Jewish German physicist (1879-1955). Born in
Ulm, Germany to
middle-class Jewish parents, Albert soon moved with his
family to
Munich, where his uncle Jacob taught him
mathematics, and
Max Talmey, a lunch guest, gave him books on
geometry and
science.
When his family moved to Italy in 1894, Albert stayed behind to finish
high school, but he was
dismissed after a
doctor said he was going to have a
nervous breakdown. He took the
entrance exam for
Swiss Polytechnic in
Zurich, in an attempt to
skip high school completely, and although he scored high in
math, he still
flunked. He finished high school in
Aarau, Switzerland, and enrolled in Swiss Polytechnic, where he met with his future wife,
Mileva Maric (the only woman in his class), and
graduated with a less-than-
outstanding record.
Albert and Mileva had a
daughter out of
wedlock and gave her up for
adoption. After struggling to find a job, Albert finally got a position as a
clerk at the
Swiss Patent Office in
Bern. Albert and Mileva finally married in 1903.
Einstein puzzled through
physics problems in his
spare time and, in 1905, he published papers on
Brownian motion, the
photoelectric effect, and
special relativity. (He won the
Nobel Prize in 1921 for his photoelectric paper.) These papers allowed him to get jobs at various universities in
Zurich,
Prague, and
Berlin. Unfortunately, by the time he got to Berlin, his
marriage had fallen apart. Einstein was a
sub-par husband and father, and Mileva returned to Zurich with the couple's two sons. The Einsteins
divorced five years later. (Mileva requested -- and got -- rights to all of Albert's
future Nobel Prize
money)
Einstein completed his
general theory of relativity in
1915, but fell seriously
ill soon afterwards. His
cousin Elsa nursed him back to
health, and they married soon after his divorce was
final. By now, Einstein was
famous, and he traveled all over the world lecturing on physics and
liberal causes.
As
anti-Semitism rose in
Germany, a
radical group put a
price on his head, and a group of
scientists set out to try to
disprove his theories. He finally fled
Germany when
Hitler and the
Nazis came to power. He accepted a post at the
Institute for Advanced Study in
Princeton, New Jersey. He and an old friend named
Leo Szilard wrote a letter to
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, relating their fears that the Nazis were working on a
nuclear fission device and encouraging him to pursue
research on the
atomic bomb. This, of course, got the
Manhattan Project started, though Einstein didn't work on it -- never a particularly
patriotic individual, it was believed that he would be a
security risk.
Einstein spent his last years trying to put together a
unified field theory and
campaigning for
world peace. He enjoyed
boating,
walking, and playing his
violin, but he most enjoyed sitting by himself and
thinking.
Research from GURPS Who's Who, compiled by Phil Masters, "Albert Einstein" by Jack Elmy, pp. 118-119.