Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879, in Ulm, Germany, to Jewish parents Hermann and Pauline Einstein. He showed early curiosity in science, though formal education was challenging; he struggled in rigid German schools and later attended the Swiss Federal Polytechnic in Zurich, graduating in 1900. Working as a patent clerk in Bern from 1902 allowed him intellectual freedom, leading to his annus mirabilis (miracle year) in 1905, when he published four groundbreaking papers on the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, special relativity, and mass-energy equivalence (E = mc²). In 1909, Einstein began an academic career, becoming a professor in Zurich, Prague, and Berlin. By 1915, he completed the general theory of relativity, redefining gravity as the curvature of spacetime, confirmed by the 1919 solar eclipse observation. His work earned the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics for the photoelectric effect, not relativity, due to contemporary skepticism. Einstein contributed to quantum theory, including wave-particle duality and Bose-Einstein statistics with Satyendra Nath Bose, though he later critiqued quantum mechanics' probabilistic nature, famously stating 'God does not play dice.' Rising antisemitism prompted Einstein's resignation from the Prussian Academy in 1933 amid Nazi persecution; he emigrated to the U.S., joining the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. There, he pursued unified field theory unsuccessfully while advocating against nuclear weapons post-WWII and for civil rights and Zionism. Einstein became a U.S. citizen in 1940, retaining Swiss citizenship. He died on April 18, 1955, from an aortic aneurysm, leaving a legacy as the 20th century's most influential physicist.