Albert
Einstein
contributed more than any other scientist to the modern vision of
physical reality. His theory of relativity is held as human thought
of t he
highest quality. Around 1886 Einstein began his school career in Munich.
As well as his violin lessons, which he had from age six to age thirteen,
he also had religious education at home where he was taught Judaism.
Two years later he entered the Luitpold Gymnasium and after this his
religious education was given at school. He studied mathematics, in
particular the calculus, beginning around 1891.
In
1894 Einstein's family moved to Milan but Einstein remained in Munich.
In 1895 Einstein failed an examination that would have allowed him
to study for a diploma as an electrical engineer at the Eidgenössische
Technische Hochschule in Zurich. Einstein renounced German citizenship
in 1896 and was to be stateless for a number of years. He did not
even apply for Swiss citizenship until 1899, citizenship being granted
in 1901.
Following
the failing of the entrance exam to the ETH, Einstein attended secondary
school at Aarau planning to use this route to enter the ETH in Zurich.
While at Aarau he wrote an essay (for which was only given a little
above half marks!) in which he wrote of his plans for the future,
see [13]:-
If
I were to have the good fortune to pass my examinations, I would
go to Zurich. I would stay there for four years in order to study
mathematics and physics. I imagine myself becoming a teacher in
those branches of the natural sciences, choosing the theoretical
part of them. Here are the reasons which lead me to this plan. Above
all, it is my disposition for abstract and mathematical thought,
and my lack of imagination and practical ability.
Indeed
Einstein succeeded with his plan graduating in 1900 as a teacher of
mathematics and physics. One of his friends at ETH was Marcel Grossmann
who was in the same class as Einstein. Einstein tried to obtain a
post, writing to Hurwitz who held out some hope of a position but
nothing came of it. Three of Einstein's fellow students, including
Grossmann, were appointed assistants at ETH in Zurich but clearly
Einstein had not impressed enough and still in 1901 he was writing
round universities in the hope of obtaining a job, but without success.
He did manage
to avoid Swiss military service on the grounds that he had flat feet
and varicose veins. By mid 1901 he had a temporary job as a teacher,
teaching mathematics at the Technical High School in Winterthur. Around
this time he wrote:-
I
have given up the ambition to get to a university ...
Another
temporary position teaching in a private school in Schaffhausen followed.
Then Grossmann's father tried to help Einstein get a job by recommending
him to the director of the patent office in Bern. Einstein was appointed
as a technical expert third class.
Einstein
worked in this patent office from 1902 to 1909, holding a temporary
post when he was first appointed, but by 1904 the position was made
permanent and in 1906 he was promoted to technical expert second
class. While in the Bern patent office he completed an astonishing
range of theoretical physics publications, written in his spare
time without the benefit of close contact with scientific literature
or colleagues.
Einstein
earned a doctorate from the University of Zurich in 1905 for a thesis
On a new determination of molecular dimensions. He dedicated
the thesis to Grossmann.
In
the first of
three papers, all written in 1905, Einstein examined the phenomenon
discovered by Max Planck, according to which electromagnetic energy
seemed to be emitted from radiating objects in discrete quantities.
The energy of these quanta was directly proportional to the frequency
of the radiation. This seemed to contradict classical electromagnetic
theory, based on Maxwell's equations and the laws of thermodynamics
which assumed that electromagnetic energy consisted of waves which
could contain any small amount of energy. Einstein used Planck's
quantum hypothesis to describe the electromagnetic radiation of
light.
Einstein's
second 1905 paper proposed what is today called the special theory
of relativity. He based his new theory on a reinterpretation of
the classical principle of relativity, namely that the laws of physics
had to have the same form in any frame of reference. As a second
fundamental hypothesis, Einstein assumed that the speed of light
remained constant in all frames of reference, as required by Maxwell's
theory.
Later
in 1905 Einstein showed how mass and energy were equivalent. Einstein
was not the first to propose all the components of special theory
of relativity. His contribution is unifying important parts of classical
mechanics and Maxwell's electrodynamics. The
third of Einstein's papers of 1905 concerned statistical mechanics,
a field of that had been studied by Ludwig Boltzmann and Josiah
Gibbs.
After
1905 Einstein continued working in the areas described above. He
made important contributions to quantum theory, but he sought to
extend the special theory of relativity to phenomena involving acceleration.
The key appeared in 1907 with the principle of equivalence, in which
gravitational acceleration was held to be indistinguishable from
acceleration caused by mechanical forces. Gravitational mass was
therefore identical with inertial mass.
In
1908 Einstein became a lecturer at the University of Bern after
submitting his Habilitation thesis Consequences for the constitution
of radiation following from the energy distribution law of black
bodies. The following year he become professor of physics at
the University of Zurich, having resigned his lectureship at Bern
and his job in the patent office in Bern.
By
1909 Einstein was recognised as a leading scientific thinker and
in that year he resigned from the patent office. He was appointed
a full professor at the Karl-Ferdinand University in Prague in 1911.
In fact 1911 was a very significant year for Einstein since he was
able to make preliminary predictions about how a ray of light from
a distant star, passing near the Sun, would appear to be bent slightly,
in the direction of the Sun. This would be highly significant as
it would lead to the first experimental evidence in favour of Einstein's
theory.
