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One of the greatest minds of the twentieth century. The main scientific discovery of the scientist is the theory of relativity. The private theory of relativity was formulated by him in 1905, and the general one ten years later. About scientific discoveries a whole book could be written by a scientist, but unfortunately, we do not have such an opportunity.

Einstein received worldwide recognition during his lifetime. Albert became the owner Nobel Prize in the field of physics. honorary award went to the scientist for the theoretical explanation of the photoelectric effect. In his theory, he explained the existence of photons, the so-called light quanta. The theory had great practical value, and had a great influence on the development of quantum theory. The theories of a scientist are extremely difficult to understand and perceive, but their fundamental nature can only be compared with discoveries. Einstein's uniqueness lies in the fact that the authorship of his discoveries is indisputable. We know that scientists often made many discoveries together, often without knowing it themselves. So, for example, it was with Cheyne and Flory, who jointly discovered penicillin, so it was with Niepce and many others. But it was not so with Einstein.

Biography of Einstein very interesting and complete fun facts. Albert was born in Ulm, Germany in 1879. He graduated from high school in neighboring Switzerland, and soon received Swiss citizenship. In 1905, at the University of Zurich, a young man received a doctorate in philosophical sciences. At this time, his scientific activity is actively unfolding. He publishes a number of works: the theory of Brownian motion, the photoelectric effect and the special theory of relativity. These reports will soon become calling card Albert, the world recognizes in its contemporary a genius, a brilliant and promising scientist. The theories of the scientist will stir up the scientific community, serious controversy will flare up around his theories. Not one scientist in the world has not been subjected to such discussion and such criticism. In 1913, Albert became a professor at the University of Berlin and the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics, as well as a member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences.

New positions allowed him to engage in science at any time in any quantity. It is unlikely that the German government ever regretted their favor to the scientist. In a few years, he will be awarded the Nobel Prize, raising the prestige of German science to the sky. In 1933, Einstein moved to the USA, to the state of New Jersey, to the city of Princeton. In seven years he will receive citizenship. The great scientist died in 1955. Einstein was always interested in politics, he was aware of everyone. He was a staunch pacifist, an opponent of political tyranny, and at the same time was a supporter of Zionism. They say that in matters of clothing he was always an individualist, contemporaries noted his excellent sense of humor, natural modesty and remarkable talents. Albert played the violin very well.

Childhood and primary education

Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879 in the ancient German city of Ulm, in Germany, but a year later the family moved to Munich, where Albert's father, Hermann Einstein, and uncle Jacob organized small company"Electrotechnical factory of J. Einstein and Co.". At first, the business of the company, which was engaged in the improvement of arc lighting devices, electrical measuring equipment and DC generators, was quite successful. But in the 90s. 19th century, in connection with the expansion of the construction of large power plants and long-distance power lines, arose whole line powerful electrical companies. Hoping to save the company, the Einstein brothers moved to Milan in 1894, but two years later, unable to withstand the competition, the company ceased to exist.

Uncle Yakob spent a lot of time with his little nephew. “I remember, for example, that the Pythagorean theorem was shown to me by my uncle even before the sacred book on geometry fell into my hands,” this is how Einstein, in his memoirs dating back to 1945, spoke about the textbook of Euclidean geometry. Often the uncle asked the boy math problems, and he "experienced genuine happiness when he coped with them."

Parents sent Albert first to a Catholic elementary school, and then to the Luitpold classical gymnasium in Munich, known as a progressive and very liberal educational institution, but which he never graduated from, moving after his family to Milan. Both at school and at the gymnasium, Albert Einstein acquired a not the best reputation. Reading popular science books gave the young Einstein, in his own words, "a downright fantastic free-thinking." In his memoirs, the theoretical physicist Max Born wrote: “Already in early years Einstein showed an indomitable will to independence. He hated playing soldiers because it meant violence." Later, A. Einstein said that people who enjoy marching to the sounds of a march got their brains in vain, they could well be content with one spinal cord.

First year in Switzerland

In October 1895, sixteen-year-old Albert Einstein traveled on foot from Milan to Zurich to enter the Federal Higher technical school- the famous Polytechnic, for admission to which no certificate of completion was required high school. passed brilliantly entrance exams in mathematics, physics and chemistry, however, he failed miserably in other subjects. The rector of the Polytechnic, appreciating Einstein's outstanding mathematical abilities, sent him for training to the cantonal school in Aarau (20 miles west of Zurich), which at that time was considered one of the best in Switzerland. The year spent in this school, which was led by a serious scientist and excellent teacher A. Tauchshmid, turned out to be both very useful and - in contrast to the barracks situation in Prussia - pleasant.

