biography of einstein in english

Albert Einstein

One of the most influential scientists of the 20 th century, Albert Einstein was a physicist who developed the theory of relativity.

We may earn commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back.

Quick Facts

Early life, family, and education, einstein’s iq, patent clerk, inventions and discoveries, nobel prize in physics, wives and children, travel diaries, becoming a u.s. citizen, einstein and the atomic bomb, time travel and quantum theory, personal life, death and final words, einstein’s brain, einstein in books and movies: "oppenheimer" and more, who was albert einstein.

Albert Einstein was a German mathematician and physicist who developed the special and general theories of relativity. In 1921, he won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his explanation of the photoelectric effect. In the following decade, he immigrated to the United States after being targeted by the German Nazi Party. His work also had a major impact on the development of atomic energy. In his later years, Einstein focused on unified field theory. He died in April 1955 at age 76. With his passion for inquiry, Einstein is generally considered the most influential physicist of the 20 th century.

FULL NAME: Albert Einstein BORN: March 14, 1879 DIED: April 18, 1955 BIRTHPLACE: Ulm, Württemberg, Germany SPOUSES: Mileva Einstein-Maric (1903-1919) and Elsa Einstein (1919-1936) CHILDREN: Lieserl, Hans, and Eduard ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Pisces

Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879, in Ulm, Württemberg, Germany. He grew up in a secular Jewish family. His father, Hermann Einstein, was a salesman and engineer who, with his brother, founded Elektrotechnische Fabrik J. Einstein & Cie, a Munich-based company that mass-produced electrical equipment. Einstein’s mother, the former Pauline Koch, ran the family household. Einstein had one sister, Maja, born two years after him.

Einstein attended elementary school at the Luitpold Gymnasium in Munich. However, he felt alienated there and struggled with the institution’s rigid pedagogical style. He also had what were considered speech challenges. However, he developed a passion for classical music and playing the violin, which would stay with him into his later years. Most significantly, Einstein’s youth was marked by deep inquisitiveness and inquiry.

Toward the end of the 1880s, Max Talmud, a Polish medical student who sometimes dined with the Einstein family, became an informal tutor to young Einstein. Talmud had introduced his pupil to a children’s science text that inspired Einstein to dream about the nature of light. Thus, during his teens, Einstein penned what would be seen as his first major paper, “The Investigation of the State of Aether in Magnetic Fields.”

Hermann relocated the family to Milan, Italy, in the mid-1890s after his business lost out on a major contract. Einstein was left at a relative’s boarding house in Munich to complete his schooling at the Luitpold.

Faced with military duty when he turned of age, Einstein allegedly withdrew from classes, using a doctor’s note to excuse himself and claim nervous exhaustion. With their son rejoining them in Italy, his parents understood Einstein’s perspective but were concerned about his future prospects as a school dropout and draft dodger.

Einstein was eventually able to gain admission into the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, specifically due to his superb mathematics and physics scores on the entrance exam. He was still required to complete his pre-university education first and thus attended a high school in Aarau, Switzerland, helmed by Jost Winteler. Einstein lived with the schoolmaster’s family and fell in love with Winteler’s daughter Marie. Einstein later renounced his German citizenship and became a Swiss citizen at the dawn of the new century.

Einstein’s intelligence quotient was estimated to be around 160, but there are no indications he was ever actually tested.

Psychologist David Wechsler didn’t release the first edition of the WAIS cognitive test, which evolved into the WAIS-IV test commonly used today, until 1955—shortly before Einstein’s death. The maximum score of the current version is 160, with an IQ of 135 or higher ranking in the 99 th percentile.

Magazine columnist Marilyn vos Savant has the highest-ever recorded IQ at 228 and was featured in the Guinness Book of World Records in the late 1980s. However, Guinness discontinued the category because of debates about testing accuracy. According to Parade , individuals believed to have higher IQs than Einstein include Leonardo Da Vinci , Marie Curie , Nikola Tesla , and Nicolaus Copernicus .

After graduating from university, Einstein faced major challenges in terms of finding academic positions, having alienated some professors over not attending class more regularly in lieu of studying independently.

Einstein eventually found steady work in 1902 after receiving a referral for a clerk position in a Swiss patent office. While working at the patent office, Einstein had the time to further explore ideas that had taken hold during his university studies and thus cemented his theorems on what would be known as the principle of relativity.

In 1905—seen by many as a “miracle year” for the theorist—Einstein had four papers published in the Annalen der Physik , one of the best-known physics journals of the era. Two focused on the photoelectric effect and Brownian motion. The two others, which outlined E=MC 2 and the special theory of relativity, were defining for Einstein’s career and the course of the study of physics.

As a physicist, Einstein had many discoveries, but he is perhaps best known for his theory of relativity and the equation E=MC 2 , which foreshadowed the development of atomic power and the atomic bomb.

Theory of Relativity

Einstein first proposed a special theory of relativity in 1905 in his paper “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies,” which took physics in an electrifying new direction. The theory explains that space and time are actually connected, and Einstein called this joint structure space-time.

By November 1915, Einstein completed the general theory of relativity, which accounted for gravity’s relationship to space-time. Einstein considered this theory the culmination of his life research. He was convinced of the merits of general relativity because it allowed for a more accurate prediction of planetary orbits around the sun, which fell short in Isaac Newton ’s theory. It also offered a more expansive, nuanced explanation of how gravitational forces worked.

Einstein’s assertions were affirmed via observations and measurements by British astronomers Sir Frank Dyson and Sir Arthur Eddington during the 1919 solar eclipse, and thus a global science icon was born. Today, the theories of relativity underpin the accuracy of GPS technology, among other phenomena.

Even so, Einstein did make one mistake when developing his general theory, which naturally predicted the universe is either expanding or contracting. Einstein didn’t believe this prediction initially, instead holding onto the belief that the universe was a fixed, static entity. To account for, this he factored in a “cosmological constant” to his equation. His later theories directly contracted this idea and asserted that the universe could be in a state of flux. Then, astronomer Edwin Hubble deduced that we indeed inhabit an expanding universe. Hubble and Einstein met at the Mount Wilson Observatory near Los Angeles in 1931.

Decades after Einstein’s death, in 2018, a team of scientists confirmed one aspect of Einstein’s general theory of relativity: that the light from a star passing close to a black hole would be stretched to longer wavelengths by the overwhelming gravitational field. Tracking star S2, their measurements indicated that the star’s orbital velocity increased to over 25 million kph as it neared the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy, its appearance shifting from blue to red as its wavelengths stretched to escape the pull of gravity.

Einstein’s E=MC²

Einstein’s 1905 paper on the matter-energy relationship proposed the equation E=MC²: the energy of a body (E) is equal to the mass (M) of that body times the speed of light squared (C²). This equation suggested that tiny particles of matter could be converted into huge amounts of energy, a discovery that heralded atomic power.

Famed quantum theorist Max Planck backed up the assertions of Einstein, who thus became a star of the lecture circuit and academia, taking on various positions before becoming director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics (today is known as the Max Planck Institute for Physics) from 1917 to 1933.

In 1921, Einstein won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his explanation of the photoelectric effect, since his ideas on relativity were still considered questionable. He wasn’t actually given the award until the following year due to a bureaucratic ruling, and during his acceptance speech, he still opted to speak about relativity.

Einstein married Mileva Maric on January 6, 1903. While attending school in Zurich, Einstein met Maric, a Serbian physics student. Einstein continued to grow closer to Maric, but his parents were strongly against the relationship due to her ethnic background.

Nonetheless, Einstein continued to see her, with the two developing a correspondence via letters in which he expressed many of his scientific ideas. Einstein’s father passed away in 1902, and the couple married shortly thereafter.

Einstein and Mavic had three children. Their daughter, Lieserl, was born in 1902 before their wedding and might have been later raised by Maric’s relatives or given up for adoption. Her ultimate fate and whereabouts remain a mystery. The couple also had two sons: Hans Albert Einstein, who became a well-known hydraulic engineer, and Eduard “Tete” Einstein, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia as a young man.

The Einsteins’ marriage would not be a happy one, with the two divorcing in 1919 and Maric having an emotional breakdown in connection to the split. Einstein, as part of a settlement, agreed to give Maric any funds he might receive from possibly winning the Nobel Prize in the future.

During his marriage to Maric, Einstein had also begun an affair some time earlier with a cousin, Elsa Löwenthal . The couple wed in 1919, the same year of Einstein’s divorce. He would continue to see other women throughout his second marriage, which ended with Löwenthal’s death in 1936.

In his 40s, Einstein traveled extensively and journaled about his experiences. Some of his unfiltered private thoughts are shared two volumes of The Travel Diaries of Albert Einstein .

The first volume , published in 2018, focuses on his five-and-a-half month trip to the Far East, Palestine, and Spain. The scientist started a sea journey to Japan in Marseille, France, in autumn of 1922, accompanied by his second wife, Elsa. They journeyed through the Suez Canal, then to Sri Lanka, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Japan. The couple returned to Germany via Palestine and Spain in March 1923.

The second volume , released in 2023, covers three months that he spent lecturing and traveling in Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil in 1925.

The Travel Diaries contain unflattering analyses of the people he came across, including the Chinese, Sri Lankans, and Argentinians, a surprise coming from a man known for vehemently denouncing racism in his later years. In an entry for November 1922, Einstein refers to residents of Hong Kong as “industrious, filthy, lethargic people.”

In 1933, Einstein took on a position at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, where he would spend the rest of his life.

At the time the Nazis, led by Adolf Hitler , were gaining prominence with violent propaganda and vitriol in an impoverished post-World War I Germany. The Nazi Party influenced other scientists to label Einstein’s work “Jewish physics.” Jewish citizens were barred from university work and other official jobs, and Einstein himself was targeted to be killed. Meanwhile, other European scientists also left regions threatened by Germany and immigrated to the United States, with concern over Nazi strategies to create an atomic weapon.

Not long after moving and beginning his career at IAS, Einstein expressed an appreciation for American meritocracy and the opportunities people had for free thought, a stark contrast to his own experiences coming of age. In 1935, Einstein was granted permanent residency in his adopted country and became an American citizen five years later.

In America, Einstein mostly devoted himself to working on a unified field theory, an all-embracing paradigm meant to unify the varied laws of physics. However, during World War II, he worked on Navy-based weapons systems and made big monetary donations to the military by auctioning off manuscripts worth millions.

