Early life and education
Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, in the Kingdom of Württemberg The Kingdom of Württemberg was a state that existed from 1806 to 1918 and is currently located in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It was a continuation of the Duchy of Württemberg, which came into existence in 1495. Before that the ruling house of Württemberg had been counts ruling a fragment of the Duchy of Swabia, which had dissolved after the in the German Empire The German Empire is the name commonly used in English to describe Germany from the unification of Germany and proclamation of William I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871 to 1918, when it became a German republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of Wilhelm II on March 14, 1879.[6] His father was Hermann Einstein Hermann Einstein was born in Buchau, Württemberg to his parents Abraham Einstein (1808–1868) and Helene Moos (1814–1887), who had married in Buchau in April 1839. The family were German Jews. He had three brothers (August Ignaz, Heinrich and Jakob) and two sisters (Jette and Friederike), a salesman and engineer. His mother was Pauline Einstein (née Koch) Pauline Einstein (February 8, 1858 – February 20, 1920) is the mother of the physicist Albert Einstein. She was born in Cannstatt, Württemberg. She was Jewish and had an older sister, Fanny, and two older brothers, Jacob and Caesar. Her parents were Julius Doerzbacher, who had accepted the family name Koch in 1842 and Jette Bernheimer. They had. In 1880, the family moved to Munich Munich (German: München, pronounced [ˈmʏnçən] ; Austro-Bavarian: Minga) is the capital city of the Free State Of Bavaria, Germany. It is located on the River Isar north of the Bavarian Alps. Munich is the third largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Hamburg. There are approximately 1.35 million people living within city limits, while the, where his father and his uncle founded Elektrotechnische Fabrik J. Einstein & Cie, a company that manufactured electrical equipment based on direct current Direct current is the unidirectional flow of electric charge. Direct current is produced by such sources as batteries, thermocouples, solar cells, and commutator-type electric machines of the dynamo type. Direct current may flow in a conductor such as a wire, but can also be through semiconductors, insulators, or even through a vacuum as in.[6]
Einstein at the age of 4. His father showed him a pocket compass, and Einstein realized that there must be something causing the needle to move, despite the apparent "empty space."[8]The Einsteins, although of Jewish ancestry, did not observe Jewish religious practices, and their son attended a Catholic elementary school Catholic schools are education ministries of the Roman Catholic Church. Presently, the Church operates the world's largest non-governmental school system. These schools aim to develop their students through participation in the sacramental life of the Church, study of religion and theology, a full curriculum in secular subjects, and a variety of. Although Einstein had early speech difficulties Language delay is a failure to develop language abilities on the usual developmental timetable. Language delay is distinct from speech delay, in which the speech mechanism itself is the focus of delay. Thus, language delay refers specifically to a delay in the development of the underlying knowledge of language, rather than its implementation, he was a top student in elementary school.[9][10] As he grew, Einstein built models The geometry of the model and the object it represents are often similar in the sense that one is a rescaling of the other; in such cases the scale is an important characteristic. However, in many cases the similarity is only approximate or even intentionally distorted. Sometimes the distortion is systematic with e.g. a fixed scale horizontally and mechanical devices A machine is any device that uses energy to perform some activity. In common usage, the meaning is that of a device having parts that perform or assist in performing any type of work. A simple machine is a device that transforms the direction or magnitude of a force without consuming any energy. The word "machine" is derived from the for fun, and began to show a talent for mathematics.[6] In 1889, a family friend Max Talmud introduced the ten year old Einstein to key texts in science, mathematics and philosophy, including Kant's Immanuel Kant was an 18th-century German philosopher from the Prussian city of Königsberg (now Kaliningrad, Russia). He is regarded as one of the most influential thinkers of modern Europe and of the late Enlightenment Critique of Pure Reason The Critique of Pure Reason aka Antimony of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant, first published in 1781, second edition 1787, is one of the most influential works in the history of philosophy. Also referred to as Kant's "first critique," it was followed by the Critique of Practical Reason and the Critique of Judgement and Euclid's Euclid , fl. 300 BC, also known as Euclid of Alexandria, was a Greek mathematician and is often referred to as the "Father of Geometry." He was active in Hellenistic Alexandria during the reign of Ptolemy I (323–283 BC). His Elements is the most successful textbook and one of the most influential works in the history of mathematics, Elements Euclid's Elements is a mathematical and geometric treatise consisting of 13 books written by the Greek mathematician Euclid in Alexandria circa 300 BC. It comprises a collection of definitions, postulates (axioms), propositions (theorems and constructions), and mathematical proofs of the propositions. The thirteen books cover Euclidean geometry (which Einstein called the "holy little geometry book").[11]