Studying at the Polytechnic

Albert Einstein passed the final exams in Aarau quite successfully (except for the exam in French), which gave him the right to enroll in the Polytechnic in Zurich. The department of physics there was headed by Professor W. G. Weber, an excellent lecturer and talented experimenter, who dealt mainly with electrical engineering. At first, he received Einstein very well, but in the future, relations between them became so complicated that after graduation, Einstein could not get a job for some time. To some extent, this was due to purely scientific reasons. Distinguished by his conservative views on electromagnetic phenomena, Weber did not accept Maxwell's theory, ideas about the field, and adhered to the concept of long-range action. His students learned the past of physics, but not its present and, moreover, its future. Einstein, on the other hand, studied the works of Maxwell, was convinced of the existence of an all-pervading ether and thought about how various fields act on it (in particular, magnetic) and how it is possible to experimentally detect movement relative to the ether. At that time he did not know about Michelson's experiments and, independently of him, proposed his own interference technique.

But the experiments invented by Albert Einstein, who worked with passion in the physics workshop, had no chance of being realized. The teachers did not like the obstinate student. “You are a smart fellow, Einstein, a very smart fellow, but you have a big drawback - you do not tolerate comments,” Weber once told him, and a lot was determined by this.

Bureau of Patents. First steps towards recognition

After graduating from the Polytechnic (1900), the young graduate teacher of physics (Einstein was then twenty-second) lived mainly with his parents in Milan and could not find a permanent job for two years. Only in 1902 did he finally receive, on the recommendation of friends, a position as an examiner at the Federal Patent Office in Bern. Shortly before this, Albert Einstein changed citizenship and became a Swiss citizen. A few months after taking the job, he married his former classmate in Zurich, Mileva Maric, originally from Serbia, who was four years older than him. In the Patent Office, which Einstein called a "secular monastery", he worked for more than seven years, considering these years the happiest in his life. The position of "patent servant" constantly occupied his mind with various scientific and technical questions, but left enough time for independent creative work. By the middle of the “happy Berne years”, its results formed the content of scientific articles that changed the face of modern physics and brought Einstein world fame.

Brownian motion

The first of these articles, "On the Motion of Particles Suspended in a Fluid at Rest, which follows from the Molecular Kinetic Theory," published in 1905, was devoted to the theory of Brownian motion. This phenomenon (the continuous random zigzag movement of pollen particles in a liquid), discovered in 1827 by the English botanist Robert Brown, had already received a statistical explanation at that time, but Einstein's theory (who did not know previous work on Brownian motion) had a finished form and opened up the possibility of quantitative experimental studies. In 1908, the experiments of J. B. Perrin fully confirmed Einstein's theory, which played important role for the final formation of molecular-kinetic concepts.

Quanta and photoelectric effect

In the same 1905, another work by Einstein was published - "On a heuristic point of view on the emergence and transformation of light." Five years earlier, Max Planck had shown that the spectral composition of the radiation emitted by hot bodies can be explained if we assume that the radiation process is discrete, that is, light is not emitted continuously, but in discrete portions of a certain energy. Einstein put forward the assumption that the absorption of light occurs in the same portions and that, in general, "homogeneous light consists of grains of energy (light quanta) ... rushing in empty space at the speed of light." This revolutionary idea allowed Einstein to explain the laws of the photoelectric effect, in particular, the fact of the existence of a “red border”, that is, the minimum frequency below which there is no knocking out of electrons from matter by light.

The idea of ​​quanta was applied by Albert Einstein to explain other phenomena, such as fluorescence, photoionization, mysterious variations specific heat solids which the classical theory could not describe.

Einstein's work on the quantum theory of light was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize.

Private (special) relativity

Nevertheless, A. Einstein was best known for the theory of relativity, which he presented for the first time in 1905, in the article "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies." Already in his youth, Einstein tried to understand what an observer would see if he rushed at the speed of light in pursuit of a light wave. Now Einstein resolutely rejected the concept of the ether, which made it possible to consider the principle of equality of all inertial frames of reference as universal, and not just limited by the framework of mechanics.

