biography of robert einstein

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Albert Einstein

By: History.com Editors

Updated: May 16, 2019 | Original: October 27, 2009

The German-born physicist Albert Einstein developed the first of his groundbreaking theories while working as a clerk in the Swiss patent office in Bern. After making his name with four scientific articles published in 1905, he went on to win worldwide fame for his general theory of relativity and a Nobel Prize in 1921 for his explanation of the phenomenon known as the photoelectric effect. An outspoken pacifist who was publicly identified with the Zionist movement, Einstein emigrated from Germany to the United States when the Nazis took power before World War II. He lived and worked in Princeton, New Jersey, for the remainder of his life.

Einstein’s Early Life (1879-1904)

Born on March 14, 1879, in the southern German city of Ulm, Albert Einstein grew up in a middle-class Jewish family in Munich. As a child, Einstein became fascinated by music (he played the violin), mathematics and science. He dropped out of school in 1894 and moved to Switzerland, where he resumed his schooling and later gained admission to the Swiss Federal Polytechnic Institute in Zurich. In 1896, he renounced his German citizenship, and remained officially stateless before becoming a Swiss citizen in 1901.

Did you know? Almost immediately after Albert Einstein learned of the atomic bomb's use in Japan, he became an advocate for nuclear disarmament. He formed the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists and backed Manhattan Project scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer in his opposition to the hydrogen bomb.

While at Zurich Polytechnic, Einstein fell in love with his fellow student Mileva Maric, but his parents opposed the match and he lacked the money to marry. The couple had an illegitimate daughter, Lieserl, born in early 1902, of whom little is known. After finding a position as a clerk at the Swiss patent office in Bern, Einstein married Maric in 1903; they would have two more children, Hans Albert (born 1904) and Eduard (born 1910).

Einstein’s Miracle Year (1905)

While working at the patent office, Einstein did some of the most creative work of his life, producing no fewer than four groundbreaking articles in 1905 alone. In the first paper, he applied the quantum theory (developed by German physicist Max Planck) to light in order to explain the phenomenon known as the photoelectric effect, by which a material will emit electrically charged particles when hit by light. The second article contained Einstein’s experimental proof of the existence of atoms, which he got by analyzing the phenomenon of Brownian motion, in which tiny particles were suspended in water.

In the third and most famous article, titled “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies,” Einstein confronted the apparent contradiction between two principal theories of physics: Isaac Newton’s concepts of absolute space and time and James Clerk Maxwell’s idea that the speed of light was a constant. To do this, Einstein introduced his special theory of relativity, which held that the laws of physics are the same even for objects moving in different inertial frames (i.e. at constant speeds relative to each other), and that the speed of light is a constant in all inertial frames. A fourth paper concerned the fundamental relationship between mass and energy, concepts viewed previously as completely separate. Einstein’s famous equation E = mc2 (where “c” was the constant speed of light) expressed this relationship.

From Zurich to Berlin (1906-1932)

Einstein continued working at the patent office until 1909, when he finally found a full-time academic post at the University of Zurich. In 1913, he arrived at the University of Berlin, where he was made director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics. The move coincided with the beginning of Einstein’s romantic relationship with a cousin of his, Elsa Lowenthal, whom he would eventually marry after divorcing Mileva. In 1915, Einstein published the general theory of relativity, which he considered his masterwork. This theory found that gravity, as well as motion, can affect time and space. According to Einstein’s equivalence principle–which held that gravity’s pull in one direction is equivalent to an acceleration of speed in the opposite direction–if light is bent by acceleration, it must also be bent by gravity. In 1919, two expeditions sent to perform experiments during a solar eclipse found that light rays from distant stars were deflected or bent by the gravity of the sun in just the way Einstein had predicted.

The general theory of relativity was the first major theory of gravity since Newton’s, more than 250 years before, and the results made a tremendous splash worldwide, with the London Times proclaiming a “Revolution in Science” and a “New Theory of the Universe.” Einstein began touring the world, speaking in front of crowds of thousands in the United States, Britain, France and Japan. In 1921, he won the Nobel Prize for his work on the photoelectric effect, as his work on relativity remained controversial at the time. Einstein soon began building on his theories to form a new science of cosmology, which held that the universe was dynamic instead of static, and was capable of expanding and contracting.

Einstein Moves to the United States (1933-39)

A longtime pacifist and a Jew, Einstein became the target of hostility in Weimar Germany, where many citizens were suffering plummeting economic fortunes in the aftermath of defeat in the Great War. In December 1932, a month before Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany, Einstein made the decision to emigrate to the United States, where he took a position at the newly founded Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey . He would never again enter the country of his birth.

By the time Einstein’s wife Elsa died in 1936, he had been involved for more than a decade with his efforts to find a unified field theory, which would incorporate all the laws of the universe, and those of physics, into a single framework. In the process, Einstein became increasingly isolated from many of his colleagues, who were focused mainly on the quantum theory and its implications, rather than on relativity.

Einstein’s Later Life (1939-1955)

In the late 1930s, Einstein’s theories, including his equation E=mc2, helped form the basis of the development of the atomic bomb. In 1939, at the urging of the Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard, Einstein wrote to President Franklin D. Roosevelt advising him to approve funding for the development of uranium before Germany could gain the upper hand. Einstein, who became a U.S. citizen in 1940 but retained his Swiss citizenship, was never asked to participate in the resulting Manhattan Project , as the U.S. government suspected his socialist and pacifist views. In 1952, Einstein declined an offer extended by David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s premier, to become president of Israel .

Throughout the last years of his life, Einstein continued his quest for a unified field theory. Though he published an article on the theory in Scientific American in 1950, it remained unfinished when he died, of an aortic aneurysm, five years later. In the decades following his death, Einstein’s reputation and stature in the world of physics only grew, as physicists began to unravel the mystery of the so-called “strong force” (the missing piece of his unified field theory) and space satellites further verified the principles of his cosmology.

HISTORY Vault: Secrets of Einstein's Brain

Originally stolen by the doctor trusted to perform his autopsy, scientists over the decades have examined the brain of Albert Einstein to try and determine what made this seemingly normal man tick.

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Biography Online

Albert Einstein Biography

Einstein is also well known as an original free-thinker, speaking on a range of humanitarian and global issues. After contributing to the theoretical development of nuclear physics and encouraging F.D. Roosevelt to start the Manhattan Project, he later spoke out against the use of nuclear weapons.

Born in Germany to Jewish parents, Einstein settled in Switzerland and then, after Hitler’s rise to power, the United States. Einstein was a truly global man and one of the undisputed genius’ of the Twentieth Century.

Early life Albert Einstein

Einstein was born 14 March 1879, in Ulm the German Empire. His parents were working-class (salesman/engineer) and non-observant Jews. Aged 15, the family moved to Milan, Italy, where his father hoped Albert would become a mechanical engineer. However, despite Einstein’s intellect and thirst for knowledge, his early academic reports suggested anything but a glittering career in academia. His teachers found him dim and slow to learn. Part of the problem was that Albert expressed no interest in learning languages and the learning by rote that was popular at the time.

