Albert Einstein

Born March 14, 1879 — Died April 18, 1955

Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist widely regarded as one of the greatest scientists who ever lived. His 1905 papers on special relativity and the photoelectric effect revolutionized physics, and his general theory of relativity — which reimagined gravity as a curvature of spacetime — remains one of the pillars of modern science.

Youth and Early Brilliance

Born in Ulm, in the Kingdom of Württemberg, Germany, on March 14, 1879, Einstein showed an early fascination with invisible forces — reportedly mesmerized by a compass his father showed him at age five. He was not a prodigy in the conventional sense: he struggled with rote learning in school and famously failed an entrance exam to the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School (ETH Zurich) at age 15. He passed the following year, however, earning the highest marks in mathematics and physics.

After graduating in 1900 he was unable to find an academic post. For two years he drifted through tutoring jobs before landing a position as a patent examiner at the Swiss Federal Office for Intellectual Property in Bern in 1902. That office job proved a gift: the patent work required precise, abstract thinking and left him ample mental energy to pursue physics on his own time.

The Miracle Year and Relativity

In 1905 — his annus mirabilis — Einstein published four papers that each would have been a landmark on its own. One explained Brownian motion, confirming the atomic theory of matter. Another explained the photoelectric effect (demonstrating that light travels in discrete quanta, a discovery that would win him the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics). A third proposed special relativity, showing that the laws of physics are the same in all inertial frames of reference and that the speed of light is constant — upending Newtonian mechanics. A fourth derived the now-famous equation E = mc², showing that mass and energy are equivalent.

A decade later he completed his masterpiece: the general theory of relativity (1915), which described gravity not as a force but as the curvature of spacetime caused by mass and energy. A 1919 solar eclipse expedition led by Sir Arthur Eddington confirmed a key prediction — that light bends around massive objects — making Einstein an international celebrity overnight. The Times of London declared "Revolution in Science — New Theory of the Universe."

America, War, and Legacy

When Adolf Hitler rose to power in 1933, Einstein — who was visiting the United States — announced he would not return to Germany. He accepted a position at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, where he spent the rest of his life. In 1939 he co-signed a letter to President Roosevelt warning that Germany might develop an atomic bomb, contributing to the launch of the Manhattan Project, though Einstein himself had no direct role in building the bomb and later expressed deep regret over its use.

Einstein died on April 18, 1955, in Princeton, of an aortic aneurysm. He was 76. In his final hours he jotted equations in his notebook, still working. His brain was removed — without family permission — and studied for decades in hopes of explaining his genius. Walter Isaacson's biography Einstein: His Life and Universe remains the definitive popular account of his extraordinary life.