Einstein put forward an amazing and at first glance paradoxical postulate that the speed of light for all observers, no matter how they move, is the same. This postulate (under certain additional conditions) leads to the formulas obtained earlier by Hendrik Lorentz for the transformations of coordinates and time when passing from one inertial system reference to another, moving relative to the first. But Lorentz considered these transformations as auxiliary, or fictitious, not directly related to real space and time. Einstein understood the reality of these transformations, in particular, the reality of the relativity of simultaneity.

Thus, the principle of relativity, established for mechanics by Galileo, was extended to electrodynamics and other areas of physics. This led, in particular, to the establishment of an important universal relationship between the mass M, energy E and momentum P: E 2 \u003d M 2 c 4 + P 2 c 2 (where c is the speed of light), which can be called one of the theoretical prerequisites for using intranuclear energy.

Professorial activity. Invitation to Berlin General theory of relativity

In 1905, Albert Einstein was 26 years old, but his name had already become widely known. In 1909 he was elected professor at the University of Zurich, and two years later - at the German University in Prague.

In 1912, Einstein returned to Zurich, where he took a chair at the Polytechnic, but already in 1914 he accepted an invitation to move to work in Berlin as a professor at the University of Berlin and at the same time director of the Institute of Physics. Einstein's German citizenship was restored. By this time, work on the general theory of relativity was already in full swing. As a result of the joint efforts of Einstein and his former student friend M. Grossman, the article "Outline of the Generalized Theory of Relativity" appeared in 1912, and the final formulation of the theory dates back to 1915. This theory, according to many scientists, was the most significant and most beautiful theoretical construction in history physics. Relying on everything known fact that "heavy" and "inertial" masses are equal, it was possible to find a fundamentally new approach to solving the problem posed by Isaac Newton: what is the mechanism for transferring gravitational interaction between bodies and what is the carrier of this interaction.

Albert Einstein is a legendary physicist, a beacon of science in the 20th century. He owns the creation general relativity And special relativity, as well as a powerful contribution to the development of other areas of physics. It was general relativity that formed the basis of modern physics, uniting space with time and describing almost all visible cosmological phenomena, including admitting the possibility of the existence wormholes, black holes, fabrics of space-time, as well as other phenomena of the gravitational scale.

The childhood of a brilliant scientist

The future Nobel laureate was born on March 14, 1879 in the German town of Ulm. At first, nothing foreshadowed the child's great future: the boy began to speak late, and his speech was somewhat slow. Einstein's first scientific study took place when he was three years old. For his birthday, his parents gave him a compass, which later became his favorite toy. The boy was extremely surprised that the compass needle always pointed to the same point in the room, no matter how you twisted it.

Meanwhile, Einstein's parents worried about his speech problems. As the younger sister of the scientist Maya Winteler-Einstein said, every phrase that he was preparing to utter, even the simplest, the boy repeated to himself for a long time, moving his lips. The habit of speaking slowly later began to irritate Einstein's teachers as well. However, despite this, after the first days of study at the Catholic primary school he was identified as a capable student and transferred to the second grade.

After the family moved to Munich, Einstein began to study at the gymnasium. However, here, instead of studying, he preferred to study his favorite sciences on his own, which gave its results: in the exact sciences, Einstein was far ahead of his peers. At the age of 16, he mastered differential and integral calculus. In the gymnasium (now the Albert Einstein Gymnasium), he was not among the first students (with the exception of mathematics and Latin). The ingrained system of rote learning by students (which, as he later said, damages the very spirit of learning and creative thinking), as well as the authoritarian attitude of teachers towards students, caused Albert Einstein's rejection, so he often entered into disputes with his teachers. At the same time, Einstein read a lot and played the violin beautifully. Later, when the scientist was asked what prompted him to create the theory of relativity, he referred to the novels of Fyodor Dostoevsky and the philosophy of ancient China.

Youth

Without graduating from high school, 16-year-old Albert went to enter the Polytechnic School in Zurich, but he “flunked” the entrance exams in languages, botany and zoology. At the same time, Einstein brilliantly passed mathematics and physics, after which he was invited immediately to the senior class of the cantonal school in Aarau, after which he became a student at the Zurich Polytechnic. The style and methods of teaching at the Polytechnic differed significantly from the ossified and authoritarian German school, so further education was easier for the young man. Here his teacher was a mathematician. German Minkowski. It is said that it is Minkowski who is credited with giving the theory of relativity a finished mathematical form.

