Albert Einstein scientific life story

Albert Einstein was the most famous scientist of his age and one of the greatest thinkers of all time. He was born to Jewish parents in Ulm on March 14, 1879. He spent his youth in Munich, where his father owned a small shop that manufactured electric machinery.

 Einstein did not talk until the age of three. Added to this, due to the unsatisfactory nature of the business, his father had to change his place of residence several times and this made the early education of Einstein very irregular.

 Further, Einstein hated the dull regimentation and unimaginative spirit of classroom education. He finished his secondary school in Arran Switzerland and entered the Swiss National Polytechnic in Zurich. He could not enjoy the methods of education there.

He often cut classes and used the time to study mathematics and physics on his own and to play violin. By studying the notes of a classmate he passed his examinations and graduated in 1900. None of his professors thought highly of him. As he was a Jew he could not get a job easily.

Einstein worked as a tutor for two years and in 1902 he secured a position as an examiner in the Swiss patent office. In 1905 he received his doctorate from the University of Zurich.

Einstein’s theories were so complex and obscure that many of his colleagues could not comprehend him, let alone support him. However, he had some important supporters like Max Planck, the German physicist. His fame spread worldwide.

He got many honours and awards, including the Nobel Prize for physics in 1922. His visit to any part of the world became a national event; photographers and reporters followed him everywhere.

In 1932-1933, when Hitler came to power, Einstein was lecturing at the California Institute of Technology. He never returned to Germany. He became a professor of physics at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, which he occupied till his death.

During World War II, he wrote a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt about the possibility of Germany making an atomic bomb. This letter lent a sense of urgency to the USA to make the atomic bomb. But Einstein neither played any role in the work nor knew anything about the USA's efforts at that time.

After the World War II, Einstein was active in the cause of international disarmament. He preached for ‘one world’ and a ‘world government’. Thus giving much of himself to political and social causes, he is rightly called by many as a ‘world citizen’. He exhorted the intellectuals of the world to make any sacrifice for preserving peace in the world. He died in Princeton on April 18, 1955.