About
1912, Einstein began a new phase of his gravitational research,
with the help of his mathematician friend Marcel Grossmann, by expressing
his work in terms of the tensor calculus of Tullio Levi-Civita and
Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro. Einstein called his new work the general
theory of relativity. He moved from Prague to Zurich in 1912 to
take up a chair at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule
in Zurich.
Einstein
returned to Germany in 1914 but did not reapply for German citizenship.
What he accepted was an impressive offer. It was a research position
in the Prussian Academy of Sciences together with a chair (but no
teaching duties) at the University of Berlin. He was also offered
the directorship of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Physics in Berlin
which was about to be established. After
a number of false starts Einstein published, late in 1915, the definitive
version of general theory. Just before publishing this work he lectured
on general relativity at Göttingen and he wrote:-
To
my great joy, I completely succeeded in convincing Hilbert
and Klein.
In
fact Hilbert submitted for publication, a week before Einstein completed
his work, a paper which contains the correct field equations of general
relativity. When
British eclipse expeditions in 1919 confirmed his predictions, Einstein
was idolised by the popular press. The London Times ran the
headline on 7 November 1919:-
Revolution
in science - New theory of the Universe - Newtonian ideas overthrown.
In
1920 Einstein's lectures in Berlin were disrupted by demonstrations
which, although officially denied, were almost certainly anti-Jewish.
Certainly there were strong feelings expressed against his works during
this period which Einstein replied to in the press quoting Lorentz,
Planck and Eddington as supporting his theories and stating that certain
Germans would have attacked them if he had been:-
...
a German national with or without swastika instead of a Jew with
liberal international convictions...
During
1921 Einstein made his first visit to the United States. His main
reason was to raise funds for the planned Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
However he received the Barnard Medal during his visit and lectured
several times on relativity. He is reported to have commented to the
chairman at the lecture he gave in a large hall at Princeton which
was overflowing with people:-
I
never realised that so many Americans were interested in tensor
analysis.
Einstein
received the Nobel Prize in 1921 but not for relativity rather for
his 1905 work on the photoelectric effect. In fact he was not present
in December 1922 to receive the prize being on a voyage to Japan.
Around this time he made many international visits. He had visited
Paris earlier in 1922 and during 1923 he visited Palestine. After
making his last major scientific discovery on the association of waves
with matter in 1924 he made further visits in 1925, this time to South
America. Among
further honours which Einstein received were the Copley Medal of the
Royal Society in 1925 and the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical
Society in 1926.
Niels
Bohr and Einstein were to carry on a debate on quantum theory which
began at the Solvay Conference in 1927. Planck, Niels Bohr, de Broglie,
Heisenberg, Schrödinger and Dirac were at this conference,
in addition to Einstein. Einstein had declined to give a paper at
the conference and:-
...
said hardly anything beyond presenting a very simple objection to
the probability interpretation .... Then he fell back into silence
...
Indeed
Einstein's life had been hectic and he was to pay the price in 1928
with a physical collapse brought on through overwork. However he made
a full recovery despite having to take things easy throughout 1928.
By 1930
he was making international visits again, back to the United States.
A third visit to the United States in 1932 was followed by the offer
of a post at Princeton. The idea was that Einstein would spend seven
months a year in Berlin, five months at Princeton. Einstein accepted
and left Germany in December 1932 for the United States. The following
month the Nazis came to power in Germany and Einstein was never to
return there.
During
1933 Einstein travelled in Europe visiting Oxford, Glasgow, Brussels
and Zurich. Offers of academic posts which he had found it so hard
to get in 1901, were plentiful. He received offers from Jerusalem,
Leiden, Oxford, Madrid and Paris.
What
was intended only as a visit became a permanent arrangement by 1935
when he applied and was granted permanent residency in the United
States. At Princeton his work attempted to unify the laws of physics.
However he was attempting problems of great depth and he wrote:-
I
have locked myself into quite hopeless scientific problems - the
more so since, as an elderly man, I have remained estranged from
the society here...
In
1940 Einstein became a citizen of the United States, but chose to
retain his Swiss citizenship. He made many contributions to peace
during his life. In 1944 he made a contribution to the war effort
by hand writing his 1905 paper on special relativity and putting it
up for auction. It raised six million dollars, the manuscript today
being in the Library of Congress.
By
1949 Einstein was unwell. A spell in hospital helped him recover
but he began to prepare for death by drawing up his will in 1950.
He left his scientific papers to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem,
a university which he had raised funds for on his first visit to
the USA, served as a governor of the university from 1925 to 1928
but he had turned down the offer of a post in 1933 as he was very
critical of its administration.
One
more major event was to take place in his life. After the death
of the first president of Israel in 1952, the Israeli government
decided to offer the post of second president to Einstein. He refused
but found the offer an embarrassment since it was hard for him to
refuse without causing offence.
One
week before his death Einstein signed his last letter. It was a
letter to Bertrand Russell in which he agreed that his name should
go on a manifesto urging all nations to give up nuclear weapons.
It is fitting that one of his last acts was to argue, as he had
done all his life, for international peace.
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