Einstein managed to graduate from university with a high score and with negative characteristic teachers: V educational institution the future Nobel laureate was known as an avid truant. Einstein later said that he "just didn't have time to go to class."

For a long time the graduate could not find a job. “I was bullied by my professors, who did not like me because of my independence and closed my path to science,” said Einstein.

The beginning of scientific activity and the first work

In 1901, the Berlin Annals of Physics published his first paper. "Consequences of the theory of capillarity" devoted to the analysis of the forces of attraction between the atoms of liquids based on the theory of capillarity. Former classmate Marcel Grossman helped to overcome difficulties with employment, recommending Einstein for the position of an expert. III class to the Federal Invention Patent Office (Bern). Einstein worked at the Patent Office from July 1902 to October 1909, primarily as a peer reviewer of invention applications. In 1903 he became permanent employee The Bureau. The nature of the work allowed Einstein to devote his free time to research in the field of theoretical physics.

Personal life

Even at the university, Einstein was known as a lover of the female, but over time he chose mileve maric whom he met in Zurich. Mileva was four years older than Einstein, but she studied on the same course with him. She studied physics, and her interest in the works of great scientists brought her closer to Einstein. Einstein felt the need for a comrade with whom he could share his thoughts about what he had read. Mileva was a passive listener, but Einstein was quite content with that. During that period, fate did not push him either with a comrade equal to him in mental strength (this did not fully happen later either), or with a girl whose charm did not need a common scientific platform.

Einstein's wife "shone in mathematics and physics": she perfectly knew how to perform algebraic calculations and was well versed in analytical mechanics. Thanks to these qualities, Marich could take an active part in writing all the main works of her husband. Maric and Einstein's alliance was destroyed by the latter's fickleness. Albert Einstein was a huge success with women, and his wife was constantly tormented by jealousy. Later, their son Hans-Albert wrote: “Mother was a typical Slav with very strong and stable negative emotions. She never forgave insults ... "

The second time the scientist married his cousin Elsa. Contemporaries considered her a narrow-minded woman, whose range of interests was limited to dresses, jewelry and sweets.

Successful 1905

The year 1905 entered the history of physics as the "Year of Miracles". This year, the Annals of Physics published three of Einstein's seminal papers that launched a new scientific revolution:

1. "On the electrodynamics of moving bodies"(The theory of relativity begins with this article).
2. "About one heuristic point of view concerning the origin and transformation of light"(one of the works that laid the foundation of quantum theory).
3. "On the motion of particles suspended in a fluid at rest, required by the molecular-kinetic theory of heat"(work devoted to Brownian motion and significantly advanced statistical physics).

It was these works that brought Einstein worldwide fame. On April 30, 1905, he sent to the University of Zurich the text of his doctoral dissertation on the topic "A new determination of the size of molecules." Although in the letters Einstein is already called "Mr. Professor", he is still four years old (until October 1909). And in 1906 he even became an expert of the II class.

In October 1908, Einstein was invited to read an elective course at the University of Bern, however, without any payment. In 1909 he attended a congress of naturalists in Salzburg, where the elite of German physics gathered, and met Planck for the first time; over 3 years of correspondence, they quickly became close friends.

After the convention, Einstein finally received a paid position as an extraordinary professor at the University of Zurich (December 1909), where his old friend Marcel Grossmann taught geometry. The pay was small, especially for a family with two children, and in 1911 Einstein accepted without hesitation an invitation to head the department of physics at the German University in Prague. During this period, Einstein continued to publish a series of papers on thermodynamics, relativity and quantum theory. In Prague, he activates research on the theory of gravitation, aiming to create a relativistic theory of gravity and fulfill the old dream of physicists - to exclude Newtonian long-range action from this area.

Active period of scientific work

In 1912, Einstein returned to Zurich, where he became a professor at his native Polytechnic and lectured there on physics. In 1913 he attended the Congress of Naturalists in Vienna, where he visited the 75-year-old Ernst Mach; Once Mach's criticism of Newtonian mechanics made a great impression on Einstein and ideologically prepared him for the innovations of the theory of relativity. In May 1914, an invitation came from the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, signed by the physicist P.P. Lazarev. However, the impressions of the pogroms and the "Beilis affair" were still fresh, and Einstein refused: "I find it disgusting to go unnecessarily to a country where my fellow tribesmen are so cruelly persecuted."

