Albert Einstein

"Einstein" redirects here. For other uses, see Einstein (disambiguation).

Albert Einstein
Photographed by Oren J. Turner (1947)
Born	March 14, 1879 Ulm, Württemberg, Germany
Died	April 18, 1955 Princeton, New Jersey
Citizenship	German (1879-96, 1914-33) Swiss (1901-55) American (1940-55)
Alma mater	ETH Zürich
Known for	General relativity Special relativity Brownian motion Photoelectric effect E=mc² Einstein field equations Unified Field Theory Bose–Einstein statistics EPR paradox
Awards	File:Nobel.svg Nobel Prize in Physics (1921) Copley Medal (1925) Max Planck medal (1929)
Scientific career
Fields	Physics
Institutions	Swiss Patent Office (Berne) Univ. of Zürich Charles Univ. Kaiser Wilhelm Inst. Univ. of Leiden Inst. for Advanced Study

Albert Einstein () (March 14, 1879 – April 18, 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is widely considered to have been one of the greatest physicists of all time. While best known for the theory of relativity (and specifically mass-energy equivalence, E=mc²), he was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics “for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect.” In popular culture, the name "Einstein" has become synonymous with genius. In 1999 Einstein was named Time magazine's "Person of the Century".

Einstein's many contributions include his special theory of relativity which stemmed from an attempt to reconcile mechanics with electromagnetism and his general theory of relativity which extended the principle of relativity to include gravitation. Other scientific investigations include relativistic cosmology, capillary action, critical opalescence, classical problems of statistical mechanics and also problems in which they were merged with quantum theory, an explanation of the Brownian movement of molecules; atomic transition probabilities, the probabilistic interpretation of quantum theory, the quantum theory of a monatomic gas, the thermal properties of light with low radiation density which laid the foundation for the photon theory of light, the theory of radiation, including stimulated emission; the construction of a unified field theory, and the geometrization of physics.

Biography

Youth

File:Young Albert Einstein.jpg

Young Albert before the Einsteins moved from Germany to Italy.

Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879 into a Jewish family in Ulm, Württemberg, Germany. His father was Hermann Einstein, a salesman. His mother was Pauline Einstein, née Koch.

It is said that at Albert's birth his mother was frightened by his large, oddly shaped head. Though the size of his head appeared less remarkable as he grew older, it is evident from photographs that his head was disproportionately large throughout his life, a trait termed "benign macrocephaly". His parents also worried about his intellectual development because of his initial language delay (see the Speculation and Controversy section below) and speech difficulties until the age of nine, although he was a top student in elementary school.

In 1880 the family moved to Munich where his father and his uncle founded a company manufacturing electrical equipment (Elektrotechnische Fabrik J. Einstein & Cie). This company provided the first lighting for the Oktoberfest and cabling for the suburb of Schwabing. The Einstein family was not strictly observant, and Albert attended a Catholic elementary school. At his mother's insistence he took violin lessons, and although he disliked them and eventually quit he would later take great pleasure in Mozart's violin sonatas.

When Albert was five, his father showed him a pocket compass. Albert saw that there was something in empty space that was moving the needle. He described the experience as one of the most revelatory of his life. As he grew older he built models and mechanical devices for fun, and began to show a talent for mathematics.
In 1889 a family friend named Max Talmud, a medical student, introduced the ten-year-old Albert to key science and philosophy texts, including Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. At the age of twelve, Albert learned Euclidean geometry from a booklet and soon began to investigate calculus. Talmud gave him a copy of Euclid's Elements, which Einstein called the "holy little geometry book". From Euclid Albert realized the power of deductive reasoning

In his early teens Albert attended the new and relatively progressive Luitpold Gymnasium. His father intended for him to pursue electrical engineering but Albert clashed with authorities and resented the school regimen, believing that the spirit of learning and creative thought were lost in strict rote learning.
In 1894, when Einstein was fifteen, his father's business failed and the Einstein family moved to Italy, first to Milan and then after a few months to Pavia. During this time Albert wrote his first "scientific" work, "The Investigation of the State of Aether in Magnetic Fields", for his uncle. Albert had been left behind in Munich to finish high school but in the spring of 1895 he withdrew, convincing the school to let him go by using a doctor's note, to join his family in Pavia.
Rather than completing high school Albert decided to apply directly to the Federal Polytechnic Institute in Zurich in 1895. Without a school certificate he was required to take an entrance examination. He did not pass. Einstein wrote that it was in that same year, at age 16, that he first performed his famous thought experiment, visualizing travelling alongside a beam of light.

The Einsteins sent Albert to Aarau, Switzerland to finish secondary school. While lodging with the family of Professor Jost Winteler, he fell in love with the family's daughter, Sofia Marie-Jeanne Amanda Winteler, called "Marie". (Albert's sister, Maja, his confidant, later married Paul Winteler.) In Aarau Albert studied Maxwell's electromagnetic theory. In 1896 he graduated at age 17, renounced German citizenship to avoid military service, and finally enrolled in the mathematics program at the Federal Polytechnic Institute in Zurich. Marie moved to Olsberg, Switzerland for a teaching post.

In 1896, a young woman named Mileva Marić also enrolled at the Federal Polytechnic Institute, the only woman studying Mathematics. During the next few years, Einstein and Marić's relationship developed into romance. Einstein's mother objected because she thought Marić too old, of the wrong religion and "physically defective". Einstein and Marić had a daughter, Lieserl Einstein, born in January 1902. Her fate is unknown.

In 1900, Einstein was granted a teaching diploma by the Federal Polytechnic Institute. His friend Michele Besso, whom Einstein referred to as "the best sounding board in Europe", introduced him to the work of Ernst Mach. In that same year Einstein published a paper, titled "Consequences of the observations of capillarity phenomena" ("Folgerungen aus den Capillaritätserscheinungen"), on the capillary forces of a straw. Even in this first paper his quest for a unified physical law is apparent, a problem that intrigued him throughout his life.

