Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who was widely acknowledged as one of the greatest scientists of all time. He was well known for developing the theory of general relativity and for also making significant contributions in the field of quantum mechanics. Einstein received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of the photoelectric effect, and for other services to theoretical physics. His intellectual achievements and originality resulted in "Einstein" becoming synonymous with "genius".
Albert Einstein was a mathematical genius as a child
Einstein was a prodigy in math and physics in his primary years, and has reached an advanced mathematical level ahead of his peers. At age 12, he taught himself algebra and Euclidean geometry over a single summer, and independently found his own evidence of the Pythagorean Theorem at the same age. A family tutor called Max Talmund said that after giving the 12-year old Einstein a textbook in geometry, after a very short time, he had already worked throughout the whole book, and later on devoted himself to higher mathematics. The 12-year old Einstein soon taught himself calculus and by 14 years old, he had mastered integral and differential calculus. Einstein stated that nature could be understood as a mathematical structure.
Einstein worked as a patent clerk for a very long time
After graduation, Albert Einstein spent almost two years without a job and nine years before he could get into academia. When he acquired Swiss citizenship in 1901, he finally found his first job at a Swiss Patent Office, as an assistant examiner or clerk. A majority of his work at the office were related to the transmission of electric signals, and electrical-mechanical synchronization of time, which led Einstein to his thoughts on the nature of light and the fundamental connection between space and time. Together with a few friends, Albert eventually started a small discussion group called "The Olympia Academy" that regularly studied science and philosophy, which soon influenced Einstein's scientific and philosophical outlook of things.
Einstein wrote a letter to President Roosevelt to convince him to make an atomic bomb
In 1939, a group of Hungarian scientists alerted Washington about an ongoing Nazi atomic bomb project, and eventually visited Einstein a few months later, to explain the possibility of atomic bombs. The US initially discounted the warnings given by the scientists led by physicist Leo Szilard, but have decided to take it seriously after Einstein wrote a personal letter to president Roosevelt, to convince him to enter the race into the development of the atomic bomb. Einstein was publicly a pacifist but claimed that writing the letter to Roosevelt was the only way to thwart Germany's threat in creating atomic bombs. Months later, the US drew immense material, financial and scientific resources and joined the race on the development of the atomic bomb in an operation called "Manhattan Project".
Einstein wrote the formula for time travel
According to Einstein, time travel to the past is theoretically possible through certain general relativity spacetime geometries that physically permits traveling faster than the speed of light through cosmic strings, traversable wormholes, and Alcubierre drives. He believed in the existence of a dimension called space-time, which he thinks is theoretically possible to fold, creating a shortcut between two distant locations in the continuum. This phenomenon is called a wormhole, which is often illustrated as a tunnel with two openings that would let matter travel from different points in the space-time dimension. Einstein and other physicists predicted that wormholes have tendencies of collapsing, and crushing whatever's inside of them, and has found this to be the main problem in the entire time travel scenario.
Einstein discovered that light travels through space as localized particles called photons
In 1915, Albert Einstein published his theory of general relativity, which stated that gravitational fields cause distortions in the fabric of space and time. It was a bold rewriting of the laws of physics and remained controversial until 1919, when English astronomer Arthur Eddington photographed a solar eclipse and confirmed that the sun's gravity had deflected the light roughly by 1.7 arc-seconds, as predicted by the theory of general relativity. Einstein became a celebrity overnight and was hailed by newspapers as the heir to Sir Isaac Newton. He then travelled the world, educating and lecturing scientific societies about this theories of the cosmos.
The FBI spied on Einstein thinking he was a Soviet Spy
Before Hitler rose to power in 1933, Einstein travelled to the US to take a position at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Immediately after his arrival, the FBI, under J. Edgar Hoover's suspicions, launched what would eventually become a 22-year surveillance campaign of Einstein's life. Thinking he was a Soviet spy, agents listened to the his phone calls, read his mails, and rooted through his trash in the hope of uncovering evidence that proves he is a spy. By the time Einstein died in 1955, the FBI had accumulated over 1,800 pages of surveillance information into his file.
Einstein used music to relax and think
Einstein started learning how to play the violin at age 5, and by age 17 impressed his teachers at Cantonal school by playing during a music exam. He always turned to music when needing to relax and also when he is thinking about his theories. According to his second wife, Elsa, Einstein often goes to his study, comes out and strikes a few chords on the piano, writes something down, and then goes back into his study. In 1914 when Einstein was still living in Berlin, he'd play sonatas with his friend and fellow theoretical physicist Max Planck as a form of recreation.
Einstein was too smart for school he had to get advanced education
Albert Einstein was born on the 14th of March, 1879 in Ulm, in the Kingdom of Wurttemberg in the German Empire to engineer and salesman father Hermann Einstein, and mother Pauline Koch. The Einstein family moved to Munich in 1880, where his father and uncle founded an electric company that manufactured electrical equipment based on direct current. Albert received advanced primary and secondary school education at the Luitpold Gymnasium, now known as the Albert Einstein Gymnasium, until he left the German Empire seven years later. His father intended for him to pursue electrical engineering but Albert fought against his school's authorities, resenting it's regimen and teaching method, writing a letter that said that the spirit of learning and creative thought was lost in strict rote learning.
Einstein asked Winston Churchill to rescue other Jewish scientists
In April 1933, the new German government had passed laws barring Jews from holding any official positions, including teaching at universities, which made Einstein move out of Germany and end up without a permanent home. In July 1933, Commander Oliver Locker-Lampson, a British naval officer, invited Einstein to stay in a wood cabin in Norfolk, UK, where he was given two bodyguards to watch over him. Locker-Lampson soon took Einstein to meet Winston Churchill, Austen Chamberlain and former Prime Minister Lloyd George, where Einstein asked them to help bring Jewish scientists out of Germany, which the conservative party members did straightaway. Churchill mentioned that Germany was making a critical mistake driving their Jewish scientists out, as it was lowering their technical standards and giving the Allies an advantage in putting their technology ahead of theirs.
Einstein was an American celebrity
Einstein had become one of the most famous scientific celebrities in the US, so famous that The New Yorker published a vignette in their "Talk of the Town" feature, stating that Einstein was so popular in America that he would be stopped by people on the street wanting him to explain his theory. He has also become the inspiration for many novels, films and plays, and was modelled as a depiction of the absent-minded professor, also including his distinctive hairstyle and expressive face. Frederic Golden from Time magazine wrote that Einstein was a cartoonist's dream come true. Albert Einstein received numerous awards and honours including a Nobel Prize in Physics, for his services to Theoretical Physics and for discovering the law of the photoelectric effect.
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