At the end of 1913, on the recommendation of Planck and Nernst, Einstein received an invitation to head the physical research institute being created in Berlin; he is also enrolled as a professor at the University of Berlin. In addition to being close to a friend Planck, this position had the advantage of not obliging him to be distracted by teaching. He accepted the invitation, and in the prewar year of 1914, the staunch pacifist Einstein arrived in Berlin. Citizenship of Switzerland, a neutral country, helped Einstein withstand militaristic pressure after the start of the war. He did not sign any “patriotic” appeals, on the contrary, in collaboration with the physiologist Georg Friedrich Nicolai, he compiled the anti-war “Appeal to the Europeans” as opposed to the chauvinist manifesto of the 1993s, and in a letter to Romain Rolland wrote: “Will future generations thank our Europe, in which three centuries of the most intense cultural work led only to the fact that religious madness was replaced by nationalist madness? Even scientists different countries act as if their brains have been amputated.”

Main labor

Einstein completed his masterpiece, the general theory of relativity, in 1915 in Berlin. It presented a completely new concept of space and time. Among other phenomena, the work predicted the deflection of light rays in a gravitational field, which was later confirmed by British scientists.

But Einstein received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922 not for his brilliant theory, but for explaining the photoelectric effect (knocking out electrons from certain substances under the influence of light). In just one night, the scientist became famous all over the world.

This is interesting! Einstein's correspondence, released three years ago, reveals that Einstein invested most of his Nobel Prize in the United States, losing nearly all of it in the Great Depression.

Despite his recognition, the scientist was constantly persecuted in Germany, not only because of his nationality, but also because of his anti-militarist views. “My pacifism is an instinctive feeling that possesses me because killing a person is disgusting. My attitude does not come from any speculative theory, but is based on the deepest antipathy to any kind of cruelty and hatred, ”the scientist wrote in support of his anti-war position. At the end of 1922, Einstein left Germany and went on a journey. And once in Palestine, he solemnly opens the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

More about the main scientific award (1922)

In fact, Einstein's first marriage broke up in 1914, in 1919 already under legal divorce proceedings Einstein's written promise appeared: “I promise you that when I receive the Nobel Prize, I will give you all the money. You have to agree to a divorce, otherwise you won't get anything at all." The couple were sure that Albert would become Nobel laureate for the theory of relativity. He really received the Nobel Prize in 1922, although with a completely different wording (for explaining the laws of the photoelectric effect). Since Einstein was away, on December 10, 1922, Rudolf Nadolny, the German ambassador to Sweden, accepted the prize on his behalf. He had previously asked for confirmation as to whether Einstein was a German or Swiss citizen; The Prussian Academy of Sciences has officially certified that Einstein is a German subject, although his Swiss citizenship is also recognized as valid. On his return to Berlin, Einstein received the insignia accompanying the award personally from the Swedish ambassador. Naturally, traditional Nobel speech(in July 1923) Einstein dedicated the theory of relativity. By the way, Einstein kept his word: he gave all 32 thousand dollars (the sum of the bonus) to his ex-wife.

1923–1933 in the life of Einstein

In 1923, completing his journey, Einstein spoke in Jerusalem, where it was planned soon (1925) to open the Hebrew University.

As a person of great and universal authority, Einstein was constantly attracted during these years to various kinds of political actions, where he advocated social justice, internationalism and cooperation between countries (see below). In 1923, Einstein participated in the organization of the Society for Cultural Relations "Friends new Russia". He repeatedly called for the disarmament and unification of Europe, for the abolition of compulsory military service. Until about 1926, Einstein worked in very many areas of physics, from cosmological models to the study of the causes of meanders in rivers. Further, with rare exceptions, he focuses his efforts on quantum problems and the Unified Field Theory.

In 1928, Einstein spent last way Lorenz, with whom he became very friendly in his last years. It was Lorentz who nominated Einstein for the Nobel Prize in 1920 and supported it the following year. In 1929, the world celebrated Einstein's 50th birthday with a bang. The hero of the day did not take part in the celebrations and hid in his villa near Potsdam, where he grew roses with enthusiasm. Here he received friends - scientists, Tagore, Emmanuel Lasker, Charlie Chaplin and others. In 1931, Einstein again visited the United States. In Pasadena, he was very warmly received by Michelson, who had four months to live. Returning to Berlin in the summer, Einstein, in a speech before the Physical Society, paid tribute to the memory of the remarkable experimenter who laid the foundation stone of the theory of relativity.

