Albert Einstein

theoretical physicist

Ethics and religion: Einstein declared himself an agnostic, and sometimes declared himself an atheist, although some historians deny this. On one occasion, at a meeting, Einstein was asked whether or not he believed in a god, to which he replied: "I believe in Spinoza's god, which is identical with the mathematical order of the Universe." He said that he believed in the "pantheistic" God of Baruch Spinoza, but not in a personal god, a belief that he criticized. Einstein distinguishes three styles that often intermingle in the practice of religion. The first is motivated by fear and a misunderstanding of causality, therefore it tends to invent supernatural beings. The second is social and moral, motivated by the desire for support and love. Both have an anthropomorphic concept of God. The third - which Einstein considers the most mature - is motivated by a sense of wonder at Nature.

mathematical

Childhood:He was born in the German city of Ulm, one hundred kilometres east of Stuttgart, to a Jewish family. His parents were Hermann Einstein and Pauline Koch. Hermann and Pauline had married in 1876, when Hermann was almost twenty-nine and she was eighteen. Pauline's family lived near Stuttgart, specifically in the city of Cannstatt, where her father, Julius Koch, operated a very successful grain business with his brother Heinrich. Pauline played the piano and passed on to her son her love of music, among other qualities such as her "perseverance and patience". From her father, Hermann, she also inherited certain characteristics such as generosity and kindness that characterized Albert. In 1880 the family moved to Munich, where he would grow up for fourteen years, and in October her father and his brother, Jakob, who had an intellectual influence on Albert, founded a company dedicated to the installation of water and gas. As the business was going well, with the support of the whole family they decided to open their own electrical workshop (Elektrotechnische Fabrik J. Einstein & Cie.), which supplied power stations in Munich-Schwabing, Varese and Susa in Italy. The workshop failed, putting the whole family in debt. This caused trauma not only to Albert but also to the rest of the family. In order to pay off the debts and finance the move, the beloved garden of the Munich house was sold to a property developer. From the beginning, he showed some difficulty in expressing himself, as he did not begin to speak until the age of three, so he appeared to have a certain delay that caused him some problems. Unlike his younger sister Maya, who was more lively and cheerful, Albert was patient and methodical and did not like to show off. He tended to avoid the company of other children of his age and although, as children, they also had their differences from time to time, he only allowed his sister to be alone.

diplomatic

youth:Thus, the Einstein family tried to enroll Albert in the Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich, but, as he did not have a high school diploma, he had to sit an entrance exam, which he failed due to a poor grade in a subject in the arts. This meant that he was initially rejected, but the director of the school, impressed by his results in science, advised him to continue his high school studies and obtain the degree that would give him direct access to the Polytechnic. His family sent him to Aarau to complete his secondary education at the cantonal school of Aargau, some 50 km west of Zurich, where Einstein obtained the German high school diploma in 1896, at the age of sixteen. That same year he renounced his German citizenship, presumably to avoid military service, becoming stateless. He began the process of becoming a naturalized Swiss citizen. In late 1896, at the age of seventeen, Einstein entered the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, probably the most important centre in Central Europe for studying science outside Germany, enrolling in the School of Mathematics and Science, with the idea of ​​studying physics. During his years in politically vibrant Zurich, he discovered the work of various philosophers: Henri Poincaré, Baruch Spinoza, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Karl Marx and Ernst Mach. He also came into contact with the socialist movement through Friedrich Adler and with a certain nonconformist and revolutionary thinking in which his lifelong friend Michele Besso had a lot to do.

teacher

Maturity:In 1908, at the age of twenty-nine, he was appointed to the University of Bern, Switzerland, as a professor and lecturer (privatdozent). Einstein and Mileva had another son, Eduard, born on 28 July 1910. Shortly afterwards the family moved to Prague, where Einstein obtained a position as professor of theoretical physics, the equivalent of full professor, at the German University of Prague, having to adopt Austrian nationality in order to take up the post. During this time he worked closely with Marcel Grossmann and Otto Stern. He also began to call mathematical time the "fourth dimension". In 1913, just before the First World War, he was elected a member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences. He took up residence in Berlin, where he remained for seventeen years. Emperor Wilhelm invited him to head the physics section of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics. On 14 February 1919, at the age of thirty-nine, he divorced Mileva after a marriage of sixteen years, and a few months later, on 2 June 1919, he married a cousin, Elsa Loewenthal, whose maiden name was Einstein; Loewenthal was the surname of her first husband, Max Loewenthal. Elsa was three years his senior and had been caring for him after suffering from severe exhaustion. Einstein and Elsa had no children. The fate of Albert and Mileva's daughter, Lieserl, born before her parents married or found work, is unknown. Of their two sons, the first, Hans Albert, moved to California, where he became a university professor, although with little interaction with his father; the second, Eduard, suffered from schizophrenia and was admitted in 1932 to an institution for the treatment of mental illness in Zurich. He was the first of many admissions. Einstein wanted to take his sick son to Princeton, but the US embassy would not admit him because of his poor background. Eduard died in the psychiatric hospital in 1965.

.

Occupation: Theoretical physicist, mathematician, diplomat and professor Nationality: German Empire (until 1896), Stateless (1896-1901), Swiss (since 1901), Austro-Hungarian (1911-1912), German (1918-1933), American (since 1940) Mother tongue: German religion: none Area: Quantum physics Member of:Royal Society,Prussian Academy of Sciences,German Academy of Natural Sciences,Leopoldina,National Academy of Lynx,American Philosophical Society,Bavarian Academy of Sciences,Göttingen Academy of Sciences,Soviet Academy of Sciences,French Academy of Sciences,Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences,Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences,American Academy of Arts and Sciences,National Academy of Sciences of the United States Distinctions:Nobel Prize in Physics (1921)

.

History:In 1905, as an unknown young physicist working at the Bern Patent Office, he published his theory of special relativity. In it, he incorporated, within a simple theoretical framework based on straightforward physical postulates, concepts and phenomena previously studied by Henri Poincaré and Hendrik Lorentz. As a logical consequence of this theory, he deduced the most popular physics equation: mass-energy equivalence, E=mc². That year, he published other works that would lay some of the foundations of statistical physics and quantum mechanics. In 1915, he presented the theory of general relativity, in which he completely reformulated the concept of gravity. One of the consequences was the emergence of the scientific study of the origin and evolution of the universe by the branch of physics called cosmology. In 1919, when British observations of a solar eclipse confirmed his predictions about the bending of light, he was idolised by the press. Einstein became a world-famous popular icon of science, a privilege available to very few scientists. For his explanations of the photoelectric effect and his numerous contributions to theoretical physics, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921, but not for the Theory of Relativity, since the scientist who was entrusted with the task of evaluating it did not understand it, and they feared the risk of it being proven wrong. At that time, it was still considered somewhat controversial. Faced with the rise of Nazism, Einstein left Germany in December 1932 for the United States, where he taught at the Institute for Advanced Study. He became an American citizen in 1940. During his later years, he worked to integrate gravitational and electromagnetic forces into a single theory.