In 1939, Einstein and fellow physicist Leo Szilard wrote to President Franklin D. Roosevelt to alert him of the possibility of a Nazi bomb and to galvanize the United States to create its own nuclear weapons.

The United States would eventually initiate the Manhattan Project , though Einstein wouldn’t take a direct part in its implementation due to his pacifist and socialist affiliations. Einstein was also the recipient of much scrutiny and major distrust from FBI director J. Edgar Hoover . In July 1940, the U.S. Army Intelligence office denied Einstein a security clearance to participate in the project, meaning J. Robert Oppenheimer and the scientists working in Los Alamos were forbidden from consulting with him.

Einstein had no knowledge of the U.S. plan to use atomic bombs in Japan in 1945. When he heard of the first bombing at Hiroshima, he reportedly said, “Ach! The world is not ready for it.”

Einstein became a major player in efforts to curtail usage of the A-bomb. The following year, he and Szilard founded the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists, and in 1947, via an essay for The Atlantic Monthly , Einstein espoused working with the United Nations to maintain nuclear weapons as a deterrent to conflict.

After World War II, Einstein continued to work on his unified field theory and key aspects of his general theory of relativity, including time travel, wormholes, black holes, and the origins of the universe.

However, he felt isolated in his endeavors since the majority of his colleagues had begun focusing their attention on quantum theory. In the last decade of his life, Einstein, who had always seen himself as a loner, withdrew even further from any sort of spotlight, preferring to stay close to Princeton and immerse himself in processing ideas with colleagues.

In the late 1940s, Einstein became a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), seeing the parallels between the treatment of Jews in Germany and Black people in the United States. He corresponded with scholar and activist W.E.B. Du Bois as well as performer Paul Robeson and campaigned for civil rights, calling racism a “disease” in a 1946 Lincoln University speech.

Einstein was very particular about his sleep schedule, claiming he needed 10 hours of sleep per day to function well. His theory of relativity allegedly came to him in a dream about cows being electrocuted. He was also known to take regular naps. He is said to have held objects like a spoon or pencil in his hand while falling asleep. That way, he could wake up before hitting the second stage of sleep—a hypnagogic process believed to boost creativity and capture sleep-inspired ideas.

Although sleep was important to Einstein, socks were not. He was famous for refusing to wear them. According to a letter he wrote to future wife Elsa, he stopped wearing them because he was annoyed by his big toe pushing through the material and creating a hole.

One of the most recognizable photos of the 20 th century shows Einstein sticking out his tongue while leaving his 72 nd birthday party on March 14, 1951.

According to Discovery.com , Einstein was leaving his party at Princeton when a swarm of reporters and photographers approached and asked him to smile. Tired from doing so all night, he refused and rebelliously stuck his tongue out at the crowd for a moment before turning away. UPI photographer Arthur Sasse captured the shot.

Einstein was amused by the picture and ordered several prints to give to his friends. He also signed a copy of the photo that sold for $125,000 at a 2017 auction.

Einstein died on April 18, 1955, at age 76 at the University Medical Center at Princeton. The previous day, while working on a speech to honor Israel’s seventh anniversary, Einstein suffered an abdominal aortic aneurysm.

He was taken to the hospital for treatment but refused surgery, believing that he had lived his life and was content to accept his fate. “I want to go when I want,” he stated at the time. “It is tasteless to prolong life artificially. I have done my share, it is time to go. I will do it elegantly.”

According to the BBC, Einstein muttered a few words in German at the moment of his death. However, the nurse on duty didn’t speak German so their translation was lost forever.

In a 2014 interview , Life magazine photographer Ralph Morse said the hospital was swarmed by journalists, photographers, and onlookers once word of Einstein’s death spread. Morse decided to travel to Einstein’s office at the Institute for Advanced Studies, offering the superintendent alcohol to gain access. He was able to photograph the office just as Einstein left it.

After an autopsy, Einstein’s corpse was moved to a Princeton funeral home later that afternoon and then taken to Trenton, New Jersey, for a cremation ceremony. Morse said he was the only photographer present for the cremation, but Life managing editor Ed Thompson decided not to publish an exclusive story at the request of Einstein’s son Hans.

During Einstein’s autopsy, pathologist Thomas Stoltz Harvey had removed his brain, reportedly without his family’s consent, for preservation and future study by doctors of neuroscience.

However, during his life, Einstein participated in brain studies, and at least one biography claimed he hoped researchers would study his brain after he died. Einstein’s brain is now located at the Princeton University Medical Center. In keeping with his wishes, the rest of his body was cremated and the ashes scattered in a secret location.

In 1999, Canadian scientists who were studying Einstein’s brain found that his inferior parietal lobe, the area that processes spatial relationships, 3D-visualization, and mathematical thought, was 15 percent wider than in people who possess normal intelligence. According to The New York Times , the researchers believe it might help explain why Einstein was so intelligent.

In 2011, the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia received thin slices of Einstein’s brain from Dr. Lucy Rorke-Adams, a neuropathologist at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and put them on display. Rorke-Adams said she received the brain slides from Harvey.

Since Einstein’s death, a veritable mountain of books have been written on the iconic thinker’s life, including Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson and Einstein: A Biography by Jürgen Neffe, both from 2007. Einstein’s own words are presented in the collection The World As I See It .

Einstein has also been portrayed on screen. Michael Emil played a character called “The Professor,” clearly based on Einstein, in the 1985 film Insignificance —in which alternate versions of Einstein, Marilyn Monroe , Joe DiMaggio , and Joseph McCarthy cross paths in a New York City hotel.

Walter Matthau portrayed Einstein in the fictional 1994 comedy I.Q. , in which he plays matchmaker for his niece played by Meg Ryan . Einstein was also a character in the obscure comedy films I Killed Einstein, Gentlemen (1970) and Young Einstein (1988).

A much more historically accurate depiction of Einstein came in 2017, when he was the subject of the first season of Genius , a 10-part scripted miniseries by National Geographic. Johnny Flynn played a younger version of the scientist, while Geoffrey Rush portrayed Einstein in his later years after he had fled Germany. Ron Howard was the director.

Tom Conti plays Einstein in the 2023 biopic Oppenheimer , directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Cillian Murphy as scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer during his involvement with the Manhattan Project.

• The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.
• A question that sometimes drives me hazy: Am I or are the others crazy?
• A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.
• Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.
• I want to go when I want. It is tasteless to prolong life artificially. I have done my share, it is time to go. I will do it elegantly.
• If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.
• Nature shows us only the tail of the lion. But there is no doubt in my mind that the lion belongs with it even if he cannot reveal himself to the eye all at once because of his huge dimension. We see him only the way a louse sitting upon him would.
• [T]he distinction between past, present, and future is only an illusion, however persistent.
• Living in this “great age,” it is hard to understand that we belong to this mad, degenerate species, which imputes free will to itself. If only there were somewhere an island for the benevolent and the prudent! Then also I would want to be an ardent patriot.
• I, at any rate, am convinced that He [God] is not playing at dice.
• How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it.
• I regard class differences as contrary to justice and, in the last resort, based on force.
• I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves—this critical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty. The ideals that have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth.
• My political ideal is democracy. Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized. It is an irony of fate that I myself have been the recipient of excessive admiration and reverence from my fellow-beings, through no fault and no merit of my own.
• The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed.
• An autocratic system of coercion, in my opinion, soon degenerates. For force always attracts men of low morality, and I believe it to be an invariable rule that tyrants of genius are succeeded by scoundrels.
• My passionate interest in social justice and social responsibility has always stood in curious contrast to a marked lack of desire for direct association with men and women. I am a horse for single harness, not cut out for tandem or team work. I have never belonged wholeheartedly to country or state, to my circle of friends, or even to my own family.
• Everybody is a genius.

Fact Check: We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn’t look right, contact us !

The Biography.com staff is a team of people-obsessed and news-hungry editors with decades of collective experience. We have worked as daily newspaper reporters, major national magazine editors, and as editors-in-chief of regional media publications. Among our ranks are book authors and award-winning journalists. Our staff also works with freelance writers, researchers, and other contributors to produce the smart, compelling profiles and articles you see on our site. To meet the team, visit our About Us page: https://www.biography.com/about/a43602329/about-us

Tyler Piccotti first joined the Biography.com staff as an Associate News Editor in February 2023, and before that worked almost eight years as a newspaper reporter and copy editor. He is a graduate of Syracuse University. When he's not writing and researching his next story, you can find him at the nearest amusement park, catching the latest movie, or cheering on his favorite sports teams.

Nobel Prize Winners

Chien-Shiung Wu

The Solar Eclipse That Made Albert Einstein a Star

14 Hispanic Women Who Have Made History

Marie Curie

Martin Luther King Jr.

Henry Kissinger

Malala Yousafzai

Jimmy Carter

10 Famous Poets Whose Enduring Works We Still Read

22 Famous Scientists You Should Know

Wole Soyinka

• History Classics
• Your Profile
• Find History on Facebook (Opens in a new window)
• Find History on Twitter (Opens in a new window)
• Find History on YouTube (Opens in a new window)
• Find History on Instagram (Opens in a new window)
• Find History on TikTok (Opens in a new window)
• This Day In History
• History Podcasts
• History Vault

Albert Einstein

By: History.com Editors

Updated: May 16, 2019 | Original: October 27, 2009

The German-born physicist Albert Einstein developed the first of his groundbreaking theories while working as a clerk in the Swiss patent office in Bern. After making his name with four scientific articles published in 1905, he went on to win worldwide fame for his general theory of relativity and a Nobel Prize in 1921 for his explanation of the phenomenon known as the photoelectric effect. An outspoken pacifist who was publicly identified with the Zionist movement, Einstein emigrated from Germany to the United States when the Nazis took power before World War II. He lived and worked in Princeton, New Jersey, for the remainder of his life.

Einstein’s Early Life (1879-1904)

Born on March 14, 1879, in the southern German city of Ulm, Albert Einstein grew up in a middle-class Jewish family in Munich. As a child, Einstein became fascinated by music (he played the violin), mathematics and science. He dropped out of school in 1894 and moved to Switzerland, where he resumed his schooling and later gained admission to the Swiss Federal Polytechnic Institute in Zurich. In 1896, he renounced his German citizenship, and remained officially stateless before becoming a Swiss citizen in 1901.

Did you know? Almost immediately after Albert Einstein learned of the atomic bomb's use in Japan, he became an advocate for nuclear disarmament. He formed the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists and backed Manhattan Project scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer in his opposition to the hydrogen bomb.

