Investigation of the State of Aether in Magnetic Fields", was written contemporaneously for one of his uncles. Albert remained in Munich to finish his schooling, but only completed one term before leaving the gymnasium in the spring of 1895 to join his family in Pavia. He quit a year and a half before the final examinations, convincing the school to let him go with a medical note from a friendly doctor, but this meant that he had no secondary-school certificate. That same year, at age 16, he performed a famous thought experiment by trying to visualize what it would be like to ride alongside a light beam. He realized that, according to Maxwell's equations, light waves would obey the principle of relativity: the speed of the light would always be constant, no matter what the velocity of the observer. This conclusion would later become one of the two postulates of special relativity.

Rather than pursuing electrical engineering as his father intended for him, he followed the advice of a family friend and applied at the Federal Polytechnic Institute in Zurich in 1895. Without a school certificate he had to take an admission exam, which he - at the age of 16 being the youngest participant ­ did not pass. He had preferred travelling in northern Italy over the required preparations for the exam. Still, he easily passed the science part, but failed in general knowledge.

After that he was sent to Aarau, Switzerland to finish secondary school. He lodged with Professor Jost Winteler's family and became enamoured with Sofia Marie-Jeanne Amanda Winteler, commonly referred to as Sofie or Marie, their daughter and his first sweetheart. Einstein's sister, Maja, who was perhaps his closest confidant, was to later marry their son, Paul. While there, he studied Maxwell's electromagnetic theory and received his diploma in September 1896. Einstein subsequently enrolled at the Federal Polytechnic Institute in October and moved to Zurich, while Marie moved to Olsberg, Switzerland for a teaching post. The same year, he renounced his Württemberg citizenship to avoid military service.

In the spring of 1896, Mileva Maric started as a medical student at the University of Zurich, but after a term switched to the Federal Polytechnic Institute. She was the only woman to study in that year for the same diploma as Einstein. Maric's relationship with Einstein developed into romance over the next few years, though his mother objected because she was too old, not Jewish, and physically defective.

In 1900, Einstein was granted a teaching diploma by the Federal Polytechnic Institute. Einstein then submitted his first paper to be published, on the capillary forces of a straw, titled "Consequences of the observations of capillarity phenomena". In this paper his quest for a unified physical law becomes apparent, which he followed throughout his life. Through his friend Michele Besso, Einstein was presented with the works of Ernst Mach, and would later consider him "the best sounding board in Europe" for physical ideas. Einstein and Maric had a daughter, Lieserl Einstein, born in January 1902. Her fate is unknown; some believe she died in infancy, while others believe she was given out for adoption.

Works and Doctorate

Einstein could not find a teaching post upon graduation, mostly because his brashness as a young man had apparently irritated most of his professors. The father of a classmate helped him obtain employment as a technical assistant examiner at the Swiss Patent Office[8] in 1902. His main responsibility was to evaluate patent applications relating to electromagnetic devices. He also learned how to discern the essence of applications despite sometimes poor descriptions, and was taught by the director how "to express [him]self correctly". He occasionally corrected their design errors while evaluating the practicality of their work.

His friend from Zurich, Michele Besso, also moved to Bern and took a job at the patent office, and he became an important sounding board. Einstein also joined with two friends he made in Bern, Maurice Solovine and Conrad Habicht, to create a weekly discussion club on science and philosophy, which they grandly and jokingly named "The Olympia Academy." Their readings included Poincare, Mach, Hume, and others who influenced the development of the special theory of relativity.

Einstein married Mileva Maric on January 6, 1903. Einstein's marriage to Maric who was a mathematician, was both a personal and intellectual partnership: Einstein referred to Mileva as "a creature who is my equal and who is as strong and independent as I am". Ronald W. Clark, a biographer of Einstein, claimed that Einstein depended on the distance that existed in his marriage to Mileva in order to have the solitude necessary to accomplish his work; he required intellectual isolation. In an obituary of Einstein Abram Joffe wrote: "The author of [the papers of 1905] wasŠ a bureaucrat at the Patent Office in Bern, Einstein-Maric which has been taken as evidence of a collaborative relationship. However, most probably Joffe referred to Einstein- Maric ecause he believed that it was a Swiss custom at the time to append the spouse's surname to the husband's name. The extent of her influence on Einstein's work is a controversial and debated question.