“School failed me, and I failed the school. It bored me. The teachers behaved like Feldwebel (sergeants). I wanted to learn what I wanted to know, but they wanted me to learn for the exam.” Einstein and the Poet (1983)

At the age of 12, Einstein picked up a book on geometry and read it cover to cover. – He would later refer to it as his ‘holy booklet’. He became fascinated by maths and taught himself – becoming acquainted with the great scientific discoveries of the age.

Albert Einstein with wife Elsa

Despite Albert’s independent learning, he languished at school. Eventually, he was asked to leave by the authorities because his indifference was setting a bad example to other students.

He applied for admission to the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. His first attempt was a failure because he failed exams in botany, zoology and languages. However, he passed the next year and in 1900 became a Swiss citizen.

At college, he met a fellow student Mileva Maric, and after a long friendship, they married in 1903; they had two sons before divorcing several years later.

In 1896 Einstein renounced his German citizenship to avoid military conscription. For five years he was stateless, before successfully applying for Swiss citizenship in 1901. After graduating from Zurich college, he attempted to gain a teaching post but none was forthcoming; instead, he gained a job in the Swiss Patent Office.

While working at the Patent Office, Einstein continued his own scientific discoveries and began radical experiments to consider the nature of light and space.

Einstein in 1921

He published his first scientific paper in 1900, and by 1905 had completed his PhD entitled “ A New Determination of Molecular Dimensions . In addition to working on his PhD, Einstein also worked feverishly on other papers. In 1905, he published four pivotal scientific works, which would revolutionise modern physics. 1905 would later be referred to as his ‘ annus mirabilis .’

Einstein’s work started to gain recognition, and he was given a post at the University of Zurich (1909) and, in 1911, was offered the post of full-professor at the Charles-Ferdinand University in Prague (which was then part of Austria-Hungary Empire). He took Austrian-Hungary citizenship to accept the job. In 1914, he returned to Germany and was appointed a director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics. (1914–1932)

Albert Einstein’s Scientific Contributions

Quantum Theory

Einstein suggested that light doesn’t just travel as waves but as electric currents. This photoelectric effect could force metals to release a tiny stream of particles known as ‘quanta’. From this Quantum Theory, other inventors were able to develop devices such as television and movies. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921.

Special Theory of Relativity

This theory was written in a simple style with no footnotes or academic references. The core of his theory of relativity is that:

“Movement can only be detected and measured as relative movement; the change of position of one body in respect to another.”

Thus there is no fixed absolute standard of comparison for judging the motion of the earth or plants. It was revolutionary because previously people had thought time and distance are absolutes. But, Einstein proved this not to be true.

He also said that if electrons travelled at close to the speed of light, their weight would increase.

This lead to Einstein’s famous equation:

Where E = energy m = mass and c = speed of light.

General Theory of Relativity 1916

Working from a basis of special relativity. Einstein sought to express all physical laws using equations based on mathematical equations.

He devoted the last period of his life trying to formulate a final unified field theory which included a rational explanation for electromagnetism. However, he was to be frustrated in searching for this final breakthrough theory.

Solar eclipse of 1919

In 1911, Einstein predicted the sun’s gravity would bend the light of another star. He based this on his new general theory of relativity. On 29 May 1919, during a solar eclipse, British astronomer and physicist Sir Arthur Eddington was able to confirm Einstein’s prediction. The news was published in newspapers around the world, and it made Einstein internationally known as a leading physicist. It was also symbolic of international co-operation between British and German scientists after the horrors of the First World War.

In the 1920s, Einstein travelled around the world – including the UK, US, Japan, Palestine and other countries. Einstein gave lectures to packed audiences and became an internationally recognised figure for his work on physics, but also his wider observations on world affairs.

Bohr-Einstein debates

During the 1920s, other scientists started developing the work of Einstein and coming to different conclusions on Quantum Physics. In 1925 and 1926, Einstein took part in debates with Max Born about the nature of relativity and quantum physics. Although the two disagreed on physics, they shared a mutual admiration.

As a German Jew, Einstein was threatened by the rise of the Nazi party. In 1933, when the Nazi’s seized power, they confiscated Einstein’s property, and later started burning his books. Einstein, then in England, took an offer to go to Princeton University in the US. He later wrote that he never had strong opinions about race and nationality but saw himself as a citizen of the world.

“I do not believe in race as such. Race is a fraud. All modern people are the conglomeration of so many ethnic mixtures that no pure race remains.”

Once in the US, Einstein dedicated himself to a strict discipline of academic study. He would spend no time on maintaining his dress and image. He considered these things ‘inessential’ and meant less time for his research. Einstein was notoriously absent-minded. In his youth, he once left his suitcase at a friends house. His friend’s parents told Einstein’s parents: “ That young man will never amount to anything, because he can’t remember anything.”

Although a bit of a loner, and happy in his own company, he had a good sense of humour. On January 3, 1943, Einstein received a letter from a girl who was having difficulties with mathematics in her studies. Einstein consoled her when he wrote in reply to her letter

“Do not worry about your difficulties in mathematics. I can assure you that mine are still greater.”

Einstein professed belief in a God “Who reveals himself in the harmony of all being”. But, he followed no established religion. His view of God sought to establish a harmony between science and religion.

“Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”

– Einstein, Science and Religion (1941)

Politics of Einstein

Einstein described himself as a Zionist Socialist. He did support the state of Israel but became concerned about the narrow nationalism of the new state. In 1952, he was offered the position as President of Israel, but he declined saying he had:

“neither the natural ability nor the experience to deal with human beings.” … “I am deeply moved by the offer from our State of Israel, and at once saddened and ashamed that I cannot accept it.”

Einstein receiving US citizenship.

Albert Einstein was involved in many civil rights movements such as the American campaign to end lynching. He joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and  considered racism, America’s worst disease. But he also spoke highly of the meritocracy in American society and the value of being able to speak freely.

On the outbreak of war in 1939, Einstein wrote to President Roosevelt about the prospect of Germany developing an atomic bomb. He warned Roosevelt that the Germans were working on a bomb with a devastating potential. Roosevelt headed his advice and started the Manhattan project to develop the US atom bomb. But, after the war ended, Einstein reverted to his pacifist views. Einstein said after the war.

“Had I known that the Germans would not succeed in producing an atomic bomb, I would not have lifted a finger.” (Newsweek, 10 March 1947)

In the post-war McCarthyite era, Einstein was scrutinised closely for potential Communist links. He wrote an article in favour of socialism, “Why Socialism” (1949) He criticised Capitalism and suggested a democratic socialist alternative. He was also a strong critic of the arms race. Einstein remarked:

“I do not know how the third World War will be fought, but I can tell you what they will use in the Fourth—rocks!”

Rabindranath Tagore and Einstein

Einstein was feted as a scientist, but he was a polymath with interests in many fields. In particular, he loved music. He wrote that if he had not been a scientist, he would have been a musician. Einstein played the violin to a high standard.

“I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music… I get most joy in life out of music.”

Einstein died in 1955, at his request his brain and vital organs were removed for scientific study.

Citation: Pettinger, Tejvan . “ Biography of Albert Einstein ”, Oxford, www.biographyonline.net 23 Feb. 2008. Updated 2nd March 2017.

