Brief biography of Albert Einstein, German-born Swiss-American mathematical physicist famous for Theory of Relativity with equation E=MC2.

Albert Einstein (1879-1955), German-born Swiss and American, mathematical physicist, and known for Theory of Relativity, is considered the world's greatest scientist. His popular equation E=MC2 has practical application in the development of nuclear energy. Einstein was also a lifelong pacifist who corresponded with famous figures like Freud and Tagore, among others.

Einstein's Early Life

Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, Germany, on March 14, 1879, and he grew up in Munich. There was little in his early life to suggest his destiny for greatness. The young Albert hated school, with its rigid teaching methods. His only pleasures were his violin, which he would play all his life, and mathematics. He left school at 15 without a diploma.

He gave up his German citizenship and moved to Switzerland to avoid the military duty. In Zurich, he succeeded in getting a place at the Polytechnic to study physics and mathematics. After trying hard, at 23, he got a job as a technical examiner at Bern, enough to marry his Hungarian fiancée, Mileva Maric. He began his 'disposition for abstract and mathematical thought' papers and contributed them to a German physics journal, Annals of Physics.

Einstein's Phenomenal Year

Aged 23, Einstein submitted five papers to Annals, all remarkable and insightful pieces. The first paper offered an explanation for the photoelectric effect by applying quantum theory. He received a Nobel prize for it 16 years later, in 1921. Its worth mentioning that during that time, other physicists were also advancing work on particle statistics, in particular, the behavior of various types of particles. One such work was done by Bose, and with Einstein's collaboration, eventually became known as Bose-Einstein statistics. The second paper was about measuring the size of molecules. For this, Einstein was awarded his doctorate from the Zurich Polytechnic. The third provided a theoretical explanation for Brownian motion – the movement of tiny particles suspended in liquid. This paper was important for providing further evidence of the existence of atoms.

Special Theory of Relativity

Einstein's fourth paper of 1905, 'On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies', was his most significant as it outlined the Special Theory of Relativity, which proposed that space and time are relative to the observer.

The implication of this theory was startling - that there is no such thing as absolute space and time – they depend on the position and speed of the object experiencing them, that the only absolute is the speed of light.

E=MC2

Einstein saw further implication of his special theory enough to his fifth paper – that energy is needed to push the vehicle faster. He concluded his now famous E = MC2, that energy equals mass times the speed of light squared.

At first he didn't attract much attention being a humble patent office clerk, even with a doctorate. Eventually he received a letter from renowned physicist Max Planck, asking some questions on relativity. Aged 34, he joined Planck as professor at Berlin University where, at last, he was free to continue his research.

General Theory of Relativity

The condition with Planck suited Einstein, who was engaged in an extension of his Special Theory of Relativity to include gravity, a study relating those objects that only moved at a steady velocity. This paper was the General Theory of Relativity, which he released in 1915, 10 years later. He stated that gravity is not a force – as physicists had believed since Newton – but a distortion in space-time, created by the presence of mass. The theory was only proved four years later.

Final Years of the World's Most Famous Scientist

In the mid-50s, Einstein's last works related to unified field theory, to link electromagnetism and gravity.

Sources:

Chambers Biographical Dictionary, edited by Una McGovern, Chambers (2002)

The Great Scientist by John Farndon and Alex Woolf, Anne Rooney and Liz Gogerly, Capella (2005)

Who Discovered What When by David Ellyard, New Holland (2005)