At the end of the millennium, Physics World magazine conducted a poll where they asked 100 of the world’s leading physicists who they considered to be the top 10 greatest scientist of all time. The number one scientist they identified was Albert Einstein, with Sir Isaac Newton coming in second. Beyond being the most famous scientist who ever lived, Albert Einstein is also a household name, synonymous with genius and endless creativity.
As the discoverer of Special and General Relativity, Einstein revolutionized our understanding of time, space, and universe. This discovery, along with the development of quantum mechanics, effectively brought to an end the era of Newtonian Physics and gave rise to the modern age. Whereas the previous two centuries had been characterized by universal gravitation and fixed frames of reference, Einstein helped usher in an age of uncertainty, black holes and “scary action at a distance”.
Albert Einstein was born on March 14th, 1879, in the city of Ulm, then part of the Kingdom of Wurttenmberg (now the federal German state of Baden-Württemberg). His parents were Hermann Einstein (a salesman and engineer) and Pauline Koch, who were non-observant Ashkenazi Jews – an extended community of Yiddish-speaking Jews who lived in Germany and Central Europe.
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In 1880, when he was just six weeks old, Einstein’s family moved to Munich, where his father and his uncle founded Elektrotechnische Fabrik J. Einstein & Cie (a company that manufactured electrical equipment based on direct current). In 1894, his father’s company failed and the family moved to Italy while Einstein remained in Munich to complete his studies.
In 1884, Albert Einstein attended a Catholic elementary school, where he remained until 1887. At that time, he transferred to the Luitpold Gymnasium, where he received his advanced primary and secondary school education. His father had hoped that Einstein would follow in his footsteps and go into electrical engineering, but Einstein had difficulties with the school’s teaching methods, preferring self-directed to rote learning.
It was during a visit to him family in Italy 1894 that Einstein wrote a short essay titled “On the Investigation of the State of the Ether in a Magnetic Field” – which would be his first scientific publication. In 1895, Einstein took the entrance exam to the Swiss Federal Polytechnic in Zürich – currently known as Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich (ETH Zurich).
Though he failed to meet all of the requirements, he obtained exceptional grades in physics and mathematics. On the advice of the principal of Zürich Polytechnic, he attended the Argovian cantonal school in Aarau, Switzerland, to finish his secondary schooling. This he did between 1895-96, while staying with the family of a professor.
In September 1896, he passed the Swiss exit exam with mostly good grades, including top grades in physics and mathematical subjects. Though only 17, he enrolled in the four-year mathematics and physics teaching diploma program at the Zürich Polytechnic. It was there that he met his first and future wife, Mileva Maric, a Serbian national and the only woman among the six students in the mathematics and physics section.
The two would marry in 1904 and have two sons, but would divorce by 1919 after living apart for five years. Afterward, Einstein remarried, this time to his cousin Elsa Löwenthal – with whom he remained married until her death in 1939. It was also during this time that Einstein went on to make his greatest scientific achievements.
In 1900, Einstein was awarded the Zürich Polytechnic teaching diploma. After graduating, he spent close to two years searching for a teaching post and acquired his Swiss citizenship. Eventually, and with the help of his friend and colleague Marcel Grossmann’s father, Einsten secured a job in the Federal Office for Intellectual Property in Bern. In 1903, his position became permanent.
Much of Einstein’s work at the patent office was re