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.
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