The patent office

Einstein in 1905, when he wrote the "Annus Mirabilis Papers"

Einstein could not find a teaching post upon graduation, apparently because his brashness had irritated his professors. A classmate's father helped him get a job as an assistant examiner at the Swiss Patent Office in Bern in 1902. The young Einstein's responsibility was to evaluate patent applications for electromagnetic devices. He learned to discern the essence of applications despite the applicants' sometimes poor descriptions, and the director taught him "to express [him]self correctly". He occasionally corrected design errors while evaluating patent applications.

Michele Besso, Einstein's friend from Zurich, had also taken a job at the Bern patent office. With Besso and two friends he met in Bern Einstein formed a discussion club on science and philosophy, jokingly named "The Olympia Academy". Their readings included Poincaré, Mach and Hume.

Einstein married Mileva Marić on January 6, 1903. Their marriage was, for their time, a personal and intellectual partnership: Einstein referred to Mileva as "a creature who is my equal and who is as strong and independent as I am." The extent of Marić's influence on Einstein's work is debated. Ronald W. Clark, one of Einstein's biographers, has written that Einstein depended on intellectual isolation to work. However, in his obituary Ukrainian physicist Abram Joffe wrote: "The author of [the papers of 1905] was...a bureaucrat at the Patent Office in Bern, Einstein-Marić..." which has been taken as evidence of a collaborative relationship.
In 1903, Einstein's position at the Swiss Patent Office was made permanent, although he was passed over for promotion until he "fully mastered machine technology".

On May 14, 1904, Albert and Mileva's first son, Hans Albert Einstein, was born. Their second son, Eduard Einstein, was born on July 28, 1910. In 1914 Mileva took the children back to Zurich to establish a permanent home.

The Annus Mirabilis Papers

As a 26-year-old doctoral candidate studying under Alfred Kleiner at the University of Zurich, Einstein published four papers in the journal "Annalen der Physik". The topics of the "Annus Mirabilis Papers" were the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, special relativity and the equivalence of matter and energy:

"On a Heuristic Viewpoint Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light"

"On the Motion Required by the Molecular Kinetic Theory of Heat of Small Particles Suspended in a Stationary Liquid"

"On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies"

"Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?"

In 1905 Einstein was awarded a doctorate degree after submitting his thesis "A new determination of molecular dimensions" ("Eine neue Bestimmung der Moleküldimensionen").

Middle years

In 1906, the Federal Office for Intellectual Property promoted Einstein to Technical Examiner Second Class, but he had not given up on a career in academia. In 1908 Einstein became a Privatdozent, and in the interval he wrote a paper on critical opalescence that described the cumulative effect of light scattered by individual molecules in the atmosphere, i.e. why the sky is blue.

In 1911 Einstein was made an associate professor at the Universität Zürich, however shortly afterward he accepted a full professorship at the Univerzita Karlova in Prague, Czechloslovakia. While in Prague, Einstein published a paper calling for astronomers to test two predictions of his developing theory of relativity: a bending of light in a gravitational field (measurable during a solar eclipse); and a redshift of solar spectral lines relative to spectral lines produced on Earth's surface. A young German astronomer, Erwin Freundlich, worked with Einstein and helped make astronomers around the world aware of Einstein's challenge.
In 1912, Einstein returned to Zurich, accepting a professorship at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich. He worked closely with the mathematician Marcel Grossmann, who introduced him to Riemannian geometry, and at the urging of Tullio Levi-Civita, Einstein began exploring the usefulness of general covariance, essentially the use of tensors, for his gravitational theory. It was at this time that Einstein began to refer to time as the fourth dimension (as H.G. Wells had done in his 1895 novel The Time Machine).

In 1914, just before the start of World War I, Einstein settled in Berlin as a professor at the Universität unter den Linden where he became a member of the Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften, and regained his German citizenship. From 1914 to 1933, he was director of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft for physics. He also held the position of buitengewoon hoogleraar at the Netherlands' Universiteit Leiden from 1920 until 1946, where he regularly lectured.

General Relativity

See also: History of general relativity

"Einstein theory triumphs," declared the New York Times on November 10 1919.

In November of 1915 Einstein presented a lecture series before the Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften on his new theory of gravity, general relativity. The series concluded boldly with an equation that Einstein proposed should replace Newton's law of gravity.
There was a strong priority dispute over what has come to be called "the Einstein field equation" from the renowned German mathematician David Hilbert, who had published an identical equation in an article dated five days before Einstein's lecture. However, according to Thorne , Hilbert had discovered the derivation after "mulling over things he had learned" during a visit Einstein had made to the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen.

In 1914 Europe had erupted into war, and even scientific communications were subject to national boundaries. The speeches and publications of Central Powers scientists were only available to Central Powers academics for national security reasons. Einstein's work reached the UK and the USA by the efforts of the Austrian Paul Ehrenfest and physicists in the Netherlands, especially 1902 Nobel Prize-winner Hendrik Lorentz and Willem de Sitter of the Universiteit Leiden.

It was not until 1917 that astronomers began to take Einstein up on his 1911 challenge from Prague, to test his prediction that gravity would be shown to affect the behavior of light. In 1917 the Mount Wilson Observatory in California, USA, published a solar spectroscopic analysis that showed no gravitational redshift. In 1918 astronomers of the Lick Observatory, also in California, announced that they too had disproven Einstein's predictions, although their findings were never published.
However, in May of 1919, a team led by British astonomer Arthur Eddington recorded what Eddington claimed to be gravitational lensing while photographing a solar eclipse in Ceará, Brazil and Principe. On November 7, 1919, leading British newspaper The Times printed the headline: "Revolution in science – New theory of the Universe – Newtonian ideas overthrown". The Times interviewed Nobel laureate Max Born, who called General Relativity the "greatest feat of human thinking about nature"; and fellow laureate Paul Dirac was quoted saying "probably the greatest scientific discovery ever made". The publicity that followed turned Albert Einstein into a rock star. Ironically, later examinations of the photographs taken on that expedition showed that their "give or take" value was just about the same as the size of the effect Eddington claimed to have demonstrated. The light deflection has, however, been more accurately confirmed by a number of later observations.