Albert Einstein – His Life and Universe

Albert Einstein – His Life at Amazon

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19 Comments

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• January 11, 2019 3:00 PM

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Albert Einstein: Biography, facts and impact on science

A brief biography of Albert Einstein (March 14, 1879 - April 18, 1955), the scientist whose theories changed the way we think about the universe.

• Einstein's birthday and education

Einstein's wives and children

How einstein changed physics.

• Later years and death

Gravitational waves and relativity

Additional resources.

Albert Einstein was a German-American physicist and probably the most well-known scientist of the 20th century. He is famous for his theory of relativity , a pillar of modern physics that describes the dynamics of light and extremely massive entities, as well as his work in quantum mechanics , which focuses on the subatomic realm. 

Albert Einstein's birthday and education

Einstein was born in Ulm, in the German state of Württemberg, on March 14, 1879, according to a biography from the Nobel Prize organization . His family moved to Munich six weeks later, and in 1885, when he was 6 years old, he began attending Petersschule, a Catholic elementary school.

Contrary to popular belief, Einstein was a good student. "Yesterday Albert received his grades, he was again number one, and his report card was brilliant," his mother once wrote to her sister, according to a German website dedicated to Einstein's legacy. But when he later switched to the Luitpold grammar school, young Einstein chafed under the school's authoritarian attitude, and his teacher once said of him, "never will he get anywhere."

In 1896, at age 17, Einstein entered the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich to be trained as a teacher in physics and mathematics. A few years later, he gained his diploma and acquired Swiss citizenship but was unable to find a teaching post. So he accepted a position as a technical assistant in the Swiss patent office. 

Related: 10 discoveries that prove Einstein was right about the universe — and 1 that proves him wrong

Einstein married Mileva Maric, his longtime love and former student, in 1903. A year prior, they had a child out of wedlock, who was discovered by scholars only in the 1980s, when private letters revealed her existence. The daughter, called Lieserl in the letters, may have been mentally challenged and either died young or was adopted when she was a year old. Einstein had two other children with Maric, Hans Albert and Eduard, born in 1904 and 1910, respectively.

Einstein divorced Maric in 1919 and soon married his cousin Elsa Löwenthal, with whom he had been in a relationship since 1912.

Einstein obtained his doctorate in physics in 1905 — a year that's often known as his annus mirabilis ("year of miracles" in Latin), according to the Library of Congress . That year, he published four groundbreaking papers of significant importance in physics.

The first incorporated the idea that light could come in discrete particles called photons. This theory describes the photoelectric effect , the concept that underpins modern solar power. The second explained Brownian motion, or the random motion of particles or molecules. Einstein looked at the case of a dust mote moving randomly on the surface of water and suggested that water is made up of tiny, vibrating molecules that kick the dust back and forth. 

The final two papers outlined his theory of special relativity, which showed how observers moving at different speeds would agree about the speed of light, which was a constant. These papers also introduced the equation E = mc^2, showing the equivalence between mass and energy. That finding is perhaps the most widely known aspect of Einstein's work. (In this infamous equation, E stands for energy, m represents mass and c is the constant speed of light).

In 1915, Einstein published four papers outlining his theory of general relativity, which updated Isaac Newton's laws of gravity by explaining that the force of gravity arose because massive objects warp the fabric of space-time. The theory was validated in 1919, when British astronomer Arthur Eddington observed stars at the edge of the sun during a solar eclipse and was able to show that their light was bent by the sun's gravitational well, causing shifts in their perceived positions.

Related: 8 Ways you can see Einstein's theory of relativity in real life

In 1921, he won the Nobel Prize in physics for his work on the photoelectric effect, though the committee members also mentioned his "services to Theoretical Physics" when presenting their award. The decision to give Einstein the award was controversial because the brilliant physicist was a Jew and a pacifist. Anti-Semitism was on the rise and relativity was not yet seen as a proven theory, according to an article from The Guardian .

Einstein was a professor at the University of Berlin for a time but fled Germany with Löwenthal in 1933, during the rise of Adolf Hitler. He renounced his German citizenship and moved to the United States to become a professor of theoretical physics at Princeton, becoming a U.S. citizen in 1940.

During this era, other researchers were creating a revolution by reformulating the rules of the smallest known entities in existence. The laws of quantum mechanics had been worked out by a group led by the Danish physicist Niels Bohr , and Einstein was intimately involved with their efforts.

Bohr and Einstein famously clashed over quantum mechanics. Bohr and his cohorts proposed that quantum particles behaved according to probabilistic laws, which Einstein found unacceptable, quipping that " God does not play dice with the universe ." Bohr's views eventually came to dominate much of contemporary thinking about quantum mechanics.

Einstein's later years and death

After he retired in 1945, Einstein spent most of his later years trying to unify gravity with electromagnetism in what's known as a unified field theory . Einstein died of a burst blood vessel near his heart on April 18, 1955, never unifying these forces.

Einstein's body was cremated and his ashes were spread in an undisclosed location, according to the American Museum of Natural History . But a doctor performed an unauthorized craniotomy before this and removed and saved Einstein's brain. 

The brain has been the subject of many tests over the decades, which suggested that it had extra folding in the gray matter, the site of conscious thinking. In particular, there were more folds in the frontal lobes, which have been tied to abstract thought and planning. However, drawing any conclusions about intelligence based on a single specimen is problematic. 

Related: Where is Einstein's brain?

In addition to his incredible legacy regarding relativity and quantum mechanics, Einstein conducted lesser-known research into a refrigeration method that required no motors, moving parts or coolant. He was also a tireless anti-war advocate, helping found the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists , an organization dedicated to warning the public about the dangers of nuclear weapons . 

Einstein's theories concerning relativity have so far held up spectacularly as a predictive models. Astronomers have found that, as the legendary physicist anticipated, the light of distant objects is lensed by massive, closer entities, a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing, which has helped our understanding of the universe's evolution. The James Webb Space Telescope , launched in Dec. 2021, has utilized gravitational lensing on numerous occasions to detect light emitted near the dawn of time , dating to just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang.

In 2016, the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory also announced the first-ever direct detection of gravitational waves , created when massive neutron stars and black holes merge and generate ripples in the fabric of space-time. Further research published in 2023 found that the entire universe may be rippling with a faint "gravitational wave background," emitted by ancient, colliding black holes.

Find answers to frequently asked questions about Albert Einstein on the Nobel Prize website. Flip through digitized versions of Einstein's published and unpublished manuscripts at Einstein Archives Online. Learn about The Einstein Memorial at the National Academy of Sciences building in Washington, D.C. 

This article was last updated on March 11, 2024 by Live Science editor Brandon Specktor to include new information about how Einstein's theories have been validated by modern experiments.

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Adam Mann is a freelance journalist with over a decade of experience, specializing in astronomy and physics stories. He has a bachelor's degree in astrophysics from UC Berkeley. His work has appeared in the New Yorker, New York Times, National Geographic, Wall Street Journal, Wired, Nature, Science, and many other places. He lives in Oakland, California, where he enjoys riding his bike. 