In 1903, Einstein's position at the Swiss Patent Office had been made permanent, though he was passed over for promotion until he had "fully mastered machine technology". He obtained his doctorate under Alfred Kleiner at the University of Zürich after submitting his thesis "A new determination of molecular dimensions" ("Eine neue Bestimmung der Moleküldimensionen") in 1905.

During 1905, in his spare time, he wrote four articles that participated in the foundation of modern physics, without much scientific literature he could refer to or many fellow scientists with whom he could discuss the theories. Most physicists agree that three of those papers (on Brownian motion, the photoelectric effect, and special relativity) deserved Nobel Prizes. Only the paper on the photoelectric effect would be mentioned by the Nobel committee in the award; at the time of the award, it had the most unchallenged experimental evidence behind it, although the Nobel committee expressed the opinion that Einstein's other work would be confirmed in due course.

Some might regard the award for the photoelectric effect ironic, not only because Einstein is far better-known for relativity, but also because the photoelectric effect is a quantum phenomenon, and Einstein became somewhat disenchanted with the path quantum theory would take.

Einstein submitted this series of papers to the "Annalen der Physik". They are commonly referred to as the "Annus Mirabilis Papers" (from Annus mirabilis, Latin for 'year of wonders').

Einstein Continued Wikipedia



Einstein in the News

New Features Found in Einstein's Brain PhysOrg - April 26, 2009
One hundred years ago, Albert Einstein revolutionized physics

Netherlands: Student unearths Einstein paper BBC - August 21, 2005
The handwritten manuscript titled "Quantum theory of the monatomic ideal gas" was dated December 1924.

Einstein's "Year of Wonders," 100 Years Later National Geographic - April 2005

Einstein and Darwin: A tale of two theories MSNBC - April 2005

Einstein the man and Einstein the icon are very different things MSNBC - April 2005

Einstein's revolution enters second century MSNBC - April 2005



Diary Details Einstein's Final Years MSNBC - April 2004



In the last years of Albert Einstein's life, he amused himself by telling jokes to his parrot, and avoided visitors by feigning illness, according to a newly discovered diary written by the woman known around Princeton as his last girlfriend. While Einstein also talked about the travails of his continuing work in physics, most of Johanna Fantova's diary recalls his views on world politics and his personal life. The writings are an unvarnished portrait of Einstein struggling bravely with the manifold inconveniences of sickness and old age, Freeman Dyson, a mathematician at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, told The New York Times in Saturday¹s editions.
The 62-page diary, written in German, was discovered in February in Fantova¹s personnel files at Princeton University¹s Firestone Library, where she had worked as a curator. The manuscript is the subject of an article to be published next month in The Princeton University Library Journal. According to the article, the new manuscript is the only one kept by someone close to Einstein in the final years of his life.

"There is surprisingly little about physics in the diary," Donald Skemer, Firestone Library¹s curator of manuscripts, told The Times of Trenton. Fantova wrote that she recorded her time with the renowned physicist to "cast some additional light on our understanding of Einstein, not on the great man who became a legend in his lifetime, not on Einstein the renowned scientist, but on Einstein the humanitarian." Fantova was 22 years younger than Einstein. Although the two spent considerable time together starting in the 1940s, her journal only records their relationship from October 1953 until his death in April 1955 at age 76. She died in 1981 at age 80.

