Albert Einstein: A Genius

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 Albert Einstein: A Genius


Introduction

Albert Einstein was a very mysterious man. He was a genius and an influencer. But he had his dark sides too. He was so much a genius that even after his death, scientists studied his brain to find out how he was so genius. What else proof do you expect once I tell you that the 99th element on the periodic table, Einsteinium, is named after Albert Einstein!

Image Source - Google | Image by -Wikipedia | Albert Einstein



Birth and early life

Albert Einstein was born in Ulm in the German Empire as a Jew to Hermann Einstein and Pauline Koch. Despite being a Jew, he went to a Catholic Elementary School. At the age of 8, he went to Luitpold Gymnasium (now Albert-Einstein-Gymansium). He gained his interest in physics when his father gifted him a compass when he was ill to distract him. He was fascinated that the needle of the compass always points to the magnetic North. This led him to pursue physics when he grew up. In 1894 he moved to Switzerland. There, he tried to give an examination to enter the Swiss Federal Polytechnic Institute in Zurich. He did very well in maths and physics. But he lacked in Zoology, Botany and language. So he continued his high school studies. Getting the highest score, 6, in most of the subjects automatically got him into the Swiss Federal Polytechnic Institute. He renounced his German citizenship in 1896 and remained a ‘world citizen’ until 1901 when he got Swiss citizenship.

Professional life

In 1901 only, he got a job at the Bern patent office as a clerk. In his free time, he used to study science, his true hobby. 1905 is known as his Annus mirabilis (‘wonderful or miracle year’). That year he published 4 papers, on the Photoelectric Effect, the Brownian Motion, Special Relativity and one on the most famous equation of science which shows the equivalence of mass and energy, E=mc². This brought him fame in the academic world at the age of 26. By 1908, he was already a renowned physicist. He became a professor at Bern University. But there was something about relativity that kept disturbing him. So he created the General Theory of Relativity. In 1921, he received the Nobel Prize for the Photoelectric Effect (not for Relativity).


Political Life

Einstein was also very much indulged in politics. In 1933, while on a visit to the United States, Einstein realised he could not go back due to the arrival of the Nazis. Adolf Hitler was the leader and Einstein was everything Hitler hated. He was a Jew, part of the intelligentsia and a pacifist. Einstein had earlier again taken back his German Citizenship. He renounced it during this period. He went back to the United States. There, he spent much time in vain trying to create a Unified Field Theory and refuting the accepted interpretation of quantum physics


Facts related to Einstein

  1. He was offered the presidency of Israel.
  2. He was the one to alert the US of the atom bomb being made by the Nazis
  3. He loved playing the violin and said that if he was not a scientist, he’d rather be a musician.
  4. His longest remaining Indian friend was Nobel Laureate, Rabindranath Tagore.


Image Source - Google | Image by -Wikipedia | Albert Einstein and Rabindranath Tagore

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