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Albert Einstein () (March 14, 1879 in Ulm, Württemberg, Germany – April 18, 1955 in Princeton, New Jersey) was a theoretical physicist. He formulated the special and general theories of relativity. In addition, he made significant contributions to quantum theory and statistical mechanics. While best known for the Theory of Relativity (and specifically mass-energy equivalence, ''E''=''mc''2), he was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize for Physics for his explanation of the photoelectric effect in 1905 (his "wonderful year" or "miraculous year") and "for his services to Theoretical Physics". For his many contributions, Einstein is widely regarded as one of the greatest physicists who ever lived.•• In popular culture, the name "Einstein" has become synonymous with great intelligence and genius.
Youth and college Einstein was born on March 14, 1879, around 11:30 AM LMT, to a Jewish family, in the city of Ulm in Württemberg, Germany, about 100 km east of Stuttgart. His father was Hermann Einstein, a salesman who later ran an electrochemical works, and his mother was Pauline, née Koch. They were married in Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt. At his birth, Albert's mother was reputedly frightened that her infant's head was so large and oddly shaped. Though the size of his head appeared to be less remarkable as he grew older, it's evident from photographs of Einstein that his head was proportionately large for his body throughout his life, a trait regarded as "benign macrocephaly" in large-headed individuals with no related disease or cognitive deficits. Another more famous aspect of Einstein's childhood is the fact that he spoke much later than the average child. Einstein claimed that he did not begin speaking until the age of three and only did so hesitantly, even beyond the age of nine (see 4.2 of this article, "Speculation and controversy"). Because of Einstein's late speech development and his later childhood tendency to ignore any subject in school that bored him — instead focusing intensely only on what interested him — some observers at the time suggested that he might be "retarded," such as one of the Einstein family's housekeepers. This latter observation was not the only time in his life that controversial labels and pathology would be applied to Einstein. (See again, "Speculation and controversy".) Albert's family members were all non-observant Jews and he attended a Catholic elementary school. At the insistence of his mother, he was given violin lessons. Though he initially disliked the lessons, and eventually discontinued them, he would later take great solace in Mozart's violin sonatas. When Einstein was five, his father showed him a small pocket compass, and Einstein realized that something in "empty" space acted upon the needle; he would later describe the experience as one of the most revelatory events of his life. He built models and mechanical devices for fun and showed great mathematical ability early on. In 1889, a medical student named Max Talmud (later: Talmey), who visited the Einsteins on Thursday nights for six years, (given by Max Talmud). While at the Gymnasium, Einstein clashed with authority and resented the school regimen, believing that the spirit of learning and creative thought were lost in such endeavors as strict memorization. In 1894, following the failure of Hermann Einstein's electrochemical business, the Einsteins moved from Munich to Pavia, a city in Italy near Milan. Einstein's first scientific work, called "The Investigation of the State of Aether in Magnetic Fields", was written contemporaneously for one of his uncles. Albert remained behind in Munich lodgings to finish school, completing only one term before leaving the gymnasium in the spring of 1895 to rejoin his family in Pavia. He quit a year and a half prior to final examinations without telling his parents, convincing the school to let him go with a medical note from a friendly doctor, but this meant that he had no secondary-school certificate. That year, at the age of 16, he performed the thought experiment known as "Albert Einstein's mirror". After gazing into a mirror, he examined what would happen to his image if he were moving at the speed of light; his conclusion, that the speed of light is independent of the observer, would later become one of the two postulates of special relativity. Although he excelled in the mathematics and science part of entrance examinations for the Federal Polytechnic Institute in Zurich, today the ETH Zurich, his failure of the liberal arts portion was a setback; his family sent him to Aarau, Switzerland to finish secondary school, and it became clear that he was not going to be an electrical engineer as his father intended for him. There, he studied the seldom-taught Maxwell's electromagnetic theory and received his diploma in September 1896. During this time, he lodged with Professor Jost Winteler's family and became enamoured with Marie, their daughter and his first sweetheart. Einstein's sister, Maja, who was perhaps his closest confidant, was to later marry their son, Paul, and his friend, Michele Besso, married their other daughter, Anna. Einstein subsequently enrolled at the Federal Polytechnic Institute in October and moved to Zurich, while Marie moved to Olsberg, Switzerland for a teaching post. The same year, he renounced his Württemberg citizenship. In the spring of 1896, the Serbian Mileva Marić started initially as a medical student at the University of Zurich, but after a term switched to the Federal Polytechnic Institute to study as the only woman that year for the same diploma as Einstein. Marić's relationship with Einstein developed into romance over the next few years, though his mother would cry that she was too old, not Jewish, and physically defective.