While at Zurich Polytechnic, Einstein fell in love with his fellow student Mileva Maric, but his parents opposed the match and he lacked the money to marry. The couple had an illegitimate daughter, Lieserl, born in early 1902, of whom little is known. After finding a position as a clerk at the Swiss patent office in Bern, Einstein married Maric in 1903; they would have two more children, Hans Albert (born 1904) and Eduard (born 1910).

Einstein’s Miracle Year (1905)

While working at the patent office, Einstein did some of the most creative work of his life, producing no fewer than four groundbreaking articles in 1905 alone. In the first paper, he applied the quantum theory (developed by German physicist Max Planck) to light in order to explain the phenomenon known as the photoelectric effect, by which a material will emit electrically charged particles when hit by light. The second article contained Einstein’s experimental proof of the existence of atoms, which he got by analyzing the phenomenon of Brownian motion, in which tiny particles were suspended in water.

In the third and most famous article, titled “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies,” Einstein confronted the apparent contradiction between two principal theories of physics: Isaac Newton’s concepts of absolute space and time and James Clerk Maxwell’s idea that the speed of light was a constant. To do this, Einstein introduced his special theory of relativity, which held that the laws of physics are the same even for objects moving in different inertial frames (i.e. at constant speeds relative to each other), and that the speed of light is a constant in all inertial frames. A fourth paper concerned the fundamental relationship between mass and energy, concepts viewed previously as completely separate. Einstein’s famous equation E = mc2 (where “c” was the constant speed of light) expressed this relationship.

From Zurich to Berlin (1906-1932)

Einstein continued working at the patent office until 1909, when he finally found a full-time academic post at the University of Zurich. In 1913, he arrived at the University of Berlin, where he was made director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics. The move coincided with the beginning of Einstein’s romantic relationship with a cousin of his, Elsa Lowenthal, whom he would eventually marry after divorcing Mileva. In 1915, Einstein published the general theory of relativity, which he considered his masterwork. This theory found that gravity, as well as motion, can affect time and space. According to Einstein’s equivalence principle–which held that gravity’s pull in one direction is equivalent to an acceleration of speed in the opposite direction–if light is bent by acceleration, it must also be bent by gravity. In 1919, two expeditions sent to perform experiments during a solar eclipse found that light rays from distant stars were deflected or bent by the gravity of the sun in just the way Einstein had predicted.

The general theory of relativity was the first major theory of gravity since Newton’s, more than 250 years before, and the results made a tremendous splash worldwide, with the London Times proclaiming a “Revolution in Science” and a “New Theory of the Universe.” Einstein began touring the world, speaking in front of crowds of thousands in the United States, Britain, France and Japan. In 1921, he won the Nobel Prize for his work on the photoelectric effect, as his work on relativity remained controversial at the time. Einstein soon began building on his theories to form a new science of cosmology, which held that the universe was dynamic instead of static, and was capable of expanding and contracting.

Einstein Moves to the United States (1933-39)

A longtime pacifist and a Jew, Einstein became the target of hostility in Weimar Germany, where many citizens were suffering plummeting economic fortunes in the aftermath of defeat in the Great War. In December 1932, a month before Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany, Einstein made the decision to emigrate to the United States, where he took a position at the newly founded Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey . He would never again enter the country of his birth.

By the time Einstein’s wife Elsa died in 1936, he had been involved for more than a decade with his efforts to find a unified field theory, which would incorporate all the laws of the universe, and those of physics, into a single framework. In the process, Einstein became increasingly isolated from many of his colleagues, who were focused mainly on the quantum theory and its implications, rather than on relativity.

Einstein’s Later Life (1939-1955)

In the late 1930s, Einstein’s theories, including his equation E=mc2, helped form the basis of the development of the atomic bomb. In 1939, at the urging of the Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard, Einstein wrote to President Franklin D. Roosevelt advising him to approve funding for the development of uranium before Germany could gain the upper hand. Einstein, who became a U.S. citizen in 1940 but retained his Swiss citizenship, was never asked to participate in the resulting Manhattan Project , as the U.S. government suspected his socialist and pacifist views. In 1952, Einstein declined an offer extended by David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s premier, to become president of Israel .

Throughout the last years of his life, Einstein continued his quest for a unified field theory. Though he published an article on the theory in Scientific American in 1950, it remained unfinished when he died, of an aortic aneurysm, five years later. In the decades following his death, Einstein’s reputation and stature in the world of physics only grew, as physicists began to unravel the mystery of the so-called “strong force” (the missing piece of his unified field theory) and space satellites further verified the principles of his cosmology.

HISTORY Vault: Secrets of Einstein's Brain

Originally stolen by the doctor trusted to perform his autopsy, scientists over the decades have examined the brain of Albert Einstein to try and determine what made this seemingly normal man tick.

Sign up for Inside History

Get HISTORY’s most fascinating stories delivered to your inbox three times a week.

By submitting your information, you agree to receive emails from HISTORY and A+E Networks. You can opt out at any time. You must be 16 years or older and a resident of the United States.

More details : Privacy Notice | Terms of Use | Contact Us

You are using an outdated browser. Please upgrade your browser to improve your experience and security.

Enhanced Page Navigation

• Albert Einstein - Facts

Albert Einstein

Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive.

Albert Einstein The Nobel Prize in Physics 1921

Born: 14 March 1879, Ulm, Germany

Died: 18 April 1955, Princeton, NJ, USA

Affiliation at the time of the award: Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut (now Max-Planck-Institut) für Physik, Berlin, Germany

Prize motivation: “for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect”

Albert Einstein received his Nobel Prize one year later, in 1922.

Prize share: 1/1

Albert Einstein grew up in Munich, where his father founded an electrical engineering company. After studying at the ETH university in Zurich, Einstein worked at the patent office in Bern, during which time he produced several pioneering works in the field of physics. He was later employed at universities in Bern, Zurich, and Prague, and from 1914, in Berlin. After the Nazis seized power in Germany, Einstein immigrated to the US, where he worked at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Einstein married twice and had three children by his first marriage.

If metal electrodes are exposed to light, electrical sparks between them occur more readily. For this photoelectric effect to occur, the light waves must be above a certain frequency, however. According to physics theory, the light's intensity should be critical. In one of several epoch-making studies beginning in 1905, Albert Einstein explained that light consists of quanta—packets with fixed energies corresponding to certain frequencies. One such light quantum, a photon, must have a certain minimum frequency before it can liberate an electron.

Nobel Prizes and laureates

Nobel prizes 2023.

Explore prizes and laureates

Biography Online

Albert Einstein Biography

Einstein is also well known as an original free-thinker, speaking on a range of humanitarian and global issues. After contributing to the theoretical development of nuclear physics and encouraging F.D. Roosevelt to start the Manhattan Project, he later spoke out against the use of nuclear weapons.

Born in Germany to Jewish parents, Einstein settled in Switzerland and then, after Hitler’s rise to power, the United States. Einstein was a truly global man and one of the undisputed genius’ of the Twentieth Century.

Early life Albert Einstein

Einstein was born 14 March 1879, in Ulm the German Empire. His parents were working-class (salesman/engineer) and non-observant Jews. Aged 15, the family moved to Milan, Italy, where his father hoped Albert would become a mechanical engineer. However, despite Einstein’s intellect and thirst for knowledge, his early academic reports suggested anything but a glittering career in academia. His teachers found him dim and slow to learn. Part of the problem was that Albert expressed no interest in learning languages and the learning by rote that was popular at the time.

“School failed me, and I failed the school. It bored me. The teachers behaved like Feldwebel (sergeants). I wanted to learn what I wanted to know, but they wanted me to learn for the exam.” Einstein and the Poet (1983)

At the age of 12, Einstein picked up a book on geometry and read it cover to cover. – He would later refer to it as his ‘holy booklet’. He became fascinated by maths and taught himself – becoming acquainted with the great scientific discoveries of the age.

Albert Einstein with wife Elsa

Despite Albert’s independent learning, he languished at school. Eventually, he was asked to leave by the authorities because his indifference was setting a bad example to other students.

He applied for admission to the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. His first attempt was a failure because he failed exams in botany, zoology and languages. However, he passed the next year and in 1900 became a Swiss citizen.

At college, he met a fellow student Mileva Maric, and after a long friendship, they married in 1903; they had two sons before divorcing several years later.

In 1896 Einstein renounced his German citizenship to avoid military conscription. For five years he was stateless, before successfully applying for Swiss citizenship in 1901. After graduating from Zurich college, he attempted to gain a teaching post but none was forthcoming; instead, he gained a job in the Swiss Patent Office.

While working at the Patent Office, Einstein continued his own scientific discoveries and began radical experiments to consider the nature of light and space.

Einstein in 1921

He published his first scientific paper in 1900, and by 1905 had completed his PhD entitled “ A New Determination of Molecular Dimensions . In addition to working on his PhD, Einstein also worked feverishly on other papers. In 1905, he published four pivotal scientific works, which would revolutionise modern physics. 1905 would later be referred to as his ‘ annus mirabilis .’

Einstein’s work started to gain recognition, and he was given a post at the University of Zurich (1909) and, in 1911, was offered the post of full-professor at the Charles-Ferdinand University in Prague (which was then part of Austria-Hungary Empire). He took Austrian-Hungary citizenship to accept the job. In 1914, he returned to Germany and was appointed a director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics. (1914–1932)

Albert Einstein’s Scientific Contributions

Quantum Theory

Einstein suggested that light doesn’t just travel as waves but as electric currents. This photoelectric effect could force metals to release a tiny stream of particles known as ‘quanta’. From this Quantum Theory, other inventors were able to develop devices such as television and movies. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921.

Special Theory of Relativity

This theory was written in a simple style with no footnotes or academic references. The core of his theory of relativity is that:

“Movement can only be detected and measured as relative movement; the change of position of one body in respect to another.”

Thus there is no fixed absolute standard of comparison for judging the motion of the earth or plants. It was revolutionary because previously people had thought time and distance are absolutes. But, Einstein proved this not to be true.

He also said that if electrons travelled at close to the speed of light, their weight would increase.

This lead to Einstein’s famous equation:

Where E = energy m = mass and c = speed of light.

General Theory of Relativity 1916

Working from a basis of special relativity. Einstein sought to express all physical laws using equations based on mathematical equations.

He devoted the last period of his life trying to formulate a final unified field theory which included a rational explanation for electromagnetism. However, he was to be frustrated in searching for this final breakthrough theory.

