Albert Einstein No matter which way I turned it, the needle always pointed one way.

As my father began to explain to me the theory of magnetism, I could not help but wonder exactly how this mysterious forced affected the compass in my hand. I was only five years old at the time, but the mystery surrounding that tiny round thing I was holding, sparked a sort of curiosity in me that I would carry with me throughout my entire life. I was born into a Jewish family on March 14, 1879 in Ulm Germany. My parents were nobody special, but they treated me like I was. Just a year later, in 1880, I received my first brand new toy. Her name was Maria. It took my parents a little while to convince me that my little sister was not a toy car, but I soon realized that even though she did not have four wheels, I could still love her. Growing up as a toddler, I developed at a very slow pace; it was especially difficult for me to learn how to talk. I guess this is why I kept to myself most of the time. I particularly enjoyed putting together full sentences and reciting them to myself before I would say them. Both of my parents believed that I was turning out to be somewhat of a retarded kid. Luckily for my father, this was not the case. He was already fighting a losing battle with our finances, and the thought of having a retarded son might have thrown him over the edge. For as long as I knew them, however, my parents treated me with as much love and care as a son should receive. As a young boy, I attended a very strict Catholic elementary school where they would swat you with a stick if you misbehaved. If it were not for this strict discipline, constant memorization of things, and bombardment of new ideas, I would

have actually enjoyed both elementary school and high school. I was never really interested in anything other than math and science. It was my deepest pleasure to ask questions about the unknown, and to figure out how numbers and equations could answer my questions. However, It was not until I met Max Talmey that I became absolutely obsessed with algebra, geometry, and physics. He came over to my house every Thursday night for dinner and it became a regular occurrence to discuss various theories pertaining to math and physics. Once high school came around, I was completely fed up with the entire German school system. I became bored with my teachers and refused to attend classes on a regular basis, concentrating only on my own theories and questions. When I was fifteen, my parents moved to Milan, Italy to salvage their struggling business while I stayed back in Germany to get my diploma. This, if anything, made me want to leave school even more. After receiving several letters from my father telling me how great and beautiful Italy was, I decided to drop out of school. Before I completed my plan of faking sick however, the school decided to expel me. I was a bit insulted, yet relieved at the same time. As my train crossed over the Alps, I immediately knew that leaving Germany was the best decision I had ever made. After spending some time in Italy, I decided to finish high school in Switzerland and on January 28, 1896, I renounced my citizenship from Germany. I was accepted to the Polytechnic School after high school, and I decided to become a physics teacher rather than an electrical engineer like my parents wanted. I believed that teachers should want to change their students lives, and help them as much as they can rather than give them information without cause. As I studied at

Polytechnic, one question kept nagging at the back of my mind: What would the speed of light look like to someone who was going as fast as the speed of light? I was determined to answer this question for myself. Meanwhile, I was becoming bored with my classes again. If it were not for my best friends, Mileva Maric and Marcel Grossmann, I would probably have dropped out of Polytechnic. I became so focused on answering my question of light in space that I would tend to forget little things such as the key to my dorm, how to dress, and when to eat. Luckily Mileva helped out with those little things and Marcel kept me on track with my studies. With my hard work and dedication along with the help from my dear friends, I was able to get my diploma from Polytechnic in 1900 at the age of twenty-one. Unfortunately, I could not get a job teaching anywhere at the time so I settled for a job at the Swiss Patent Office in Bern. Mileva and I ended up getting married and having children so this job helped get us by until I could get a good teaching job. I thoroughly enjoyed working at the patent office because it allowed me to study new inventions while at the same time going over my own ideas about the motion of light and whether or not molecules existed. I was able to prove that the photoelectric theory was correct by observing how pollen molecules never stopped moving. After this, I became completely obsessed with the idea of light and how it traveled through space. After nearly giving up on the idea, I had an epiphany that changed my life. The speed of light is always the same, no matter where you are or how fast you are going. This does not, however, apply to time and space, which are both relative just like the toy car and train. After spending weeks on perfecting the math that coincided with my theory of relativity, I began to write up my theories for

