Albert Einstein

I INTRODUCTION				work, was what made his work so difficult for
Albert Einstein (1879-1955), German-born				colleagues to comprehend, let alone support.
American physicist and Nobel laureate, best				Einstein did have important supporters, however.
known as the creator of the special and general				His chief early patron was the German physicist
theories of relativity and for his bold hypothesis				Max Planck. Einstein remained at the patent office
concerning the particle nature of light. He is				for four years after his star began to rise within
perhaps the most well-known scientist of the				the physics community. He then moved rapidly
20th century.				upward in the German-speaking academic world;
Einstein was born in Ulm on March 14, 1879, and				his first academic appointment was in 1909 at the
spent his youth in Munich, where his family owned				University of ZÃ¼rich. In 1911 he moved to
a small shop that manufactured electric				the German-speaking university at Prague, and in
machinery. He did not talk until the age of three,				1912 he returned to the Swiss National Polytechnic
but even as a youth he showed a brilliant curiosity				in ZÃ¼rich. Finally, in 1914, he was appointed
about nature and an ability to understand difficult				director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics
mathematical concepts. At the age of 12 he				in Berlin.
taught himself Euclidean geometry.				V THE GENERAL THEORY OF RELATIVITY
Einstein hated the dull regimentation and				Even before he left the patent office in 1907,
unimaginative spirit of school in Munich. When				Einstein began work on extending and generalizing
repeated business failure led the family to leave				the theory of relativity to all coordinate systems.
Germany for Milan, Italy, Einstein, who was then				He began by enunciating the principle of
15 years old, used the opportunity to withdraw				equivalence, a postulate that gravitational fields
from the school. He spent a year with his parents				are equivalent to accelerations of the frame of
in Milan, and when it became clear that he would				reference. For example, people in a moving
have to make his own way in the world, he				elevator cannot, in principle, decide whether the
finished secondary school in Aarau, Switzerland,				force that acts on them is caused by gravitation
and entered the Swiss Federal Institute of				or by a constant acceleration of the elevator. The
Technology in ZÃ¼rich. Einstein did not enjoy				full general theory of relativity was not published
the methods of instruction there. He often cut				until 1916. In this theory the interactions of bodies,
classes and used the time to study physics on his				which heretofore had been ascribed to
own or to play his beloved violin. He passed his				gravitational forces, are explained as the influence
examinations and graduated in 1900 by studying				of bodies on the geometry of space-time
the notes of a classmate. His professors did not				(four-dimensional space, a mathematical
think highly of him and would not recommend him				abstraction, having the three dimensions from
for a university position.				Euclidean space and time as the fourth dimension).
For two years Einstein worked as a tutor and				On the basis of the general theory of relativity,
substitute teacher. In 1902 he secured a position				Einstein accounted for the previously unexplained
as an examiner in the Swiss patent office in Bern.				variations in the orbital motion of the planets and
In 1903 he married Mileva Marić, who had				predicted the bending of starlight in the vicinity of
been his classmate at the polytechnic. They had				a massive body such as the sun. The confirmation
two sons but eventually divorced. Einstein later				of this latter phenomenon during an eclipse of the
remarried.				sun in 1919 became a media event, and Einstein's
II EARLY SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS				fame spread worldwide.
In 1905 Einstein received his doctorate from the				For the rest of his life Einstein devoted
University of ZÃ¼rich for a theoretical				considerable time to generalizing his theory even
dissertation on the dimensions of molecules, and				more. His last effort, the unified field theory,
he also published three theoretical papers of				which was not entirely successful, was an
central importance to the development of				attempt to understand all physical
20th-century physics. In the first of these papers,				interactions-including electromagnetic interactions
on Brownian motion, he made significant				and weak and strong interactions-in terms of the
predictions about the motion of particles that are				modification of the geometry of space-time
randomly distributed in a fluid. These predictions				between interacting entities.
were later confirmed by experiment.				Most of Einstein's colleagues felt that these
The second paper, on the photoelectric effect,				efforts were misguided. Between 1915 and 1930
contained a revolutionary hypothesis concerning				the mainstream of physics was in developing a
the nature of light. Einstein not only proposed that				new conception of the fundamental character of
under certain circumstances light can be				matter, known as quantum theory. This theory
considered as consisting of particles, but he also				contained the feature of wave-particle duality
hypothesized that the energy carried by any light				(light exhibits the properties of a particle, as well
particle, called a photon, is proportional to the				as of a wave) that Einstein had earlier urged as
frequency of the radiation. The formula for this is				necessary, as well as the uncertainty principle,
E = hν, where E is the energy of the				which states that precision in measuring processes
radiation, h is a universal constant known as				is limited. Additionally, it contained a novel
Planck's constant, and ν is the frequency of				rejection, at a fundamental level, of the notion of
the radiation. This proposal-that the energy				strict causality. Einstein, however, would not
contained within a light beam is transferred in				accept such notions and remained a critic of these
individual units, or quanta-contradicted a				developments until the end of his life. "God,"
hundred-year-old tradition of considering light				Einstein once said, "does not play dice with the
energy a manifestation of continuous processes.				world."