Albert Einstein in 1893 (age 14). From Euclid Euclid , fl. 300 BC, also known as Euclid of Alexandria, was a Greek mathematician and is often referred to as the "Father of Geometry." He was active in Hellenistic Alexandria during the reign of Ptolemy I (323–283 BC). His Elements is the most successful textbook and one of the most influential works in the history of mathematics,, Einstein began to understand deductive reasoning Deductive reasoning, sometimes called deductive logic, is reasoning which constructs or evaluates deductive arguments. In logic, an argument is said to be deductive when the truth of the conclusion is purported to follow necessarily or be a logical consequence of the premises and its corresponding conditional is a necessary truth. Deductive, and by the age of twelve, he had learned Euclidean geometry Euclidean geometry is a mathematical system attributed to the Greek mathematician Euclid of Alexandria. Euclid's Elements is the earliest known systematic discussion of geometry. It has been one of the most influential books in history, as much for its method as for its mathematical content. The method consists of assuming a small set of. Soon after he began to investigate infinitesimal calculus Calculus is a discipline in mathematics focused on limits, functions, derivatives, integrals, and infinite series, and which constitutes a major part of modern university education. It has two major branches, differential calculus and integral calculus, which are related by the fundamental theorem of calculus. Calculus is the study of change, in. At age 16, he performed the first of his famous thought experiments A thought experiment , sometimes called a Gedanken experiment, is a proposal for an experiment that would test or illuminate a hypothesis or theory in which he visualized traveling alongside a beam of light.[12]In 1894, his father's company failed: direct current (DC) lost the War of Currents In the "War of Currents" era in the late 1880s, George Westinghouse and Thomas Edison became adversaries due to Edison's promotion of direct current (DC) for electric power distribution over alternating current (AC) advocated by Westinghouse and Nikola Tesla to alternating current In alternating current the movement (or flow) of electric charge periodically reverses direction. An electric charge would for instance move forward, then backward, then forward, then backward, over and over again. In direct current (DC), the movement (or flow) of electric charge is only in one direction (AC). In search of business, the Einstein family moved to Italy Italy /ˈɪtəli/ (Italian: Italia), officially the Italian Republic (Italian: Repubblica Italiana), is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia. The, first to Milan Milan (Italian: Milano; Western Lombard: Milan is the second largest city in Italy, located in the plains of Lombardy. It is the capital in the Province of Milan, as well as the regional capital of Lombardy. The city has a population of about 1.3 million, while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 3.08 million. The Milan and then, a few months later, to Pavia Pavia , the ancient Ticinum, is a town and comune of south-western Lombardy, northern Italy, 35 km south of Milan on the lower Ticino river near its confluence with the Po. It has a population of c. 71,000. The city achieved its greatest political importance between 568 and 774, as the capital of the Kingdom of the Lombards. When the family moved to Pavia, Einstein stayed in Munich to finish his studies at the Luitpold Gymnasium The Luitpold-Gymnasium is a secondary school in Munich, Germany. It was established by Prince Luitpold of Bavaria in 1891 as "Luitpold-Kreisrealschule" to serve the eastern part of the city and its suburbs. It stood in the Alexandrastrasse opposite the National Museum. His father intended for him to pursue electrical engineering Electrical engineering, sometimes referred to as electrical and electronic engineering, is a field of engineering that deals with the study and application of electricity, electronics and electromagnetism. The field first became an identifiable occupation in the late nineteenth century after commercialization of the electric telegraph and, but Einstein clashed with authorities and resented the school's regimen and teaching method. He later wrote that the spirit of learning and creative thought were lost in strict rote learning Rote learning is a learning technique which avoids understanding of a subject and instead focuses on memorization. The major practice involved in rote learning is learning by repetition. The idea is that one will be able to quickly recall the meaning of the material the more one repeats it. In the spring of 1895, he withdrew to join his family in Pavia, convincing the school to let him go by using a doctor's note.