|
all rights reserved 2002
|
The Life of Albert Einstein Albert Einstein was
born in Ulm, Germany, on March 14, 1879. Fifteen years later, Albert and his
family moved to Milan, Italy, due to a failure in the family business. Albert
was to follow his family, but did not last on his own and moved down two months
after them. He did not receive his high school diploma and attempted to take a
placement exam for the Eidgenossiche Technische Hochschule (the ETH). He failed
and his parents sent him to Aarau, Switzerland, to finish school. Afterward, he
passed the exam and ended up going to the ETH. At the Institute, he began his
study of physics. Einstein found many things interesting about physics. He was
impressed by (but questioned) Newton's laws. However, Einstein was the most
fascinated with the physics dealing with electricity and electrodynamics. A
series of discoveries and inventions had been made in the field of
electromagnetism in the years around Einstein's life: Michel Faraday showed in
1831 that an electric current could be achieved from magnetism; James Clerk
Maxwell showed in 1873 that electricity and magnetism were connected and
together their propogation was the speed of light; Heinrich Rudolf Hertz in 1888
discovered radio waves and verified Maxwell's equations; Hendrik Lorentz
suggested the concept of the electron to give a neutral charge to an atom. The
development in this field motivated Einstein to begin studying in these areas. The
understanding of electromagnetism at this time believed that a medium was needed
in order to support and transport light. Scientists then came up with the idea
of the luminiferous ether. The ether had three properties: it filled up all of
space, it was completely permeable to material objects, and it was infinitely
rigid to support light properly. The concept of the ether also fell under the
assumption that there was, and is, absolute motion. Einstein, not liking the
idea of absolute motion, began working on another theory.
Einstein graduated from the ETH in 1900 and quickly began looking for a
job. He was known by his professors as frequently missing class and not using
his full potential, so he did not receive a job as a teaching assistant at the
university. During this time, he found a temporary job as a part-time teacher.
In 1902, Einstein1s friend Marcel Grossman obtained a job at the Swiss Patent
Office in Bern.
Einstein, while working at the patent office in Bern, Switzerland, began
thinking under another assumption about motion (besides the previously thought
absolute motion: all motion is relative to an object or system which is taken to
be at rest, and any object can be taken as being at rest. With this in mind (and
considering what would happen if he held up a mirror while going the speed of
light), he developed and published his special theory of relativity in 1905 in a
paper entitled, "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies". (I will
discuss exactly what Einstein postulated in this paper on the page dedicated to
the special theory of relativity). Einstein worked at the patent office until
1909, and he accepted a position as an associate professor of physics at the
University of Zurich. Einstein later moved to the University of Prague and went
eventually back to a position at the ETH. Einstein was tempted by an offer at
the Prussian Academy in Berlin because it offered a opportunity to research and
lecture on rare occasions. In 1914, Einstein, his wife Mileva, and their two
sons, Hans Albert and Edward, moved to Berlin. Mileva, however, did not like
Berlin, and eventually moved with the sons to Switzerland and got a divorce.
The special
theory could be applied to all physical phenomena except gravity. After the
Special Theory of Relativity was published in 1905, Einstein sought to extend
his theory to take into account acceleration in the presence of gravity.
Einstein postulated gravity was not a force, but made of curved space-time in
the presence of mass. The new findings were called his general theory of
relativity (postulates, implications, and applications of general relativity can
be found on the page dedicated to the General Theory of Relativity).
In 1917, Einstein published two other papers: one regarding the
stimulated emission of light, the other regarding the structure of the universe.
Einstein1s work began to take its toll and he had a nervous breakdown. His
cousin Elsa took care of him, and the two eventually married in 1919. Einstein
became famous from his work on general relativity in 1919 when experimental
results followed his calculations. Einstein predicted starlight near the sun
would be bent due to the Sun1s gravity. In an eclipse on May 29, 1919 the Sun
stood against the Hyades cluster, and Einstein1s predictions were observed. In
1921, Einstein won the Nobel Prize in physics for his discovery of the
photoelectric effect and contributions in mathematical physics. Anti-semitism
had been growing in Germany since the 1920s, and Einstein had found opposition
to his theories. Einstein stayed in Germany until 1933 when Adolf Hitler came to
power. Later that year, he took a position at the Institute for Advanced Studies
in Princeton, NJ. While there, he looked to unite the theories of
electromagnetism and gravity (the unified field theory). Also during this time,
Einstein stood firmly against the use of the atomic bomb when fission became
possible. On April 19, 1955, Einstein died at the Princeton Hospital at the age
of seventy-six. |