Einstein, Life And Times Essay, Research Paper

Albert Einstein, His Life and Times.

This biographical essay is centered around one of the greatest and most influential thinkers of our timeCAlbert Einstein. Normally people who write biographies have met their subject. Evidently I have not. I have researched many resources, however, in order to clarify the following: Albert Einstein, his life and times.

In this essay I will cover the following: Einstein=s youth, his marriage, and his career. His career will include information about his Theory of Relativity and about quantum and cosmology. These topics are grouped in this way so I may leave out some technical detail that is generally not required in a document of this type.

Albert Einstein was a Jewish German. He was born in the southern city of Ulm at the foot of the Swabian Alps. He was born on March 15, 1879. His birth home was destroyed by World War Two bombing raids. Both of his parents were Jews. Hermann and Pauline Koch Einstein had two children all together. Albert had a younger sister that was named Maria, referred to as AMaja@ by Albert and the rest of his family.

Before 1871, Jews in Germany were not considered full citizens. They could only practice a very limited number of professions and could not attend universities. If Einstein had been born a few years earlier, he may have become a religious scholar and his genius may not have been recognized. People who are under the age of 30 usually start revolutions. Einstein=s prime of intellect was in step with the turn of the century when Newtonian or classical physics was breaking down.

He didn=t speak until age five. His parents worried that he was deformed or had a mental problem. Einstein recalled that he practiced full sentences quietly to himself and one day surprised his parents when he spoke.

His mother had a love of music. The children were given music lessons at a young age. At age five, Einstein learned to play the violin. He played until old age but stopped his lessons at age 13 when he found that they consumed too much time.

His first teachers did not see an especially bright future in Einstein. He impressed them as a dreamy child. His father, Hermann Einstein was not a very successful business man. He moved to Munich and his father started an electrical engineering contracting business. In Munich, all publicly funded schools had religious affiliation. Einstein=s parents felt that Albert would get a better education at a Catholic school. He was the only Jew there. He didn=t find it a problem though. These schools in Munich all had a military tradition. Young Einstein never liked war and looked at soldiers with pity and contempt. He hated the military atmosphere.

Great thinkers usually show signs of being different from the rest at an early age. Einstein showed no such signs. His earliest scientific memories of his childhood were at age five when his father showed him a compass. He saw how the needle apparently Aknew@ where north was. He believed it a scientist=s duty to find out why and how things happened. For Einstein, it seemed to be almost a disease or chronic symptom for him. At age 12, he produced mathematic proof for the Pythagorean Theorem, an axiom. Axioms have been believed to be undisputable facts that could not be proven and had to be the base of science.

After finishing his elementary school, he enrolled in Luitpold Gymnasium which was really a highschool at a serious level. The teachers in this school were referred to Alieutenants@ as opposed to the Asergeant@ of the elementary school. All the students had to wear uniforms.

Hermann Einstein again failed at business and now with the support of Pauline Koch Einstein=s parents, he set out to Milan, Italy with his all of his family, except for Albert. They started another business that was successful. Albert was to stay and finish his gymnasium education.

Einstein was an adequate, if not outstanding student, contrary to popular belief. He had little respect for his teachers, though. He escaped from the Gymnasium with a forged doctor=s note. When he arrived in Italy, he surprised all his family. He had not written about him leaving the gymnasium. Einstein spent the next six months wandering Italy, absorbing the culture.

Einstein=s father wanted him to become an electrical engineer. Hermann had Albert attend the ETH (that was the abbreviation for the German form of Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich). This school was ideal for Einstein. It required no high school diploma but had a difficult entrance exam. The school had world renown scientists and mathematicians as professors. It had a better learning atmosphere that the gymnasium. This was also one of the few schools in Europe that permitted women. This would prove to be an important part of Einstein=s future.

Due to the fact that he didn=t study for the entrance exam, quite typical of him, he failed the part on languages. Luckily for him, the principle of the school saw Einstein=s mathematical talent and devised a plan that probably saved Einstein=s academic career. Einstein was to study for one full year at Aarau, a highschool not far from the ETH. He was to study both languages and science. Aarau was a progressive school. It was here that Einstein spent his happiest and most fruitful year of his life.

In 1896, he withdrew his citizenship of Germany. He was countryless until 1901. He became a Swiss citizen. Although Switzerland was a relatively peaceful country, it was compulsory that all men had to have part time service in the army. Einstein did not refuse but he was turned down because he had flat feet.