[6] During this time, Einstein wrote his first scientific work, "The Investigation of the State of Aether Alchemy, natural philosophy, and early modern physics proposed the existence of a medium of the æther (also spelled ether, from the Greek word aether, meaning "upper air" or "pure, fresh air" ), a space-filling substance or field, thought to be necessary as a transmission medium. The assorted aether theories embody the various in Magnetic Fields Magnetic fields surround magnetic materials and electric currents and are detected by the force they exert on other magnetic materials and moving electric charges. The magnetic field, at a given point, is specified by both a direction and a magnitude ; as such it is a vector field".[13]
Einstein applied directly to the Eidgenössische Polytechnische Schule (later Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH)) Eth is a letter used in Old English, Icelandic, Faroese (in which it is called edd), and Elfdalian. It was also used in Scandinavia during the Middle Ages, but was subsequently replaced with dh and later d. The capital eth resembles a D with a line partially through the vertical stroke. The lower case resembles an insular d with a line through the in Zürich Zürich or Zurich (pronounced /ˈzʊrɪk/ or /ˈzɜrɪk/; German pronunciation: [ˈtsyːʁɪç] ; Zürich German: Züri [ˈtsyɾi]; French: Zurich [zyʁik]; Italian: Zurigo [dzuˈɾiːɡo]) is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zürich. The city is Switzerland's main commercial and cultural centre and sometimes called, Switzerland Switzerland , officially the Swiss Confederation (Confoederatio Helvetica in Latin, hence its ISO country codes CH and CHE), is a landlocked alpine country of roughly 7.7 million people (2009) in Western Europe with an area of 41,285 km². Switzerland is a federal republic consisting of 26 states, called cantons. Bern is the seat of the federal. Lacking the requisite gymnasium certificate, he took an entrance examination, which he failed, although he got exceptional marks in mathematics and physics.[14] The Einsteins sent Albert to Aarau Aarau is the capital of the northern Swiss canton of Aargau. The city is also the capital of the district of Aarau. It is German-speaking and predominantly Protestant. Aarau is situated on the Swiss plateau, in the valley of the Aar, on the river's right bank, and at the southern foot of the Jura mountains, and is west of Zurich. The municipality, in northern Switzerland to finish secondary school.[6] While lodging with the family of Professor Jost Winteler, he fell in love with the family's daughter, Marie. (His sister Maja later married the Winteler son, Paul.)[15] In Aarau, Einstein studied Maxwell's James Clerk Maxwell was a Scottish theoretical physicist and mathematician. His most significant achievement was the development of the classical electromagnetic theory, synthesizing all previous unrelated observations, experiments and equations of electricity, magnetism and even optics into a consistent theory. His set of equations—Maxwell's electromagnetic theory In electromagnetism, Maxwell's equations are a set of four partial differential equations that describe the properties of the electric and magnetic fields and relate them to their sources, charge density and current density. These equations are used to show that light is an electromagnetic wave. Individually, the equations are known as Gauss's law,. At age 17, he graduated, and, with his father's approval, renounced his citizenship in the German Kingdom of Württemberg German citizenship is based primarily on the principle of Jus sanguinis. In other words one usually acquires German citizenship if a parent is a German citizen, irrespective of place of birth to avoid military service, and enrolled in 1896 in the mathematics and physics program at the Polytechnic in Zurich. Marie Winteler moved to Olsberg, Switzerland Olsberg is a municipality in the district of Rheinfelden in the canton of Aargau in Switzerland for a teaching post.
In the same year, Einstein's future wife, Mileva Marić, also entered the Polytechnic to study mathematics and physics, the only woman in the academic cohort. Over the next few years, Einstein and Marić's friendship developed into romance. In a letter to her, Einstein called Marić "a creature who is my equal and who is as strong and independent as I am."[16] Einstein graduated in 1900 from the Polytechnic with a diploma in mathematics and physics;[17] Although historians have debated whether Marić influenced Einstein's work, the overwhelming consensus amongst academic historians of science is that she did not.[18][19][20]
<<Table of Contents Albert Einstein was an ethnically Jewish, German-born theoretical physicist. He is best known for his theories of special relativity and general relativity. Einstein received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect.". He is often | Next>> | Show All>>