Solar eclipse of 1919

In 1911, Einstein predicted the sun’s gravity would bend the light of another star. He based this on his new general theory of relativity. On 29 May 1919, during a solar eclipse, British astronomer and physicist Sir Arthur Eddington was able to confirm Einstein’s prediction. The news was published in newspapers around the world, and it made Einstein internationally known as a leading physicist. It was also symbolic of international co-operation between British and German scientists after the horrors of the First World War.

In the 1920s, Einstein travelled around the world – including the UK, US, Japan, Palestine and other countries. Einstein gave lectures to packed audiences and became an internationally recognised figure for his work on physics, but also his wider observations on world affairs.

Bohr-Einstein debates

During the 1920s, other scientists started developing the work of Einstein and coming to different conclusions on Quantum Physics. In 1925 and 1926, Einstein took part in debates with Max Born about the nature of relativity and quantum physics. Although the two disagreed on physics, they shared a mutual admiration.

As a German Jew, Einstein was threatened by the rise of the Nazi party. In 1933, when the Nazi’s seized power, they confiscated Einstein’s property, and later started burning his books. Einstein, then in England, took an offer to go to Princeton University in the US. He later wrote that he never had strong opinions about race and nationality but saw himself as a citizen of the world.

“I do not believe in race as such. Race is a fraud. All modern people are the conglomeration of so many ethnic mixtures that no pure race remains.”

Once in the US, Einstein dedicated himself to a strict discipline of academic study. He would spend no time on maintaining his dress and image. He considered these things ‘inessential’ and meant less time for his research. Einstein was notoriously absent-minded. In his youth, he once left his suitcase at a friends house. His friend’s parents told Einstein’s parents: “ That young man will never amount to anything, because he can’t remember anything.”

Although a bit of a loner, and happy in his own company, he had a good sense of humour. On January 3, 1943, Einstein received a letter from a girl who was having difficulties with mathematics in her studies. Einstein consoled her when he wrote in reply to her letter

“Do not worry about your difficulties in mathematics. I can assure you that mine are still greater.”

Einstein professed belief in a God “Who reveals himself in the harmony of all being”. But, he followed no established religion. His view of God sought to establish a harmony between science and religion.

“Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”

– Einstein, Science and Religion (1941)

Politics of Einstein

Einstein described himself as a Zionist Socialist. He did support the state of Israel but became concerned about the narrow nationalism of the new state. In 1952, he was offered the position as President of Israel, but he declined saying he had:

“neither the natural ability nor the experience to deal with human beings.” … “I am deeply moved by the offer from our State of Israel, and at once saddened and ashamed that I cannot accept it.”

Einstein receiving US citizenship.

Albert Einstein was involved in many civil rights movements such as the American campaign to end lynching. He joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and  considered racism, America’s worst disease. But he also spoke highly of the meritocracy in American society and the value of being able to speak freely.

On the outbreak of war in 1939, Einstein wrote to President Roosevelt about the prospect of Germany developing an atomic bomb. He warned Roosevelt that the Germans were working on a bomb with a devastating potential. Roosevelt headed his advice and started the Manhattan project to develop the US atom bomb. But, after the war ended, Einstein reverted to his pacifist views. Einstein said after the war.

“Had I known that the Germans would not succeed in producing an atomic bomb, I would not have lifted a finger.” (Newsweek, 10 March 1947)

In the post-war McCarthyite era, Einstein was scrutinised closely for potential Communist links. He wrote an article in favour of socialism, “Why Socialism” (1949) He criticised Capitalism and suggested a democratic socialist alternative. He was also a strong critic of the arms race. Einstein remarked:

“I do not know how the third World War will be fought, but I can tell you what they will use in the Fourth—rocks!”

Rabindranath Tagore and Einstein

Einstein was feted as a scientist, but he was a polymath with interests in many fields. In particular, he loved music. He wrote that if he had not been a scientist, he would have been a musician. Einstein played the violin to a high standard.

“I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music… I get most joy in life out of music.”

Einstein died in 1955, at his request his brain and vital organs were removed for scientific study.

Citation: Pettinger, Tejvan . “ Biography of Albert Einstein ”, Oxford, www.biographyonline.net 23 Feb. 2008. Updated 2nd March 2017.

Albert Einstein – His Life and Universe

Albert Einstein – His Life at Amazon

Related pages

53 Interesting and unusual facts about Albert Einstein.

19 Comments

Albert E is awesome! Thanks for this website!!

• January 11, 2019 3:00 PM

Albert Einstein is the best scientist ever! He shall live forever!

• January 10, 2019 4:11 PM

very inspiring

• December 23, 2018 8:06 PM

Wow it is good

• December 08, 2018 10:14 AM

Thank u Albert for discovering all this and all the wonderful things u did!!!!

• November 15, 2018 7:03 PM
• By Madalyn Silva

Thank you so much, This biography really motivates me a lot. and I Have started to copy of Sir Albert Einstein’s habit.

• November 02, 2018 3:37 PM
• By Ankit Gupta

Sooo inspiring thanks Albert E. You helped me in my report in school I love you Albert E. 🙂 <3

• October 17, 2018 4:39 PM
• By brooklynn

By this inspired has been I !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

• October 12, 2018 4:25 PM
• By Richard Clarlk

Biography: Albert Einstein

• Famous Inventions
• Famous Inventors
• Patents & Trademarks
• Invention Timelines
• Computers & The Internet
• American History
• African American History
• African History
• Ancient History and Culture
• Asian History
• European History
• Latin American History
• Medieval & Renaissance History
• Military History
• The 20th Century
• Women's History

Legendary scientist Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955) first gained worldwide prominence in 1919 after British astronomers verified predictions of Einstein's general theory of relativity through measurements taken during a total eclipse. Einstein's theories expanded upon universal laws formulated by physicist Isaac Newton in the late seventeenth century.

Before E=MC2

Einstein was born in Germany in 1879. Growing up, he enjoyed classical music and played the violin. One story Einstein liked to tell about his childhood was when he came across a magnetic compass. The needle's invariable northward swing, guided by an invisible force, profoundly impressed him as a child. The compass convinced him that there had to be "something behind things, something deeply hidden."

Even as a small boy Einstein was self-sufficient and thoughtful. According to one account, he was a slow talker, often pausing to consider what he would say next. His sister would recount the concentration and perseverance with which he would build houses of cards.

Einstein's first job was that of patent clerk. In 1933, he joined the staff of the newly created Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. He accepted this position for life, and lived there until his death. Einstein is probably familiar to most people for his mathematical equation about the nature of energy, E = MC2.

E = MC2, Light and Heat

The formula E=MC2 is probably the most famous calculation from Einstein's special theory of relativity . The formula basically states that energy (E) equals mass (m) times the speed of light (c) squared (2). In essence, it means mass is just one form of energy. Since the speed of light squared is an enormous number, a small amount of mass can be converted to a phenomenal amount of energy. Or if there's a lot of energy available, some energy can be converted to mass and a new particle can be created. Nuclear reactors, for instance, work because nuclear reactions convert small amounts of mass into large amounts of energy.

Einstein wrote a paper based on the new understanding of the structure of light. He argued that light can act as though it consists of discrete, independent particles of energy similar to particles of a gas. A few years before, Max Planck's work had contained the first suggestion of discrete particles in energy. Einstein went far beyond this though and his revolutionary proposal seemed to contradict the universally accepted theory that light consists of smoothly oscillating electromagnetic waves. Einstein showed that light quanta, as he called the particles of energy, could help to explain phenomena being studied by experimental physicists. For example, he explained how light ejects electrons from metals.

While there was a well-known kinetic energy theory that explained heat as an effect of the ceaseless motion of atoms, it was Einstein who proposed a way to put the theory to a new and crucial experimental test. If tiny but visible particles were suspended in a liquid, he argued, the irregular bombardment by the liquid's invisible atoms should cause the suspended particles to move in a random jittering pattern. This should be observable through a microscope. If the predicted motion is not seen, the whole kinetic theory would be in grave danger. But such a random dance of microscopic particles had long since been observed. With the motion demonstrated in detail, Einstein had reinforced the kinetic theory and created a powerful new tool for studying the movement of atoms.

• A to Z Chemistry Dictionary
• Biography of Albert Einstein, Theoretical Physicist
• The Life and Work of Albert Einstein
• Kinetic Molecular Theory of Gases
• Einstein's Theory of Relativity
• What Is a Photon in Physics?
• Introduction to the Major Laws of Physics
• 10 Things You Don't Know About Albert Einstein
• Fundamental Physical Constants
• A Brief History of Atomic Theory
• The Physics of a Car Collision
• Quantum Physics Overview
• Top 10 Weird but Cool Physics Ideas
• Newton's Law of Gravity
• Wave Particle Duality and How It Works
• Topics Typically Covered in Grade 11 Chemistry

Find anything you save across the site in your account

Einstein: The Untold Story

By Hart Pomerantz

Because of his poor sense of direction and his very large head, Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, Germany, in 1879, at the age of two. As a youngster, he walked to school every morning, but, also owing to his poor sense of direction, he attended eight different schools. He was good at math even as an infant. He looked at his parents from his crib and wondered how one plus one could possibly make three.

As a child, he showed an interest in physics and read many books on the subject. He even called his father’s sister Anti-Matter. One of Einstein’s heroes was Sir Isaac Newton, who discovered gravity when an apple fell on his head as he lay in his garden. Einstein, attempting to emulate Newton, lay on the grass in his own garden for ten hours, but nothing happened. He thought that he had disproved Newton’s theory, until his mother told him there were no apple trees in their garden. Einstein continued to honor his hero by eating his special fig cookies every day, as an after-school snack.

Young Einstein was always experimenting. He once swung his cat by the tail and noticed that the animal became more elongated the faster he swung it. The observation had no scientific significance, but it did cause a deep rift in their previously close relationship.

At university, Einstein took a course in philosophy. He studied one of Zeno’s paradoxes, and, being a budding scientist, he went home and experimented with the theory by walking halfway to the wall over and over. He never reached the wall, as Zeno predicted, but he did break his nose in three places.

Einstein was absent-minded, but he was also practical. He rarely wore socks, except on formal occasions, when he put them on over his shoes, so as not to have to tie the laces, which he found burdensome.