• In 1900, Einstein was granted a teaching diploma by the Federal Polytechnic Institute. Einstein then submitted his first paper to be published, on the capillary forces of a drinking straw, titled "Folgerungen aus den Capillaritätserscheinungen", which translated is "Consequences of the observations of capillarity phenomena" (found in "Annalen der Physik" volume 4, page 513). In it, he tried to unify the laws of physics, an attempt he would continually make throughout his life. Through his friend Michele Besso, an engineer, Einstein was presented with the works of Ernst Mach, and would later consider him "the best sounding board in Europe" for physical ideas. During this time, Einstein discussed his scientific interests with a group of close friends, including Besso and Marić. The men referred to themselves as the "Olympia Academy". Einstein and Marić had a daughter out of wedlock, Lieserl Einstein, born in January 1902. Her fate is unknown; some believe she died in infancy, while others believe she was given out for adoption. Works and doctorate Einstein could not find a teaching post upon graduation, mostly because his brashness as a young man had apparently irritated most of his professors. The father of a classmate helped him obtain employment as a technical assistant examiner at the Swiss Patent Office• in 1902. There, Einstein judged the worth of inventors' patent applications for devices that required a knowledge of physics to understand — in particular he was chiefly charged to evaluate patents relating to electromagnetic devices. He also learned how to discern the essence of applications despite sometimes poor descriptions, and was taught by the director how "to express himself correctly". He occasionally rectified their design errors while evaluating the practicality of their work. Einstein married Mileva Marić on January 6, 1903. Einstein's marriage to Marić, who was a mathematician, was both a personal and intellectual partnership: Einstein referred to Mileva as "a creature who is my equal and who is as strong and independent as I am". Ronald W. Clark, a biographer of Einstein, claimed that Einstein depended on the distance that existed in his marriage to Mileva in order to have the solitude necessary to accomplish his work; he required intellectual isolation. Abram Joffe, a Soviet physicist who knew Einstein, wrote in an obituary of him, "The author of the papers of 1905 was… a bureaucrat at the Patent Office in Bern, Einstein-Marić" and this has recently been taken as evidence of a collaborative relationship. However, according to Alberto A. Martínez of the Center for Einstein Studies at Boston University, Joffe only ascribed authorship to Einstein, as he believed that it was a Swiss custom at the time to append the spouse's last name to the husband's name.• Whatever the truth, the extent of her influence on Einstein's work is a highly controversial and debated question. In 1903, Einstein's position at the Swiss Patent Office had been made permanent, though he was passed over for promotion until he had "fully mastered machine technology". He obtained his doctorate under Alfred Kleiner at the University of Zurich after submitting his thesis "A new determination of molecular dimensions" ("Eine neue Bestimmung der Moleküldimensionen") in 1905. Annus Mirabilis Papers
Middle years In 1906, Einstein was promoted to technical examiner second class. In 1908, Einstein was licensed in Bern, Switzerland, as a Privatdozent (unsalaried teacher at a university). During this time, Einstein described why the sky is blue in his paper on the phenomenon of critical opalescence, which shows the cumulative effect of scattering of light by individual molecules in the atmosphere. In 1911, Einstein became first associate professor at the University of Zurich, and shortly afterwards full professor at the German language-section of the Charles University of Prague. While at Prague, Einstein published a paper calling on astronomers to test two predictions of his developing theory of relativity: a bending of light in a gravitational field, measurable at a solar eclipse; and a redshift of solar spectral lines relative to spectral lines produced on Earth's surface. A young German astronomer, Erwin Freundlich, began collaborating with Einstein and alerted other astronomers around the world about Einstein's astronomical tests. In 1912, Einstein returned to Zurich in order to become full professor at the ETH Zurich. At that time, he worked closely with the mathematician Marcel Grossmann, who introduced him to Riemannian geometry. In 1912, Einstein started to refer to time as the fourth dimension (although H.G. Wells had done this earlier, in 1895 in The Time Machine). In 1914, just before the start of World War I, Einstein settled in Berlin as professor at the local university and became a member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences. He took Prussian citizenship. From 