In 1917, Einstein published "On the Quantum Mechanics of Radiation" ("Zur Quantentheorie der Strahlung," Physkalische Zeitschrift 18, 121–128). This article introduced the possibility of stimulated emission, the physical technique that allows light amplification in the laser. He also published a paper that applied the general theory of relativity to the behavior of the entire universe, setting the stage for modern cosmology. In this work Einstein presented the cosmological constant which he later called his "biggest blunder".

After a separation of five years, Einstein divorced Mileva on February 14, 1919. He married Elsa Löwenthal, who had nursed him through an illness, on June 2, 1919. Elsa was Albert's first cousin (maternally) and his second cousin (paternally). Together the Einsteins raised Elsa's two daughters from her first marriage.

The Nobel Prize

Einstein, 1921

In 1921 Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics for his 16-years-old paper on the photoelectric effect: "On a Heuristic Viewpoint Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light". The photoelectric effect paper alone was supported by the experimental evidence of 1921, but the Nobel committee expressed the opinion that in due course all of Einstein's work would be confirmed.
Some regard the Nobel Prize for the photoelectric effect ironic, not only because Einstein established himself with his work on relativity, but also because the photoelectric effect is a quantum phenomenon and Einstein was to grow disenchanted with the path quantum theory would take.
Today Einstein's four 1905 publications are considered as a group and called the Annus Mirabilis Papers. (Annus mirabilis is Latin for 'year of wonders'.) The International Union of Pure and Applied Physics named 2005 the World Year of Physics in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of this work.

On April 2, 1921, Einstein travelled to New York City in the United States of America for the first time.

See also: History of special relativity

Copenhagen interpretation

See also: Bohr-Einstein debates

Einstein and Niels Bohr sparred over quantum mechanics during the 1920s. Photo taken by Paul Ehrenfest during their visit to Leiden in December 1925.

During 1909, Einstein presented a paper "The Development of Our Views on the Composition and Essence of Radiation" ("Über die Entwicklung unserer Anschauungen über das Wesen und die Konstitution der Strahlung") on the history of luminiferous aether and, more importantly, on the quantization of light. In this and an earlier 1909 paper, Einstein showed that the energy quanta introduced by Max Planck also carried a well-defined momentum and acted in many respects as if they were independent, point-like particles. This paper marks the introduction of the modern "photon" concept (although the term itself was introduced much later, in a 1926 paper by Gilbert N. Lewis). Even more importantly, Einstein showed that light must be simultaneously a wave and a particle, a revolutionary idea at the time. However, his own proposal for a solution - that Maxwell's equations for electromagnetic fields be modified to allow wave solutions that are bound to singularities of the field - was never developed, although it may have influenced Louis de Broglie's pilot wave hypothesis for quantum mechanics.

Determinism

Beginning in the mid-1920s, as the original quantum theory was replaced with a new theory of quantum mechanics, Einstein voiced his objections to the Copenhagen interpretation of the new equations. His opposition in this regard would continue all his life. In a 1926 letter to Max Born, Einstein made the following remark:

Quantum mechanics is certainly imposing. But an inner voice tells me it is not yet the real thing. The theory says a lot, but does not really bring us any closer to the secret of the Old One. I, at any rate, am convinced that He does not throw dice.

To this, Bohr, who sparred with Einstein on quantum theory, retorted, "Stop telling God what He must do!" Einstein's deterministic point of view is manifested in the 1935 EPR paradox.

There is a case to be made, however, for a quite different view of Einstein's objections to quantum orthodoxy. An emphatic comment on the matter was made by his contemporary Wolfgang Pauli.

…I was unable to recognize Einstein whenever you talked about him in either your letter or your manuscript. It seemed to me as if you had erected some dummy Einstein for yourself, which you then knocked down with great pomp. In particular Einstein does not consider the concept of 'determinism' to be as fundamental as it is frequently held to be (as he told me emphatically many times) …he disputes that he uses as a criterion for the admissibility of a theory the question "Is it rigorously deterministic?"… he was not at all annoyed with you, but only said that you were a person who will not listen.

Incompleteness and Realism

Many of Einstein's comments indicate a belief that quantum mechanics is 'incomplete'. This was first asserted in the famous 1935 Einstein, Podolsky, Rosen (EPR paradox) paper, and it appears again in the 1949 book Albert Einstein, Philosopher-Scientist. The "EPR" paper — entitled "Can Quantum Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be Considered Complete?" — concluded: "While we have thus shown that the wave function does not provide a complete description of the physical reality, we left open the question of whether or not such a description exists. We believe, however, that such a theory is possible."

Einstein proposed an experiment somewhat similar to Schrödinger's cat. He began by addressing the problem of the radioactive decay of an atom:

Rather than considering a system which comprises only a radioactive atom (and its process of transformation), one considers a system which includes also the means for ascertaining the radioactive transformation — for example, a Geiger-counter with automatic registration mechanism. Let this include a registration-strip, moved by a clockwork, upon which a mark is made by tripping the counter. True, from the point of view of quantum mechanics this total system is very complex and its configuration space is of very high dimension. But there is in principle no objection to treating this entire system from the standpoint of quantum mechanics. Here too the theory determines the probability of each configuration of all coordinates for every time instant. If one considers all configurations of the coordinates, for a time large compared with the average decay time of the radioactive atom, there will be (at most) one such registration-mark on the paper strip. To each co-ordinate- configuration must correspond a definite position of the mark on the paper strip. But, inasmuch as the theory yields only the relative probability of the thinkable coordinate-configurations, it also offers only relative probabilities for the positions of the mark on the paperstrip, but no definite location for this mark.

