The Life And Legacy Of Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein was an important physicist that is well remembered today. He lived from 1879 to 1955 and a new interest was sparked in him at a young age. Albert hated the parades and the rapid growth of the military in Germany and he wanted to avoid it. Einstein was very religious at one point in his life and he was curious about religion. He hated his schools when he was younger and he struggled in them but he managed to get through it and get an education. Albert was at the lowest point in his life before he got a job. He had his own family but things didn't work out. Einstein wrote multiple papers during his free time and he published many important papers. He helped with the atomic bomb but Einstein decided he wanted to fight for peace instead. He has also won many awards. Einstein continued to work and he still stayed curious later in his life. He was against anything unnatural to prevent his death. Albert’s brain was later studied and part of it is located at a University. Albert Einstein is well known, and his formulas and theories helped create new advancements today.

Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879 in Ulm, Germany. His father was Hermann Einstein and his mother was Pauline Einstein. They were a jewish family that lived in Germany during a major military growth. The family moved to Munich Germany within a year of Albert’s birth. The Einstein family was originally from the Swabia region. He had a younger sister Maja Einstein who was born on November 18, 1881 in Munich, Germany. She was his only sibling and they remained best friends for the rest of their lives. His mother encouraged him to be independent and when he was a child she dropped him off in the city of Munich and he had to find his way home. She watched him the whole time to make sure he got home safely from the busy city. Albert Einstein didn’t speak until he was three, and he stumbled over his words when he was a kid. He was taken to the doctors a lot because of his late development when he was younger. He also played the violin and throughout his life Albert would enjoy music. Einstein often played alone when he was a child and he liked to be alone. He thought in his free time and was interested in ideas instead of experimenting and testing them. One day when Albert was sick at home his father gave him a compass. He was fascinated how the compass worked. The compass captivated him and he became curious about invisible forces for the rest of his life. Albert Einstein would always remember this moment for the rest of his life.

Throughout Albert Einstein’s life he did everything he could to avoid the army in Germany. When he was younger he hated all of the military parades he attended to. Albert also hated the motions the soldiers had to do. There was a huge growth in Germany’s military when he was young and it continued to grow. He did not want to be drafted and he even took it so far that he dropped his German citizenship in 1896 when he was seventeen years old. Einstein was not a legal citizen anywhere until 1901 when he got his Swiss citizenship. Albert was a pacifist and strived for peace and not war although he helped create the atomic bomb years later. There was a required army service but he was declined because of his varicose veins and flat feet. Einstein hated the mandatory German military service and he did everything he could to escape it.

Albert Einstein was very religious at one point in his life. When he was younger he studied at a Catholic grade school and he enjoyed studying the Catholic religion. Einstein was Jewish and he faced Anti-Semitism at school. The kids would tease him based off of his religion. When Albert was twelve years old he was very religious. Although science books that he would read would make him rethink his religious beliefs. Einstein continued to be a non-practicing Jew the rest of his life. He opposed atheism but continued to have respect for his Jewish heritage. Albert Einstein kept his religion throughout his life although he doubted it at times.

Albert Einstein despised his schools when he was younger but he still got an education. Even though he was bullied mostly in school, he managed to be top of his class. Albert hated his schools and he did not like his teachers. He failed in chemistry, biology, and french, but did well in physics and mathematics. After he finished grade school he went to Luitpold Gymnasium which was his high school. Some teachers would get upset with him because he asked too many questions or looked bored in class. Albert said,” The teachers in the elementary school appeared to me like sergeants, and the gymnasium teachers like lieutenants.”. He was even told by a teacher that he would never amount to anything. Max Talmud was a medical student who tutored Einstein when he was a kid. They met when Albert was 10 and he introduced him to philosophy and higher mathematics. When Albert was fifteen years old he quit school and went to Italy where his father went after a failure in his business. His father wanted him to go to Federal Polytechnic Academy in Zurich but Albert failed the entrance exam and had to first go to a school in Aarau, Switzerland. There he liked one of his teachers, August Tuschmid. Einstein's uncle Jakob taught him Algebra and Geometry and he began to really like Geometry. He called his geometry book his “Holy Booklet”. Albert did get to go to Federal Polytechnic Academy and he graduated in 1900. He had a graduating class of five and he was fourth.

Einstein described that at one time he had reached his lowest point in life. He could not marry his wife Mileva or support a family because he was jobless. His father’s business failed again and went bankrupt. His first child, his daughter Lieserl was known to either of died from Scarlet fever or put up for adoption when she was a baby. Einstein got a very low paying job tutoring kids because he was desperate for a job. In 1902 a turning point arised. Marcel Grossman who was a friend of his from the Polytechnic Academy suggested him a position at the Swiss Patent Office in Bern, Switzerland as a civil servant. He studied to be a teacher but he was desperate for a job. His father passed away around this time and before he died he gave Albert his blessing to marry. Einstein became very sad believing that his father died thinking that he was a failure. Albert Einstein had now got a small steady income. Albert Einstein said,” Whenever anybody would come by, I would cram my notes into my desk drawer and pretend to work on my office work.”. The next few years from working at the Swiss Patent Office would change his life.

Albert Einstein had his own family but things didn't work out. Einstein married his first wife Mileva in 1903. Albert and Mileva studied at the Polytechnic Academy together. They were both scientists. They had their first child, their daughter Lieserl who Mileva had alone at her parents house in Novi Sad, Serbia. Lieserl was born in January in 1902. After they married in 1903 they had their first son Hans Einstein who was born on May 14, 1904, and their second son, Eduard Einstein who was born on July 28, 1910. His sons hated their school and Mileva hated Germany so she took them to Switzerland before World War I started. Albert and Mileva got a divorce in 1919, and that same year he married his second wife Elsa Lowenthal who was his first cousin on his mother’s side and second cousin on his father’s side. Einstein loved his family and he helped care for his children, but he did not care to deal with personal life.