1914 to 1933, he served as director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics in Berlin. He also held the position of extraordinary professor at the University of Leiden from 1920 until 1946, where he regularly gave guest lectures. In 1917, Einstein published "On the Quantum Mechanics of Radiation" ("Zur Quantentheorie der Strahlung," Physkalische Zeitschrift 18, 121–128). This article introduced the concept of stimulated emission, the physical principle that allows light amplification in the laser. He also published a paper that year that used the general theory of relativity to model the behavior of the entire universe, setting the stage for modern cosmology. In this work he created his self-described "worst blunder": the cosmological constant. On May 14, 1904, Albert and Mileva's first son, Hans Albert Einstein, was born. Their second son, Eduard Einstein, was born on July 28, 1910. Hans Albert became a professor of hydraulic engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, having little interaction with his father, but sharing his love for sailing and music. Eduard, the younger brother, intended to practice as a Freudian analyst but was institutionalized for schizophrenia and died in an asylum. Einstein divorced Mileva on February 14, 1919, and married his cousin Elsa Löwenthal (born Einstein: Löwenthal was the surname of her first husband, Max) on June 2, 1919. Elsa was Albert's first cousin (maternally) and his second cousin (paternally). She was three years older than Albert, and had nursed him to health after he had suffered a partial nervous breakdown combined with a severe stomach ailment; there were no children from this marriage. General relativity In November 1915, Einstein presented a series of lectures before the Prussian Academy of Sciences in which he described a new theory of gravity, known as general relativity. The final lecture ended with his introduction of an equation that replaced Newton's law of gravity, the Einstein field equation. This theory considered all observers to be equivalent, not only those moving at a uniform speed. In general relativity, gravity is no longer a force (as it is in Newton's law of gravity) but is a consequence of the curvature of space-time. Einstein's published papers on general relativity were not available outside of Germany due to the war. News of Einstein's new theory reached English-speaking astronomers in England and America via Dutch physicists Hendrik Antoon Lorentz and Paul Ehrenfest and their colleague Willem de Sitter, Director of Leiden Observatory. Arthur Stanley Eddington in England, who was Secretary of the Royal Astronomical Society, asked de Sitter to write a series of articles in English for the benefit of astronomers. He was fascinated with the new theory and became a leading proponent and popularizer of relativity. Most astronomers did not like Einstein's geometrization of gravity and believed that his light bending and gravitational redshift predictions would not be correct. In 1917, astronomers at Mt. Wilson Observatory in southern California published results of spectroscopic analysis of the solar spectrum that seemed to indicate that there was no gravitational redshift in the Sun. In 1918, astronomers at Lick Observatory in northern California obtained photographs at a solar eclipse visible in the United States. After the war ended, they announced results claiming that Einstein's general relativity prediction of light bending was wrong; but they never published their results due to large probable errors. In May, 1919 during British solar-eclipse expeditions (carried out in Sobral, Ceará, Brazil, as well as on the island of Principe, at the west coast of Africa) Arthur Eddington supervised measurements of the bending of star light as it passed close to the Sun, resulting in star positions appearing further away from the Sun. This effect is called gravitational lensing and the positions of the stars observed were twice that which would be predicted by Newtonian physics. These observations match that predicted by the Field Equation of general relativity. Eddington announced that the results confirmed Einstein's prediction and The Times reported that confirmation on November 7 of that year, with the headline: "Revolution in science – New theory of the Universe – Newtonian ideas overthrown". Nobel laureate Max Born viewed General Relativity as the "greatest feat of human thinking about nature"; fellow laureate Paul Dirac called it "probably the greatest scientific discovery ever made".• These comments and resulting publicity cemented Einstein's fame. He became world-famous – an unusual achievement for a scientist. Many scientists were still unconvinced for various reasons ranging from the scientific (disagreement with Einstein's interpretation of the experiments, belief in the ether or that an absolute frame of reference was necessary) to the psycho-social (conservatism, anti-Semitism). In Einstein's view, most of the objections were from experimentalists with very little understanding of the theory involved. Einstein's public fame which followed the 1919 article created resentment among these scientists some of which lasted well into the 1930s. On March 30, 1921, Einstein went to New York to give a lecture on his new Theory of Relativity, the same year he was awarded the Nobel Prize. Though he is now most famous for his work on relativity, it