Albert Einstein

Born
14 March 1879
Ulm, Kingdom of Württemberg, German Empire
Died
18 April 1955 (aged 76)
Princeton, New Jersey, US
Residence
Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Austria (present-day Czech Republic), Belgium, United States
Citizenship
Subject of the Kingdom of Württemberg during the German Empire (1879–1896)[note 1]
Stateless (1896–1901)
Citizen of Switzerland (1901–1955)
Austrian subject of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (1911–1912)
Subject of the Kingdom of Prussia during the German Empire (1914–1918)[note 1]
German citizen of the Free State of Prussia (Weimar Republic, 1918–1933)
Citizen of the United States (1940–1955)
Education
Swiss Federal Polytechnic (1896–1900; B.A., 1900)
University of Zurich (Ph.D., 1905)
Known for
General relativity
Special relativity
Photoelectric effect
E=mc2 (Mass–energy equivalence)
E=hf (Planck–Einstein relation)
Theory of Brownian motion
Einstein field equations
Bose–Einstein statistics
Bose–Einstein condensate
Gravitational wave
Cosmological constant
Unified field theory
EPR paradox
Ensemble interpretation
List of other concepts
Spouse(s)
Mileva Marić
(m. 1903; div. 1919)
Elsa Löwenthal
(m. 1919; d. 1936)[1][2]
Children
"Lieserl" Einstein
Hans Albert Einstein
Eduard "Tete" Einstein
Awards
Barnard Medal (1920)
Nobel Prize in Physics (1921)
Matteucci Medal (1921)
ForMemRS (1921)[3]
Copley Medal (1925)[3]
Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (1926)
Max Planck Medal (1929)
Time Person of the Century (1999)
Scientific career
Fields
Physics, philosophy
Institutions
Swiss Patent Office (Bern) (1902–1909)
University of Bern (1908–1909)
University of Zurich (1909–1911)
Charles University in Prague (1911–1912)
ETH Zurich (1912–1914)
Prussian Academy of Sciences (1914–1933)
Humboldt University of Berlin (1914–1933)
Kaiser Wilhelm Institute (director, 1917–1933)
German Physical Society (president, 1916–1918)
Leiden University (visits, 1920)
Institute for Advanced Study (1933–1955)
Caltech (visits, 1931–1933)
University of Oxford (visits, 1931–1933)
Thesis
Eine neue Bestimmung der Moleküldimensionen (A New Determination of Molecular Dimensions) (1905)
Doctoral advisor
Alfred Kleiner
Other academic advisors
Heinrich Friedrich Weber
Influenced
Ernst G. Straus
Nathan Rosen
Leó Szilárd
Signature
Albert Einstein signature 1934.svg
Near the beginning of his career, Einstein thought that Newtonian mechanics was no longer enough to reconcile the laws of classical mechanics with the laws of the electromagnetic field. This led him to develop his special theory of relativity during his time at the Swiss Patent Office in Bern (1902–1909), Switzerland. However, he realized that the principle of relativity could also be extended to gravitational fields, and he published a paper on general relativity in 1916 with his theory of gravitation. He continued to deal with problems of statistical mechanics and quantum theory, which led to his explanations of particle theory and the motion of molecules. He also investigated the thermal properties of light which laid the foundation of the photon theory of light. In 1917, he applied the general theory of relativity to model the structure of the universe.[11][12]

Einstein lived in Switzerland between 1895 and 1914, except for one year in Prague, and he received his academic diploma from the Swiss federal polytechnic school (later the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, ETH) in Zürich in 1900. He acquired Swiss citizenship in 1901, which he kept for the rest of his life after being stateless for more than five years. In 1905, he was awarded a PhD by the University of Zurich. The same year, he published four groundbreaking papers during his renowned annus mirabilis (miracle year) which brought him to the notice of the academic world at the age of 26. Einstein taught theoretical physics at Zurich between 1912 and 1914 before he left for Berlin, where he was elected to the Prussian Academy of Sciences.

In 1933, while Einstein was visiting the United States, Adolf Hitler came to power. Because of his Jewish background, Einstein did not return to Germany.[13] He settled in the United States and became an American citizen in 1940.[14] On the eve of World War II, he endorsed a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt alerting him to the potential development of "extremely powerful bombs of a new type" and recommending that the US begin similar research. This eventually led to the Manhattan Project. Einstein supported the Allied forces, but he generally denounced the idea of using nuclear fission as a weapon. He signed the Russell–Einstein Manifesto with British philosopher Bertrand Russell, which highlighted the danger of nuclear weapons. He was affiliated with the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, until his death in 1955.

Einstein published more than 300 scientific papers and more than 150 non-scientific works.[11][15] His intellectual achievements and originality have made the word "Einstein" synonymous with "genius".[16] Eugene Wigner wrote of Einstein in comparison to his contemporaries that "Einstein's understanding was deeper even than Jancsi von Neumann's. His mind was both more penetrating and more original than von Neumann's. And that is a very remarkable statement."[17]