Albert Einstein Biography

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History Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879 in Ulm, Germany. His parents were Hermann and Pauline Einstein. He was born with an unusually large head and his parents were afraid that he would be mildly retarded. As it turned out, Albert was slow in learning how to speak. When Albert was older he said that he did not talk very much as a child because he wanted to speak in complete sentences. In 1880, Albert’s family moved to Munich, where Albert’s father set up an electrical equipment business with his brother Jakob. In November 1881, Albert’s sister Maja was born. Albert did not enjoy playing with other children and would often lose his temper and throw things when annoyed. Albert especially hated playing soldiers. One biographer, Philipp Frank, who knew Albert personally, wrote, “When soldiers marched through the streets of Munich accompanied by the roll of drums and the shrill of fifes…little Albert…began to cry.” Frank said that Albert told his parents he had no desire to grow up to be “one of those poor people,” a soldier. “Albert saw the parade as a movement of people compelled to be machines.” Throughout his life, Einstein hated political power or any situation where one group of people controlled the lives of others. When Albert was five, his father gave him his first compass to keep him busy during an illness. Many years later, Einstein wrote that the needle on the compass “behaved in such a determined way,” always pointing north no matter how he handled the compass. It was that compass that first made him interested in science. At an early age, Albert and his sister Maja were introduced to literature and music by their parents. When Albert was six he had his first violin lesson but it ended when he... ... middle of paper ... ...in and his family moved to Zurich. Einstein’s second son was born on July 28, 1910. Nine years later, Einstein divorced Mileva in order to marry his cousin, Elsa. Elsa and Albert were married in June 1919. In 1905 Einstein published four related papers in the German scientific journal Annalen der Physik (Annals of Physics); one these papers earned him his Ph.D., and another paper on the photoelectrical effect, would earn him the Noble Prize in physics in 1921. His third paper, on mass and energy, laid the groundwork for nuclear fission and the atomic bomb. His fourth paper, on the electrodynamics of moving bodies (the special theory of relativity) would change our understanding of the universe. Einstein died on April 18, 1955 due to a ruptured aortic aneurysm. Einstein’s step daughter Margot wrote later in a letter that he left the world without any regrets.

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