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Einstein: The Untold Story

By Hart Pomerantz

Because of his poor sense of direction and his very large head, Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, Germany, in 1879, at the age of two. As a youngster, he walked to school every morning, but, also owing to his poor sense of direction, he attended eight different schools. He was good at math even as an infant. He looked at his parents from his crib and wondered how one plus one could possibly make three.

As a child, he showed an interest in physics and read many books on the subject. He even called his father’s sister Anti-Matter. One of Einstein’s heroes was Sir Isaac Newton, who discovered gravity when an apple fell on his head as he lay in his garden. Einstein, attempting to emulate Newton, lay on the grass in his own garden for ten hours, but nothing happened. He thought that he had disproved Newton’s theory, until his mother told him there were no apple trees in their garden. Einstein continued to honor his hero by eating his special fig cookies every day, as an after-school snack.

Young Einstein was always experimenting. He once swung his cat by the tail and noticed that the animal became more elongated the faster he swung it. The observation had no scientific significance, but it did cause a deep rift in their previously close relationship.

At university, Einstein took a course in philosophy. He studied one of Zeno’s paradoxes, and, being a budding scientist, he went home and experimented with the theory by walking halfway to the wall over and over. He never reached the wall, as Zeno predicted, but he did break his nose in three places.

Einstein was absent-minded, but he was also practical. He rarely wore socks, except on formal occasions, when he put them on over his shoes, so as not to have to tie the laces, which he found burdensome.

Einstein married Mileva Marić, a brilliant physicist and the only woman in his university class. The couple had two sons, and Einstein wanted to name them Positive and Negative, so they would stick together. The principle of quantum superposition says that a particle can be in two places at the same time. When Einstein started cheating on Mileva, he used that theory as an alibi. When the marriage deteriorated, because of incessant squabbling, Einstein forced his wife into a contract to prevent her from interfering with his work. The Einsteins’ cleaning lady found a draft of the document, which stipulated that Mileva would agree

1. To speak only adverbs. 2. Not to iron her husband’s pants while he was wearing them. 3. Never to bring him a bowl of soup with a fork. 4. That sexual intimacy would be withheld except on days beginning with “Z.”

Einstein told Mileva that if she granted him a divorce he would give her the money from his Nobel Prize, should he ever win one. He later tried to get out of the deal by telling her that the prize was only a stick of dynamite signed by Alfred Nobel.

Unable to find a teaching post at any university, Einstein was forced to take a job with the patent office in Bern, Switzerland. While daydreaming about physics one morning, he inadvertently accepted a patent for a new version of the Swiss telephone directory, in which people were listed not alphabetically but according to height. He also granted a patent for a new version of the Bible, with the answers in the back.

The famous photograph of Einstein sticking out his tongue was taken during a brief charitable phase, when he offered to lick stamps for people suffering from dry-mouth disease. This was a common local affliction in those days, traced to a bad run of Swiss cheese. Einstein was lactose intolerant and thus did not succumb to the illness.

When Einstein got remarried, to his cousin Elsa, in 1919, he discovered the true meaning of relativity. Unfortunately, Elsa knew nothing about physics. She thought general relativity was an officer in the German Army. Einstein tried to explain the theory of relativity to Elsa by offering the following example: If Marilyn Monroe sat on your lap for an hour it would seem like a minute, but if you put your hand on a stove for a minute it would feel like an hour. He took her into the kitchen to demonstrate, and she wisely said, “You first.”

After Einstein’s death, his brain was removed by a doctor named Thomas Harvey, who kept it in a jar. He took the brain everywhere he went and gave slices of it to other scientists to study. When Harvey travelled with Einstein’s brain, he booked separate rooms, out of respect. He resented that he had to pay full price for Einstein’s room. Once, haggling, he told a clerk, “It’s only a brain, for God’s sake. You don’t have to change the sheets.” When he checked out, he learned that Einstein had run up a huge room-service bill.

Einstein’s executors went through his desk and found a note, written on a napkin, which said, “Edvard will be the master of ceremonies when I win my second Nobel Prize.” In brackets, he wrote, “ E=mc² .” They also found an early draft of Einstein’s most famous saying. “God does not play dice with the universe,” it read. “But he does seem to enjoy Monopoly.” ♦

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Legendary scientist Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955) first gained worldwide prominence in 1919 after British astronomers verified predictions of Einstein's general theory of relativity through measurements taken during a total eclipse. Einstein's theories expanded upon universal laws formulated by physicist Isaac Newton in the late seventeenth century.

Before E=MC2

Einstein was born in Germany in 1879. Growing up, he enjoyed classical music and played the violin. One story Einstein liked to tell about his childhood was when he came across a magnetic compass. The needle's invariable northward swing, guided by an invisible force, profoundly impressed him as a child. The compass convinced him that there had to be "something behind things, something deeply hidden."

Even as a small boy Einstein was self-sufficient and thoughtful. According to one account, he was a slow talker, often pausing to consider what he would say next. His sister would recount the concentration and perseverance with which he would build houses of cards.

Einstein's first job was that of patent clerk. In 1933, he joined the staff of the newly created Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. He accepted this position for life, and lived there until his death. Einstein is probably familiar to most people for his mathematical equation about the nature of energy, E = MC2.

E = MC2, Light and Heat

The formula E=MC2 is probably the most famous calculation from Einstein's special theory of relativity . The formula basically states that energy (E) equals mass (m) times the speed of light (c) squared (2). In essence, it means mass is just one form of energy. Since the speed of light squared is an enormous number, a small amount of mass can be converted to a phenomenal amount of energy. Or if there's a lot of energy available, some energy can be converted to mass and a new particle can be created. Nuclear reactors, for instance, work because nuclear reactions convert small amounts of mass into large amounts of energy.

Einstein wrote a paper based on the new understanding of the structure of light. He argued that light can act as though it consists of discrete, independent particles of energy similar to particles of a gas. A few years before, Max Planck's work had contained the first suggestion of discrete particles in energy. Einstein went far beyond this though and his revolutionary proposal seemed to contradict the universally accepted theory that light consists of smoothly oscillating electromagnetic waves. Einstein showed that light quanta, as he called the particles of energy, could help to explain phenomena being studied by experimental physicists. For example, he explained how light ejects electrons from metals.

While there was a well-known kinetic energy theory that explained heat as an effect of the ceaseless motion of atoms, it was Einstein who proposed a way to put the theory to a new and crucial experimental test. If tiny but visible particles were suspended in a liquid, he argued, the irregular bombardment by the liquid's invisible atoms should cause the suspended particles to move in a random jittering pattern. This should be observable through a microscope. If the predicted motion is not seen, the whole kinetic theory would be in grave danger. But such a random dance of microscopic particles had long since been observed. With the motion demonstrated in detail, Einstein had reinforced the kinetic theory and created a powerful new tool for studying the movement of atoms.

• Biography of Albert Einstein, Theoretical Physicist
• The Life and Work of Albert Einstein
• Kinetic Molecular Theory of Gases
• Einstein's Theory of Relativity
• What Is a Photon in Physics?
• Introduction to the Major Laws of Physics
• Fundamental Physical Constants
• A Brief History of Atomic Theory
• Quantum Physics Overview
• Top 10 Weird but Cool Physics Ideas
• 10 Things You Don't Know About Albert Einstein
• Wave Particle Duality and How It Works
• Topics Typically Covered in Grade 11 Chemistry
• The Physics of a Car Collision
• Photon Definition
• An Introduction to Black Holes

Albert Einstein: His life, theories and impact on science

Where would science be without Albert Einstein?