was for his earlier work on the photoelectric effect that he was given the Prize, as his work on general relativity was still disputed. The Nobel committee decided that citing his less-contested theory in the Prize would gain more acceptance from the scientific community. Copenhagen interpretation In 1909 Einstein presented a paper (Über die Entwicklung unserer Anschauungen über das Wesen und die Konstitution der Strahlung, available in its English translation The Development of Our Views on the Composition and Essence of Radiation) to a gathering of physicists on the history of aether theories and, more importantly, on the quantization of light. In this and an earlier 1909 paper, Einstein showed that the energy quanta introduced by Max Planck also carried a well-defined momentum and acted in many respects as if they were independent, point-like particles. This paper marks the introduction of the modern "photon" concept (although the term itself was introduced much later, in a 1926 paper by Gilbert N. Lewis). Even more importantly, Einstein showed that light must be simultaneously a wave and a particle, and foretold correctly that physics stood on the brink of a revolution that would require them to unite these dual natures of light. However, his own proposal for a solution — that Maxwell's equations for electromagnetic fields be modified to allow wave solutions that are bound to singularities of the field — was never developed, although it may have influenced Louis de Broglie's pilot wave hypothesis for quantum mechanics. Determinism Beginning in the mid-1920s, as the original quantum theory was replaced with a new theory of quantum mechanics, Einstein voiced his objections to the Copenhagen interpretation of the new equations. His opposition in this regard would continue all his life. The majority see the reason for his objection in terms of the view that he was a rigid determinist (see determinism). They would cite a 1926 letter to Max Born, where Einstein made the remark which history recalls the most: Quantum mechanics is certainly imposing. But an inner voice tells me it is not yet the real thing. The theory says a lot, but does not really bring us any closer to the secret of the Old One. I, at any rate, am convinced that He does not throw dice. To this, Bohr, who sparred with Einstein on quantum theory, retorted, "Stop telling God what He must do!" The Bohr-Einstein debates on foundational aspects of quantum mechanics happened during the Solvay Conferences. Another important part of Einstein's viewpoint is the famous 1935 paper(emphasis due to Pauli) Incompleteness and Realism Many of Einstein's comments indicate his belief that quantum mechanics is 'incomplete'. This was first asserted in the famous 1935 Einstein, Podolsky, Rosen (EPR paradox) paper,(emphasis due to Einstein) Einstein never rejected probabilistic techniques and thinking, in and of themselves. Einstein himself was a great statistician, using statistical analysis in his works on Brownian motion and photoelectricity and in papers published before 1905; Einstein had even discovered Gibbs ensembles. According to the majority of physicists, however, he believed that indeterminism constituted a criteria for strong objection to a physical theory. Pauli's testimony contradicts this, and Einstein's own statements indicate a focus on incompleteness, as his major concern. More recent times have given us another twist to this business. John Stewart Bell discovered further interesting results (Bell's Theorem and Bell's inequality) in his researches on the Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen paper. There is a divergence in thinking as to the conclusions derivable from this, in conjunction with the EPR analysis. According to Bell, quantum nonlocality has been established, while others see the death of determinism. Summary Whatever his inner convictions, Einstein agreed that the quantum theory was the best available, but he looked for a more "complete" explanation, i.e., either more deterministic or one that could more fundamentally explain the reason for probabilities in a logical way. He could not abandon the belief that physics described the laws that govern "real things", nor could he abandon the belief that there are no explanations that contain contradictions, which had driven him to his successes explaining photons, relativity, atoms, and gravity. Bose-Einstein statistics In 1924, Einstein received a short paper from a young Indian physicist named Satyendra Nath Bose describing light as a gas of photons and asking for Einstein's assistance in publication. Einstein realized that the same statistics could be applied to atoms, and published an article in German (then the lingua franca of physics) which described Bose's model and explained its implications. Bose-Einstein statistics now describe any assembly of these indistinguishable particles known as bosons. The Bose-Einstein condensate phenomenon was predicted in the 1920s by Bose and Einstein, based on Bose's work on the statistical mechanics of photons, which was then formalized and generalized by Einstein. The first such condensate in alkali gases was produced by Eric Cornell and Carl Wieman in 1995 at the University of Colorado at Boulder, though Bose-Einstein Condensation has been observed in superfluid Helium-4 since the 1930s. Einstein's original sketches on this theory were recovered in August 2005 in the library of Leiden University.