Albert Einstein
1879-1955
Brief history
• Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, in
Wittenberg Germany, on March 14, 1879
• At the age of fifteen he quit high school and
followed his family to Italy where they had
moved their failing electro technical
• he entered the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School
in Zurich in 1896 to be trained as a teacher in
physics and mathematics.
• In 1901 he finally gained his diploma, and got
Swiss citizenship.
• He was unable to find a teaching post, so he
accepted a position as technical assistant in the
Swiss patent office.
• In 1905 Einstein wrote four fundamental
papers. The first paper says that light must
sometimes behave like a stream of particles
with discrete energies, quanta.
• The second paper showed an experimental
test for the theory of heat and proof of the
existence of atoms.
• And his third paper was written to a central
puzzle for physicists of the day describing
the connection between electromagnetic
theory and ordinary motion. He solved it
using the principle of relativity.
• The fourth showed that mass and energy are
the same thing, mass-energy (E=mc2).
Albert Einstein
Accomplishments
• In 1908 Albert was appointed as a
Privatdozent in Berne.
• In 1909 he became the Professor Extraordinary of
Zurich school.
• in 1911 he also became the Professor of Theoretical
Physics at Prague
• In 1914 he was appointed as the Director of
Kaiser Wilhelm Physical Institute and Professor
in the University of Berlin
• Albert Einstein went to America to get the
position of Professor of Theoretical Physics at
Princeton University. He became a United States
citizen in 1940 and retired from his post in 1945.
• After World War II, Einstein was offered the
Presidency of the State of Israel, but he didn’t
accept it.
• Later he worked together with Dr. Chaim
Weizmann in establishing the Hebrew University
of Jerusalem.
• He wrote a theory of gravitation in 1916 and later
he published his paper on the general theory of
relativity
• He contributed to statistical mechanics by his
development of the quantum theory of a
monatomic gas.
• he has also accomplished valuable work in
connection with atomic transition probabilities
and cosmology.
• 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.
• 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.
Science Goals
• Einstein works with problems of statistical
mechanics that march with quantum theory and it
led to an explanation of the Brownian movement
of molecules.
• He also investigated the thermal properties of light
with a low radiation density and his observations
laid the foundation of the photon theory of light.
Some of his Important
Researches
• Special Theory of Relativity (1905),
• General Theory of Relativity (1916),
• Investigations on Theory of Brownian
Movement (1926),
• The Evolution of Physics (1938).
• Among his non-scientific works, About
Zionism (1930)
Personal life
• Albert Einstein was a man that loved music
and this played an important role in his life.
• He married to Mileva Maric in 1903 and they
had a daughter and two sons.
• he divorced her in 1919 and he married his
cousin, Elsa Lowenthal, who died in 1936
Resources
• http://www.aip.org/history/Einstein/phisol1.
html
• http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/phy
sics/laureates/1921/einstein-bio.html