AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALBERT EINSTEIN

Albert Einstein was a German-born physicist who developed the general theory of relativity. He is considered one of
the most influential physicists of the 20th century.
Who Was Albert Einstein?
Albert Einstein (March 14, 1879 to April 18, 1955) was a German mathematician and physicist who developed the
special and general theories of relativity. In 1921, he won the Nobel Prize for physics for his explanation of the
photoelectric effect. In the following decade, he immigrated to the U.S. after being targeted by the Nazis. His work
also had a major impact on the development of atomic energy. In his later years, Einstein focused on unified field
theory. With his passion for inquiry, Einstein is generally considered the most influential physicist of the 20th century.
Albert Einstein’s Inventions and Discoveries
As a physicist, Einstein had many discoveries, but he is perhaps best known for his theory of relativity and the
equation E=MC2, which foreshadowed the development of atomic power and the atomic bomb.
Theory of Relativity
Einstein first proposed a special theory of relativity in 1905 in his paper, “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies,”
taking physics in an electrifying new direction. By November 1915, Einstein completed the general theory of
relativity. Einstein considered this theory the culmination of his life research. He was convinced of the merits of
general relativity because it allowed for a more accurate prediction of planetary orbits around the sun, which fell
short in Isaac Newton’s theory, and for a more expansive, nuanced explanation of how gravitational forces worked.
Einstein's assertions were affirmed via observations and measurements by British astronomers Sir Frank Dyson and
Sir Arthur Eddington during the 1919 solar eclipse, and thus a global science icon was born.
Einstein’s 1905 paper on the matter/energy relationship proposed the equation E=MC2: energy of a body (E) is equal
to the mass (M) of that body times the speed of light squared (C2). This equation suggested that tiny particles of
matter could be converted into huge amounts of energy, a discovery that heralded atomic power. Famed quantum
theorist Max Planck backed up the assertions of Einstein, who thus became a star of the lecture circuit and academia,
taking on various positions before becoming director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics from 1913 to 1933.
Family
Albert Einstein grew up in a secular Jewish family. His father, Hermann Einstein, was a salesman and engineer who,
with his brother, founded Elektrotechnische Fabrik J. Einstein & Cie, a Munich-based company that manufactured
electrical equipment. Albert’s mother, the former Pauline Koch, ran the family household. Einstein had one sister,
Maja, born two years after him.
Einstein’s Wives and Children
Albert Einstein married Milena Maric on Jan. 6, 1903. While attending school in Zurich, Einstein met Maric, a Serbian
physics student. Einstein continued to grow closer to Maric, but his parents were strongly against the relationship
due to her ethnic background. Nonetheless, Einstein continued to see her, with the two developing a
correspondence via letters in which he expressed many of his scientific ideas. Einstein’s father passed away in 1902,
and the couple married thereafter.
That same year the couple had a daughter, Lieserl, who might have been later raised by Maric's relatives or given up
for adoption. Her ultimate fate and whereabouts remain a mystery. The couple went on to have two sons, Hans and
Eduard. The marriage would not be a happy one, with the two divorcing in 1919 and Maric having an emotional
breakdown in connection to the split. Einstein, as part of a settlement, agreed to give Maric any funds he might
receive from possibly winning the Nobel Prize in the future.
During his marriage to Maric, Einstein had also begun an affair some time earlier with a cousin, Elsa Löwenthal. The
couple wed in 1919, the same year of Einstein’s divorce. He would continue to see other women throughout his
second marriage, which ended with Löwenthal's death in 1936.
When and Where Was Albert Einstein Born?
Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879 in Ulm, Württemberg, Germany.
When Did Albert Einstein Die?
Albert Einstein died at the University Medical Center at Princeton early in the morning on April 18, 1955 at the age
of 76. The previous day, while working on a speech to honor Israel's seventh anniversary, Einstein suffered an
abdominal aortic aneurysm. He was taken to the hospital for treatment but refused surgery, believing that he had
lived his life and was content to accept his fate. "I want to go when I want," he stated at the time. "It is tasteless to
prolong life artificially. I have done my share, it is time to go. I will do it elegantly."
Einstein’s Brain
During Albert Einstein’s autopsy, Thomas Stoltz Harvey removed his brain, reportedly without the permission of his
family, for preservation and future study by doctors of neuroscience. However during his life Einstein participated
in brain studies, and at least one biography says he hoped researchers would study his brain after he died. Einstein's
brain is now located at the Princeton University Medical Center, and his remains were cremated and his ashes
scattered in an undisclosed location, following his wishes.
In 1999, Canadian scientists who were studying Einstein’s brain found that his inferior parietal lobe, the area that
processes spatial relationships, 3D-visualization and mathematical thought, was 15 percent wider than in people
with normal intelligence. According to The New York Times, the researchers believe it may help explain why Einstein
was so intelligent.
Early Life and Education
Einstein attended elementary school at the Luitpold Gymnasium in Munich. However, he felt alienated there and
struggled with the institution's rigid pedagogical style. He also had what were considered speech challenges, though
he developed a passion for classical music and playing the violin that would stay with him into his later years. Most
significantly, Einstein's youth was marked by deep inquisitiveness and inquiry.