Einstein married Mileva Marić, a brilliant physicist and the only woman in his university class. The couple had two sons, and Einstein wanted to name them Positive and Negative, so they would stick together. The principle of quantum superposition says that a particle can be in two places at the same time. When Einstein started cheating on Mileva, he used that theory as an alibi. When the marriage deteriorated, because of incessant squabbling, Einstein forced his wife into a contract to prevent her from interfering with his work. The Einsteins’ cleaning lady found a draft of the document, which stipulated that Mileva would agree

1. To speak only adverbs. 2. Not to iron her husband’s pants while he was wearing them. 3. Never to bring him a bowl of soup with a fork. 4. That sexual intimacy would be withheld except on days beginning with “Z.”

Einstein told Mileva that if she granted him a divorce he would give her the money from his Nobel Prize, should he ever win one. He later tried to get out of the deal by telling her that the prize was only a stick of dynamite signed by Alfred Nobel.

Unable to find a teaching post at any university, Einstein was forced to take a job with the patent office in Bern, Switzerland. While daydreaming about physics one morning, he inadvertently accepted a patent for a new version of the Swiss telephone directory, in which people were listed not alphabetically but according to height. He also granted a patent for a new version of the Bible, with the answers in the back.

The famous photograph of Einstein sticking out his tongue was taken during a brief charitable phase, when he offered to lick stamps for people suffering from dry-mouth disease. This was a common local affliction in those days, traced to a bad run of Swiss cheese. Einstein was lactose intolerant and thus did not succumb to the illness.

When Einstein got remarried, to his cousin Elsa, in 1919, he discovered the true meaning of relativity. Unfortunately, Elsa knew nothing about physics. She thought general relativity was an officer in the German Army. Einstein tried to explain the theory of relativity to Elsa by offering the following example: If Marilyn Monroe sat on your lap for an hour it would seem like a minute, but if you put your hand on a stove for a minute it would feel like an hour. He took her into the kitchen to demonstrate, and she wisely said, “You first.”

After Einstein’s death, his brain was removed by a doctor named Thomas Harvey, who kept it in a jar. He took the brain everywhere he went and gave slices of it to other scientists to study. When Harvey travelled with Einstein’s brain, he booked separate rooms, out of respect. He resented that he had to pay full price for Einstein’s room. Once, haggling, he told a clerk, “It’s only a brain, for God’s sake. You don’t have to change the sheets.” When he checked out, he learned that Einstein had run up a huge room-service bill.

Einstein’s executors went through his desk and found a note, written on a napkin, which said, “Edvard will be the master of ceremonies when I win my second Nobel Prize.” In brackets, he wrote, “ E=mc² .” They also found an early draft of Einstein’s most famous saying. “God does not play dice with the universe,” it read. “But he does seem to enjoy Monopoly.” ♦

By Brendan Loper

By Louisa Thomas

By Miriam Jayaratna

By Hannah Goldfield

• DIGITAL MAGAZINE

MOST POPULAR

10 facts about Albert Einstein

Find out about this extraordinary physicist….

Discover the scientist whose ideas and theories about time and space changed the world and what we think about the universe in our 10 facts about Albert Einstein…

Albert Einstein Facts

Full name: Albert Einstein

Born: 14 March 1879

Occupation: Scientist specialising in physics, also known as a theoretical physicist*

Died: 18 April 1955

Best known for: His theory of relativity*

1. Albert Einstein was born in Germany, but lived in Italy, Switzerland and Czechia (which was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire), until he eventually moved to the United States in 1933.

Albert never went back to Germany after moving to the USA . He didn’t feel safe in Germany because of the events that led to World War 2 , and instead settled down to life in the American town of Princeton , New Jersey .

2. When Albert was a boy, he fell in love with physics when his father gifted him a compass.

He was fascinated by the way the magnets moved inside of the compass, and thought about this when he was older and coming up with his theories around relativity.

3. Albert hated the strict discipline of the grammar school he attended as a teenager, and left aged 15…

While at school, he excelled at maths , physics , and philosophy , but struggled with other subjects like languages .

4. …but he still managed to write his first scholarly paper at just 16 years old!

The paper was inspired by his compass, and discussed the force of magnetism .

5. Rather than becoming a physicist straight away, Albert first trained as a teacher.

In 1896 , he was accepted into the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School in Zürich, Switzerland. He originally failed the entrance exam, but was let anyway due to his exceptional maths results ! However, this was on the condition that Albert also went to high school and finished his formal schooling.

6. After failing to find work as a maths and physics teacher, Albert decided to obtain a Ph.D. in physics.

He obtained this degree in 1905 – a year that came to be known as Albert’s “ year of miracles “, because he published four groundbreaking papers in just 12 months!

7. One of the discoveries Albert announced in 1905 was his famous formula: E=mc 2

Albert figured out that matter – the tiny particles that make up everything in the world – can be turned into energy . The equation, E=mc 2 , describes how this conversion can be achieved. This amazing breakthrough made the 26-year-old Albert Einstein a star!

8. The formula formed part of Albert’s ‘general theory of relativity’, which he worked on over the next ten years.

Other scientists, for example Dutch physicist Hendrik Lorentz , had already been forming pieces of the theory. However, Albert was the first one to put the whole thing together. He published the complete theory in 1915 , where it wowed the world!

9. Albert’s theory of relativity helped scientists understand how the universe works.

Albert’s theory showed that the effects of gravity result from the ways that objects affect space and time . These interactions can only been seen on enormous objects like the planets. As a result, Albert’s general theory of relativity describes the way that amazing phenomena like the movement of planets, the birth and death of stars, black holes, and evolution of the universe, are possible.

Check out our space facts article to learn more about these out-of-this-world places!

10. He went on to win The Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921.

The Nobel Prize is an award for major scientific accomplishments – and by the time Albert won it, he and his discoveries were famous around the world. He continued working on theories until his death in 1955 , aged 76.

*A theoretical physicist is a scientist who try to figure out how the world and universe works.

Did you learn something new from our Albert Einstein facts? Let us know in the comments!

Leave a comment.

Your comment will be checked and approved shortly.

WELL DONE, YOUR COMMENT HAS BEEN ADDED!

Great for me and for anybody who wants to find out about Albert Einstein : )

Nice. he also sold that prize money away

He is a very smart person.

How old was he when he died?

HE INSPIRE ME LOT....

it helped with homework

great facts

love your facts they helped me with my homework.

my class is doing a project and this helped

it was nice and gooooooooood

damm my i q went up reading this

This information will really help me for my history and geography project. Thanks for the facts!

Wow this helped me so much!! Thank u i never knew this stuff and believe it or not i couldn't find a lot of websites that had this much amazing information!!!!! Thanks a lot! Very well done website!!

wow so helpful i learned so much things ty!

this helped me with a biogerfy packet

Thanks for the facts.

Helps me a lot for my inventor report

This information helps with my biography!

This is an amazing website

he is my hero

love it you helped me in my project thanks

That was good fafcts

awsome i like albert einstine

Very interesting

Interesting..

It’s so cool

Cool! I want to learn more!

this is amazing and interesting

Nice its got good info!

Wow! That’s amazing!

I loved it it had tons of fackes for my report for school.

wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HE IS SO COOL

Love this story!

wow some cool facts!!!:)

This is a good app

Wow excellent....

This really helped me in my homework thanks

Wow that's really interesting

Woah never knew these things

WOW WOW WOWWOW WOWOWOWWOWOW

AMAZING world of SCINCE

this website is amazing.

really good

LOVE IT!!!!!!

I Love Albert Einsteins work and lifestyle!

Thank you for your information it helped me a lot!

Thank you for giving me information

I love Albert E!

I love it!!!

This is amazing

This was good for my PowerPoint thx

I Love His Work

I like him (and siance i think that's how it's spelled

Great job doing this! I loved it

GOOD FACTS DEFINTLY THE BEST I HEARD

It was really helpful and I can't wait to read facts about other things

Interesting, I love the fact that this was made for kids like me. And how intelligent Albert Einstein was. This shows everything the we need to know

CUSTOMIZE YOUR AVATAR

More like general science.

7 steps to surviving an apocalypse (according to science!)

FUTURE CITIES

Coolest Projects registration is open!

Scientists discover bacteria can “see” like tiny eyeballs!

Sign up to our newsletter

Get uplifting news, exclusive offers, inspiring stories and activities to help you and your family explore and learn delivered straight to your inbox.

You will receive our UK newsletter. Change region

WHERE DO YOU LIVE?

COUNTRY * Australia Ireland New Zealand United Kingdom Other

By entering your email address you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy and will receive emails from us about news, offers, activities and partner offers.

Albert Einstein: Facts & Related Content

The Information Architects maintain a master list of the topics included in the corpus of  Encyclopædia Britannica , and create and manage the relationships between them.

Did You Know?

• J. Edgar Hoover's FBI hoped to unmask Einstein as a Soviet spy and maintained almost constant surveillance of Einstein. His FBI file totaled 1,800 pages.
• Einstein adored playing violin and said that if he had not gone into physics, he likely would have become a musician.
• Einstein's brain was removed without permission during his autopsy and was sent to be tested for its perceived secrets.

Photos and Videos

Related Topics and References

• quantum mechanics: Einstein and the photoelectric effect
• Brownian motion: Einstein’s theory of Brownian motion

Related Biographies

Related Quizzes and Features

The embodiment of genius and the pre-eminent scientist of the modern age, his theories and discoveries have profoundly affected the way people view and understand the world and their place in it. Einstein was also known as a philosopher and humanist who was keenly interested in and concerned about the affairs of the world.

His sagacious, wise, and humorous quotations, letters, and articles are widely used throughout popular culture as well as in historical and academic works. Einstein’s name and image are instantly recognizable everywhere in the world.

Albert Einstein was a theoretical physicist and the most famous scientist in human history. He developed the general theory of relativity, one of the two pillars of modern physics, alongside quantum mechanics. He is perhaps best known in popular culture for his mass/energy equivalence formula E=mc2. In 1921 he received the Nobel Prize in Physics for his “services to theoretical physics”, and in particular his discovery of the photoelectric effect, a pivotal step in the evolution of quantum theory.

Einstein was born in Ulm, Germany on March 14, 1879. As a child, he exhibited an extraordinary curiosity for and understanding of the mysteries of science. The young Einstein also took music lessons, playing both violin and piano; stoking a passion for music that he maintained throughout his life. Moving first to Italy and then Switzerland, the young prodigy graduated from high school in 1896.