Einstein continues:

If we attempt [to work with] the interpretation that the quantum-theoretical description is to be understood as a complete description of the individual system, we are forced to the interpretation that the location of the mark on the strip is nothing which belongs to the system per se, but that the existence of that location is essentially dependent upon the carrying out of an observation made on the registration-strip. Such an interpretation is certainly by no means absurd from a purely logical point of standpoint; yet there is hardly anyone who would be inclined to consider it seriously. For, in the macroscopic sphere it simply is considered certain that one must adhere to the program of a realistic description in space and time; whereas in the sphere of microscopic situations, one is more readily inclined to give up, or at least to modify, this program.
(emphasis due to Einstein)

Einstein never rejected probabilistic techniques and thinking, in and of themselves. Einstein himself was a great statistician, using statistical analysis in his works on Brownian motion and photoelectricity and in papers published before 1905; Einstein had even discovered Gibbs ensembles. According to the majority of physicists, however, he believed that indeterminism constituted a criteria for strong objection to a physical theory. Pauli's testimony contradicts this, and Einstein's own statements indicate a focus on incompleteness, as his major concern.

Bose–Einstein statistics

In 1924, Einstein received a short paper from a young Indian physicist named Satyendra Nath Bose describing light as a gas of photons and asking for Einstein's assistance in publication. Einstein realized that the same statistics could be applied to atoms, and published an article in German (then the lingua franca of physics) which described Bose's model and explained its implications. Bose–Einstein statistics now describe any assembly of these indistinguishable particles known as bosons. The Bose–Einstein condensate phenomenon was predicted in the 1920s by Bose and Einstein, based on Bose's work on the statistical mechanics of photons, which was then formalized and generalized by Einstein. The first such condensate in alkali gases was produced by Eric Cornell and Carl Wieman in 1995 at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Einstein's original sketches on this theory were recovered in August 2005 in the library of Leiden University.

Einstein also assisted Erwin Schrödinger in the development of the Boltzmann distribution, a mixed classical and quantum mechanical gas model although he realized that this was less significant than the Bose–Einstein model and declined to have his name included on the paper.

Einstein refrigerator

In 1926, Einstein and former student Leó Szilárd co-invented the Einstein refrigerator. The patent covered a thermodynamic refrigeration cycle providing cooling with no moving parts, at a constant pressure, with only heat as an input.

Max Planck presents Einstein with the Max-Planck medal, Berlin June 28 1929

World War II

When Adolf Hitler came to power in January 1933, Einstein was a guest professor at Princeton University, a position which he took in December 1932, after an invitation from the American educator, Abraham Flexner. In 1933, the Nazis passed "The Law of the Restoration of the Civil Service," which forced all Jewish university professors out of their jobs. Throughout the 1930s, a campaign to label Einstein's work as "Jewish physics"-in contrast with "German" or "Aryan physics"-was led by Nobel laureates Philipp Lenard and Johannes Stark. With the assistance of the SS, the Deutsche Physik supporters worked to publish pamphlets and textbooks denigrating Einstein's theories and attempted to politically blacklist German physicists who taught them, notably Werner Heisenberg. Einstein renounced his German citizenship and stayed in the United States, where he was given permanent residency. He accepted a position at the newly founded Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, where he concentrated on developing a unified field theory (see below). Einstein became an American citizen in 1940, though he still retained Swiss citizenship.

In 1939, under the encouragement of Szilárd, Einstein sent a letter to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt urging the study of nuclear fission for military purposes, under fears that the Nazi government would be first to develop nuclear weapons. Roosevelt started a small investigation into the matter which eventually became the massive Manhattan Project. Einstein did not work on the bomb project, and, according to Linus Pauling, he later regretted having signed this letter.

The International Rescue Committee was founded in 1933 at the request of Albert Einstein to assist opponents of Adolf Hitler.

For more information, see the section below on Einstein's Political views.

Unified field theory

Main article: classical unified field theories

Einstein's research efforts after developing the theory of general relativity consisted primarily of a long series of attempts to generalize his theory of gravitation in order to unify and simplify the fundamental laws of physics, particularly gravitation and electromagnetism. In 1950, he described this work, which he referred to as the Unified Field Theory, in a Scientific American article. Einstein was guided by a belief in a single origin for the entire set of physical laws.

Einstein became increasingly isolated in his research on a generalized theory of gravitation and his attempts were ultimately unsuccessful. In particular, his pursuit of a unification of the fundamental forces ignored work in the physics community at large (and vice versa), most notably the discovery of the strong and weak nuclear forces, which were not understood independently until around 1970, fifteen years after Einstein's death. Einstein's goal of unifying the laws of physics under a single model survives in the current drive for the grand unification theory.

Israel Also Known as the land of the Devil

Albert Einstein seen here with his wife Elsa Einstein and Zionist leaders, including future President of Israel Chaim Weizmann, his wife Dr. Vera Weizmann, Menachem Ussishkin and Ben-Zion Mossinson on arrival in New York in 1921.

A 5 Israeli pound note from 1968 with the portrait of Einstein.

Einstein was a long supporter of Zionism, specifically Cultural Zionism, and of the newly formed Jewish State. One of the Zionist movement's dreams was to establish a Hebrew university in the Land of Israel. Einstein was active in the establishment of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and was on the First Board of Governors along with Sigmund Freud, Martin Buber and Chaim Weizmann. In 1930, a volume titled About Zionism: Speeches and Lectures by Professor Albert Einstein was published. He also bequeathed all of his papers to the university, where they are held in the university's Albert Einstein Library. In 1952, he was offered the post of second President of the newly created state of Israel, but declined the offer, saying that he lacked the necessary skills. He is believed to be the only United States citizen ever to have been offered a position as a foreign head of state.