publication. As my theories were published in the physics journal known as the Annalen der Physik, I felt that all of the years of hard work and dedication to my ideas finally paid off. I did not stop there however, but continued to further my career, and in 1905 I obtained my Ph. D. Four years later I fulfilled my dream to become a professor when I was offered a teaching job at the University of Zurich. I believe my students thought that I was a little weird at first, but as time passed they began to like my teaching style and my sense of humor. I never turned down a student who wanted to discuss my teachings after class or on their own time. I cared about them so much, and I think that, because of this, they came to care about me just as much. Just when I thought my life filled with my perfect children, wife, and job could not get any better, I received a better job offer from the German University in Prague. This job offered a much bigger salary and a much bigger library to cater to my research, so naturally I took it right away. The move to Prague, unfortunately, was not as promising as it was cut out to be. It bothered me so much to see how so many Germans were prejudiced toward the Jewish population that lived there. My wife felt so out of place there and slowly we started drifting farther and farther apart. After moving back to Switzerland to teach at my old Polytechnic school, I got another offer to teach at the University of Berlin. I took this job offer while Mileva and my sons stayed in Switzerland, which was, unfortunately, the end of our marriage. Moving there was not a total loss because in 1916 I got my general theory of relativity published, and in 1919, right after World War I ended, I married my cousin Elsa in.

After proving that light can be bent by gravity, I some how became very famous. During the 1920s, I spent most of my time in the public eye taking pictures (which I hated doing), while still finding time to concentrate on my own ideas. In 1921, I finally won the Nobel Prize for my work with the photoelectric effect. I knew it was just a matter of time before I would win it, so when they announced it, I was not too surprised but very delighted. I also travelled around the world with my wife to the United States, Japan, Palestine and various other countries. My favorite visit by far was Palestine because it felt so good being around my fellow people, and encouraging them to stay strong during the times when so many people were segregating them. During World War II, I stayed in Princeton to study my equation, E = mc^2, with several scientists to help develop nuclear weapons before Germany did. Finally, on October 1, 1940, I became an American Citizen. The last few years of my life were not that exciting, if you ask me. I did a bit more traveling still, but my favorite thing to do with my free time was to sail. I loved the wind in my face and the feeling of being free, from photographers, from universities and professors who did not like me, and even sometimes from my own work. The one thing I never stopped doing through my entire life was asking questions. These questions were what I lived for. It was my greatest pleasure to try, to the best of my abilities, to answer every question that came into my head, however illogical it seemed. I could not go on solving new equations forever though, and on April 18, 1955, I past away with a sheet of unfinished equations lying next to me on my bed.

Contributions to Science Special Theory of Relativity

1.) The speed of light is the same for all observers, no matter what their relative speeds. 2.) The laws of physics are the same in any inertial (that is, non-accelerated) frame of reference. This means that the laws of physics observed by a hypothetical observer traveling with a relativistic particle must be the same as those observed by an observer who is stationary in the laboratory.
The speed of light is always the same, no matter where you are or how fast you are going. For example, say that you push a toy car and it goes two miles an hour. Now put that toy car on top of a bus that is going 60 miles per hour. To the passengers on the bus, the toy car is still going two miles and hour, but to someone who is watching from land, the toy car is going 62 miles an hour. The speed of the toy car is relative to where you are. Now say that you put a flashlight on the bus. No matter where you are viewing the flashlight from, the speed of light is always going to be 186,212 miles per second. This does not however apply to time and space, which are both relative just like the toy car and bus. General Theory of Relativity Einstein came up with this theory to describe how gravity worked and to describe the very close relationship between space and time, also known as spacetime. In Stephanie McPhersons book, Ordinary Genius, The Story of Albert Einstein, she explains this theory using a very good example. Einstein described gravity to be curved space. Picture a trampoline with a bowling ball set in the middle; the ball is