Albert Einstein published important papers that changed how we view things today. He worked at the Swiss Patent Office, and lived in Bern, Switzerland from 1902 to 1909. In 1905 in the span of four months, March through June, he published four papers. One was the quantum theory which he suggests that light is composed of photons or quanta that have some properties of waves and some of particles. Albert Einstein eventually got a Nobel Prize for this theory. Another paper was his Photoelectric effect which was when light hits some solids the electrons emit. Television is an example of his theory on light. Einstein also created the Special Theory of Relativity and his famous formula E=MC^2 in 1905 when he was twenty six years old. The theory of relativity explains that motion and time are relative only when the speed of light is constant and the natural laws in the universe are the same. The formula E=MC^2 stands for energy equals mass times the speed of light squared. This formula shows that an huge amount of energy is in a particle of matter. This also is the basis for nuclear energy. His other theory which is the General Theory of relativity was published in 1916. This theory which suggested that gravity is the curving of space instead of just attracting things and being an invisible force and the larger the mass the more it curves space around it. An experiment was performed during a solar eclipse, and the light rays of the distant stars were bent by gravity from the sun which is what Einstein predicted. He also had a formula that charted Mercury’s orbit which was the only planet Newton’s formula did not work for. These theories and formulas that Albert Einstein created, changed the way we view the universe.

Albert Einstein helped create the atomic bomb with his famous formula although he did not have a part in building it. Einstein wrote a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939 asking to him to start the building and researching of the atomic bomb right away. Before this, Albert found out that two German chemists split a uranium atom, which could turn into the developing of an atomic bomb in Germany. Roosevelt ordered a project for the atomic bomb to be made after he received and dictated the letter. The project was called the Manhattan Project. Einstein was not a nuclear physicist so he had nothing to do with the actual building of the bomb. He did not have the knowledge of how to build a bomb. Albert later regretted sending his letter after he found out that Germany did not make much progress with their bomb. Einstein sent Roosevelt another letter saying not to bomb Japan but Roosevelt died before he could read the letter. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed after President Truman decided to. Albert felt horrible so he founded the Nobel Peace Prize and he worked for peace after World War II. He continued to fight for peace instead for the rest of his life. He participated in peace campaigns and wrote papers on disarmament and international peace in the 1920s. Albert Einstein had a major influence of the atomic bomb being built, but he decided that he wanted to fight for peace for the rest of his life instead.

Albert Einstein accomplished many things in his life and he has won many awards. Some of the most important awards he won was the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921. This award was given to him for his photoelectric effect. In 1926 for his benefactors in physics, the Royal Astronomical Society awarded him the Gold Medal. Also in 1929 he received the Max-Planck Medal from the German Physical Society and Albert was the first person to get this award. He was given it from all of his major accomplishments in science. He received ten Honorary Doctorates from different organizations between 1909 and 1935. Albert got the Admission to the Order in 1923. The Genootschap Medal in 1923. Einstein won the Copley Medal in 1925 from the Royal Society of London. Also the Benjamin Franklin Medal in 1935. Albert Einstein won many awards for his accomplishments and theories in science.

Einstein continued to work and be curious for the rest of his life. Throughout his life he always was fascinated by invisible forces and past scientists and their theories and inventions. Albert tried finding an unifying force in nature and he spent years looking for it but he never found it. Someone asked him if it was worth it. Einstein said,” At least i know ninety-nine ways that do not work.”. Later in his life Albert worked at the Institute for Advanced Study. When he retired in 1945 he continued to go to his office even though his doctors told him his heart was weak. Einstein had a disheveled look with uncombed hair. He also never wore socks because he thought they were pointless if they would just get holes in them. He was always curious even later in his life. Einstein said,” The important thing is to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reasons for existing.”. He also said,” I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.”. Through his life curiosity was more important to him than intelligence. He did not consider himself a genius, just curious.

Albert Einstein died on April 18, 1955 at age seventy-six. He suffered from an abdominal aortic aneurysm which is when the aorta wall is weak and a bulge develops. He refused surgery or anything unnatural to prevents his death. Einstein said,” It is tasteless to prolong life artificially. I have done my share, it is time to go. I will do it elegantly.”. He died in Princeton, New Jersey in Princeton hospital. On April 18 in the morning he died from a burst of an abdominal aortic aneurysm. His ashes were scattered and before he was cremated Thomas Stoltz Harvey removed his brain. He kept it in his home for three years studying it. Einstein’s family reported that it was stolen from them without their permission. In one of Albert’s biographies he said that he hoped his brain would be studied after he died. His brain is now located at Princeton University Medical Center for future studied and preservation. In 1999 a Canadian scientist discovered that Einstein’s brain inferior parietal lobe was fifteen percent wider than in people with normal intelligence. Albert Einstein refused treatment to live longer and his brain was studied and preserved after his death.

Albert Einstein was a famous and well remembered physicist that has done many important things throughout his life. Albert lived from 1879 to 1955 and when he was a young child he gained a new interest in life. He saw the military growth in Germany and despised it, so he did whatever he could to avoid it. Einstein was curious about religion and became a very religious person at one point in his life. He hated his schools when he was younger but still got an education. Albert hit his lowest point in life when he was jobless. He had his own family but things didn't work out. Einstein wrote papers in his free time and he published very important ones. He decided to fight for peace instead after he helped with the atomic bomb. Albert received many awards and honors throughout his life. He stayed curious later in life and continued to work. Einstein refused to do anything unnatural that would prolong his life. His brain was studied and later transferred to a University. Albert Einstein is well remembered today for his significant accomplishments, theories, and formulas. Einstein changed the way we look at things today and he had an major impact on society.