Childhood, youth and education Einstein was born in
Ulm as a subject to the
Kingdom of Württemberg in the
German Empire When he was five and sick in bed, his father brought him a compass. This sparked his lifelong fascination with
electromagnetism. He realized that "Something deeply hidden had to be behind things." Einstein attended St. Peter's
Catholic elementary school in Munich from the age of five. When he was eight, he was transferred to the
Luitpold Gymnasium, where he received advanced primary and then secondary school education. In 1894, Hermann and Jakob's company tendered for a contract to install electric lighting in Munich, but without success—they lacked the capital that would have been required to update their technology from direct current to the more efficient,
alternating current alternative. Einstein, then fifteen, stayed behind in Munich in order to finish his schooling. His father wanted him to study
electrical engineering, but he was a fractious pupil who found the Gymnasium's regimen and teaching methods far from congenial. He later wrote that the school's policy of strict
rote learning was harmful to creativity. At the end of December 1894, a letter from a doctor persuaded the Luitpold's authorities to release him from its care, and he joined his family in Pavia. While in Italy as a teenager, he wrote an essay entitled "On the Investigation of the State of the
Ether in a Magnetic Field". A family tutor,
Max Talmud, said that only a short time after he had given the twelve year old Einstein a geometry textbook, the boy "had worked through the whole book. He thereupon devoted himself to higher mathematics... Soon the flight of his mathematical genius was so high I could not follow." Einstein recorded that he had "mastered
integral and
differential calculus" while still just fourteen. His love of algebra and geometry was so great that at twelve, he was already confident that nature could be understood as a "mathematical structure". At thirteen, when his range of enthusiasms had broadened to include music and philosophy, Talmud introduced Einstein to
Kant's
Critique of Pure Reason. Kant became his favorite philosopher; according to Talmud, "At the time he was still a child, only thirteen years old, yet Kant's works, incomprehensible to ordinary mortals, seemed to be clear to him." In 1895, at the age of sixteen, Einstein sat the entrance examination for the
federal polytechnic school (later the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, ETH) in
Zurich, Switzerland. He failed to reach the required standard in the general part of the test, but performed with distinction in physics and mathematics. On the advice of the polytechnic's principal, he completed his secondary education at the
Argovian cantonal school (a
gymnasium) in
Aarau, Switzerland, graduating in 1896. While lodging in Aarau with the family of
Jost Winteler, he fell in love with Winteler's daughter, Marie. (His sister,
Maja, later married Winteler's son Paul.) '' certificate from
canton of Aargau, 1896 At seventeen, he enrolled in the four-year mathematics and physics teaching diploma program at the federal polytechnic school. He befriended fellow student
Marcel Grossmann, who would help him there to get by despite his loose study habits, and later to mathematically underpin his revolutionary insights into physics. Marie Winteler, a year older than him, took up a teaching post in
Olsberg, Switzerland. The five other polytechnic school freshmen following the same course as Einstein included just one woman, a twenty year old
Serbian,
Mileva Marić. Over the next few years, the pair spent many hours discussing their shared interests and learning about topics in physics that the polytechnic school's lectures did not cover. In his letters to Marić, Einstein confessed that exploring science with her by his side was much more enjoyable than reading a textbook in solitude. Eventually the two students became not only friends, but also lovers. Historians of physics are divided on the question of the extent to which Marić contributed to the insights of Einstein's
annus mirabilis publications. There is at least some evidence that he was influenced by her scientific ideas, When Marić learned of his infidelity soon after moving to Berlin with him in April 1914, she returned to Zurich, taking Hans Albert and Eduard with her. As part of the divorce settlement, Einstein agreed that if he were to win a Nobel Prize, he would give the money that he received to Marić; he won the prize two years later. arriving in New York, 1921 Einstein married Löwenthal in 1919. In 1923, he began a relationship with a secretary named Betty Neumann, the niece of his close friend Hans Mühsam. Löwenthal nevertheless remained loyal to him, accompanying him when he emigrated to the United States in 1933. In 1935, she was diagnosed with heart and kidney problems. She died in December 1936. A volume of Einstein's letters released by
Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2006 added some other women with whom he was romantically involved. They included Margarete Lebach (a married Austrian), Estella Katzenellenbogen (the rich owner of a florist business), Toni Mendel (a wealthy Jewish widow) and Ethel Michanowski (a Berlin socialite), with whom he spent time and from whom he accepted gifts while married to Löwenthal. After being widowed, Einstein was briefly in a relationship with Margarita Konenkova, thought by some to be a Russian spy; her husband, the Russian sculptor
Sergei Konenkov, created the bronze bust of Einstein at the
Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. Following an episode of acute mental illness at about the age of twenty, Einstein's son Eduard was diagnosed with
schizophrenia. His successful acquisition of Swiss citizenship in February 1901 was not followed by the usual sequel of
conscription; the Swiss authorities deemed him medically unfit for military service. He found that Swiss schools too appeared to have no use for him, failing to offer him a teaching position despite the almost two years that he spent applying for one. Eventually it was with the help of
Marcel Grossmann's father that he secured a post in
Bern at the
Swiss Patent Office, His 24-page doctoral dissertation also addressed a topic in molecular physics. Titled "Eine neue Bestimmung der Moleküldimensionen" ("A New Determination of Molecular Dimensions") and dedicated "Meinem Freunde Herr Dr. Marcel Grossmann gewidmet" (to his friend Marcel Grossman), it was completed on 30 April 1905 and approved by Professor
Alfred Kleiner of the University of Zurich three months later. (Einstein was formally awarded his PhD on 15 January 1906.) Four other pieces of work that Einstein completed in 1905—
his famous papers on the
photoelectric effect,
Brownian motion, his
special theory of relativity and the
equivalence of mass and energy—have led to the year being celebrated as an
annus mirabilis for physics akin to the miracle year of 1666 when
Isaac Newton experienced his greatest epiphanies. The publications deeply impressed Einstein's contemporaries.
Academic career in Europe (1908–1933) Einstein's sabbatical as a civil servant approached its end in 1908, when he secured a junior teaching position at the
University of Bern. In 1909, a lecture on relativistic
electrodynamics that he gave at the University of Zurich, much admired by
Alfred Kleiner, led to Zurich's luring him away from Bern with a newly created associate professorship. in
Zurich, 1913|upright=1.1 From 30 October to 3 November 1911, Einstein attended the first
Solvay Conference on Physics. In July 1912, he returned to his
alma mater, the
ETH Zurich, to take up a chair in theoretical physics. His teaching activities there centered on
thermodynamics and analytical mechanics, and his research interests included the molecular theory of heat,
continuum mechanics and the development of a relativistic theory of gravitation. In his work on the latter topic, he was assisted by his friend Marcel Grossmann, whose knowledge of the kind of mathematics required was greater than his own. and moved into an apartment in the Berlin district of
Dahlem on 1 April 1914. Britain's closest equivalent of the Nobel award, the
Royal Society's
Copley Medal, was not hung around Einstein's neck until 1925. Einstein resigned from the Prussian Academy in March 1933. His accomplishments in Berlin had included the completion of the general theory of relativity, proving the
Einstein–de Haas effect, contributing to the quantum theory of radiation, and the development of
Bose–Einstein statistics. A
total eclipse of the Sun that took place on 29 May 1919 provided an opportunity to put his theory of gravitational lensing to the test, and observations performed by Sir
Arthur Eddington yielded results that were consistent with his calculations. Eddington's work was reported at length in newspapers around the world. On 7 November 1919, for example, the leading British newspaper,
The Times, printed a banner headline that read: "Revolution in Science– New Theory of the Universe– Newtonian Ideas Overthrown". Einstein began his new life as an intellectual icon in America, where he arrived on 2 April 1921. He was welcomed to New York City by Mayor
John Francis Hylan, and then spent three weeks giving lectures and attending receptions. He spoke several times at
Columbia University and
Princeton, and in Washington, he visited the
White House with representatives of the
National Academy of Sciences. He returned to Europe via London, where he was the guest of the philosopher and statesman
Viscount Haldane. He used his time in the British capital to meet several people prominent in British scientific, political or intellectual life, and to deliver a lecture at
King's College. In July 1921, he published an essay, "My First Impression of the U.S.A.", in which he sought to sketch the American character.) He was greeted with even greater enthusiasm on the last leg of his tour, in which he spent twelve days in
Mandatory Palestine, newly entrusted to British rule by the
League of Nations in the aftermath of the First World War.