• Early years

Career highlights

Einstein's remarkable brain, einstein's scientific legacy.

• Astronomical legacy

Additional resources

Albert Einstein is often cited as one of the most influential scientists of the 20th century. His work continues to help astronomers study everything from gravitational waves to Mercury 's orbit. 

The scientist's equation that helped explain special relativity – E = mc^2 – is famous even among those who don't understand its underlying physics. Einstein is also known for his theory of general relativity (an explanation of gravity ), and the photoelectric effect (which explains the behavior of electrons under certain circumstances); his work on the latter earned him a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921.

Einstein also tried in vain to unify all the forces of the universe in a single theory, or a theory of everything, which he was still working on at the time of his death.

Related: What is the Theory of Everything?

Einstein's early years

Einstein was born on March 14, 1879, in Ulm, Germany, a town that today has a population of just more than 120,000. There is a small commemorative plaque where his house used to stand (it was destroyed during World War II). The family moved to Munich shortly after his birth, according to the Nobel Prize website , and later to Italy when his father faced problems with running his own business. Einstein's father, Hermann, ran an electrochemical factory and his mother Pauline took care of Albert and his younger sister, Maria.

— What is wormhole theory?

— Was Einstein wrong? Why some astrophysicists are questioning the theory of space-time

— Albert Einstein: Before and after relativity

Einstein would write in his memoirs that  two "wonders"  deeply affected his early years, according to Hans-Josef Küpper, an Albert Einstein scholar. Young Einstein encountered his first wonder — a compass — at age 5: He was mystified that invisible forces could deflect the needle. This would lead to a lifelong fascination with unseen forces. The second wonder came at age 12 when he discovered a book of geometry, which he worshipped, calling it his "holy geometry book."

Contrary to popular belief, young Albert was a good student, according to an online archive . He  excelled in physics and mathematics , but was a more "moderate" pupil in other subjects, Küpper wrote on his website. However, Einstein rebelled against the authoritarian attitude of some of his teachers and dropped out of school at 16. He later took an entrance exam for the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich, and while his performances in physics and math were excellent, his marks in other areas were subpar, and he did not pass the exam. The aspiring physicist took additional courses to close the gap in his knowledge and was admitted to the Swiss Polytechnic in 1896. In 1901 he received his diploma to teach physics and mathematics. 

However, Einstein could not find a teaching position, and began work in a Bern patent office in 1901, according to his Nobel Prize biography . It was while there that, in between analyzing patent applications, he developed his work in special relativity and other areas of physics that later made him famous.

Einstein married Mileva Maric, a longtime love of his from Zurich, in 1903. Their children, Hans Albert and Eduard, were born in 1904 and 1910. (The fate of a child born to them in 1902 before their marriage, Lieserl, is unknown.) Einstein divorced Maric in 1919 and soon after married Elsa Löwenthal. Löwenthal died in 1933.

Einstein's career sent him to multiple countries. He earned his doctorate from the University of Zurich in 1905 and subsequently took on professor positions in Zurich (1909), Prague (1911) and Zurich again (1912). Next, he moved to Berlin to become director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Physical Institute and a professor at the University of Berlin (1914). He also became a German citizen. 

A major validation of Einstein's work came in 1919, when Sir Arthur Eddington, secretary of the Royal Astronomical Society, led an expedition to Africa that measured the position of stars during a total solar eclipse . The group found that the position of stars was shifted due to the bending of light around the sun . (In 2008, a BBC/HBO production dramatized the story in " Einstein and Eddington .") 

Einstein remained in Germany until 1933 when dictator Adolf Hitler rose to power. The physicist then renounced his German citizenship and moved to the United States to become a professor of theoretical physics at Princeton. He became a U.S. citizen in 1940 and retired in 1945.

Einstein remained active in the physics community throughout his later years. In 1939, he famously penned a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt warning that uranium could be used for an atomic bomb. 

Late in Einstein's life, he engaged in a series of private debates with physicist  Niels Bohr  about the validity of quantum theory . Bohr's theories held the day, and Einstein later incorporated quantum theory into his own calculations. 

Einstein's death

Einstein died of an aortic aneurysm on April 18, 1955. A blood vessel burst near his heart, according to the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) . When asked if he wanted to have surgery, Einstein refused. "I want to go when I want to go," he said. "It is tasteless to prolong life artificially. I have done my share; it is time to go. I will do it elegantly."

Einstein's body — most of it, anyway — was cremated; his ashes were spread in an undisclosed location, according to the AMNH. However, a doctor at Princeton Hospital, Thomas Harvey, had controversially performed an autopsy, and removed Einstein's brain and eyeballs, according to the BBC .

Harvey sliced hundreds of thin sections of brain tissue to place on microscope slides and  snapped 14 photos  of the brain from several angles. He took the brain tissue, slides and images with him when he moved to Wichita, Kansas, where he was a medical supervisor in a biological testing lab.

Over the next 30 years, Harvey sent a few slides to other researchers who requested them, but kept the rest of the brain in two glass jars, sometimes in a cider box under a beer cooler. The story of Einstein's brain was largely forgotten until 1985, when Harvey and his colleagues published their study results in the journal Experimental Neurology .

Harvey failed a competency exam in 1988, and his medical license was revoked, Blitz wrote. Harvey eventually donated the brain to Princeton Hospital, where the brain's journey had begun. Harvey died in 2007. Pieces of Einstein's brain are now at the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia, Live Science reported .

Harvey's 1985 study authors reported that Einstein's brain had a higher number of glial cells (those that support and insulate the nervous system) per neurons (nerve cells) than other brains they examined. They concluded that it might indicate the neurons had a higher metabolic need — in other words, Einstein's brain cells needed and used more energy, which could have been why he had such advanced thinking abilities and conceptual skills.

However, other researchers have pointed out a few problems with that study, according to Eric H. Chudler , a neuroscientist at the University of Washington. First, for example, the other brains used in the study were all younger than Einstein's brain. Second, the "experimental group" had only one subject — Einstein. Additional studies are needed to see if these anatomical differences are found in other people. And third, only a small part of Einstein's brain was studied.

Another study, published in 1996 in the journal Neuroscience Letters , found that Einstein's brain weighed only 1,230 grams, which is less than the average adult male brain (about 1,400 g). Also, the scientist's cerebral cortex was thinner than that of five control brains, but the density of neurons was higher.

A study published in 2012 in the journal Brain revealed that Einstein's brain had extra folding in the gray matter , the site of conscious thinking. In particular, the frontal lobes, regions tied to abstract thought and planning, had unusually elaborate folding.

Einstein's legacy in physics is significant. Here are some of the key scientific principles that he pioneered:

Theory of special relativity : Einstein showed that physical laws are identical for all observers, as long as they are not under acceleration. However, the speed of light in a vacuum is always the same, no matter at what speed the observer is traveling. This work led to his realization that space and time are linked to what we now call space-time . So, an event seen by one observer may also be seen at a different time by another observer. 