Princeton already had a collection of the poems, letters and photos Einstein sent to Fantova, who sold them after his death to Gillett G. Griffin, a retired curator at Princeton¹s Art Museum. He gave those documents to the library. Griffin, invited many times to Einstein¹s home for dinner, said Fantova was a fixture there. "Reading what she left gives me an immediate connection with my own experience and gives everyone the immediacy of knowing Einstein himself," Griffin said.

The diary recounts Einstein speaking about the politics of the day and portrays him as critical of speeches of Adlai Stevenson, the nuclear arms race and the anti-communist attack on the scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer by Sen. Joseph McCarthy. "This political persecution of his associate was a source of bitter disillusionment," Fantova wrote. Besides his politics, Fantova wrote of Einstein's popularity and how he tried to write back to strangers, some of whom tried to convert him to Christianity. He said, "All the maniacs in the world write to me," she wrote.

Lighter moments recounted The diary also recounts how, on his 75th birthday, Einstein received a parrot as gift. After deciding the bird was depressed, Einstein tried alter its mood by telling bad jokes. At times, Einstein would pretend to be sick in bed so he would not have to pose with visitors who wanted photographs. Einstein still enjoyed himself even when real illness did take hold. Einstein¹s health began to fail, but he continued to indulge in what remained his favorite of all pastimes, sailing. Seldom did I see him so gay and in so light a mood as in this strangely primitive little boat, Fantova wrote. Einstein also wrote Fantova poems, some of which are in the diary.

Einstein, with his second wife Elsa, had arrived in Princeton in 1933 at the newly formed Institute for Advanced Study. Elsa died three years later. Fantova first met Einstein in 1929 in Berlin. She arrived in the United States alone in 1939 and, at Einstein¹s urging, attended library school at the University of North Carolina.

ESP lab sees doors close Guardian - February 12, 2007 "A laboratory dedicated to extra-sensory perception and telekinesis at the prestigious Princeton University in New Jersey is to close after nearly 30 years of research."



Einstein the Greatest


November 29, 1999 - BBC

Albert Einstein has been voted the greatest physicist of all time in an end of the millennium poll, pushing Sir Isaac Newton into second place.

The survey was conducted among 100 of today's leading physicists.

All-time top ten:

1. Albert Einstein
2. Isaac Newton
3. James Clerk Maxwell
4. Niels Bohr
5. Werner Heisenberg
6. Galileo Galilei
7. Richard Feynman
8. Paul Dirac
9. Erwin Schrödinger
10. Ernest Rutherford

"Einstein's special and general theories of relativity completely overturned previous conceptions of a universal, immutable space and time, and replaced them with a startling new framework in which space and time are fluid and malleable," said physicist Brian Greene from Columbia University, US, who participated in the poll for Physics World magazine.

Peter Rodgers, Editor of Physics World, said: "Einstein and Newton were always going to be one and two but what was surprising about the top 10 was that there were seven out and out theorists."

The top 10 includes three British scientists: Newton, James Clerk Maxwell and Paul Dirac. New Zealander Ernest Rutherford, who did much of his work in the UK, also makes the list, at 10.

Hawking and Archimedes

A parallel survey of rank-and-file physicists by the site PhysicsWeb gave the top spot to Newton and also included Michael Faraday.

Neither list included any living scientist, but Stephen Hawking was rated at 16 by PhysicsWeb users, just behind Archimedes.

Paul Guinnessy, editor of PhysicsWeb, said: "My two biggest surprises were the inclusion of Stephen Hawking, as I think more time is needed to see whether his scientific contributions will last, and the low number of votes for Marie Curie and Ernest Rutherford.

"Both these physicists had a dramatic impact not only on scientific achievements but in the students they taught and drew into physics. Rutherford's lab in particular had a number of students who were awarded Nobel prizes at a later date."

Big science

The three most important discoveries in physics are quantum mechanics, Einstein's theory of general relativity and Newton's mechanics and gravitation.

Quantum computation pioneer David Deutsch of Oxford University said: "In each of these three cases, the discovery in question not only revolutionised the branch of physics that it nominally addressed, but also provided a framework so deep and universal that all subsequent theories in physics have been formulated within it."

