Albert Einstein was born at Ulm, in Württemberg, Germany, on
March 14, 1879. Six weeks later the family moved to Munich and
he began his schooling there at the Luitpold Gymnasium. Later,
they moved to Italy and Albert continued his education at Aarau,
Switzerland and in 1896 he entered the Swiss Federal Polytechnic
School in Zurich to be trained as a teacher in physics and
mathematics. In 1901, the year he gained his diploma, he
acquired Swiss citizenship and, as he was unable to find a
teaching post, he accepted a position as technical assistant in
the Swiss Patent Office. In 1905 he obtained his doctor's
degree.
During his stay at the Patent Office, and in his spare time, he
produced much of his remarkable work and in 1908 he was
appointed Privatdozent in Berne. In 1909 he became Professor
Extraordinary at Zurich, in 1911 Professor of Theoretical
Physics at Prague, returning to Zurich in the following year to
fill a similar post. In 1914 he was appointed Director of the
Kaiser Wilhelm Physical Institute and Professor in the
University of Berlin. He became a German citizen in 1914 and
remained in Berlin until 1933 when he renounced his citizenship
for political reasons and emigrated to America to take the
position of Professor of Theoretical Physics at Princeton*. He
became a United States citizen in 1940 and retired from his post
in 1945.
After World War II, Einstein was a leading figure in the World
Government Movement, he was offered the Presidency of the State
of Israel, which he declined, and he collaborated with Dr. Chaim
Weizmann in establishing the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Einstein always appeared to have a clear view of the problems of
physics and the determination to solve them. He had a strategy
of his own and was able to visualize the main stages on the way
to his goal. He regarded his major achievements as mere
stepping-stones for the next advance.
At the start of his scientific work, Einstein realized the
inadequacies of Newtonian mechanics and his special theory of
relativity stemmed from an attempt to reconcile the laws of
mechanics with the laws of the electromagnetic field. He dealt
with classical problems of statistical mechanics and problems in
which they were merged with quantum theory: this led to an
explanation of the Brownian movement of molecules. He
investigated the thermal properties of light with a low
radiation density and his observations laid the foundation of
the photon theory of light.
In his early days in Berlin, Einstein postulated that the
correct interpretation of the special theory of relativity must
also furnish a theory of gravitation and in 1916 he published
his paper on the general theory of relativity. During this time
he also contributed to the problems of the theory of radiation
and statistical mechanics.
In the 1920's, Einstein embarked on the construction of unified
field theories, although he continued to work on the
probabilistic interpretation of quantum theory, and he
persevered with this work in America. He contributed to
statistical mechanics by his development of the quantum theory
of a monatomic gas and he has also accomplished valuable work in
connection with atomic transition probabilities and relativistic
cosmology.
After his retirement he continued to work towards the
unification of the basic concepts of physics, taking the
opposite approach, geometrisation, to the majority of
physicists.
Einstein's researches are, of course, well chronicled and his
more important works include Special Theory of Relativity
(1905), Relativity (English translations, 1920 and 1950),
General Theory of Relativity (1916), Investigations on Theory of
Brownian Movement (1926), and The Evolution of Physics (1938).
Among his non-scientific works, About Zionism (1930), Why War?
(1933), My Philosophy (1934), and Out of My Later Years (1950)
are perhaps the most important.
Albert Einstein received honorary doctorate degrees in science,
medicine and philosophy from many European and American
universities. During the 1920's he lectured in Europe, America
and the Far East and he was awarded Fellowships or Memberships
of all the leading scientific academies throughout the world. He
gained numerous awards in recognition of his work, including the
Copley Medal of the Royal Society of London in 1925, and the
Franklin Medal of the Franklin Institute in 1935.
Einstein's gifts inevitably resulted in his dwelling much in
intellectual solitude and, for relaxation, music played an
important part in his life. He married Mileva Maric in 1903 and
they had a daughter and two sons; their marriage was dissolved
in 1919 and in the same year he married his cousin, Elsa
Löwenthal, who died in 1936. He died on April 18, 1955 at
Princeton, New Jersey.
From Nobel Lectures. Physics 1901-1921, Elsevier Publishing
Company, Amsterdam, 1967
