Biography of Albert Einstein

Everything is relative: I absolutely right

14 March 1879
April 18, 1955
Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879 in Ulm, Germany's from non-practicing Jewish parents. A year after his birth the family moved to Munich, where his father Hermann opens, with his brother Jacob, a small electrical workshop. Einstein's childhood takes place in the Germany of Bismarck, a massive country industrialization, but also with forms of despotism that are felt at various levels and in various areas of the social structure.

Childhood

The little Albert is by instinct a solitary and learn to speak very late. The meeting with the school is difficult: Albert, in fact, finds its consolation at home, where his mother starts studying the violin, and uncle Jacob to that of algebra. As a child reads books of popular science with what will define "breathless attention." Hates strict systems that make the school of his time like a barracks.

Early studies

In 1894 the family moved to Italy to try better luck with a factory in Pavia, near Milan. Albert just stays in Munich so that he can finish the school year at the gymnasium; then reach family. Factory Affairs start to go wrong and Hermann Einstein's son urges Albert to join the famous Swiss Federal Institute of technology, known as ETH Zurich. Not having yet earned a Bachelor's high school, in 1895 must face an admission test: is rejected due to insufficient in humanities. But there was more: the Director of the Polytechnic, impressed by the uncommon ability shown in science subjects, urges the boy to not give up hope and to earn a degree in order to register for the Politecnico in Swiss Aargau cantonal school progressive.

High school

Here Albert Einstein is an atmosphere very different from that of the gymnasium in Munich. In 1896 can finally join the Polytechnic, where he takes an initial decision: it won't be an engineer but a teacher. In a statement of the time will say, "If I am fortunate enough to pass the exam, I will go to Zurich. There I will stay for four years to study mathematics and physics. I imagine becoming a teacher in those branches of the natural sciences, pointing to the theoretical part of them. These are the reasons that led me to make this plan. Above all, it's my disposition to abstraction and to think mathematically, and my lack of imagination and skill practice". During his studies in Zurich mature his choice: he dedicated himself to physics rather than the mathematics.

From graduation to the first job, until the first theoretical studies

Albert Einstein graduated in 1900. Take therefore Swiss citizenship by taking a job at the Patent Office in Bern. The modest work allows him to devote much of his time to the study of physics. In 1905 publishes three theoretical studies. The first and most important study contains the first complete exposition of the theory of relativity. The second study, on the interpretation of the photoelectric effect, contains a revolutionary hypothesis about the nature of light; Einstein says that under certain conditions the electromagnetic radiation has corpuscular nature, assuming that energy carried by each particle constituting the light beam, called a photon, is proportional to the frequency of the radiation. That statement, according to which the energy contained in a beam of light is transferred into individual units or quanta, ten years later will be confirmed experimentally by Robert Andrews Millikan. The third and most important study is of 1905, and bears the title "Electrodynamics of moving bodies": it contains the first comprehensive display of restricted theory of relativity , the result of a long and careful study of classical mechanics by Isaac Newton, methods ofinteraction between radiation and matter, and the characteristics of the physical phenomena observed in systems in relative motion with respect to one another.

The Nobel Prize

It is precisely the latter study that will take Albert Einstein to achieve the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921. In 1916 the public memory: "the fundamentals of the theory of general relativity", the result of over ten years of study. This work is considered by its greatest scientific contribution: it fits in his research focused on the geometrization of physics.

The historical context: the first world war

Meanwhile, in world conflicts between Nations had caught fire, triggering World War I. During this time, Einstein is among the few German academics to criticize publicly the Germany's involvement in the war. This stance makes him a victim of serious attacks by right-wing groups, so much so that his scientific theories undergo action to put them into ridicule; particular fury undergoes the theory of relativity.

Nazism and the atomic bomb

With the coming to power of Hitler, Einstein was forced to emigrate to the United States, where he was offered a professorship at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Faced with the threat represented by the Nazi regime, German anti-war positions and waiver in 1939 Nobel writes along with many other physicists a letter addressed to President Roosevelt, in which it underlined the possibility of building an atomic bomb. The letter marks the beginning of plans for the construction of thenuclear weapon.

The commitment to peace

Einstein obviously deeply despises violence and concluded these terrible years of conflict, is actively against the war and against racial persecutions, compiling a pacifist Declaration against nuclear weapons. Again, then, reiterates that the intellectuals of every country should be willing to all the sacrifices necessary to preserve political freedom and to employ scientific knowledge for peace.

death

Albert Einstein turns off at the age of 76 years in the United States, at Princeton, the day April 18, 1955, surrounded by the greatest honours. Had expressed verbally the desire to put your body at the disposal of science and Thomas Stoltz Harvey, the pathologist who conducted the autopsy, on its own initiative removed the brain and kept at home in a jar under vacuum for about 30 years. The rest of the body was cremated and his ashes were scattered at an undisclosed location. When Einstein's relatives were made aware, agreed that the brain were dissected in 240 parts to be delivered to as many researchers; the thickest part is preserved in the Princeton hospital.

The magnitude and the immortal genius of Einstein

Einstein's greatness is to have radically changed methods of interpretation of the physics world. His fame grew enormously and increasingly after the award of the Nobel Prize but above all thanks to the high degree of originality of his theory of relativity, capable of hitting the collective so fascinating and amazing. The contribution of Einstein to the world of science, but also to that of philosophy (a field in which Einstein fed and showed deep interest) has produced a revolution in history is compared only to that produced by the work of Isaac Newton. The success and popularity acquired by Einstein have been an event quite unusual for a scientist: they stopped even during the last years of his life, so much so that his name became popular in many cultures-even then and even today is so- synonymous with genius and very intelligent. Einstein remained famous many phrases, such as "only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure of the first". Even his face and its features (the long white hair and bushy white whiskers) have become a stereotype representing the figure of scientific genius; an example of this is the character of Dr. Emmett Brown in the back to the future "movie where among other things the dog of the inventor of the time machine's most famous film, is called Einstein.
Article contributed by the team of collaborators.