Years in exile

Albert Einstein did not hesitate to accept the offer to move to Berlin. But the opportunity to communicate with the largest German scientists, among whom was Planck, attracted him. The political and moral atmosphere in Germany became more and more oppressive, anti-Semitism reared its head, and when the Nazis seized power, Einstein left Germany forever in 1933. Subsequently, in protest against fascism, he renounced German citizenship and left the Prussian and Bavarian Academies of Sciences.

During the Berlin period, in addition to the general theory of relativity, Einstein developed the statistics of integer-spin particles, introduced the concept of stimulated emission, which plays an important role in laser physics, predicted (together with de Haas) the phenomenon of the appearance of a rotational momentum of bodies during their magnetization, etc. However, being one of the creators of quantum theory, Einstein did not accept the probabilistic interpretation of quantum mechanics, believing that a fundamental physical theory cannot be statistical in nature. He often repeated that "God does not play dice with the universe".

After moving to the United States, Albert Einstein took up the position of professor of physics at a new institute fundamental research in Princeton (New Jersey). He continued to work on cosmology, and also intensively searched for ways to build a unified field theory that would unify gravity, electromagnetism (and possibly the rest). And although he failed to implement this program, this did not shake Einstein's reputation as one of the greatest natural scientists of all time.

Atomic bomb

In the minds of many people, Einstein's name is associated with the atomic problem. Indeed, realizing what a tragedy for humanity could be the creation of Nazi Germany atomic bomb, he sent a letter to the President of the United States in 1939, which served as an impetus for work in this direction in America. But already at the end of the war, his desperate attempts to keep politicians and generals from criminal and insane actions were in vain. This was the biggest tragedy of his life. On August 2, 1939, Einstein, who at that time lived in New York, wrote a letter to Franklin Roosevelt to prevent the Third Reich from obtaining atomic weapons. In the letter, he urged the American president to work on his own atomic weapons.

On the advice of physicists, Roosevelt organized the Uranium Advisory Committee, but did not find much interest in the problem of developing nuclear weapons. He believed that the probability of its creation was low. The situation changed two years later, when the physicists Otto Frisch and Rudolf Pierls found that nuclear bomb can actually be made and that it is of sufficient size to be transported by a bomber. During the war, Einstein advised the US Navy and contributed to the solution of various technical problems.

Postwar years

At this time, Einstein became one of the founders Pugwash Movement of Scientists for Peace. Although his first conference was held after the death of Einstein (1957), the initiative to create such a movement was expressed in the widely known Russell-Einstein Manifesto (written jointly with Bertrand Russell), which also warned of the dangers of creating and using the hydrogen bomb. As part of this movement, Einstein, who was its chairman, together with Albert Schweitzer, Bertrand Russell, Frederic Joliot-Curie and others worldwide well-known figures science led the fight against the arms race, the creation of nuclear and thermonuclear weapons.

In September 1947, in an open letter to the delegations of the UN member states, he proposed to reorganize the UN General Assembly, turning it into a continuously working world parliament with broader powers than the Security Council, which (according to Einstein) was paralyzed in its actions due to the right veto. To which, in November 1947, the leading Soviet scientists (S. I. Vavilov, A. F. Ioffe, N. N. Semyonov, A. N. Frumkin) in an open letter expressed disagreement with the position of A. Einstein (1947).

Last years of life. Death

Death overtook a genius at Princeton Hospital (USA) in 1955. The autopsy was performed by a pathologist named Thomas Harvey. He removed Einstein's brain for study, but instead of giving it to science, he took it personally. Risking his reputation and his job, Thomas placed his brain greatest genius into a jar of formaldehyde and took it home. He was convinced that such an action was a scientific duty for him. Moreover, Thomas Harvey sent pieces of Einstein's brain for research to leading neuroscientists for 40 years. The descendants of Thomas Harvey tried to return to Einstein's daughter what was left of her father's brain, but she refused such a "gift". From then until today, the remains of the brain, ironically, are in Princeton, from where it was stolen.

The scientists who examined Einstein's brain proved that the gray matter was different from the norm. Scientific studies have shown that the areas of Einstein's brain responsible for speech and language are reduced, while the areas responsible for processing numerical and spatial information are enlarged. Other studies have noted an increase in the number of neuroglial cells (cells of the nervous system that make up half the volume of the central nervous system. The neurons of the central nervous system are surrounded by glial cells).