Virtually no one accepted Einstein's proposal. In				VI WORLD CITIZEN
fact, when the American physicist Robert				After 1919, Einstein became internationally
Andrews Millikan experimentally confirmed the				renowned. He accrued honors and awards,
theory almost a decade later, he was surprised				including the Nobel Prize in physics in 1921, from
and somewhat disquieted by the outcome.				various world scientific societies. His visit to any
Einstein, whose prime concern was to understand				part of the world became a national event;
the nature of electromagnetic radiation,				photographers and reporters followed him
subsequently urged the development of a theory				everywhere. While regretting his loss of privacy,
that would be a fusion of the wave and particle				Einstein capitalized on his fame to further his own
models for light. Again, very few physicists				political and social views.
understood or were sympathetic to these ideas.				The two social movements that received his full
III EINSTEIN'S SPECIAL THEORY OF				support were pacifism and Zionism. During World
RELATIVITY				War I he was one of a handful of German
Einstein's third major paper in 1905, "On the				academics willing to publicly decry Germany's
Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies," contained				involvement in the war. After the war his
what became known as the special theory of				continued public support of pacifist and Zionist
relativity. Since the time of the English				goals made him the target of vicious attacks by
mathematician and physicist Sir Isaac Newton,				anti-Semitic and right-wing elements in Germany.
natural philosophers (as physicists and chemists				Even his scientific theories were publicly ridiculed,
were known) had been trying to understand the				especially the theory of relativity.
nature of matter and radiation, and how they				When Hitler came to power, Einstein immediately
interacted in some unified world picture. The				decided to leave Germany for the United States.
position that mechanical laws are fundamental has				He took a position at the Institute for Advanced
become known as the mechanical world view, and				Study at Princeton, New Jersey. While continuing
the position that electrical laws are fundamental				his efforts on behalf of world Zionism, Einstein
has become known as the electromagnetic world				renounced his former pacifist stand in the face of
view. Neither approach, however, is capable of				the awesome threat to humankind posed by the
providing a consistent explanation for the way				Nazi regime in Germany.
radiation (light, for example) and matter interact				In 1939 Einstein collaborated with several other
when viewed from different inertial frames of				physicists in writing a letter to President Franklin D.
reference, that is, an interaction viewed				Roosevelt, pointing out the possibility of making an
simultaneously by an observer at rest and an				atomic bomb and the likelihood that the German
observer moving at uniform speed.				government was embarking on such a course.
In the spring of 1905, after considering these				The letter, which bore only Einstein's signature,
problems for ten years, Einstein realized that the				helped lend urgency to efforts in the U.S. to build
crux of the problem lay not in a theory of matter				the atomic bomb, but Einstein himself played no
but in a theory of measurement. At the heart of				role in the work and knew nothing about it at the
his special theory of relativity was the realization				time.
that all measurements of time and space depend				After the war, Einstein was active in the cause of
on judgments as to whether two distant events				international disarmament and world government.
occur simultaneously. This led him to develop a				He continued his active support of Zionism but
theory based on two postulates: the principle of				declined the offer made by leaders of the state
relativity, that physical laws are the same in all				of Israel to become president of that country. In
inertial reference systems, and the principle of the				the U.S. during the late 1940s and early '50s he
invariance of the speed of light, that the speed of				spoke out on the need for the nation's intellectuals
light in a vacuum is a universal constant. He was				to make any sacrifice necessary to preserve
thus able to provide a consistent and correct				political freedom. Einstein died in Princeton on April
description of physical events in different inertial				18, 1955.
frames of reference without making special				Einstein's efforts in behalf of social causes have
assumptions about the nature of matter or				sometimes been viewed as unrealistic. In fact, his
radiation, or how they interact. Virtually no one				proposals were always carefully thought out. Like
understood Einstein's argument.				his scientific theories, they were motivated by
IV EARLY REACTIONS TO EINSTEIN				sound intuition based on a shrewd and careful
The difficulty that others had with Einstein's work				assessment of evidence and observation.
was not because it was too mathematically				Although Einstein gave much of himself to political
complex or technically obscure; the problem				and social causes, science always came first,
resulted, rather, from Einstein's beliefs about the				because, he often said, only the discovery of the
nature of good theories and the relationship				nature of the universe would have lasting
between experiment and theory. Although he				meaning. His writings include Relativity: The Special
maintained that the only source of knowledge is				and General Theory (1916); About Zionism (1931);
experience, he also believed that scientific theories				Builders of the Universe (1932); Why War? (1933),
are the free creations of a finely tuned physical				with Sigmund Freud; The World as I See It
intuition and that the premises on which theories				(1934); The Evolution of Physics (1938), with the
are based cannot be connected logically to				Polish physicist Leopold Infeld; and Out of My
experiment. A good theory, therefore, is one in				Later Years (1950). Einstein's collected papers are
which a minimum number of postulates is required				being published in a multivolume work, beginning in
to account for the physical evidence. This				1987.
sparseness of postulates, a feature of all Einstein's

Left At East Gate

Albert Einstein