Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein

Throughout the years, Einstein has been regarded as perhaps one of the greatest scientists who ever lived. Everyone knows his theory of relativity, E=mc2. Not everyone knows what it means, but everyone knows it nonetheless. Everyone can also instantly recognize Einstein, who never wore clothes that were as dignified as he was. He was a kind man, a pacifist. He always opted for the peaceful way out. There have been many technological advances since the days of Einstein. And despite some skepticism, the theories he developed 85 years ago are still the most accurate that we have.

Einstein comes from humble beginnings, born to a not-so-well-to-do family in Ulm, Germany. He came into this world on March 14, 1879, born to Hermann and Pauline Einstein. Early in life, he showed a great interest in mathematics and the sciences. When he was about eight years old, his father gave him a compass. Einstein wondered why it always pointed north. Einstein lay awake that night in bed wondering how an invisible force could pass through space (Strathern 13). His uncle gave him his first mathematics book and Einstein read it until he could do every problem in the book. In school, Einstein wasn’t exactly a teacher’s pet. The teachers at German school during his childhood “prided themselves on behaving like bossy, pedantic sergeant majors'; (Strathern 13). Teachers told him he would never amount to anything. Einstein more than proved them wrong.

The first years on his own were the roughest for Einstein. He was unable to keep a job and wasn’t credited enough for anyone to believe his theorems, yet. He married Mileva Maric in 1902 and they had their first son, Hans Albert, was born (Magill 1035). Things came together for Einstein in 1905. While working as a patent clerk, he wrote five groundbreaking articles that were published in a major scientific newsletter of the time. The first paper, titled, “On A Heuristic Viewpoint Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light,'; would earn him a Nobel Prize for physics in 1922. His second paper was titled, “A Determination on the Sized of Molecules.'; His third, “On the Motion of Small Particles Suspended in a Stationary Liquid, according to the Molecular K...

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...th birthday, the element Einsteinium was named after him (Swisher 101). In 1952, he was invited to be the president of the newly formed country of Israel, a Jewish state established in 1948 (Swisher 101).

After his wife, Elsa, died in 1936, Einstein’s longtime secretary and housekeeper, Helen Dukas, took care of him. For the last year of his life, Einstein spent much time in bed working on his theorems. On April 13, 1955, he was struck with severe stomach pains. He died five days later on April 18. Before he died, he told Helen Dukas there was to be no funeral, no grave, and no monument. He wanted his brain to be used for research, his body cremated, and the ashes scattered in an undisclosed place.

Many people have tried to prove his theories incorrect; all have been unsuccessful. They have only improved on something he did eighty-five years ago. He has had more influence on modern science than any person in history. For example, in 1977, two people did a study on the influence that Einstein had. They found 105 articles that had the word “Einstein'; in the title. They also found 452 cited Einstein within the article (Swisher 113).