In 1905, while working as a patent clerk in Bern, Switzerland, Einstein had what came to be known as his “Annus Mirabilis” (miracle year). It was during this time that the young physicist obtained his Doctorate degree and published four of his most influential research papers, including the Special Theory of Relativity, the Photoelectric Effect, Brownian Motion, and Mass/Energy Equivalence, and his worldwide fame was assured. In 1915, Einstein completed his General Theory of Relativity, and brought to the world a fuller understanding of the interaction of space, time and gravity.

The practical applications of Einstein’s theories include the development of everyday and indispensable items such as Televisions, Remote Controls, Digital Cameras, and GPS tracking systems.

In 1999 Albert Einstein was recognized by TIME Magazine as the “Person of the Century”. Einstein’s intellect, along with his wise and passionate dedication to the causes of social justice and pacifism, left humanity with a fuller understanding of its place in the universe and with pioneering moral guidance for future generations.

Einstein's Influence

Below you will find a selection of the industries and fields of research still reverberating from Einstein’s genius.

Theoretical Physics

Special Relativity, General Relativity, Brownian Motion, Photoelectric Effect

Patent Industry

Founded Swiss Patent Office

GPS Technologies

Theories of Relativity Applied to Satellite Navigation Systems

Mathematics

Differential Geometry, Tensor Calculus

Aerospace and Aeronautics

Early Theories on Relativity Impacting Space Travel

Computing and Information Theory

Early Work on Quantum Computing and Information Theory

Theoretical Cosmology, Cosmological Constant, Expanding Universe Theory

Early Work on Nuclear Energy, Advocacy for Peaceful use of Nuclear Power

Philosophy of Science

Discussions on the Nature of Reality and Scientific Theories

Quantum Theory

Wave-Particle Duality, Quantum Entanglement

Nuclear Technology

Theoretical Foundations for Nuclear Fission and Fusion

Social Sciences

Advocacy for Civil Rights and Social Justice Change

Academia and Education

University Teaching. Scientific Research Institutions

Photonics and Quantum Optics

Quantum Theory of Light, Photoelectric Cells

Military Technology

Indirect Influence through the Development of the Atomic Bomb

Albert Einstein Site Online

"imagination is more important than knowledge." - albert einstein, einstein info.

• Einstein Biography
• Einstein Fun Facts

Einstein Links

• Einstein Physics
• Einstein Timeline

Einstein Projects

• About the Author
• Einstein Screenplay
• Einstein Movie Scenes
• Einstein Book
• Einstein's Tears

Einstein Trivia

Albert Einstein's first child, a girl named Leiserl, was born out of wedlock in 1902 and put up for adoption by her parents. To this day, historians do not know what became of her.

Albert Einstein Biography

Albert Einstein was born at Ulm, in Württemberg, Germany , on March 14, 1879. Six weeks later the family moved to Munich and he began his schooling there at the Luitpold Gymnasium. Later, they moved to Italy and Albert continued his education at Aarau, Switzerland and in 1896 he entered the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich to be trained as a teacher in physics and mathematics. In 1901, the year he gained his diploma, he acquired Swiss citizenship and, as he was unable to find a teaching post, he accepted a position as technical assistant in the Swiss Patent Office. In 1905 he obtained his doctor's degree. During his stay at the Patent Office, and in his spare time, Einstein produced much of his remarkable work and in 1908 he was appointed Privatdozent in Berne. In 1909 he became Professor Extraordinary at Zurich, in 1911 Professor of Theoretical Physics at Prague, returning to Zurich in the following year to fill a similar post. In 1914 he was appointed Director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Physical Institute and Professor in the University of Berlin. Einstein became a German citizen in 1914 and remained in Berlin until 1933 when he renounced his citizenship for political reasons and emigrated to America to take the position of Professor of Theoretical Physics at Princeton*. He became a United States citizen in 1940 and retired from his post in 1945. After World War II, Einstein was a leading figure in the World Government Movement , he was offered the Presidency of the State of Israel, which he declined, and he collaborated with Dr. Chaim Weizmann in establishing the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Einstein always appeared to have a clear view of the problems of physics and the determination to solve them. He had a strategy of his own and was able to visualize the main stages on the way to his goal. He regarded his major achievements as mere stepping-stones for the next advance. At the start of his scientific work, Einstein realized the inadequacies of Newtonian mechanics and his special theory of relativity stemmed from an attempt to reconcile the laws of mechanics with the laws of the electromagnetic field. He dealt with classical problems of statistical mechanics and problems in which they were merged with quantum theory: this led to an explanation of the Brownian movement of molecules. He investigated the thermal properties of light with a low radiation density and his observations laid the foundation of the photon theory of light. In his early days in Berlin, Einstein postulated that the correct interpretation of the special theory of relativity must also furnish a theory of gravitation and in 1916 he published his paper on the general theory of relativity. During this time he also contributed to the problems of the theory of radiation and statistical mechanics. In the 1920's, Einstein embarked on the construction of unified field theories , although he continued to work on the probabilistic interpretation of quantum theory, and he persevered with this work in America. He contributed to statistical mechanics by his development of the quantum theory of a monatomic gas and he has also accomplished valuable work in connection with atomic transition probabilities and relativistic cosmology. After his retirement he continued to work towards the unification of the basic concepts of physics, taking the opposite approach, geometrisation, to the majority of physicists. Einstein's researches are, of course, well chronicled and his more important works include Special Theory of Relativity (1905), Relativity (English translations, 1920 and 1950), General Theory of Relativity (1916), Investigations on Theory of Brownian Movement (1926), and The Evolution of Physics (1938). Among his non-scientific works, About Zionism (1930), Why War? (1933), My Philosophy (1934), and Out of My Later Years (1950) are perhaps the most important. Albert Einstein received honorary doctorate degrees in science, medicine and philosophy from many European and American universities. During the 1920's he lectured in Europe, America and the Far East and he was awarded Fellowships or Memberships of all the leading scientific academies throughout the world. He gained numerous awards in recognition of his work, including the Copley Medal of the Royal Society of London in 1925, and the Franklin Medal of the Franklin Institute in 1935. Einstein's gifts inevitably resulted in his dwelling much in intellectual solitude and, for relaxation, music played an important part in his life. He married Mileva Maric in 1903 and they had a daughter and two sons; their marriage was dissolved in 1919 and in the same year he married his cousin, Elsa Löwenthal, who died in 1936. He died on April 18, 1955 at Princeton, New Jersey. From Nobel Lectures, Physics 1901-1921, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1967 This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and later published in the book series Les Prix Nobel/Nobel Lectures. The information is sometimes updated with an addendum submitted by the Laureate. For more information about the Biography of Albert Einstein, visit the source as shown above. * Albert Einstein was formally associated with the Institute for Advanced Study located in Princeton, New Jersey.

Einstein Biography - Wikipedia

Einstein biography .

• Fölsing, Albrecht (1997): Albert Einstein: A Biography. New York: Penguin Viking. (Translated and abridged from the German by Ewald Osers.)
• Hoffmann, Banesh, with the collaboration of Helen Dukas (1972): Albert Einstein: Creator and Rebel. London: Hart-Davis, MacGibbon Ltd.
• Isaacson, Walter (2007): Einstein: His Life and Universe. Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, New York. ISBN 9780743264730
• Pais, Abraham (1982): Subtle is the Lord: The science and the life of Albert Einstein. Oxford University Press. The definitive biography to date.
• Pais, Abraham (1994): Einstein Lived Here. Oxford University Press.
• Parker, Barry (2000): Einstein's Brainchild. Prometheus Books. A review of Einstein's career and accomplishments, written for the lay public.
• Schweber, Sylvan S. (2008): Einstein and Oppenheimer: The Meaning of Genius. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0674028289.
• Oppenheimer, J.R. (1971): "On Albert Einstein," p. 8–12 in Science and synthesis: an international colloquium organized by Unesco on the tenth anniversary of the death of Albert Einstein and Teilhard de Chardin, Springer-Verlag, 1971, 208 pp. (Lecture delivered at the UNESCO House in Paris on 13 December 1965.) Also published in The New York Review of Books, 17 March 1966, On Albert Einstein by Robert Oppenheimer
• Moring, Gary (2004): The complete idiot's guide to understanding Einstein ( 1st ed. 2000). Indianapolis IN: Alpha books (Macmillan USA). ISBN 0028631803

Einstein Biographies and Links

Back to top

A. Einstein

"With fame, I become more and more stupid, which of course is a very common phenomenon."

- A. Einstein

© copyright 2012 C X-Stream    Design by: cxstream | Valid: XHTML | CSS          Home | Sitemap | RSS Feed

10 discoveries that prove Einstein was right about the universe — and 1 that proves him wrong

Albert Einstein's theories of relativity have been proven to be true time and again in the more than 100 years following their publication.

Legendary physicist Albert Einstein was a thinker ahead of his time. Born March 14, 1879, Einstein entered a world where the dwarf planet Pluto had yet to be discovered, and the idea of spaceflight was a distant dream. Despite the technical limitations of his time, Einstein published his famous theory of general relativity in 1915, which made predictions about the nature of the universe that would be proven accurate time and again for more than 100 years to come.

Here are 10 recent observations that proved Einstein was right about the nature of the cosmos a century ago — and one that proved him wrong.

1. The first image of a black hole

Einstein's theory of general relativity describes gravity as a consequence of the warping of space-time ; basically, the more massive an object is, the more it will curve space-time and cause smaller objects to fall toward it. The theory also predicts the existence of black holes — massive objects that warp space-time so much that not even light can escape them.

When researchers using the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) captured the first-ever image of a black hole , they proved Einstein was right about some very specific things — namely, that each black hole has a point of no return called an event horizon , which should be roughly circular and of a predictable size based on the mass of the black hole. The EHT's groundbreaking black hole image showed this prediction was exactly right.

2. Black hole 'echoes'

Astronomers proved Einstein's black hole theories correct yet again when they discovered a strange pattern of X-rays being emitted near a black hole 800 million light-years from Earth. In addition to the expected X-ray emissions flashing from the front of the black hole, the team also detected the predicted "luminous echoes" of X-ray light , which were emitted behind the black hole but still visible from Earth due to the way the black hole bent space-time around it.

3. Gravitational waves

Einstein's theory of relativity also describes enormous ripples in the fabric of space-time called gravitational waves. These waves result from mergers between the most massive objects in the universe, such as black holes and neutron stars. Using a special detector called the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), physicists confirmed the existence of gravitational waves in 2015 , and have continued to detect dozens of other examples of gravitational waves in the years since, proving Einstein right yet again.