• Einstein also assisted Erwin Schrödinger in the development of the quantum Boltzmann distribution, a mixed classical and quantum mechanical gas model although he realized that this was less significant than the Bose-Einstein model and declined to have his name included on the paper. Einstein refrigerator In 1926, Einstein and former student Leó Szilárd co-invented the Einstein refrigerator.• On November 11, 1930, was awarded to Albert Einstein and Leó Szilárd for the refrigerator. The patent covered a thermodynamic refrigeration cycle providing cooling with no moving parts, at a constant pressure, with only heat as an input. The refrigeration cycle used ammonia, butane, and water. World War II When Adolf Hitler came to power in January 1933, Einstein was a guest professor at Princeton University, a position which he took in December 1932, after an invitation from the American educator, Abraham Flexner. In 1933, the Nazis passed "The Law of the Restoration of the Civil Service" which forced all Jewish university professors out of their jobs, and throughout the 1930s a campaign to label Einstein's work as "Jewish physics"—in contrast with "German" or "Aryan physics"—was led by Nobel laureates Philipp Lenard and Johannes Stark. With the assistance of the SS, the Deutsche Physik supporters worked to publish pamphlets and textbooks denigrating Einstein's theories and attempted to politically blacklist German physicists who taught them, notably Werner Heisenberg. Einstein renounced his Prussian citizenship and stayed in the United States, where he was given permanent residency. He accepted a position at the newly founded Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, where he concentrated on developing a unified field theory (see below). Einstein became an American citizen in 1940, though he still retained Swiss citizenship. In 1939, under the encouragement of Szilárd, Einstein sent a letter to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt urging the study of nuclear fission for military purposes, under fears that the Nazi government would be first to develop nuclear weapons. Roosevelt started a small investigation into the matter which eventually became the massive Manhattan Project. Einstein himself did not work on the bomb project, however, and, according to Linus Pauling, he later regretted having signed this letter. The International Rescue Committee was founded in 1933 at the request of Albert Einstein to assist opponents of Adolf Hitler. For more information, see the section below on Einstein's political views. Unified field theory Einstein's research efforts after developing the theory of general relativity consisted primarily of a long series of attempts to generalize his theory of gravitation in order to unify and simplify the fundamental laws of physics, particularly gravitation and electromagnetism. In 1950 he described this work, which he referred to as the Unified Field Theory, in a Scientific American article. Einstein was guided by a belief in a single origin for the entire set of physical laws. Einstein became increasingly isolated in his research on a generalized theory of gravitation and his attempts were ultimately unsuccessful. In particular, his pursuit of a unification of the fundamental forces ignored work in the physics community at large (and vice versa), most notably the discovery of the strong and weak nuclear forces, which were not understood independently until around 1970, fifteen years after Einstein's death. Einstein's goal of unifying the laws of physics under a single model survives in the current drive for unification of the forces. Final years In 1948, Einstein served on the original committee which resulted in the founding of Brandeis University. A portrait of Einstein was taken by Yousuf Karsh on February 11 of that same year. In 1952, the Israeli government proposed to Einstein that he take the post of second president. He declined the offer, and is believed to be the only United States citizen ever to have been offered a position as a foreign head of state. Einstein's refusal might have stemmed from his disapproval of some of the Israeli policies during the war of independence. In a letter he signed, along with other Jewish leaders in the U.S., he criticised the Freedom Party under the leadership of Menachem Begin for "Nazi and Fascist" methods and philosophy. On March 30, 1953, Einstein released a revised unified field theory. He died at 1:15 AM in Princeton hospital in Princeton, New Jersey, on April 18, 1955 at the age of 76 from internal bleeding, which was caused by the rupture of an aortic aneurism, leaving the Generalized Theory of Gravitation unsolved. The only person present at his deathbed, a hospital nurse, said that just before his death he mumbled several words in German that she did not understand. He was cremated without ceremony on the same day he died at Trenton, New Jersey, in accordance with his wishes. His ashes were scattered at an undisclosed location. An autopsy was performed on Einstein by Dr. Thomas Stoltz Harvey, who removed and preserved his brain. Harvey found nothing unusual with his brain, but in 1999 further analysis by a team at McMaster University revealed that his parietal operculum region was missing and, to compensate, his inferior parietal lobe was 15% wider than normal.• The inferior parietal region is responsible for mathematical thought, visuospatial cognition, and imagery of movement. Einstein's brain also contained 73% more glial cells than the average brain. Religious views
