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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.