4. Wobbly black hole partners

Studying gravitational waves can reveal the secrets of the massive, distant objects that released them. By studying the gravitational waves emitted by a pair of slowly colliding binary black holes in 2022, physicists confirmed that the massive objects wobbled — or precessed — in their orbits as they swirled ever closer to one another, just as Einstein predicted they should.

Sign up for the Live Science daily newsletter now

Get the world’s most fascinating discoveries delivered straight to your inbox.

5. A 'dancing' spirograph star

Scientists saw Einstein's theory of precession in action yet again after studying a star orbiting a supermassive black hole for 27 years. After completing two full orbits of the black hole, the star's orbit was seen to "dance" forward in a rosette pattern rather than moving in a fixed elliptical orbit. This movement confirmed Einstein's predictions about how an extremely small object should orbit around a comparatively gargantuan one.

6. A 'frame dragging' neutron star

It's not just black holes that bend space-time around them; the ultra-dense husks of dead stars can do it too. In 2020, physicists studied how a neutron star orbited around a white dwarf (two types of collapsed, dead stars) for the previous 20 years, finding a long-term drift in the way the two objects orbited each other. According to the researchers, this drift was likely caused by an effect called frame dragging; essentially, the white dwarf had tugged on space-time enough to slightly alter the neutron star's orbit over time. This, again, confirms predictions from Einstein's theory of relativity.

7. A gravitational magnifying glass

According to Einstein, if an object is sufficiently massive, it should bend space-time in such a way that distant light emitted behind the object will appear magnified (as seen from Earth). This effect is called gravitational lensing, and has been used extensively to hold a magnifying glass up to objects in the deep universe. Famously, the James Webb Space Telescope's first deep field image used the gravitational lensing effect of a galaxy cluster 4.6 billion light-years away to significantly magnify the light from galaxies more than 13 billion light-years away.

8. Put an Einstein ring on it

One form of gravitational lensing is so vivid that physicists couldn't help but put Einstein's name on it. When the light from a distant object is magnified into a perfect halo around a massive foreground object, scientists call it an "Einstein ring." These stunning objects exist all throughout space, and have been imaged by astronomers and citizen scientists alike.

9. The shifting universe

As light travels across the universe, its wavelength shifts and stretches in several different ways, known as redshift. The most famous type of redshift is due to the expansion of the universe. (Einstein proposed a number called the cosmological constant to account for this apparent expansion in his other equations). However, Einstein also predicted a type of "gravitational redshift," which occurs when light loses energy on its way out of a depression in space-time created by massive objects, such as galaxies. In 2011, a study of the light from hundreds of thousands of distant galaxies proved that gravitational redshift truly does exist , as Einstein suggested.

10. Atoms on the move

Einstein's theories also hold true in the quantum realm, it seems. Relativity suggests that the speed of light is constant in a vacuum, meaning that space should look the same from every direction. In 2015, researchers proved this effect is true even on the smallest scale , when they measured the energy of two electrons moving in different directions around an atom's nucleus. The energy difference between the electrons remained constant, no matter which direction they moved, confirming that piece of Einstein's theory.

11. Wrong about 'spooky action-at-a-distance?'

In a phenomenon called quantum entanglement, linked particles can seemingly communicate with each other across vast distances faster than the speed of light, and only "choose" a state to inhabit once they are measured. Einstein hated this phenomenon, famously deriding it as "spooky action-at-a-distance," and insisted that no influence can travel faster than light, and that objects have a state whether we measure them or not. 

But in a massive, global experiment in which millions of entangled particles were measured around the world, researchers found that the particles seemed to only pick a state the moment they were measured, and no sooner.

"We showed that Einstein's world-view… in which things have properties whether or not you observe them, and no influence travels faster than light, cannot be true — at least one of those things must be false," study co-author Morgan Mitchell , a professor of quantum optics at the Institute of Photonic Sciences in Spain, told Live Science in 2018.

Brandon is the space/physics editor at Live Science. His writing has appeared in The Washington Post, Reader's Digest, CBS.com, the Richard Dawkins Foundation website and other outlets. He holds a bachelor's degree in creative writing from the University of Arizona, with minors in journalism and media arts. He enjoys writing most about space, geoscience and the mysteries of the universe.

'Immortal' stars at the Milky Way's center may have found an endless energy source, study suggests

Earth's upper atmosphere could hold a missing piece of the universe, new study hints

Gaia space telescope helps astronomers image hidden objects around bright stars

Most Popular

• 2 32 of the most dangerous animals on Earth
• 3 'The early universe is nothing like we expected': James Webb telescope reveals 'new understanding' of how galaxies formed at cosmic dawn
• 4 Have giant humans ever existed?
• 5 Earth's rotating inner core is starting to slow down — and it could alter the length of our days
• 3 Have giant humans ever existed?
• 4 Is Earth really getting too hot for people to survive?
• 5 Human ancestor 'Lucy' was hairless, new research suggests. Here's why that matters.

We will keep fighting for all libraries - stand with us!

Internet Archive Audio

• This Just In
• Grateful Dead
• Old Time Radio
• 78 RPMs and Cylinder Recordings
• Audio Books & Poetry
• Computers, Technology and Science
• Music, Arts & Culture
• News & Public Affairs
• Spirituality & Religion
• Radio News Archive

• Flickr Commons
• Occupy Wall Street Flickr
• NASA Images
• Solar System Collection
• Ames Research Center

• All Software
• Old School Emulation
• MS-DOS Games
• Historical Software
• Classic PC Games
• Software Library
• Kodi Archive and Support File
• Vintage Software
• CD-ROM Software
• CD-ROM Software Library
• Software Sites
• Tucows Software Library
• Shareware CD-ROMs
• Software Capsules Compilation
• CD-ROM Images
• ZX Spectrum
• DOOM Level CD

• Smithsonian Libraries
• FEDLINK (US)
• Lincoln Collection
• American Libraries
• Canadian Libraries
• Universal Library
• Project Gutenberg
• Children's Library
• Biodiversity Heritage Library
• Books by Language
• Additional Collections

• Prelinger Archives
• Democracy Now!
• Occupy Wall Street
• TV NSA Clip Library
• Animation & Cartoons
• Arts & Music
• Computers & Technology
• Cultural & Academic Films
• Ephemeral Films
• Sports Videos
• Videogame Videos
• Youth Media

Search the history of over 866 billion web pages on the Internet.

Mobile Apps

• Wayback Machine (iOS)
• Wayback Machine (Android)

Browser Extensions

Archive-it subscription.

• Explore the Collections
• Build Collections

Save Page Now

Capture a web page as it appears now for use as a trusted citation in the future.

Please enter a valid web address

• Donate Donate icon An illustration of a heart shape

Albert Einstein : a biography

Bookreader item preview, share or embed this item, flag this item for.

• Graphic Violence
• Explicit Sexual Content
• Hate Speech
• Misinformation/Disinformation
• Marketing/Phishing/Advertising
• Misleading/Inaccurate/Missing Metadata

imagetext is cut , runs into the gutter

plus-circle Add Review comment Reviews

761 Previews

17 Favorites

DOWNLOAD OPTIONS

No suitable files to display here.

EPUB and PDF access not available for this item.

IN COLLECTIONS

Uploaded by station38.cebu on February 10, 2020

SIMILAR ITEMS (based on metadata)

The Real Story Behind Oppenheimer and Einstein’s Friendship

Your changes have been saved

Email Is sent

Please verify your email address.

You’ve reached your account maximum for followed topics.

The Big Picture

• Oppenheimer dominated in award season with outstanding performances.
• Bill Conti's emotional role as Albert Einstein provides the crux of the film's heart.
• Einstein and Oppenheimer had a complex relationship, with Einstein being a critical part of the story.

Christopher Nolan ’s acclaimed historical biopic Oppenheimer dominated last year's award season, culminating in a win for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. While Cillian Murphy ’s performance, as the titular theoretical physicist has earned overwhelming praise, including winning Best Actor at the Oscars, there’s been just as much goodwill generated for Oppenheimer ’s entire acting ensemble. Although the film’s impressive cast of characters includes impressive appearances from Robert Downey Jr. (also an Oscar winner for his performance) as Lewis Strauss and Josh Hartnett as Ernest Lawrence , it's Bill Conti ’s emotional role as Albert Einstein that provides the emotional crux of Oppenheimer . Although he’s an integral part of the story that Nolan wanted to tell, the relationship between Einstein and Oppenheimer wasn’t quite as friendly as it's depicted in the film.

Oppenheimer

The story of American scientist, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and his role in the development of the atomic bomb.

Who Was Albert Einstein?

Born in Württemberg, Germany, in 1879, Albert Einstein became one of the most well-renowned theoretical physicists in the world . After growing up in Munich, Einstein continued his education in Switzerland, where he developed many of the mathematical and scientific skills that were foundational to his career. Earmarked for success at a young age, Einstein’s skills took him to several leading universities in the European educational network. After successfully securing Swiss citizenship in 1901, one year after graduating from the Swiss federal polytechnic school in Zürich, Einstein worked at the Swiss Patent Office in Bern. He would later move to Berlin in 1914 and become a German citizen, despite the growing chaos of World War I.

Einstein’s most notable achievement came in 1905, when he developed a mass-energy equivalence theory that proved to be essential in the development of modern theoretical physics. While he was not the only groundbreaking scientist of his era, Einstein became an icon of science whose success led many others to join the field , including Robert J. Oppenheimer. In addition to his academic and theoretical studies, Einstein was a proponent of the “philosophy of science.” The philosophy highlights the importance of using reliable scientific methods to generate factual results, and spoke to the importance of using science as a tool to advance human life . While much of Einstein’s ideas were theoretical, he was forced into a potentially morally compromising situation when his work became a subject of attention by leading military groups during the dawn of World War II .

Einstein was visiting the United States in 1933 when the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler rose to power in Germany on a platform of scapegoating Jewish people for perceived crimes against the nation; Hitler’s charisma exacerbated anti-Semetic philosophies that had been emerging in Germany since the end of World War I. Einstein personally had built his career on a philosophy of non-violence, and he endorsed a letter to United States President Franklin Roosevelt warning him about the potential of nuclear weapons , as German scientists had proven that significant energy could be released by splitting the core of uranium atoms. The complex relationship with the science he helped spawn is the critical focus of Einstein’s appearance in Oppenheimer .

Were Einstein and Oppenheimer Actually Friends?