Einstein was a heavy smoker

Einstein loved his violin and pipe more than anything. As a heavy smoker, he once said that he considered smoking necessary for calmness and "objective judgment" in people. When his doctor prescribed him to kick the habit, Einstein put his pipe in his mouth and lit up. Sometimes he also picked up cigarette butts in the streets to light his pipe.

Einstein received a lifetime membership to the Montreal Pipe Smokers Club. Once he fell overboard during a boat trip, but managed to save the treasured pipe from the water. Apart from the many manuscripts and letters, the pipe remains one of the few personal possessions of Einstein that we have.

Einstein often withdrew into himself

In order to be independent of conventional wisdom, Einstein often withdrew into solitude. It was a childhood habit. He even started talking at the age of 7 because he did not want to communicate. He built cozy worlds and contrasted them with reality. The world of the family, the world of like-minded people, the world of the patent office where he worked, the temple of science. "If wastewater life is being licked by the steps of your temple, close the door and laugh... Do not give in to anger, remain holy in the temple as before.” He followed this advice.

Impact on culture

Albert Einstein turned into a series hero fiction novels, films and theatrical productions. In particular, he acts as actor in the film by Nicholas Rog "Insignificance", the comedy by Fred Schepisi "I.Q.", the film by Philip Martin "Einstein and Eddington" (Einstein and Eddington) 2008, in the Soviet / Russian films"Target Selection", "Wolf Messing", comic play Steve Martin, Jean-Claude Carrier's novels Please, Monsieur Einstein and Alan Lightman's Einstein Dreams, Archibald MacLeish's poem Einstein. The humorous component of the personality of the great physicist appears in Ed Metzger's production of Albert Einstein: The Practical Bohemian. "Professor Einstein", who creates the chronosphere and prevents Hitler from coming to power, is one of the key characters in the alternate universe he created in the Command & Conquer series of computer real-time strategy games. The scientist in the movie "Cain XVIII" is clearly made up like Einstein.

The appearance of Albert Einstein, usually seen in adulthood in a simple sweater with disheveled hair, has become a staple in popular culture's depictions of "mad scientists" and "absent-minded professors". In addition, it actively exploits the motive of forgetfulness and impracticality of the great physicist, transferred to collective image his colleagues. Time magazine even called Einstein "a cartoonist's dream come true." Albert Einstein's photographs are widely known. The most famous was taken on the 72nd birthday of a physicist (1951).

Photographer Arthur Sass asked Einstein to smile for the camera, to which he stuck out his tongue. This image has become an icon of modern popular culture, presenting a portrait of both a genius and a cheerful living person. On June 21, 2009, at an auction in American New Hampshire, one of the nine original photographs printed in 1951 was sold for 74 thousand dollars. A. Einstein presented this photograph to his friend, journalist Howard Smith, and signed on it that "joking grimace addressed to all mankind".

Einstein's popularity in the modern world is so great that there are controversial points in the widespread use of the name and appearance of the scientist in advertising and trademarks. Because Einstein bequeathed some of his estate, including the use of his images, to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the "Albert Einstein" brand was registered as a trademark.

Sources

http://to-name.ru/biography/albert-ejnshtejn.htm http://www.aif.ru/dontknows/file/kakim_byl_albert_eynshteyn_15_faktov_iz_zhizni_velikogo_geniya

Einstein, Albert(Einstein, Albert; 1879, Ulm, Germany, - 1955, Princeton, USA) - theoretical physicist, one of the founders of modern physics, creator of the theory of relativity, one of the creators of quantum theory and statistical physics.

early years

Born in the town of Ulm in Württemberg in a non-religious Jewish family. His father, Hermann Einstein, was engaged in trade, then opened a small electrochemical factory, which he led with varying degrees of success. Mother's name was Polina Koch. Mary had a younger sister.

From childhood he was interested in natural phenomena; at the age of 12 he read a book on geometry and became interested in mathematics for life. At the same time, he became interested in religion, but in those days, religion was considered incompatible with the scientific worldview, and Einstein's religiosity passed. Albert didn't like the German school, and the teachers didn't like him. His mentor in mathematics and philosophy was a family friend, medical student Max Talmud.

His father moved production to Munich, where the family moved. In 1894, after failing in Munich, the elder Einstein moved to Milan to work with a relative. Albert stayed at the boarding house until graduation. At the age of 16, he ran away from there to his parents. He applied for admission to the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich. Since he did not have a high school diploma, he had to pass very tough exams. He failed French, Chemistry, and Biology, but failed in Mathematics and Physics in such a way that he was allowed to enter on the condition that he first finished school.

