FREE ESSAY ON ALBERTY EINSTEIN

ALBERTY EINSTEIN

ALBERT EINSTEIN
Albert Einstein was one of the greatest scientists of all time. Best known as a physicist
for developing his famous theory of relativity, Einstein was born on March 14, 1879, in
Ulm, Wurttemberg, Germany. When he was five years old, his father showed him a pocket
compass. Young Einstein was deeply impressed by the mysterious behavior of the compass
needle, which kept pointing the same direction no matter which way the compass was
turned. He later said he felt then that "something deeply hidden had to be behind such
things." Einstein attended public school in Munich and in Aarau, Switzerland. He then
studied mathematics and physics at the Swiss Polytechnic Institute in Zurich, graduating
in 1900. From 1902 until 1909 he worked as an examiner at the Swiss Patent Office in
Bern. While this job had little to do with physics or math, it gave him two things.
First, he got to see some of the important inventions of the day; second, he had an
abundance of free time, which he spent in scientific investigations. (Kevles)
During this time Einstein made three of his greatest contributions to scientific
knowledge. In 1905, Einstein contributed three separate papers to Annalen der Physik
(Annals of Physics), a German scientific periodical. Each of the three became the basis
for a new branch of physics. One, for example, suggested that light could be thought of
as a stream of tiny particles. This idea would become an important part of the quantum
theory. Another concerned Brownian motion, an irregular motion of microscopic particles
suspended in liquid of gas, which confirmed the atomic theory of matter. The last paper,
titled "The Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies," discussed one of Einstein's most famous
brainchildren: relativity, more specifically the special theory of relativity. The paper
demonstrated the relativity of time, a previously unimaginable idea. Einstein once
explained relativity very simply as, "When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems
like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That's
relativity. Later, in 1915, Einstein announced that he had developed a general theory of
relativity based on his special theory. This general theory attempted to express all laws
of physics by equations that have the same mathematical form regardless of the system of
reference to which they are applied. In yet another study published in 1905, Einstein put
forth his most famous equation of all, the equivalence of mass and energy, E=MC2, in
which Energy is equal to mass times the speed of light squared. (Kevles, Biography.com,
Quoteland.com)
Einstein was a brilliant physicist. He used mathematical properties to explain things
that happen throughout the universe. His theories of relativity, which were essentially
mathematical formulas, revolutionized the modern world of physics. His energy mass
conversion, the basis of nuclear physics and perhaps the most famous equation ever, has
brought humanity as a whole into an entirely new era - the nuclear age. Through his
mathematical genius, Einstein forever changed how humans live their lives and understand
the universe. After living such a brilliant life, Einstein died on April 18, 1955 in
America. (Biography.com, Kelves)
Bibliography
Einstein, Albert; by Kelves, Daniel J. Pp. 144-145, The World Book Encyclopedia, Volume
6, 1994 edition, ?1991 by World Book, Inc. Published by World Book, Inc., a Scott Feltzer
company, in Chicago.
Einstein, Albert; author unknown. Taken from
http://www.biography.com/cgi-bin/biomain.cgi*, on October 10, 2000.
Quotations by Author: Einstein, Albert, author unknown. Taken from
http://quoteland.com/qldb/author/89 on October 11, 2000. Copyright (c) 1997-2000
Quoteland.com, Inc., all rights reserved unless otherwise noted