Sir Herbert Samuel, the British High Commissioner, welcomed him with a degree of ceremony normally only accorded to a visiting head of state, including a cannon salute. One reception held in his honor was stormed by people determined to hear him speak: he told them that he was happy that Jews were beginning to be recognized as a force in the world. On April 6, 1922, during a visit to Paris, Einstein
engaged in a debate on relativity with the philosopher
Henri Bergson. This dispute has had widespread ramifications for the humanities and was an academic
cause célèbre at the time. Einstein's decision to tour the eastern hemisphere in 1922 meant that he was unable to go to
Stockholm in the December of that year to participate in the Nobel prize ceremony. His place at the traditional Nobel banquet was taken by a German diplomat, who gave a speech praising him not only as a physicist but also as a campaigner for peace.
Touring South America (1925) In March and April 1925, Einstein and his wife visited South America, where they spent about a week in Brazil, a week in Uruguay and a month in Argentina. Their tour was suggested by Jorge Duclout (1856–1927) and Mauricio Nirenstein (1877–1935) with the support of several Argentine scholars, including
Julio Rey Pastor,
Jakob Laub, and
Leopoldo Lugones and was financed primarily by the Council of the
University of Buenos Aires and the
Asociación Hebraica Argentina (Argentine Hebraic Association) with a smaller contribution from the Argentine-Germanic Cultural Institution.
Touring the US (1930–1931) , 1931 In December 1930, Einstein began another significant sojourn in the United States, drawn back to the US by the offer of a two month research fellowship at the
California Institute of Technology. Caltech supported him in his wish that he should not be exposed to quite as much attention from the media as he had experienced when visiting the US in 1921, and he therefore declined all the invitations to receive prizes or make speeches that his admirers poured down upon him. But he remained willing to allow his fans at least some of the time with him that they requested. After arriving in New York City, Einstein was taken to various places and events, including
Chinatown, a lunch with the editors of
The New York Times, and a performance of
Carmen at the
Metropolitan Opera, where he was cheered by the audience on his arrival. During the days following, he was given the keys to the city by Mayor
Jimmy Walker and met
Nicholas Murray Butler, the president of
Columbia University, who described Einstein as "the ruling monarch of the mind".
Harry Emerson Fosdick, pastor at New York's
Riverside Church, gave Einstein a tour of the church and showed him a full-size statue that the church made of Einstein, standing at the entrance. Also during his stay in New York, he joined a crowd of 15,000 people at
Madison Square Garden during a
Hanukkah celebration. at the
Hollywood premiere of Chaplin's
City Lights, January 1931 Einstein next traveled to California, where he met
Caltech president and Nobel laureate
Robert A. Millikan. His friendship with Millikan was "awkward", as Millikan "had a penchant for patriotic militarism", where Einstein was a pronounced
pacifist. During an address to Caltech's students, Einstein noted that science was often inclined to do more harm than good. This aversion to war also led Einstein to befriend author
Upton Sinclair and film star
Charlie Chaplin, both noted for their pacifism.