Towards the end of the 1880s, Max Talmud, a Polish medical student who sometimes dined with the Einstein family,
became an informal tutor to young Albert. Talmud had introduced his pupil to a children’s science text that inspired
Einstein to dream about the nature of light. Thus, during his teens, Einstein penned what would be seen as his first
major paper, "The Investigation of the State of Aether in Magnetic Fields."
Hermann Einstein relocated the family to Milan, Italy, in the mid-1890s after his business lost out on a major
contract. Albert was left at a relative's boarding house in Munich to complete his schooling at the Luitpold
Gymnasium. Faced with military duty when he turned of age, Albert allegedly withdrew from classes, using a doctor’s
note to excuse himself and claim nervous exhaustion. With their son rejoining them in Italy, his parents understood
Einstein's perspective but were concerned about his future prospects as a school dropout and draft dodger.
Einstein was eventually able to gain admission into the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich, specifically due
to his superb mathematics and physics scores on the entrance exam. He was still required to complete his pre-
university education first, and thus attended a high school in Aarau, Switzerland helmed by Jost Winteler. Einstein
lived with the schoolmaster's family and fell in love with Winteler's daughter, Marie. Einstein later renounced his
German citizenship and became a Swiss citizen at the dawn of the new century.
After graduating, Einstein faced major challenges in terms of finding academic positions, having alienated some
professors over not attending class more regularly in lieu of studying independently. Einstein eventually found
steady work in 1902 after receiving a referral for a clerk position in a Swiss patent office. While working at the patent
office, Einstein had the time to further explore ideas that had taken hold during his studies at Polytechnic and thus
cemented his theorems on what would be known as the principle of relativity.
In 1905—seen by many as a "miracle year" for the theorist—Einstein had four papers published in the Annalen der
Physik, one of the best known physics journals of the era. Two focused on photoelectric effect and Brownian motion.
The two others, which outlined E=MC2 and the special theory of relativity, were defining for Einstein’s career and
the course of the study of physics.
Nobel Prize for Physics
In 1921, Einstein won the Nobel Prize for Physics for his explanation of the photoelectric effect, since his ideas on
relativity were still considered questionable. He wasn't actually given the award until the following year due to a
bureaucratic ruling, and during his acceptance speech he still opted to speak about relativity.
In the development of his general theory, Einstein had held onto the belief that the universe was a fixed, static entity,
aka a "cosmological constant," though his later theories directly contradicted this idea and asserted that the universe
could be in a state of flux. Astronomer Edwin Hubble deduced that we indeed inhabit an expanding universe, with
the two scientists meeting at the Mount Wilson Observatory near Los Angeles in 1930.
Becoming a U.S. Citizen
In 1933, Einstein took on a position at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, New Jersey. At the time the
Nazis, led by Adolf Hitler, were gaining prominence with violent propaganda and vitriol in an impoverished post-
WWI Germany. The party influenced other scientists to label Einstein's work "Jewish physics." Jewish citizens were
barred from university work and other official jobs, and Einstein himself was targeted to be killed. Meanwhile, other
European scientists also left regions threatened by Germany and immigrated to the U.S., with concern over Nazi
strategies to create an atomic weapon. After moving, Einstein never went back to his native land. It was at Princeton
that Einstein would spend the rest of his life working on a unified field theory—an all-embracing paradigm meant to
unify the varied laws of physics.
Not long after he began his career at Princeton, Einstein expressed an appreciation for American "meritocracy" and
the opportunities people had for free thought, a stark contrast to his own experiences coming of age. In 1935,
Einstein was granted permanent residency in his adopted country and became an American citizen a few years later.
During WWII, he worked on Navy-based weapons systems and made big monetary donations to the military by
auctioning off manuscripts worth millions.
Einstein and the Atomic Bomb
In 1939, Einstein and fellow physicist Leo Szilard wrote to President Franklin D. Roosevelt to alert him of the
possibility of a Nazi bomb and to galvanize the United States to create its own nuclear weapons. The U.S. would
eventually initiate the Manhattan Project, though Einstein would not take direct part in its implementation due to
his pacifist and socialist affiliations. Einstein was also the recipient of much scrutiny and major distrust from FBI
director J. Edgar Hoover.
After learning of the 1945 bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, Einstein became a major player in efforts to curtail usage
of the a-bomb. The following year he and Szilard founded the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists, and in
1947, via an essay for The Atlantic Monthly, Einstein espoused working with the United Nations to maintain nuclear
weapons as a deterrent to conflict.
Member of the NAACP
In the late 1940s, Einstein became a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP), seeing the parallels between the treatment of Jews in Germany and African Americans in the United States.
He corresponded with scholar/activist W.E.B. Du Bois as well as performing artist Paul Robeson and campaigned for
civil rights, calling racism a "disease" in a 1946 Lincoln University speech.
Time Travel and Quantum Theory
After World War II, Einstein continued to work on his unified field theory and key aspects of the theory of general
relativity, such as wormholes, the possibility of time travel, the existence of black holes and the creation of the
universe. However, he became increasingly isolated from the rest of the physics community, whose eyes were set
on quantum theory. In the last decade of his life, Einstein, who had always seen himself as a loner, withdrew even
further from any sort of spotlight, preferring to stay close to Princeton and immerse himself in processing ideas with
colleagues.