The Life of Albert Einstein

Youth

"The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education." -Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, Germany on March 14, 1879. While he was an infant, his parents moved him from Ulm to Munich, then again to Milan, Italy when the family business failed in 1894. It was then that Einstein officially stopped being a German Citizen

Not long after this, Einstein attempted and failed a test that would have allowed him to join the Electrical Engineering program at the Swiss Federal Institude of Technology. He had not completed secondary school at the time of his attempt.

“One had to cram all this stuff into one’s mind for the examinations, whether one liked it or not. This coercion had such a deterring effect on me that, after I had passed the final examination, I found the consideration of any scientific problems distasteful to me for an entire year.” -Albert Einstein

Einstein spent the year following his failure at the secondary school in Aarau, where he learned from excellent instructors and was able to use first rate physics facilities. He returned in 1896 to the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. He graduated in 1900 as a teacher of Mathematics and Physics.

"In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be a sheep." -Albert Einstein

In 1902 Einstein’s love interest Mileva Maric, gives birth to their daughter, Lieserl, which they later put up for adoption.

Adulthood

"Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal." -Albert Einstein

Two years after graduating from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Einstein got a job working for the Swiss patent office based in Bern. While the work required a great deal of his attention, he managed to produce a great many publications on theoretical Physics. Primarily he worked on these in his spare time and without very much other scientific literature or colleagues to discuss with. He gained his Ph.D. Degree in 1905 by submitting one of these papers to the University of Zurich. Then another paper submission in 1908 gained him a position at the University of Bern as a lecturer. A year later he was appointed as associate professor of physics at the University of Zurich.