Quotations on religion The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend personal God and avoid dogma and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things natural and spiritual as a meaningful unity. Buddhism answers this description. If there is any religion that could cope with modern scientific needs it would be Buddhism.• I came — though the child of entirely irreligious (Jewish) parents — to a deep religiousness, which, however, reached an abrupt end at the age of twelve.• I do not think that it is necessarily the case that science and religion are natural opposites. In fact, I think that there is a very close connection between the two. Further, I think that science without religion is lame and, conversely, that religion without science is blind. Both are important and should work hand-in-hand. A Jew who sheds his faith along the way, or who even picks up a different one, is still a Jew. As an adult, he called his religion a "cosmic religious sense".• In The World As I See It he wrote: You will hardly find one among the profounder sort of scientific minds without a peculiar religious feeling of his own. But it is different from the religion of the naive man. For the latter God is a being from whose care one hopes to benefit and whose punishment one fears; a sublimation of a feeling similar to that of a child for its father, a being to whom one stands to some extent in a personal relation, however deeply it may be tinged with awe. But the scientist is possessed by the sense of universal causation. The future, to him, is every whit as necessary and determined as the past. There is nothing divine about morality, it is a purely human affair. His religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection.• In response to the telegrammed question of New York's Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein in 1929: "Do you believe in God? Stop. Answer paid 50 words." Einstein replied "I believe in Spinoza's God, Who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God Who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind." Note that Einstein replied in only 25 (German) words. Spinoza was a naturalistic pantheist. Scientific philosophy In the "Copenhagen Interpretation" section (1.3.2) above, reference was made to the disagreement regarding Einstein's actual position regarding the quantum theory. The famous quotation "God does not play dice" is often used to support the majority view that he disliked the theory due to its indeterminism. Others make the case for a different view. They note that the 1926 "Dice" quotation occurred when the quantum theory was just in its first year of discovery and in the subsequent 30 years of his life, one would be hard pressed to find a similar comment from the man. Instead Einstein focused on the conceptually independent subject of 'incompleteness'. This attention is shown both in his 1935 "EPR" paper, and in his 1949 Geiger counter registration strip thought-experiment (see section 1.3.2.2). Further evidence against the "Einstein-determinist" view is W. Pauli's quotation: "he (Einstein) disputes that he uses as a criterion for the admissibility of a theory the question 'Is it rigorously deterministic?'". In favor of the deterministic view are the following statements of Einstein: But the scientist is possessed by the sense of universal causation. The future, to him, is every whit as necessary and determined as the past.• and: People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.• His devotion to Schopenhauer can be cited: I do not believe in freedom of the will. Schopenhauer's words: “Man can do what he wants, but he cannot will what he wills ” accompany me in all situations throughout my life and reconcile me with the actions of others even if they are rather painful to me. This awareness of the lack of freedom of will preserves me from taking too seriously myself and my fellow men as acting and deciding individuals and from losing my temper.• Einstein believed that true theorists always take some position on the metaphysics behind what they do: I believe that every true theorist is a kind of tamed metaphysicist, no matter how pure a 'positivist' he may fancy himself. The metaphysicist believes that the logically simple is also the real. The tamed metaphysicist believes that not all that is logically simple is embodied in experienced reality, but that the totality of all sensory experience can be 'comprehended' on the basis of a conceptual system built on premises of great simplicity.• The following general assessment was given by his colleague Nathan Rosen: I think that the things which impressed me most were the simplicity of his thinking and his faith in the ability of the human mind to understand the workings of nature. Throughout his life, Einstein believed the human reason was capable of leading to theories that would provide correct descriptions of physical phenomena. In building a theory, his approach had something in common with that of an artist; he would aim for simplicity and beauty (and beauty for him was, after all, essentially simplicity). The crucial question that he would ask, when weighing an element of a theory was: "Is it reasonable?" No matter how successful a theory appeared to be, if it seemed to him not to be reasonable (the German word that he used was "vernunftig"), he was convinced that the theory could not provide a really fundamental understanding of nature. Political views