the sun and the trampoline is space. The bowling ball makes a sort of dent in the middle of the trampoline. Gravity is this dent that causes objects to slide toward the bowling ball. Now say there is a tiny marble rolling around the bowling ball at a certain speed. If it is going fast enough, the marble will not get sucked in toward the bowling ball. It will not drift away either but rather stay in a constant orbit around the bowling ball. You can apply this same theory to the planets orbiting around the sun. E=mc^2 This equation was derived by Einstein to explain how mass and energy are related to each other. They are basically the same thing, that is, anything that contains mass can then be turned into some sort of energy. The equation basically represents the multiplication of a body of by the speed of light, then multiplied again by the speed of light to find how much energy is in the object. E=mc^2 was used to build one of the most powerful bombs known to man: the nuclear bomb (also known as the atomic bomb). Proving Molecules exist At one point in his life, Albert Einstein became very obsessed with whether or not molecules existed. According to his studies, Einstein believed that they did exist; he just needed to prove it. He began to study the way pollen never stopped moving when introduced to a sample of water. Einstein elaborated on this theory of Brownian motion and wrote a paper on how the pollen was bumping into the water molecules, making them move constantly.

Personal Opinion It is nearly impossible to describe Albert Einstein in one word. Yes one could say that he was brilliant or genius, but what people tend to overlook seems to be what made him so unique. I believe that his greatest strength was his ability to be so ordinary. His mind was one of the most brilliant the world has ever known; yet he never failed to recognize the simplicity in things. He showed the same kind of excitement solving knew equations, as he did playing with his violin or sailing his boat. Only Albert Einstein could drop out of high school and become the most brilliant man of his time. Throughout history, we have seen several people fold under the pressure of having a brilliant mind, but Einstein always kept himself composed. Yes, he did dress in an untidy manner and not wear socks. Yes, he did misplace his keys on a regular basis; but these are just more examples of what made him so unique. He did not care about what other people thought of him, and was a very humble man. These two qualities are why I respect him so much. Every person he met seemed to not only enjoy his company, but also to always strive to get his full attention. Einstein never viewed himself as the most important man in the room, but everyone else did. Many times, when tragedy struck his life, Einstein could have quit exploring the unknown and looking for answers to his many questions, but he did the opposite. For example, when his second wife died, instead of sulking in depression and morning her loss forever, he turned to his work, which kept him both sane and occupied. It seemed like he knew what to do in every situation. When he was out of school and unemployed, I could picture him simply shrugging it off and trusting that his brilliant mind could think of some solution sooner or later. I

never knew how special he really was until I researched this paper on him. I strive to live my life like his, in the sense that he never stopped asking questions and always believed that there was something knew to learn. He was not afraid to admit that he did not know everything, but strived to do his best to find a solution. Of course I will never be as brilliant as Einstein was, but that does not mean I cannot adopt the way he used his brilliance. As he once said, Imagination is more important than knowledge. I can only hope to do great things as my life matures, keeping in mind that I must never stop using my imagination.

Bibliography Dank, Milton. Albert Einstein. Franklin Watts, An Impact Biography. Published at Library of Congress, 1983. Encyclopedia of World Biography. Albert Einstein. November 30, 2009. 2009. http://www.notablebiographies.com/Du-Fi/Einstein-Albert.html Gribbin, John. White, Michael. Einstein, A Life in Science. Dutton, Published by Penguin Books USA inc. 1993.

McPherson, Stephanie Sammartino. Ordinary Genius The Story of Albert Einstein. Carolrhoda Books, Inc. 1995. Meltzer, Milton. Albert Einstein A Biography. Holiday House, Library of Congress, 2008. Virtual Visitor Center. Special Relativity. November 28, 2009. June 15, 2009. http://www2.slac.stanford.edu/vvc/theory/relativity.html