Theory of general relativity : This was a reformulation of the law of gravity. In the 1600s, Newton formulated three laws of motion, among them, outlining how gravity works between two bodies. The force between them depends on how massive each object is, and how far apart the objects are. Einstein determined that when thinking about space-time, a massive object causes a distortion in space-time (like putting a heavy ball on a trampoline). Gravity is exerted when other objects fall into the "well" created by the distortion in space-time, like a marble rolling towards a large ball. General relativity passed a major test in 2019 in an experiment involving a supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way .

Photoelectric effect : Einstein's work in 1905 proposed that light should be thought of as a stream of particles (photons) instead of just a single wave, as was commonly thought at the time. His work helped decipher curious results scientists were previously unable to explain. 

Unified field theory : Einstein spent much of his later years trying to merge the fields of electromagnetism and gravity. He was unsuccessful but may have been ahead of his time. Other physicists are still working on this problem.

Einstein's astronomical legacy

There are many applications of Einstein's work, but here are some of the most notable ones in astronomy :

Gravitational waves : In 2016, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) detected space-time ripples — otherwise known as gravitational waves— that occurred after black holes collided about 1.4 billion light-years from Earth . LIGO also made an initial detection of gravitational waves in 2015, a century after Einstein predicted these ripples existed. The waves are a facet of Einstein's theory of general relativity.

Mercury's orbit : Mercury is a small planet orbiting close to a very massive object relative to its size — the sun. Its orbit could not be understood until general relativity showed that the curvature of space-time is affecting Mercury's motions and changing its orbit. There is a small chance that over billions of years, Mercury could be ejected from our solar system due to these changes (with an even smaller chance that it could collide with Earth).

Gravitational lensing : This is a phenomenon by which a massive object (like a galaxy cluster or a black hole) bends light around it. Astronomers looking at that region through a telescope can then see objects directly behind the massive object, due to the light being bent. A famous example of this is Einstein's Cross, a quasar in the constellation Pegasus : A galaxy roughly 400 million light-years away bends the light of the quasar so that it appears four times around the galaxy.

Black holes : In April 2019, the Event Horizon telescope showed the first-ever images of a black hole . The photos again confirmed several facets of general relativity, including not only that black holes exist, but also that they have a circular event horizon — a point at which nothing can escape, not even light.

To find the answers to frequently asked questions about Albert Einstein , visit The Nobel Prize website. Additionally, you can learn about The Einstein Memorial at the National Academy of Sciences building in Washington, D.C.  

Bibliography

"Einstein: The Life and Times". American Journal of Physics (1973). https://aapt.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1119/1

"On the brain of a scientist: Albert Einstein". Experimental Neurology (1985). https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3979509/

"The fascinating life and theory of Albert Einstein". Mih, W. C. Nova Publishers (2000).   https://books.google.co.uk/books

"Alterations in cortical thickness and neuronal density in the frontal cortex of Albert Einstein". Neuroscience Letters (1996). https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8805120/

"The cerebral cortex of Albert Einstein: a description and preliminary analysis of unpublished photographs". Brain, Volume 136, Issue 4 (2012). https://academic.oup.com/brain/article/136/4/1304/356614?login=true

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BOB EINSTEIN, EMMY-AWARD WINNING WRITER, PRODUCER, CREATOR OF SUPER DAVE OSBORNE AND CAST MEMBER OF CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM, DIES AT 76.

Bob Einstein, the Emmy-Award winning writer, comedian, actor and producer best known for creating unforgettable characters such as Super Dave Osborne and Officer Judy on “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour”, and giving life to Marty Funkhouser on HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm”, died on January 2, 2019, in Indian Wells, CA, shortly after being diagnosed with cancer. He was 76.

His career began in the late 1960s. One of his first jobs, as a writer, was on the “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour,” for which he won an Emmy Award in 1969. As the groundbreaking, popular show that blended the traditional variety show with extremely controversial political satire, it launched numerous comic legends including Mr. Einstein and his roommate and writing partner, Steve Martin. “Bob Einstein and I had become a solid workhorse writing team. When the Smothers Brothers ended, we continued to get jobs, including the The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour,” Steve Martin recounted in his 2008 book. They broke taboos, mocked President Nixon and the Smothers Brothers became the most popular show on TV and the first one to do anti-Vietnam War comedy, paving the way for future TV comedians.

He was born Stewart Robert Einstein in Los Angeles on November 20, 1942. His father was comedian Harry Einstein (aka “Parkyakarkus”) and his mother was actress, Thelma Leeds. His childhood was touched by tragedy when his father died of a heart attack, at the age of 54, just after a performance in 1958 at a roast for Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. When Milton Berle and other comics told jokes at his father’s funeral, the teenage Mr. Einstein decided he would never go into comedy.

Instead, he went to college and played basketball at Chapman University and then pursued a career in advertising. But when he did a TV performance on a local cable show for a friend, pretending to be the man who installed the stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, it caught the eye of Tom Smothers. After Mr. Smothers invited the 26-year old to the set, Einstein recalled how it transformed his life. “I go over and now I’m sitting and watching rehearsals and my mind is burning and all of sudden out of nowhere I want this, a bee has stung me in the back, and I want this.” From that day forward and for the next fifty years, Mr. Einstein would write, perform and produce acclaimed comedy television as he entertained audiences with his quick wit, deadpan delivery and signature gravelly voice.

Mr. Einstein’s most memorable character on the Smothers Brothers comedy show, Officer Judy, famously gave Liberace a speeding ticket for playing the piano too fast in a 1969 episode. “Tom Smothers made our life by giving us that,” Mr. Einstein said in 2017.

Audiences quickly fell for his larger-than-life character, Super Dave Osborne in the 1970s with his first appearance on the NBC variety show “Van Dyke and Company,” where Mr. Einstein was also a writer and producer. In 1976, he won a second Emmy Award for “Van Dyke and Company” and shared the award with Dick Van Dyke.

At 6-foot-4 with a distinctive voice and an unflappable daredevil parody, Super Dave, never met a stunt that didn’t backfire into a comedic spectacle. “I think what’s hysterically funny is a guy who sets himself up as the most confident, everything’s-perfect, know-it-all, things-are-swell human being and then gets wiped out every time,” Einstein said in a 1990 interview.

Einstein executive produced, wrote and appeared as Super Dave on numerous shows including the sketch comedy show, “Bizarre” from 1979 to 1985, on the self-titled “Super Dave” from 1987 to 1991 on Showtime, and most recently in 2009 on “Super Dave’s SpikeTacular, which were all produced with his long time partner, Allan Blye. From falling off Toronto’s CN Tower, to being crushed by a wrecking ball, to being swept off the top of a bus while singing “King of the Road,” Super Dave failed every stunt leaving the audience laughing the entire time.

His most recognizable character for contemporary audiences is Marty Funkhouser of Larry David’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” In 22 episodes over a 13-year span from 2004-2017, Mr. Einstein played Marty as a hilarious foil to Mr. David, never failing to make him laugh both on and off camera. In one iconic episode, Marty attends a rehearsal for a “Seinfeld” reunion special in which he tells Jerry Seinfeld a joke as off-color as it is unexpected. As much as he tries, Larry David cannot avoid cracking a smile.