Asked about their careers, the physicists said they were mostly happy. Over 70% of respondents said they would study physics if they were starting university this year. But 17% said they would not, with one Japanese researcher commenting: "I worked too hard. I want to enjoy life next time."

However, asked for the biggest problem in physics, one respondent joked "getting tenure or quantum gravity".

As is traditional, the physicists had a high opinion of their subject, calling it "the most grandiose science", "the most fascinating activity for our brain" and "still the most fundamental of all sciences".

But the biological sciences did appeal to some. Michael Green, a particle theorist at Cambridge University, said: "There is something attractive about a subject that is still in a relatively primitive state."



Einstein's brain found to be anatomically distinct




Einstein allowed his brain to be studied after his death

AP - June 17, 1999

We always thought something must have made Albert Einstein smarter than the rest of us. Now, scientists have found that one part of his brain was indeed physically extraordinary.

In the only study ever conducted of the overall anatomy of Einstein's brain, scientists at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, discovered that the part of the brain thought to be related to mathematical reasoning - the inferior parietal region - was 15 percent wider on both sides than normal.

Furthermore, they found that the groove that normally runs from the front of the brain to the back did not extend all the way in Einstein's case. That finding could have applications even to those with more pedestrian levels of intelligence.


Einstein thought in images

"That kind of shape was not observed in any one of our brains and is not depicted in any atlas of the human brain," said Sandra Witelson, a neuroscientist who led the study, published in this week's issue of The Lancet, a British medical journal.

"But it shouldn't be seen as anatomy is destiny," she added. "We also know that environment has a very important role to play in learning and brain development. But what this is telling us is that environment isn't the only factor."

The findings may point to the importance of the inferior parietal region, Witelson said.

While the differences may be extraordinary between Einstein and everyone else, there may be more subtle, even microscopic, differences when the anatomies of the brains of people who don't fall into the genius category are compared with each other, she said.

The researchers compared the founder of the theory of relativity's brain with the preserved brains of 35 men and 56 women known to have normal intelligence when they died.

With the men's brains, they conducted two separate comparisons - first between Einstein's brain and all the men, and next between his brain and those of the eight men who were similar in age to Einstein when they died.

They found that, overall, Einstein's brain was the same weight and had the same measurements from front to back as all the other men, which Witelson said confirms the belief of many scientists that focusing on overall brain size as an indicator of intelligence is not the way to go.

Witelson theorized that the partial absence of the groove in Einstein's brain may be the key, because it might have allowed more neurons in this area to establish connections between each other and work together more easily.

She said it is likely that the groove, known as the sulcus, was always absent in that part of Einstein's brain, rather than shrinking away as a result of his intelligence, because, as one of the two or three landmarks in the human brain, it appears very early in life.

"We don't know if every brilliant physicist and mathematician will have this same anatomy," Witelson said. "It fits and it makes a compelling story, but it requires further proof."

John Gabrieli, an associate professor of psychology at Stanford University who was not connected with the study, said the finding relating to the groove and connections between the neurons in the brain may be the key.

"We don't have a clue, so anything that is suggested is interesting," he said. "There must have been something about his brain that made him so brilliant."

Brilliance of the kind Einstein possessed is so extreme, however, that although the findings may give a clue to the neurology of genius, whether they could apply to normal differences in intelligence is more doubtful, Gabrieli said.

Witelson said the next stage is to scan the brains of living mathematicians and look for minute differences.

Witelson and her team acquired Einstein's brain after they were contacted by its keeper, scientist John Harvey, who had read about the university's brain research.

Harvey was a pathologist working at a small hospital in Princeton, N.J., when Einstein died in 1955 at the age of 76. Harvey performed the autopsy, determined Einstein died of natural causes and took the brain home with him.

Some parts of the brain were given to scientists, but no major study was ever conducted, until now.