Citizenship Einstein was born a German citizen. At the age of 17, on January 28, 1896, he was released from his German citizenship by his own request and with the approval of his father. He remained stateless for five years. On February 21, 1901 he gained Swiss citizenship, which he never revoked. Einstein obtained Prussian citizenship in April 1914 when he entered the Prussian civil service, but due to the political situation and the persecution of Jewish people in Nazi Germany, he left civil service in March 1933 and thus also lost the Prussian citizenship. On October 1, 1940, Einstein became an American citizen. He remained both an American and a Swiss citizen until his death on April 18, 1955.• Popularity and cultural impact According to "A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History", he is "the greatest scientist of the twentieth century and one of the supreme intellects of all time".• Einstein's popularity has also led to widespread use of Einstein's image in advertising and merchandising, including the registration of "Albert Einstein" as a trademark. Entertainment Albert Einstein has become the subject of a number of novels, films and plays, including Jean-Claude Carrier's 2005 French novel, Einstein S'il Vous Plait (Please Mr Einstein), Nicolas Roeg's film Insignificance, Fred Schepisi's film I.Q. (where he was portrayed by Walter Matthau), Alan Lightman's novel Einstein's Dreams, and Steve Martin's comedic play Picasso at the Lapin Agile. He was the subject of Philip Glass's groundbreaking 1976 opera Einstein on the Beach. His humorous side is also the subject of Ed Metzger's one-man play Albert Einstein: The Practical Bohemian. He is often used as a model for depictions of mad scientists and absent-minded professors in works of fiction; his own character and distinctive hairstyle suggest eccentricity, or even lunacy, and are widely copied or exaggerated. TIME magazine writer Frederic Golden referred to Einstein as "a cartoonist's dream come true." On Einstein's 72nd birthday in 1951, the UPI photographer Arthur Sasse was trying to persuade him to smile for the camera. Having done this for the photographer many times that day, Einstein stuck out his tongue instead.• The image has become an icon in pop culture for its contrast of the genius scientist displaying a moment of levity. Yahoo Serious, an Australian film maker, used the photo as an inspiration for the intentionally anachronistic movie Young Einstein. The image is also used in a poster used in the UK as part of dyslexia education, which has a string of posters showing great scientists, thinkers and artists and talks about the unfounded (not specified within the posters) claims that they had/have dyslexia. Speculation and controversy
Personal relations Letters written by Einstein to his relatives and kept at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, have revealed that during the course of his life, he had a dozen lovers, two of whom he married. Barbara Wolff of the Hebrew University's Albert Einstein Archives has made public about 3,500 pages of correspondence including letters to his first and second wives and children between the years 1912–1955. In letters to his second wife Elsa and her daughter Margot he claimed that he had been showered with unwanted attention from women. One of his lovers, a Berlin socialite Ethel Michanowski, "followed me to England, and her chasing me is getting out of control." His son Eduard's schizophrenia troubled Einstein greatly, and he often expressed the idea that it would have been better if Eduard had not been born. He adored his stepdaughter and in a letter to Elsa in 1924, he writes: "I love her Margot as much as if she were my own daughter, perhaps even more so, since who knows what kind of brat she would have become had I fathered her." The letters have been claimed as evidence to dispel myths that Einstein was cold toward his family. Licensing Einstein bequeathed his estate, as well as the use of his image (see personality rights), to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.• Einstein actively supported the university during his life and this support continues with the royalties received from licensing activities. The Roger Richman Agency licences the commercial use of the name "Albert Einstein" and associated imagery and likenesses of Einstein, as agent for the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. As head licensee the agency can control commercial usage of Einstein's name which does not comply with certain standards (e.g., when Einstein's name is used as a trademark, the ™ symbol must be used).• As of May, 2005, the Roger Richman Agency was acquired by Corbis. Honors Einstein has received a number of posthumous honors. For example: Works by Einstein Einstein published over fifty scientific papers during his lifetime. He also published several non-scientific works, including About Zionism (1930), Why War? (1933, co-authored by Sigmund Freud), The World As I See It (1934), and Out of My Later Years (1950). See also Notes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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