Carl Laemmle, head of
Universal Studios, gave Einstein a tour of his studio and introduced him to Chaplin. They had an instant rapport, with Chaplin inviting Einstein and his wife, Elsa, to his home for dinner. Chaplin said Einstein's outward persona, calm and gentle, seemed to conceal a "highly emotional temperament", from which came his "extraordinary intellectual energy". Chaplin's film
City Lights was to premiere a few days later in Hollywood, and Chaplin invited Einstein and Elsa to join him as his special guests.
Walter Isaacson, Einstein's biographer, described this as "one of the most memorable scenes in the new era of celebrity". Chaplin visited Einstein at his home on a later trip to Berlin and recalled his "modest little flat" and the piano at which he had begun writing his theory. Chaplin speculated that it was "possibly used as kindling wood by the Nazis". Einstein and Chaplin were cheered at the premiere of the film. Chaplin said to Einstein, "They cheer me because they understand me, and they cheer you because no one understands you."
Emigration to the US (1933) , ) In February 1933, while on a visit to the United States, Einstein knew he could not return to Germany with the rise to power of the
Nazis under Germany's new chancellor,
Adolf Hitler. While at American universities in early 1933, he undertook his third two-month visiting professorship at the
California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. In February and March 1933, the
Gestapo repeatedly raided his family's apartment in Berlin. He and his wife Elsa returned to Europe in March, and during the trip, they learned that the German Reichstag had passed the
Enabling Act on 23 March, transforming Hitler's government into a
de facto legal dictatorship, and that they would not be able to proceed to Berlin. Later on, they heard that their cottage had been raided by the Nazis and Einstein's personal sailboat confiscated. Upon landing in
Antwerp, Belgium on 28 March, Einstein immediately went to the German consulate and surrendered his passport, formally renouncing his German citizenship. The Nazis later sold his boat and converted his cottage into a
Hitler Youth camp. In April 1933, Einstein discovered that the new German government had passed
laws barring Jews from holding any official positions, including teaching at universities. Historian
Gerald Holton describes how, with "virtually no audible protest being raised by their colleagues", thousands of Jewish scientists were suddenly forced to give up their university positions and their names were removed from the rolls of institutions where they were employed. A month later, Einstein's works were among those targeted by the
German Student Union in the
Nazi book burnings, with Nazi propaganda minister
Joseph Goebbels proclaiming, "Jewish intellectualism is dead." One German magazine included him in a list of enemies of the German regime with the phrase, "not yet hanged", offering a $5,000 bounty on his head. Einstein was now without a permanent home, unsure where he would live and work, and equally worried about the fate of countless other scientists still in Germany. Aided by the
Academic Assistance Council, founded in April 1933 by British Liberal politician
William Beveridge to help academics escape Nazi persecution, Einstein was able to leave Germany. He rented a house in De Haan, Belgium, where he lived for a few months. In late July 1933, he visited England for about six weeks at the invitation of the British Member of Parliament Commander
Oliver Locker-Lampson, who had become friends with him in the preceding years. Locker-Lampson invited him to stay near his
Cromer home in a secluded wooden cabin on Roughton Heath in the Parish of
Roughton, Norfolk. To protect Einstein, Locker-Lampson had two bodyguards watch over him; a photo of them carrying shotguns and guarding Einstein was published in the
Daily Herald on 24 July 1933.) at the new Institute. He soon developed a close friendship with Gödel; the two would take long walks together discussing their work.
Bruria Kaufman, his assistant, later became a physicist. During this period, Einstein tried to develop a
unified field theory and to refute the
accepted interpretation of
quantum physics, both unsuccessfully. He lived in Princeton at his home from 1935 onwards. The
Albert Einstein House was made a
National Historic Landmark in 1976.
