Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein.

Albert Einstein was a German-American theoretical scientist famed for his groundbreaking theories that revolutionized the world of physics, logic and mathematics. His theory of general relativity and the mass-energy equivalence formulae led to a new comprehension of particle and nuclear physics respectively. He is also considered as the father of modern quantum theory. He was finally recognized as an eminent physicist in 1921 when he was awarded the Nobel Prize (Isaacson, 2007).

Albert Einstein was born in 1879 into a non-observant German-Jewish family. A few years after his birth, his parents relocated to Munich where he was enrolled into a local catholic elementary school. Three years later, he was enrolled into Luitpold Gymnasium where he studied for the next seven years. It was during this time that Einstein explored his fascination with magnetism by creating various models in order to study how magnetism operates. Later on, one of his friends, Max Talmud, introduced him to the philosophical works of Immanuel Kant and Euclid.  These works were to influence Einstein's philosophical worldview as illustrated by his later writings on morality, logic and ethics (Pais, 1982).

His father used to own a business dealing with electrical products. Unfortunately, the business failed in 1984, and the family was forced to relocate to Italy where Einstein was enrolled into a local university. Einstein clashed with the institution’s authority, and due to the irreconcilable differences, Einstein was forced to ask his father to allow him to move out of Italy in order to continue his education in Switzerland. In 1896, he enrolled into Zurich Polytechnic where he studied physics and mathematics. It was here that he met and befriended Mileva Marić. Their friendship later solidified into romance, and they were married in 1903. They finally divorced in 1919. Thereafter, Einstein married Elsa Löwenthal (Isaacson, 2007).

 In 1903, Einstein secured a job in Bern as an assistant examiner in the patent office. Most of his work at the office revolved around the issues of electro-mechanical synchronization and signal transmission, and as such, he had to engage in thought experiments into to conceptualize how the patented theories could be put into practice as working devices. During this time, he created a discussion group with fellow like-minded individuals. The name of the group was: The Olympia Academy.  The participants in the group explored various novel and unique philosophical and scientific ideas. They also analyzed and critically appraised Einstein earlier work “Conclusions from the Capillarity Phenomena” (Pais, 1982).

In 1905, Einstein published his dissertation under the title “A New Determination of Molecular Dimensions." Within the same year, he published four more works on special relativity, photoelectric effect, mass-energy equivalence and Brownian motion. These works brought him into pre-eminence in the academic world, and in recognition, he was offered a lecturer post at the University of Bern in 1908. In 1911, his theory of relativity was put to test (and confirmed) by Sir Arthur Eddington. Einstein was to later on teach at various elite institutions such as the University of Zurich, Charles-Ferdinand University, Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics, Prussian Academy of Sciences and Humboldt University of Berlin; before being appointed chairman of the German Physical Society in 1916 (Pais, 1982).

His works on the photoelectric effect were to lay the groundwork for quantum theory. His further experimentations using models convinced Einstein that he could not be able to reconcile the classical Newtonian physics with his findings, and this led him to develop a new theory named “special theory of relativity”. Moreover, his studies in statistical mechanics, thermodynamics, quantum theory and molecular physics laid the foundation for most of the current theories and laws in physics (Isaacson, 2007).

Unfortunately for Einstein, he was forced to go into exile when the Nazis rose into the seats of political power. He relocated to the United States. During World war II, Einstein alerted the administration of the dangers of nuclear weapons that Germany was developing. Based on his warnings of the probable mass casualties that a nuclear-armed Nazi might inflict on the allies, the US administration was able to implement measures to avert such an eventuality.  After the war, Einstein continued his research in the US till his demise in 1955 (Schweber, 2009).

In his lifetime, Einstein has published over 450 academic papers, with 150 of them being non-scientific papers. These papers have revolutionized the fields of physics, ethics and logic. Finally, due to his great contributions and intellectual achievements, Albert Einstein has been considered as the genius of the 20th century (Schweber, 2009).

References.

Isaacson, W. (2007). Einstein: His life and universe. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster. Print.

Pais, A. (1982). Subtle is the Lord. The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Print.

Schweber, S. (2009). Einstein and Oppenheimer: The meaning of genius. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Print.