However, Einstein was weary of far right-wing nationalism, and during a speech at the Commodore Hotel in New York, he told the crowd "My awareness of the essential nature of Judaism resists the idea of a Jewish state with borders, an army, and a measure of temporal power, no matter how modest. I am afraid of the inner damage Judaism will sustain. - especially from the development of a narrow nationalism within our own ranks, against which we have already had to fight strongly, even without a Jewish state." Involving himself in Israeli politics, he also signed an open letter published in the New York Times condemning the "Freedom Party" (Tnuat Haherut), founded by Menachem Begin, a right-wing party adhering to Revisionist Zionism, commenting on the treatment of Arabs in the Deir Yassin massacre. Despite his reservations of certain politcal elements, Einstein was deeply committed to the welfare of Israel and the Jewish people for the rest of his life.

Final years

Albert Einstein was closely associated with plans for what the press called "a Jewish-sponsored non-quota university," from August 19, 1946, with the announcement of the formation of the Albert Einstein Foundation for Higher Learning, Inc. until June 22, 1947, when he withdrew support and barred the use of his name by the foundation. The university opened in 1948 as Brandeis University, where Einstein served on the original committee.

File:EinsteinandAbbaEban.jpg

Albert Einstein laughing with notable Israeli diplomat, Abba Eban (left), and an unidentified man, in Israel, 1952

He died at 1:15 AM in Princeton hospital in Princeton, New Jersey, on April 18, 1955 at the age of 76 from internal bleeding, which was caused by the rupture of an aortic aneurism, leaving the Generalized Theory of Gravitation unsolved. He was cremated without ceremony on the same day he died at Trenton, New Jersey, in accordance with his wishes. His ashes were scattered at an undisclosed location.

An autopsy was performed on Einstein by Dr. Thomas Stoltz Harvey, who removed and preserved his brain. Harvey found nothing unusual with his brain, but in 1999 further analysis by a team at McMaster University revealed that his parietal operculum region was missing and, to compensate, his inferior parietal lobe was 15% wider than normal. The inferior parietal region is responsible for mathematical thought, visuospatial cognition, and imagery of movement. Einstein's brain also contained 73% more glial cells than the average brain.

Beliefs

Religious views

File:Einstein inshul1930.jpg

Albert Einstein wearing a kippah and holding a violin during a service in a Berlin Synagogue, 1930

Einstein was an Honorary Associate of the Rationalist Press Association beginning in 1934, and was an admirer of Ethical Culture. He served on the advisory board of the First Humanist Society of New York.

File:Tagore-einstein2.jpg

Rabindranath Tagore sits with Einstein during their widely-publicized July 14, 1930 conversation.

Einstein published a paper in Nature in 1940 entitled Science and Religion which gave his considered views on the subject. In this he says that:

a person who is religiously enlightened appears to me to be one who has, to the best of his ability, liberated himself from the fetters of his selfish desires and is preoccupied with thoughts, feelings and aspirations to which he clings because of their super-personal value ... regardless of whether any attempt is made to unite this content with a Divine Being, for otherwise it would not be possible to count Buddha and Spinoza as religious personalities. Accordingly a religious person is devout in the sense that he has no doubt of the significance of those super-personal objects and goals which neither require nor are capable of rational foundation...In this sense religion is the age-old endeavour of mankind to become clearly and completely conscious of these values and goals, and constantly to strengthen their effects.

He argues that conflicts between science and religion "have all sprung from fatal errors.", however "even though the realms of religion and science in themselves are clearly marked off from each other" and there are "strong reciprocal relationships and dependencies... science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind ...a legitimate conflict between science and religion cannot exist.". He makes it clear that he does not believe in a personal God, and suggests that "neither the rule of human nor Divine Will exists as an independent cause of natural events. To be sure, the doctrine of a personal God interfering with natural events could never be refuted...by science, for [it] can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific knowledge has not yet been able to set foot."

In response to the telegrammed question of New York's Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein in 1929: "Do you believe in God? Stop. Answer paid 50 words." Einstein replied in only 25 (German) words: "I believe in Spinoza's God, Who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God Who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind."

Scientific philosophy

In a talk from 1921, Einstein outlined his general outlook on the metaphysical underpinnings of his approach to science. These can be summarized as believing that scientific work should proceed from an examination of the physical reality of the underlying axioms, an emphasis on internal consistency and avoidance of asymmetrical or contradictory explanations, and the ability to create a visualizable understanding of the meanings of the scientific theory. This approach, one which is perhaps best displayed in his famous 1905 papers, would later put him at odds with the philosophy of quantum theorists like Niels Bohr, who did not believe that a scientific theory necessarily would capture all aspects of physical reality and thus need not have an intuitive physical meaning or be entirely free of contradictions.

In the "Copenhagen Interpretation" above, reference was made to the disagreement regarding Einstein's actual position regarding the quantum theory. The famous quotation "God does not play dice" is often used to support the majority view that he disliked the theory due to its indeterminism.

Others make the case for a different view. They note that the 1926 "Dice" quotation occurred when the quantum theory was just in its first year of discovery and in the subsequent 30 years of his life, one would be hard pressed to find a similar comment from the man. Instead Einstein focused on the conceptually independent subject of 'incompleteness'. This attention is shown both in his 1935 "EPR" paper, and in his 1949 Geiger counter registration strip thought-experiment. Further evidence against the "Einstein-determinist" view is W. Pauli's quotation: "he (Einstein) disputes that he uses as a criterion for the admissibility of a theory the question 'Is it rigorously deterministic?'".