In addition to the unforgettable shows and characters that Mr. Einstein created, he also appeared as a guest on numerous late night and comedy shows over five decades from 1967 to 2017: from “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” to “The Steve Allen Show” to “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson” (ten appearances) to “Late Night with David Letterman” (eight appearances), from numerous awards shows to the “Hollywood Squares” to “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” and from “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” to ”The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien.” And lastly, he was the only guest to appear twice on Jerry Seinfeld’s “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.” Mr. Einstein was a comedian’s comedian who made the funny men laugh and counted generations of comics as his friends.

Bob Einstein’s sharp comedic wit reached the highest court in the United States in 1976 when a Polish group objected to Mr. Einstein’s appearance on “The Dick Cavett Show.” In 1972, He had posed as the president of a fake Polish-Defamation League and told a series of offensive jokes. Four years later, the Supreme Court refused to hear the case, denying the request for an on-air rebuttal, ensuring that Mr. Einstein’s jokes would always stand alone — the consensus audiences have shared for decades.

Bob is survived by his wife and partner of over 40 years, Roberta Einstein, his daughter Erin Einstein Dale, son-in-law Andrew Dale and his beloved grandchildren Ethan and Zoe. He is also survived by his older brother, major advertising executive, Cliff Einstein, and his younger brother, comedian, writer and director Albert Brooks.

Donations can be made in Mr. Einstein’s memory to the Leukemia Lymphoma Society Bob Einstein Memorial

Two Books on Einstein and the World He Made

A lbert Einstein is one of the most written-about figures of the 20th century, and for good reason. His theories upended the system that physicists had used to describe the world since Newton. Along the way, he became a figure of public fascination—a true celebrity. Now two books further scrutinize different aspects of the man.

Samuel Graydon’s “Einstein in Time and Space” is not an exhaustive biography. Instead it presents 99 vignettes, most of them one to three pages long, that highlight key qualities of this complex person: the curious child, the rebellious student, the serial adulterer, the wily prankster, the loyal friend, the civil-rights defender, the intellect unsurpassed in his time. Mr. Graydon, the science editor at the Times Literary Supplement, has chosen his number of chapters in a playful homage to the atomic number of the element einsteinium.

Even if readers are familiar with these stories, Mr. Graydon’s approach often delivers a fresh take on episodes not strongly emphasized in other biographies. Here is Einstein the engineer patenting a unique refrigerator design and a hearing aid. There he is building a miniature cable car out of matchboxes for his young son Hans. “That was one of the nicest toys I had,” Hans later recalled.

As a correspondent, Einstein could be quite impish: “So, what are you up to, you frozen whale, you smoked, dried, canned piece of soul, or whatever else I would like to hurl at your head?” he once wrote to a friend. While starting his career in Bern, Switzerland, the young physicist formed a little club called the Olympia Academy with two friends to discuss science and philosophy. “Einstein, despite being the youngest,” writes Mr. Graydon, “was elected president, earning him the title ‘Albert Ritter von Steissbein’ (roughly, ‘Sir Albert, Knight of Backside’). A certificate was made up, featuring a drawing of a bust of Einstein beneath a string of sausages.”

Mr. Graydon’s stated goal is to point out “the inconsistencies inherent in a life, the inexplicable, incompatible, insane motivations that punctuate days and years.” The author notes how Einstein, a devoted pacifist, maintained a close friendship with the German chemist Fritz Haber, who pioneered the use of both chlorine and mustard gas during World War I. He observes that the deep thinker didn’t pass up the chance to party with the movie stars Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks when out in California.

The book also includes moments of quiet dignity, such as the story of the black contralto Marian Anderson, who had been invited in 1937 to give a concert at Princeton University but was denied a room at the local hotel due to her race. Einstein simply prepared a room for her at his home, an invitation that was extended from that day forward whenever she visited the town.

Mr. Graydon has woven from these separate strands a compelling and beautifully written narrative, though I have one caveat. In his acknowledgments, the author admits that he “lightly fictionalized” a few chapters about representative days at Einstein’s office. Given the wealth of material on hand, a summary of Einstein’s life hardly needs any false embellishments.

While “Einstein in Time and Space” primarily concentrates on Einstein’s personal experiences, Hanoch Gutfreund and Jürgen Renn’s “The Einsteinian Revolution” delves deeply into his science. Mr. Gutfreund, the academic director of the Albert Einstein Archives at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Mr. Renn, the director of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, have written extensively on Einstein and with this book take on a particular challenge: “to dispel the popular myth that Albert Einstein, the unconventional scientific genius, instigated an overwhelming scientific revolution through pure thought alone.” They succeed in that goal, along the way providing an excellent overview of Einstein’s major discoveries, from his early work on quantum theory to general relativity, the new law of gravity that overturned Newton. It is a welcome addition to any collection of books on modern physics.

A true understanding of Einstein’s accomplishments, they write, demands a revision of the legendary concept of the “paradigm shift.” The notion was introduced in 1962 by the historian of science Thomas Kuhn, who argued that a scientific revolution suddenly replaces a previous system of knowledge with a new one unconnected to the past. But Messrs. Gutfreund and Renn prefer to view Einstein’s work as an evolutionary process, where the new system is built upon the scientific scaffolding already in place.

In the late 19th century, that scaffolding was constructed around three dominant areas of physics: mechanics, thermodynamics and electromagnetism. Troubling puzzles were beginning to arise at the intersections between these fields, and many scientists attempted to find solutions within their own isolated specialties. But Einstein—with his deep reading of the scientific literature and the philosophy of science, his constant dialogues with scientific friends, and his careful attention to new experimental discoveries—stood above those boundaries, enabling him to perceive an entirely new vista.

The authors provide a detailed examination of Einstein’s annus mirabilis in 1905, when he recognized that light can act like a particle as well as a wave; proved that atoms exist; linked matter with energy in that celebrated equation E=mc2; and, with the special theory of relativity, swept away the idea that we live in a fixed space governed by a universal clock.

Before these discoveries, the authors note, the Dutch physicist Hendrik Lorentz had developed a mathematical scheme to explain the behavior of charged particles moving through the ether—the medium that supposedly permeates physical space to allow light to travel. Lorentz’s equations foresaw many of the phenomena later explained by special relativity. But his physical interpretation, complicated and full of assumptions, was still rooted in classical physics. Einstein jettisoned this kludge by doing away with the ether, recognizing that space and time are not absolute and declaring that the speed of light is a constant whether a body is stationary or in motion.

Einstein didn’t arrive at this solution in a single eureka moment. It was the result of deep reflection over the years, influenced by such philosophers as David Hume, who questioned the causal relations between events; Ernst Mach, who objected to Newton’s idea of absolute space; and Henri Poincaré, who early on noted the possible relativity of time. Einstein stood upon the shoulders of giants to gain his new perspective.

