Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein was in born in Ulm, Germany, in 1879. Right after his birth his parents moved to Munich where Einstein spent his childhood. Due to financial problems the family moved to Italy, but Albert stayed in Switzerland to continue studying. He studied Physics and Mathematics, graduating in 1901. Initially, Einstein could not find a job within the university system, and after working for some time as a temporary professor at a secondary school a friend got him a job as technical specialist in the Patents Department in Berne.

In 1905, after studying part-time for four years, he received a Ph.D from the University of Zurich. In the same year he published four of the most important scientific works of the 20th century. One of them about the light quantum (nowadays called the photon), one about “Brownian movement” and two others in which he set the foundations of the Special Relativity theory. As a result of these works he became an associate professor of theoretical physics in the University of Zurich.

In 1914, Einstein moved to Berlin, taking a research post that freed him from teaching duties. He separated from his wife and two sons. After proposing the General Theory of Relativity Einstein became a world celebrity, something very unusual at the time. Later in 1921 he received the Nobel Prize for his early work on photons and the photo-electric effect.

When the First World War had broken out, Einstein had rejected Germany’s aggressive war aims, supporting the formation of a pacifist group. In 1933, when Adolf Hitler came to power, he could not stay in Germany. Einstein renounced his German citizenship and emigrated to the United States, where he was offered a position at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton.

The last two decades of his life were spent in relative isolation in Princeton, where he was teaching, continuing his investigations into a Grand Unified Theory that would unite and simplify the fundamental laws of Physics and supporting the new state of Israel. In 1952, the Prime Minister of Israel, David Ben-Gurion, invited Einstein to become President of that country. He refused, saying he was not suited for the job. Einstein died in 1955 at the age of 76.

Einstein and peace