World War II and the Manhattan Project In 1939, a group of Hungarian scientists that included émigré physicist
Leó Szilárd attempted to alert
Washington, D.C. to ongoing Nazi atomic bomb research. The group's warnings were discounted. Einstein and Szilárd, along with other refugees such as
Edward Teller and
Eugene Wigner, "regarded it as their responsibility to alert Americans to the possibility that German scientists might win the
race to build an atomic bomb, and to warn that Hitler would be more than willing to resort to such a weapon." In 1960 Einstein was included posthumously as a charter member of the
World Academy of Art and Science (WAAS), an organization founded by distinguished scientists and intellectuals who committed themselves to the responsible and ethical advances of science, particularly in light of the development of nuclear weapons.
US citizenship certificate from judge
Phillip Forman in 1940 Einstein became an American citizen in 1940. Not long after settling into his career at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, he expressed his appreciation of the
meritocracy in American culture compared to Europe. He recognized the "right of individuals to say and think what they pleased" without social barriers. As a result, individuals were encouraged, he said, to be more creative, a trait he valued from his early education. Einstein joined the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Princeton, where he campaigned for the
civil rights of African Americans. He considered racism America's "worst disease", seeing it as "handed down from one generation to the next". As part of his involvement, he corresponded with civil rights activist
W. E. B. Du Bois and was prepared to testify on his behalf during his trial as an alleged foreign agent in 1951. When Einstein offered to be a character witness for Du Bois, the judge decided to drop the case. Later in his life, Einstein's political view was in favor of
socialism and critical of capitalism, which he detailed in his essays such as "
Why Socialism?". The FBI created a secret dossier on Einstein in 1932; by the time of his death, it was 1,427 pages long. In 1929, at a meeting of the Council of
War Resisters in Zurich, when asked what his attitude would be in the event of another war, Einstein declared:
Relationship with Zionism Einstein, a Jew, was a figurehead leader in the establishment of the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which opened in 1925. Earlier, in 1921, he was asked by the biochemist and president of the
World Zionist Organization,
Chaim Weizmann, to help raise funds for the planned university. He made suggestions for the creation of an Institute of Agriculture, a Chemical Institute and an Institute of Microbiology in order to fight the various ongoing epidemics such as
malaria, which he called an "evil" that was undermining a third of the country's development. He also promoted the establishment of an Oriental Studies Institute, to include language courses given in both
Hebrew and
Arabic. Einstein was not a
nationalist and opposed the creation of an independent Jewish state. He felt that the waves of arriving Jews of the
Aliyah could live alongside existing Arabs in
Palestine. The state of
Israel was established without his help in 1948; Einstein was limited to a marginal role in the
Zionist movement. Afterward, Einstein adopted a practical attitude, understanding that "there is no going back", and the new state must be supported. Upon the death of Israeli president Weizmann in November 1952, Prime Minister
David Ben-Gurion offered Einstein the largely ceremonial position of
President of Israel at the urging of
Ezriel Carlebach.
Religious and philosophical views Per
Lee Smolin, "I believe what allowed Einstein to achieve so much was primarily a moral quality. He simply cared far more than most of his colleagues that the laws of physics have to explain everything in nature coherently and consistently." Einstein expounded his spiritual outlook in a wide array of writings and interviews. In a German-language letter to philosopher
Eric Gutkind, dated 3 January 1954, Einstein wrote: Einstein had been sympathetic toward
vegetarianism for a long time. In a letter in 1930 to Hermann Huth, vice-president of the
German Vegetarian Federation (Deutsche Vegetarier-Bund), he wrote: He became a vegetarian himself only during the last part of his life. In March 1954 he wrote in a letter: "So I am living without fats, without meat, without fish, but am feeling quite well this way. It almost seems to me that man was not born to be a carnivore."
Love of music Einstein developed an appreciation for music at an early age. In his late journals he wrote: His mother played the piano reasonably well and wanted her son to learn the violin, not only to instill in him a love of music but also to help him assimilate into
German culture. According to conductor
Leon Botstein, Einstein began playing when he was 5. However, he did not enjoy it at that age. and his ashes were scattered at an undisclosed location. == Scientific career ==