While “The Einsteinian Revolution” is written for a general audience, a background in physics helps make certain sections more accessible. Yet the authors’ overall thesis is clear and convincing. “The substance of Einstein’s work was not new,” they stress, “but rather was the result of an accumulation of knowledge over centuries; it was his conceptual organization that was new.” Their book, along with Mr. Graydon’s “Einstein in Time and Space,” enhances our understanding of both a great scientist and an exemplary humanist.

Ms. Bartusiak is a professor emeritus at MIT and the author of “Einstein’s Unfinished Symphony.”

Meet Jean Tatlock: The Woman Oppenheimer Loved

Before he became the father of the atomic bomb, Oppenheimer passionately loved a graduate student he met during his time as a physics professor.

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Her name was Jean Tatlock, and just as she captured the famed physicist’s heart, their romance has captured the imaginations of historians for nearly a century. And they aren’t the only ones. Tatlock was portrayed by Florence Pugh , alongside Cillian Murphy ’s Oppenheimer, in the 2023 film Oppenheimer , directed by Christopher Nolan . The movie won five Golden Globe Awards on Sunday, including Best Motion Picture - Drama, and is expected to garner several Oscar nominations later this month.

Watch Oppenheimer on Amazon Prime Video , Apple TV+ , or Vudu .

Affiliated with the Communist Party, Tatlock is often credited with introducing Oppenheimer to radical politics, something that haunted him in his later life and career. Despite their 10-year age gap, and though they were separated by the time he led the famous Manhattan Project, Tatlock had an undeniable impact on Oppenheimer’s life, and her tragic death weighed on him as he began his work on the atomic bomb.

“A free-spirited woman with a hungry, poetic mind, she was always the one person in the room, whatever the circumstances, who remained unforgettable,” according to American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin.

Meeting Oppenheimer

Born in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1914, Tatlock was the second child of J.S.P. Tatlock and Marjorie Fenton. Her father, who had a docorate from Harvard University, was an acclaimed English professor and literary scholar and was considered a foremost expert on the works of Geoffrey Chaucer , according to Brotherhood of the Bomb by Gregg Herken.

Jean inherited her father’s intellect. Before attending Vassar College in 1931, she took a year off to travel in Europe, staying with a friend in Switzerland who was a devoted follower of psychologist Carl Jung . After meeting a close-knit community of psychoanalysts during the trip, she decided to study psychology herself, according to Bird and Sherwin.

After graduating from Vassar in 1935, she studied at the Stanford Medical School, where her intellect and good looks intimidated the other classmates. They also caught the interest of Oppenheimer, then a physics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, where Tatlock completed her prerequisites before enrolling at Stanford.

Oppenheimer and Tatlock began a passionate and intense romance in 1936, when she was 22 and he was 32. The decade age gap didn’t seem to matter. A friend described Tatlock as Oppenheimer’s “truest love” and said he was “devoted to her,” according to Bird and Sherwin. He reportedly proposed to Tatlock twice, though she turned him down.

Tatlock was impressed with Oppenheimer’s knowledge of English literature, and she introduced him to the poetry of John Donne . It’s widely believed the Trinity test—the first detonation of the nuclear weapon in 1945—was named after a Donne poem and inspired by Tatlock, according to The First Atomic Bomb by Janet Farrell Brodie.

Communist Affiliations

Tatlock was a dues-paying member of the Communist Party of the United States of America while dating Oppenheimer, an association that would later bring a great deal of scrutiny to the famed physicist. Tatlock wrote for the Western Worker , a major West Coast communist publication, and she introduced him to several prominent members of the party, according to Robert Oppenheimer: A Life Inside the Center by Ray Monk.

“I find I am a complete Red when anything at all,” Tatlock wrote to a friend, according to American Prometheus . She also pushed Oppenheimer to move from mere theory to action, and when he commented that he would have to settle for staying on the periphery of political struggles, Tatlock remarked, “Oh, for God’s sake, don’t settle for anything.”

However, Oppenheimer denied that Tatlock was solely responsible for his political interests or affiliations, noting that he first read about Soviet communism after his father lent him a book on the subject before he met Tatlock. According to Bird and Sherwin’s American Prometheus , Oppenheimer described Tatlock’s communist involvement as “on-again, off-again affairs and never seemed to provide for her what she was seeking. I do not believe that her interests were really political.”

From 1939 onward, Oppenheimer claimed he only saw Tatlock on rare occasions, and in 1940, he wed Katherine Puening, more commonly known as Kitty Oppenheimer, to whom he was married the rest of his life. However, he and Tatlock remained “the closest of friends and occasional lovers,” according to Bird and Sherwin, and she would phone him for comfort during her occasional bouts of depression.

By 1943, Tatlock was a pediatric psychiatrist at Mount Zion Hospital in San Francisco, at the start of what seemed to be a promising career. The 29-year-old was also being treated for clinical depression, which might have worsened when Oppenheimer drastically reduced contact with her after becoming director of the Los Alamos Laboratory that year, according to Bird and Sherwin.

A Tragic Death

Tatlock was placed under surveillance by the FBI due to her relationship with Oppenheimer and past involvement with communist politics. When Tatlock and Oppenheimer had one last meeting in June 1943, she confessed that she still loved him and wanted to be with him. Unbeknownst to her, FBI agents monitored the entire visit, according to Monk’s biography.

“For reasons of love and compassion, he had become a key member of Jean’s psychological support structure—and then he had vanished, mysteriously,” Bird and Sherwin wrote in American Prometheus . “In Jean’s eyes, it may have seemed as if ambition had trumped love.”

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Tatlock died by suicide on January 4, 1944, at age 29. Her father discovered her body after entering her San Francisco apartment through a window after she didn’t respond to the doorbell. He found her lying in the bathroom, her head submerged in a partially-filled bathtub, with a suicide note on the dining room table, according to Monk.

“I am disgusted with everything,” the note read, according to Bird and Sherwin. “To those who loved me and helped me, all love and courage. I wanted to live and to give and I got paralyzed somehow. I tried like hell to understand and couldn’t.”

One of the first people to learn of her death was FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover , due to the agency’s surveillance, according to Monk. Oppenheimer was despondent upon hearing the news. Due to the unusual circumstances around her death and the FBI surveillance, many have speculated that Tatlock was murdered , but most of her loved ones believe the cause of death was suicide.

Tatlock’s relationship with Oppenheimer was used as evidence against him in 1954, when the United States Atomic Energy Commission held security hearings that explored his communist associations and other past actions. Oppenheimer lost his security clearance as a result of the hearing, effectively ending his formal relationship with the U.S. government.

Stream Oppenheimer Now

Oppenheimer is directed and written by Christopher Nolan . Cillian Murphy stars as J. Robert Oppenheimer , with Florence Pugh tackling the role of Jean Tatolock. Other cast members include Emily Blunt , Matt Damon , Robert Downey Jr. , Rami Malek , Josh Hartnett, Casey Affleck, and Kenneth Branagh.

You can rent or purchase the movie on Prime Video , Apple TV+ , and other major streaming platforms.

Colin McEvoy joined the Biography.com staff in 2023, and before that had spent 16 years as a journalist, writer, and communications professional. He is the author of two true crime books: Love Me or Else and Fatal Jealousy . He is also an avid film buff, reader, and lover of great stories.

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