The following general assessment was given by his colleague Nathan Rosen:

I think that the things which impressed me most were the simplicity of his thinking and his faith in the ability of the human mind to understand the workings of nature. Throughout his life, Einstein believed the human reason was capable of leading to theories that would provide correct descriptions of physical phenomena. In building a theory, his approach had something in common with that of an artist; he would aim for simplicity and beauty (and beauty for him was, after all, essentially simplicity). The crucial question that he would ask, when weighing an element of a theory was: "Is it reasonable?" No matter how successful a theory appeared to be, if it seemed to him not to be reasonable (the German word that he used was "vernünftig"), he was convinced that the theory could not provide a really fundamental understanding of nature.

Einstein's general position as to the relationship between theory and experiment, and to which one would take any "priority" over the other, changed over the course of his life. According to the historian of science Gerald Holton, Einstein initially conceived of himself as a phenomenalist in the tradition of Ernst Mach, but as time went on he swung to a position more akin to the logical positivist school in the philosophy of science. In the early days of relativity Einstein was often quite selective in his embrace or rejection of the priority of experiments, favorably receiving those which appeared to validate his theory and casting doubt upon those which appeared to disprove it (he was, in any case, proved correct in his doubts, as it would be). Though Einstein often portrayed himself as being aloof and uninterested in the results of experiment, his personal correspondence records him being quite concerned with the question.

Political views

File:Mikhoels and Einstein 1943.jpg

Einstein and Solomon Mikhoels, the chairman of the Soviet Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, in 1943.

Einstein considered himself a pacifist and humanitarian, and in later years, a committed democratic socialist. He once said, "I believe Gandhi's views were the most enlightened of all the political men of our time. We should strive to do things in his spirit: not to use violence for fighting for our cause, but by non-participation of anything you believe is evil." Deeply influenced by Gandhi, Einstein once said of Gandhi, "Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth." Einstein's views were sometimes controversial. In a 1949 article entitled "Why Socialism?", Albert Einstein described the "predatory phase of human development", exemplified by a chaotic capitalist society, as a source of evil to be overcome. He disapproved of the totalitarian regimes in the Soviet Union and elsewhere, and argued in favor of a democratic socialist system which would combine a planned economy with a deep respect for human rights. Einstein was a co-founder of the liberal German Democratic Party and a member of the AFL-CIO-affiliated union the American Federation of Teachers.

File:EinsteinandBen-Gurion.jpg

Albert Einstein and David Ben-Gurion, the first Prime Minister of Israel, at Princeton, 1948.

Einstein was very much involved in the Civil Rights movement. He was a close friend of Paul Robeson for over 20 years. Einstein was a member of several civil rights groups (including the Princeton chapter of the NAACP) many of which were headed by Paul Robeson. He served as co-chair with Paul Robeson of the American Crusade to End Lynching. When W.E.B. DuBois was frivolously charged with being a communist spy during the McCarthy era while he was in his 80s, Einstein volunteered as a character witness in the case. The case was dismissed shortly after it was announced that he was to appear in that capacity. Einstein was quoted as saying that "racism is America's greatest disease".

The U.S. FBI kept a 1,427 page file on his activities and recommended that he be barred from immigrating to the United States under the Alien Exclusion Act, alleging that Einstein "believes in, advises, advocates, or teaches a doctrine which, in a legal sense, as held by the courts in other cases, 'would allow anarchy to stalk in unmolested' and result in 'government in name only'", among other charges. They also alleged that Einstein "was a member, sponsor, or affiliated with thirty-four communist fronts between 1937 and 1954" and "also served as honorary chairman for three communist organizations". Many of the documents in the file were submitted to the FBI, mainly by civilian political groups, and not written by the FBI.

File:EinsteinSzilard.jpg

In 1939, Einstein and Leó Szilárd writing a letter to President Roosevelt.

Einstein opposed tyrannical forms of government, and for this reason he opposed the Nazi regime and fled Germany shortly after it came to power. Einstein initially favored construction of the atomic bomb, in order to ensure that Hitler did not do so first, and even sent a letter to President Roosevelt (dated August 2, 1939, before World War II broke out, written in collaboration with Leó Szilárd) encouraging him to initiate a program to create a nuclear weapon. Roosevelt responded to this by setting up a committee for the investigation of using uranium as a weapon, which in a few years was superseded by the Manhattan Project.

After the war, though, Einstein lobbied for nuclear disarmament and a world government: "I do not know how the Third World War will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

Einstein, along with Albert Schweitzer and Bertrand Russell, fought against nuclear tests and bombs. As his last public act, and just days before his death, he signed the Russell-Einstein Manifesto, which led to the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs.

Citizenship

Albert Einstein receiving from Judge Phillip Forman his certificate of American citizenship.

Einstein was born a German citizen. At the age of 17, on January 28, 1896, he was released from his German citizenship by his own request and with the approval of his father. He remained stateless for five years. On February 21, 1901, he gained Swiss citizenship, which he never revoked. Einstein obtained German citizenship in April 1914 when he entered the German civil service, but due to the political situation and the persecution of Jewish people in Nazi Germany, he left civil service in March 1933 and thus also lost the German citizenship. On October 1, 1940, Einstein became an American citizen. He remained both an American and a Swiss citizen until his death on April 18, 1955.

Popularity and cultural impact

According to "A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History", Einstein is "the greatest scientist of the twentieth century and one of the supreme intellects of all time". His popularity has also led to widespread use of Einstein's image in advertising and merchandising, including the registration of "Albert Einstein" as a trademark.

Einstein is commonly credited with supporting causes or making claims for which there is no evidence of his having done so, such as the claim that compound interest was the greatest discovery of the 20th Century, which first appeared in a New York Times article some 28 years after his death.

Entertainment

File:Einstein tongue.jpg

Albert Einstein sticks his tongue out for UPI photographer Arthur Sasse

Albert Einstein has been the subject of and inspiration for a number of novels, films and plays, including Jean-Claude Carrier's 2005 French novel, Einstein S'il Vous Plait (Please Mr Einstein), Nicolas Roeg's film Insignificance, Fred Schepisi's film I.Q. (where he was portrayed by Walter Matthau), Alan Lightman's collection of short stories Einstein's Dreams, and Steve Martin's comedic play Picasso at the Lapin Agile. He was the subject of Philip Glass's groundbreaking 1976 opera Einstein on the Beach. His humorous side is also the subject of Ed Metzger's one-man play Albert Einstein: The Practical Bohemian.

