Albert Einstein Biography

     Albert Einstein is perhaps known as the greatest scientist to have ever walked the face of this earth. Einstein changed the way man looked at the universe forever. Even as a child young Albert was brilliant. Although he was not very successful at school he had a very clear perspective of the universe around him.

     Einstein was born on March 14, 1879 in Munich, where his family owned a small shop that manufactured electronics. He was unable to talk until the age of three. At twelve, he taught himself Euclidean geometry. Euclidean geometry is the study of points, lines, planes, and other geometric figures using a modified version of the assumptions of Euclid (c. 300bc).

     Albert Einstein hated the dull teaching methods of his low spirited secondary school in Munich. When his family shop led to a repeated business failure they moved to Milan, Italy. Albert at fifteen years of age then saw an opportunity to withdrawal from school. After a year in which he lived with his parents, he realized that he would have to make his own way in the world. He then moves to Arrau, Switzerland to finish secondary school, and later on join the National Polytechnic in Zurich. Again he did not like this schools teaching methods or very low spirit. Because of this he often cut classes, and used this time to study physics on his own, and of course play his very beloved violin.

     In order to pass exams and graduate, he studied the notes off a classmate. His professors did not like this so they refused to recommend him for a university position.

     For two years Einstein worked as a tutor and as a substitute teacher. In 1903 he married Mileva Mariae, who had been his classmate in the last school he attended. They had two sons but eventually divorced. Einstein later remarried.

     In 1905 Einstein published three theoretical papers of central importance to the development of 20th century physics. The first paper he published was on Brownian motion, he made predictions about the motion of particles that are randomly distributed in a fluid. These predictions were later proved to be true by an experiment.

     The second paper he wrote was about a revolutionary hypothesis concerning the nature of light. His belief was that under certain circumstances light can be considered as consisting of particles, but he also made a hypothesis that the energy carried by a light particle, called a photon, is proportional to the frequency of the radiation. The formula for this is E+hu. E is the energy of the radiation, h is a universal constant known as Planck's constant, and the u is the frequency of the radiation. His proposal was that energy contained within a light beam is transferred in individual units.

     Of course no one excepted Einstein's proposal. In fact, when an American Physicist named Robert Millikan experimentally confirmed the theory a decade later. He was surprised by the outcome.

     Einstein's main concern was to understand everything about electromagnetic radiation. He came up with a theory, that electromagnetic radiation would be a fusion wave and particle model for light.

     In the spring of 1905, after working at these problems for 10 years Einstein realized that the crux of the problem was not the theory of matter but in a theory of measurement.

     Einstein spent the rest of his life fighting to preserve political freedom. Einstein died in Princeton on April 18th, 1955 at the age of 76.

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