Einstein enjoyed school at ETH He spent a lot of time in the lab away from classes and therefore did not get a complete education. He like the directly exposing experience. When the final exam at the end of four years at arrived, he studied furiously and said that he hated the tests and that tests deterred scientific endeavor.

In the beginning, Einstein disagreed with Newtonian physics. Newton had used the bible as evidence to support his knowledge. Einstein believed that there were two kinds of God. On was a personal God, one that we say prayers to and another was a God that kept everything in balance and organized. He believe in the great organizing force but not in the personal God. He referred to the organizing force as Athe Old One@. He thought that the real business of physics was to find out the secrets and ways of the AOld One@.

Einstein had just graduated from the ETH and was looking for a job with one of the professors at the institute. None of them offered him a job. He was unemployed for two years, living off temporary tutoring jobs and monthly allowance from his parents. He finally got a job in 1902 with the National Patent Office of Switzerland in Bern. His annual salary was 3700 Swiss francs (this is quite reasonable considering that you could rent a room for 70 francs a month).

Einstein=s attitude handicapped him greatly. He was considered a Awiseguy@ by the professors at the ETH. Hermann Minkowski was a brilliant mathematician and Einstein=s professor for a time. He was disbelieving when told that it was Einstein that formulated the Theory of Relativity in 1908. Minkowski invented the formulation for relativity that is still used today. It involves four dimensional physics.

In 1902, Einstein helped found the Olympia academy that started and ended with three members.

In October 1902, Hermann Einstein dies in Italy. The following January, Einstein marries Mileva Maric, another student at the ETH. Albert Einstein=s marriage will be discussed later in this biography.

Unlike most scientists, Einstein did not keep a log book of his progress, or lack of it. We can only piece together the fragments of information that led up to the formulation of the Theory of Relativity in 1908. Some of these fragments were letters that were exchanged with various people including Mileva Maric.

According to Philipp Frank=s biography of Einstein, he brought to light a personal account of how Einstein came to the theory. The account revolves around a thought experiment.

The experiment is as follows: you are on a train that is traveling at the speed of light. It is riding on the ideal track that has no bumps or gaps that would change the speed at which you move. You are rich enough to afford a private car all for yourself. You want to comb your hair even if it is dark in the train. There is a wash basin with a mirror in front of it. You face the mirror and turn on the light that is behind you. Will you see your face? In this experiment, we assume that the speed of light is c or the speed of light in a vacuum. We say in a vacuum because that light can propagate without other substances while sound travels in waves and requires a medium. In a vacuum, there are no particles that can slow down the light. Of this theory I will not say much for it has little to do with a biography of this kind.

In Einstein=s so called Aautobiography@, Einstein doesn=t even indicate anything of his marriage. This in turn indicates that he felt strongly that his personal life was strictly his own business.

Einstein=s relationship with Mileva started as a love affair at the ETH. She was of the Catholic religion. Religion was not of great importance to Einstein, Maric or the Maric family but it was to Einstein=s.

Einstein=s parents never approved of there marriage. One of the reasons was that she was a Catholic. Another was that she failed her examinations at the ETH. Mileva was also four years older than Einstein.

In 1897, Einstein and Maric start exchanging letters. In the fall of that year, it is evident that they had become good friends. By 1898, Einstein was writing about Aour household@ as though they were sharing living quarters.

December 12, 1901, Einstein writes a letter to Mileva clearly indicating that he knows that she is pregnant. They have married yet because Einstein was unable to land a job. Their first child had no record of being and vanished without a trace. They married in 1903.

Einstein completed five excellent scientific papers and his Ph. D. thesis in 1905 alone. He was 23 years old at the time. It is tempting to think that his job at the patent office did not take much time. This was not so. Einstein was very serious about his work and he enjoyed it.

In 1904, they have their first son which they name Hans Albert. Their second son is born in 1910 and is named Eduard. In 1914, Einstein moves back to Berlin and separates from Mileva. He divorces Mileva in 1919 and marries his own cousin, Elsa. By this time, the Theory of Relativity is confirmed.

Hans Albert recalls before his death in 1973. Mileva Maric was a loving person who needed a lot of love herself. Life with Einstein would be hard for any woman. He had no feelings for his country and once he found his path in physics he never belonged to anyone or anything. People around him had the sense that the important part of him was inaccessible. He spent his life thinking about physics, and that was a journey he would have to take alone.

As you now know, Einstein=s life was very interesting. His career was very successful even though his marriage wasn=t. He had many life long friends and colleagues that respected him and accompanied him. Einstein died a fulfilled person.