He is often used as a model for depictions of mad scientists and absent-minded professors in works of fiction; his own character and distinctive hairstyle suggest eccentricity, or even lunacy, and are widely copied or exaggerated. TIME magazine writer Frederic Golden referred to Einstein as "a cartoonist's dream come true."

On Einstein's 72nd birthday in 1951, the UPI photographer Arthur Sasse was trying to persuade him to smile for the camera. Having done this for the photographer many times that day, Einstein stuck out his tongue instead. The image has become a pop icon for its contrast of the genius scientist displaying a moment of levity. Yahoo Serious, an Australian film maker, used the photo as an inspiration for the intentionally anachronistic movie Young Einstein.

Speculation and controversy

A remarkable aspect of Einstein's childhood is the fact that he spoke much later than the average child. Einstein claimed that he did not begin speaking until the age of three and only did so hesitantly, even beyond the age of nine. Because of Einstein's late speech development and his later childhood tendency to ignore any subject in school that bored him - focusing intensely on things he was interested in - some observers at the time suggested that he might be "retarded", such as one of the Einstein family's housekeepers. This latter observation was not the only time in his life that controversial labels and pathology would be applied to Einstein.

Einstein's matura, obtained in 1896. 6 is the best possible mark.

The recurring rumor that Einstein failed in mathematics during his education is untrue. On the contrary, Einstein always showed great talent at mathematics; when he obtained his matura, he got the best mark (6/6) in algebra, geometry, physics and history, among all of the classes that he took. The grading system of Switzerland, where 6 is the best mark, may have been confused with the German system, in which 1 is the best mark. As can be seen from his Matura grades, indicated in the graphic to the right (also found in "Einstein: A Hundred Years of Relativity" by W. Andrew Robinson, p.27), Albert Einstein failed French (3/6) and received poor grades (4/6) in drawing, (both artistic- and technical) and geography. His performance (5/6) in all other subjects studied in high school, namely Natural history, German literature and Italian literature as well as chemistry, was significantly above average. Furthermore, Robinson states on pages 33 through to 35 that Einstein's interests mainly spanned in science and mathematics and that he disliked "games and physical training". Einstein also had problems with the heavy emphasis on the humanities; that is on classical studies and to a "lesser extent German history and literature, to the detriment of modern foreign languages." Robinson states that this explains Einstein's lack of competence in French literature and English studies, for instance. In 1920 Einstein told a Berlin interviewer that the school of matriculation exam should be abolished. "Let us return to Nature, which upholds the principle of getting the maximum amount of effect from the minimum effort, whereas the matriculation test does exactly the opposite."

As for Einstein's childhood trait of delayed speech development, a few have speculated that Einstein had elective mutism and may have refused to speak until he could do so in complete sentences. Though this concept fits with a profile of a sensitive perfectionist (when Einstein did begin to speak, he would often softly "rehearse" what he meant to say before uttering the statement outright), it is somewhat dated insofar as selective mutism- as it is now known- is no longer considered to be a matter of willful silence: it presently refers to individuals with verbal ability who cannot speak in certain social circumstances. This would not apply to Einstein, who could not speak at all until the time that he did.

According to neuroscientist Steven Pinker, the autopsy of Einstein's brain exhibited a more likely possibility that Einstein, as a child, had been displaying a lesser known type of language delay relating to extraordinary and rapid prenatal development of areas of the brain responsible for spatial and analytical reasoning which, in competing for "brain real estate", had temporarily robbed resources from functions of the brain responsible for speech development. Pinker and others have extended this speculation to explain the asynchronous development of other famously gifted late-talkers, such as mathematician Julia Robinson, pianists Arthur Rubinstein and Clara Schumann, and physicists Richard Feynman and Edward Teller, who were also said to have shared several of Einstein's other childhood peculiarities, such as monumental tantrums, rugged individualism and highly selective interests. A syndrome — the "Einstein syndrome" — was even coined by journalist and economist Thomas Sowell as a non-pathologizing means to describe this series of traits seen in a small percentage (though how small is debatable) of late-talking children who go on to develop into analytically advanced and socially conscious adults without (or in spite of) intense therapeutic intervention.

Personal relations

Letters written by Einstein to his relatives and kept at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, have revealed that during the course of his life, he had a dozen lovers, two of whom he married. Barbara Wolff of the Hebrew University's Albert Einstein Archives has made public about 3,500 pages of correspondence including letters to his first and second wives and children between the years 1912–1955. In letters to his second wife Elsa and her daughter Margot he claimed that he had been showered with unwanted attention from women. One of his lovers, a Berlin socialite Ethel Michanowski, "followed me [to England], and her chasing me is getting out of control." His son Eduard's schizophrenia troubled Einstein greatly, and he often expressed the idea that it would have been better if Eduard had not been born. He adored his stepdaughter and in a letter to Elsa in 1924, he writes: "I love her [Margot] as much as if she were my own daughter, perhaps even more so, since who knows what kind of brat she would have become [had I fathered her]." The letters have been claimed as evidence to dispel myths that Einstein was cold toward his family.

Licensing

Einstein bequeathed his estate, as well as the use of his image (see personality rights), to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Einstein actively supported the university during his life and this support continues with the royalties received from licensing activities. The Roger Richman Agency licences the commercial use of the name "Albert Einstein" and associated imagery and likenesses of Einstein, as agent for the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. As head licensee the agency can control commercial usage of Einstein's name which does not comply with certain standards (e.g., when Einstein's name is used as a trademark, the ™ symbol must be used). As of May, 2005, the Roger Richman Agency was acquired by Corbis.