While the film takes an occasionally dramatized approach to history , Oppenheimer accurately depicts Einstein’s fraught relationship with the United States military . Due to his pacifist beliefs, Einstein was denied the required security clearance necessary to work on the “Manhattan Project,” as there was concern that German spies could infiltrate the closed community of scientists. While Oppenheimer and Einstein were familiar with each other due to the similarities in their fields of study, the two men had little interaction with each other until they both served at the Institute for Advanced Study starting in 1947. Einstein was considered to be one of the “old guards” of science, and he was not as active in applied sciences as Oppenheimer .

Despite only having casual acquaintances with each other, Einstein came to Oppenheimer’s defense when he was put under investigation by the United States government in 1954. Due to his relationship with the activist Jean Tatlock ( Florence Pugh in the film) and his involvement with campus political groups, Oppenheimer was accused of being a communist sympathizer and forced to defend his activities. Einstein supported Oppenheimer throughout the hearings, stating that he had “no obligation to subject himself to the witch hunt” that the government was spearheading. He encouraged Oppenheimer to turn his back on the United States altogether, as he had done.

Einstein frequently professed his fears about the rise of nuclear weapons, declaring that he did not consider himself to be the “father” of the atom bomb. While they occasionally had conflicting viewpoints, Einstein became friends with Oppenheimer during the last decade of his life . According to American Prometheus , the novel that served as the inspiration for Nolan’s film, Oppenheimer referred to Einstein “as a living patron saint of physics.” Oppenheimer also refuted claims that Einstein was in any way responsible for the detonation of the atomic weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The two men remained close friends until Einstein’s death in 1955 .

What Happened to Oppenheimer After the Events in Christopher Nolan’s Movie

Oppenheimer had an eventful twilight.

‘Oppenheimer’ Isn’t the Only Einstein Story

While his role is relatively brief in comparison to the film’s other supporting characters, Oppenheimer isn’t the only pop culture representation of Einstein . Fictionalized versions of Einstein have appeared in such shows as The Simpsons, Rick and Morty, and Star Trek: The Next Generation . Geoffrey Rush received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Best Actor in a Limited Series or Movie for his performance as Einstein in the series Genius , a biographical series for National Geographic that is currently depicting Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King .

While there has yet to be a definitive cinematic biopic about his life, Einstein’s work continues to be a subject of fascination from a cultural, scientific, and historical perspective . The Netflix docudrama Einstein and the Bomb is the latest non-fiction project that has tackled the complex relationship between Einstein and the dawn of the nuclear era. Unsurprisingly, the overwhelming success of Oppenheimer has initiated greater interest in this era and the leading scientists that defined it.

Einstein Is Integral to the Story of ‘Oppenheimer'

While Downey Jr. ended up winning an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his work in the film, Conti’s performance as Einstein is one of the most powerful in Oppenheimer . The film is keen to note the legacy that Einstein is insistent that he must protect, as he fears that his research could fall into the wrong hands. This results in some very intimate moments between Oppenheimer and Einstein, in which the two discuss their differences in philosophies. Oppenheimer is genuinely depicted by Murphy to be a brash, even abrasive figure who generally avoids conforming to authority. Einstein is one of the few mentors whom he is willing to listen and show respect to. Oppenheimer recognizes that it was Einstein’s discoveries that laid the groundwork for his work on the atom bomb.

Einstein’s appearance in Oppenheimer is critical within one of the film’s biggest twists , and allows Nolan to end the film on a quiet and contemplative note. While it is initially suggested that Strauss has an affinity for Oppenheimer, it’s revealed later on through a conversation with a senate aide ( Alden Ehrenreich ) that their relationship was far more contentious. Strauss was infuriated by Oppenheimer’s political leanings and orchestrated a series of interrogations to undermine his authority. Much of this resentment spurred from a moment when Strauss felt that Einstein “snubbed” him, which he assumes was the result of disparaging comments made by Oppenheimer. However, it is later revealed that Einstein simply did not have anything to do with Strauss; the man’s ego had grown too large for his own good.

Einstein’s appearance helps Oppenheimer reach its emotional ending, which certainly stands out from the more bombastic finales that Nolan delivered in such films as Tenet and Interstellar . After his conversation with Einstein, Oppenheimer is left to consider the dangerous precedent that he set, and has a nightmare about the chain reaction that setting off a nuclear weapon will have on the history of human civilization. Nolan certainly inserted some subtle political commentary in both Dunkirk and The Dark Knight trilogy, but Oppenheimer is most certain his most overtly political text to date. Considering the film’s record-breaking box office performance and Academy Award victories, it is safe to say that Nolan’s message reached a great number of people.

Tom Conti Is Brilliant in ‘Oppenheimer'

Oppenheimer has a cast stacked with many well-known actors. It is impressive that such major stars as Rami Malek, Gary Oldman, Jason Clarke, Dane DeHaan, Jack Quaid, Alex Wolff, Matthew Modine, Josh Peck, James Remar, and Macon Blair among others appeared in roles that were not very substantial. Despite his limited screen time, Conti is essential within the emotional core of Oppenheimer . It’s a quiet, subtle performance that plays upon the unbearable weight of responsibility that Einstein bears on his shoulders. Nolan only needed a few key scenes to show how seriously Einstein took his obligations to the scientific community.

Conti faced a unique challenge compared to the other actors in Oppenheimer , as he was responsible for playing a character that the audience may have been more familiar with. While figures like Strauss and Lawrence aren’t as well known among non-history buffs, Einstein is an important person in both history and popular culture. It could have been very easy for Conti’s performance to become a caricature, or take attention away from Murphy by becoming a distraction. Thankfully, Conti carried himself with poise and grace, ensuring that Einstein dominated as much attention as the story required. While the film does not deny the work that he did, it’s ultimately Oppenheimer’s story, and not his.

Oppenheimer is now available to stream on Prime Video in the U.S.

Watch on Prime

• Movie Features

• Christopher Nolan

Fact-checking 'Oppenheimer': Was Albert Einstein really a friend? What's true, what isn't

Christopher Nolan’s three-hour movie “Oppenheimer” is getting rave reviews and shaping up as an early Oscar favorite.

But years ago, one man doubted that the complex tale of a hero-turned-villain nuclear scientist could be accurately told on the big screen.

“I was very skeptical Hollywood could do anything with a 700-page book,” says Kai Bird, who, along with his late writing partner Martin J. Sherwin, won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for “American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer.”

That book, which is back on bestseller lists thanks to the movie, was the source material for Nolan’s 180-page screenplay. Bird got a glimpse of that script early on and his fears vaporized. “There are no major historical bloopers,” he says.

But there is a lot to discuss, and plenty of historical nuances. Bird takes us through the movie’s most explosive moments:

Were Manhattan Project scientists worried an atomic explosion would set fire to Earth?

“They were as calculations were made that showed it might be a possibility,” says Bird. Specifically, the fear was that a detonation would use the oxygen in the atmosphere to fuel a never-ending series of explosions.

The concern was so great that Oppenheimer, played by Cillian Murphy, took a train from the New Mexico site of the lab work back east to consult with physicist Hans Bethe.

“Fortunately, Bethe took a look at the math and came to the conclusion that the likelihood of setting fire to the atmosphere was near zero,” says Bird. “And they went on with their work.”

Did Robert Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein really have conversations about the bomb at Princeton?

Yes. Both men were attached to Princeton University in the 1940s, Oppenheimer as director of the school's Institute for Advanced Study and Einstein as a professor.

“They had offices down the hall from each other, and I’m sure they took walks together by that pond,” he says. But the two conversations between the physics giants, as portrayed in “Oppenheimer,” were “really just something that Nolan imagined.”

In the first, Oppenheimer expresses concern about igniting the atmosphere, and in the second, after the war ends, Oppenheimer is afraid of the power he has unleashed, which leaves Einstein speechless.

How accurate is the 'Oppenheimer' Trinity Test that shows the atomic bomb being detonated in the New Mexico desert?

“That is wholly accurate, down to the distance described, which was roughly 10,000 yards from the bomb site,” says Bird.

“In the movie, you see (physicist Edward) Teller putting on sunscreen and dark glasses, and (young physicist) Richard Feynman did pass on putting glasses on because he said the windshield of the truck he was sitting in would be enough protection,” he says. “There are records of all of this.”

What were Robert Oppenheimer's relationships with women like?

In a word, fiery, beginning with his first big love affair with Jean Tatlock, played by Florence Pugh in the film. He proposes marriage to her repeatedly but she declines.

“In our book, we have a lot of evidence about her own sexual identity, and it seems she was either bisexual or a lesbian, which is why she turned him down,” says Bird. Tatlock later took her own life, which weighed heavily on Oppenheimer.

Oppenheimer was married to Katherine “Kitty” Puening, who was already on her second husband when they met. “It was a tumultuous marriage, but in a weird way also rock solid,” he says. “It’s clear he was a very charismatic guy who was attractive to women, even if as an adolescent he was awkward around them.”

What happened to Robert Oppenheimer after he was stripped of his security clearance?

“He became a pariah; he couldn’t give presidents advice or walk the halls of the Pentagon,” says Bird. “He was even disinvited to lecture at universities. He was devastated.”

In the summer of 1954, Oppenheimer and his family took the helm of a sailboat and spent time in and around St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Also along for that trip: snooping FBI agents, still intent on proving Oppenheimer had Communist leanings, which evidence disproves.

“He bought land on St. John and built a small cabin on a place now called Oppenheimer Beach,” says Bird. “His daughter (Toni) lived there later, and (at age 32) she took her own life there. She was a brilliant linguist and applied for work at the United Nations as a translator. But she was denied security clearance. She left New York, and then went for the last time to St. John.”

Did President John F. Kennedy actually have a role in restoring Robert Oppenheimer's reputation?

Yes, both as a senator and later as president.

When Oppenheimer’s supporter-turned-nemesis Lewis Strauss (played by Robert Downey Jr.) goes before lawmakers in 1959 to be confirmed as the new secretary of commerce, his appointment is blocked by a swing vote cast by the young senator from Massachusetts.

In mid-1963 Kennedy, then president, is urged by close advisers who admired Oppenheimer to bestow him with the Enrico Fermi Award, named after the famous Italian physicist. Kennedy was assassinated that November, and “one of the first decisions for now-President Lyndon Johnson was whether to go forward with this award, which was seen as a way to restore Oppenheimer’s reputation,” says Bird.

On Dec. 2, 1963, less than two weeks after the assassination, Johnson told the assembled crowd, “I know every person in this room grieves with me and with Dr. and Mrs. Oppenheimer that the late president, who gave his all for his country, could not present this award as he anticipated.”