Albert Einstein was a German theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity. He is generally considered the most influential physicist of the 20th century. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics.
Early life
Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, at the time a part of German Empire, on March 14, 1879. He was a son to Hermann Einstein and Pauline Einstein (née Koch). In 1880, the family moved to Munich. In 1894, his father’s company failed and in search of better life the Einstein family moved to Italy, initially to Milan but than to Pavia.
Education
Albert attended a Catholic elementary school from the age of five for three years. Einstein was later transferred to the Luitpold Gymnasium where he received advanced primary and secondary school education.
Einstein applied for entrance exams at Swiss Federal Polytechnic in Zurich but failed at several required subjects. After a deep conversation with the Principal of the Polytechnic, Einstein attended the Argau Cantonal School in Aarau, Switzerland where he completed his secondary schooling. At the age of 17, Einstein enrolled in the four year mathematics and physics teaching diploma program at ETH Zurich. Einstein was awarded a PhD by the University of Zurich for his dissertation entitled “A New Determination of Molecular Dimensions”
Achievements
It is extremely ungrateful to try to fully apprehend the array of achievements of Albert Einstein due to complexity of his work and also quantity. Therefore we will only consider few of the more important and also interesting.
Theory of relativity
Einstein’s “Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper” (“On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies”) was received on 30 June 1905 and published 26 September of that same year. It reconciles Maxwell’s equations for electricity and magnetism with the laws of mechanics, by introducing major changes to mechanics close to the speed of light. This later became known as Einstein’s special theory of relativity.
Due to his research paper based on electrodynamics an idea of time-space frame of a moving body appearing to slow down and contract when measured in the frame of the observer appeared. In his paper regarding mass-energy equivalence, Einstein produced the famous E=mc2 from his special relativity equation.
Quantum theory of light
Einstein created the quantum theory of light, the idea that light exists as tiny packets, or particles, which he called photons. Alongside Max Planck’s work on quanta of heat Einstein proposed one of the most shocking idea in twentieth century physics: we live in a quantum universe, one built out of tiny, discrete chunks of energy and matter.
Unified field theory
Following his research on general relativity, Einstein entered into a series of attempts to generalize his geometric theory of gravitation to include electromagnetism as another aspect of a single entity. In 1950, he described his “unified field theory” in a Scientific American article entitled “On the Generalized Theory of Gravitation” in an effort to unify other laws of physics with gravity.
Wormholes
During his research Einstein collaborated with others to produce a model of a wormhole. His motivation was to model elementary particles with charge as a solution of gravitational field equations. These solutions cut and pasted Schwarzschild black holes to make a bridge between two patches.
Later life
On 17 April 1955, Albert Einstein experienced internal bleeding caused by the rupture of an abdominal aortic aneurysm, He died in Princeton Hospital early the next morning at the age of 76.
Albert Einstein Quotes
- “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
- “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science.”
- “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex… It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.”
- “I don’t believe in mathematics.”
- “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
- “Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.”