Honors

File:Einstein TIME Person of the Century.jpg

Einstein on the cover of TIME as Person of the Century.

Einstein has received a number of posthumous honors. For example:

• In 1999, he was named Person of the Century by TIME magazine.
• Also in 1999, Gallup Poll recorded him as the fourth most admired person of the 20th century.
• The year 2005 was designated as the "World Year of Physics" by UNESCO for its coinciding with the centennial of the "Annus Mirabilis" papers.
• The National Academy of Sciences commissioned the "Albert Einstein Memorial", a monumental bronze sculpture by Robert Berks, at its Washington, D.C. campus, adjacent to the National Mall.

Among Einstein's many namesakes are:

• a unit used in photochemistry, the einstein.
• the chemical element 99, einsteinium.
• the asteroid 2001 Einstein.
• the Albert Einstein Award.
• the Albert Einstein Peace Prize.

Works by Einstein

Main article: Works by Albert Einstein

Einstein published over fifty scientific papers during his lifetime. He also published several non-scientific works, including About Zionism (1930), Why War? (1933, co-authored by Sigmund Freud), The World As I See It (1934), and Out of My Later Years (1950).

References

• American Institute of Physics (1996). "Einstein-Image and Impact". Retrieved 2006-02-25.
• Bodanis, David (June 2005). "Einstein the Nobody". Retrieved 2006-02-25.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: year (link)
• Bolles, Edmund Blair (2004). Einstein Defiant: Genius versus Genius in the Quantum Revolution. National Academy Press. ISBN 0-309-08998-0. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
• Brian, Dennis (1996). Einstein: A Life. New York: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 0-471-11459-6.
• Butcher, Sandra Ionno (March 2005). "The Origins of the Russell-Einstein Manifesto".
• Calaprice, Alice (2005). The new quotable Einstein. Princeton University Press. pp. p. 173. ISBN 0-691-12075-7. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
• Clark, Ronald W. (1971). Einstein: The Life and Times. Avon. ISBN 0-380-44123-3.
• Crelinsten, Jeffrey (2006). "Einstein's Jury: The Race to Test Relativity". Princeton University Press.
• Everdell, William R. (1998). "The First Moderns: Profiles in the Origins of Twentieth-Century Thought". University of Chicago Press.
• Galison, Peter (Winter 2000). "Einstein's Clocks: The Question of Time". Critical Inquiry. 26 (2): 355–389.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: year (link)

Golden, Frederic (2000-01-03). "Person of the Century: Albert Einstein". Retrieved 2006-02-25. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

Highfield, Roger; Carter, Paul (1993). The Private Lives of Albert Einstein. Faber and Faber, London, Boston. ISBN 0-571-17170-2 (US ed. ISBN 0-312-11047-2).{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

Holt, Jim (February 2005). "Time Bandits". Retrieved 2006-03-18.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: year (link)

Levenson, Thomas (June 2005). "Genius Among Geniuses". Retrieved 2006-02-25.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: year (link)

Brilliant Minds: Secrets of the Cosmos (TV-Series). Boston. 2003. {{cite AV media}}: Unknown parameter |distributor= ignored (|publisher= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |producer= ignored (help)

Martínez, Alberto A. (April 2004). "Arguing about Einstein's wife". Physics World. Retrieved 2005-11-23.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: year (link)

Arthur I. Miller (2002). Einstein, Picasso: Space, Time, and the Beauty That Causes Havoc. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 0-465-01860-2.

Pais, Abraham (1982). Subtle is the Lord. The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-520438-7. This is the definitive scientific biography.

Pais, Abraham (1994). Einstein Lived Here. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-853994-0. This book discusses non-science aspects of Einstein; marriages, affairs, illegitimate daughter, public image.

Pickover, Clifford A. (2005-09-09). Sex, Drugs, Einstein, and Elves: Sushi, Psychedelics, Parallel Universes, and the Quest for Transcendence. Smart Publications. ISBN 1-890572-17-9. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help) Discusses the final disposition of Einstein's brain, hair, and eyes as well as the importance of Einstein and his work in the shaping of science and culture.

Robinson, Andrew (2005). Einstein: A Hundred Years of Relativity. Palazzo Editions. ISBN 0-9545103-4-8.

Rosenkranz, Ze'ev (2005). Albert Einstein — Derrière l'image. Editions NZZ, Zürich. ISBN 3-03823-182-7. Copies of many of Einstein's original personal documents.

Smith, Peter D. (2000). Einstein (Life & Times Series). Haus Publishing. ISBN 1-904341-15-2.

Stachel, John (1998-03-30). Einstein's Miraculous Year: Five Papers That Changed the Face of Physics. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-05938-1.

Stern, Fritz (1999). Einstein's German World. Princeton, N.J, Princeton University Press,. ISBN 0-691-05939-X.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)

Thorne, Kip (January 1 1995). Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy (Reprint edition ed.). W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-31276-3. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help); Check date values in: |date= (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link)

Hawking, Stephen. "6". A Briefer History of Time (1st ed.). New York: Bantam Books. p. 44. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessmonth= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |origmonth= ignored (help)

External links

• Einstein, Spinoza and God

• Albert Einstein archives
• Works by Albert Einstein at Project Gutenberg
• Audio excerpts of famous speeches: E=mc² and relativity, Impossibility of atomic energy, arms race (From Time magazine archives)
• FBI: FBI files—investigation regarding affiliation with the Communist Party
• Albert Einstein Quotes
• American Institute of Physics: Albert Einstein includes life and work, audio files and full site as downloadable PDF for classroom use.
• Einstein photos from AIP.org
• O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Albert Einstein", MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews
• PBS PBS NOVA—Einstein
• Einstein's religious position
• Short Biography of Albert Einstein
• Albert Einstein excerpt from Encyclopaedia Judaica's 2nd Edition