He entered a special private school in the Swiss town of Arrau. At the same time, he renounced German citizenship in order not to get on military registration in Germany.

In 1896 he entered the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School, graduating in 1900. At the university, he became friends with Marcel Grossman and met his first wife, Mileva Marich, who studied physics there. The only one of the four graduates of 1900 in his specialty, he did not get a job at the Polytechnic (Professor Werber, who had a grudge against him, interfered). He took Swiss citizenship and was engaged in tutoring, had no means. His father went bankrupt.

In 1902, on the recommendation of his father Marcel Grossmann, he entered the service of a technical examiner in the patent office (Bern), since he was not hired by any university. He continued to study theoretical physics in his spare time. In 1903 he married Mileva Marich (his father agreed to his marriage to a Christian woman before his death). They had two sons.

First discoveries in physics

The second article - "On one heuristic point of view regarding the emergence and transformation of light" - interprets light as a stream of quanta (photons) with corpuscular and wave properties, and introduces the concept of a photon as a formation that has the characteristics of a particle and a field. He founded the photon theory of light (photoelectric effect), for which he received the Nobel Prize in 1921.

The third article - "On the electrodynamics of moving media" - contained the foundations of the special theory of relativity. Einstein introduced new concepts of space, time and motion into physics, discarding Newton's concept of absolute space and absolute time and the "world ether theory". Space and time have acquired the status of a single reality (space-time) associated with movement physical bodies and fields.

Classical mechanics was not rejected, but included in the new theory as its limiting case. The conclusion followed from the theory: all physical laws must be the same in systems moving relative to each other in a straight line and uniformly. Physical quantities that were previously considered absolute (mass, length, time interval) actually turned out to be relative - dependent on the relative speed of the object and the observer. At the same time, the speed of light turned out to be constant, independent of the speed of movement of other objects (which was already known from the Michelson-Morley experiment of 1881 and did not fit into the ideas of Newton's classical physics).

In the same 1905, in the article “Does the inertia of a body depend on the energy content in it”, Einstein first introduced into physics the formula for the relationship between mass (m) and energy (E), and in 1906 he wrote it down as E=mc² where (c) is the speed of light. It underlies the relativistic principle of conservation of energy, the entire nuclear power industry.

The theory of relativity had predecessors - fragments of it are contained in the works of Henri Poincaré and Hendrik Lorentz, but Einstein was the first to bring together and systematize scientific ideas about it. The theory of relativity was ignored by the scientific community for several years. The first to understand it was Max Planck, who began to help Einstein and arranged for him invitations to scientific conferences and teaching positions.

Transition to professional scientific activity

In 1906, Einstein defended his doctoral dissertation, summarizing the work on Brownian motion. In 1907 he created the quantum theory of heat capacity. From 1908, Einstein became Privatdozent at the University of Bern, in 1909 he was an extraordinary professor at the University of Zurich, in 1911 he was an ordinary professor at the German University in Prague, in 1912 he was a professor at the Zurich Polytechnic (where he had previously studied).

In 1914, despite the intrigues of anti-Semites, at the invitation of Max Planck, he was appointed director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, professor at the University of Berlin, member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin. In 1916, Einstein predicted the phenomenon of induced (forced) emission of atoms, which underlies quantum electronics. Einstein's theory of stimulated, ordered (coherent) radiation led to the discovery of lasers.

In 1917, Einstein completed the creation general relativity, a concept that justifies the extension of the principle of relativity to systems moving with acceleration and curvilinearly relative to each other. Einstein's theory for the first time in science substantiated the relationship between the geometry of space-time and the distribution of mass in the universe. The new theory was based on Newton's theory of gravity. His prediction of the deflection of starlight in the Sun's gravitational field was confirmed by a British team of scientists at the time of a solar eclipse in 1919.

Modern physics has experimentally substantiated the special theory of relativity. On its basis, for example, accelerators of elementary particles are created. Fundamental justification was received and general theory relativity. Her hypothesis about the deflection of light under the influence of the gravitational force of the Sun was confirmed as early as 1919 by a group of English astronomers. For the discovery of the laws of the photoelectric effect and works on theoretical physics, Einstein received the Nobel Prize in 1921. In 1924-25. Einstein made a great contribution to the development of quantum Bose statistics, which is now called Bose-Einstein statistics.

Personal problems

Due to constant travel and material problems family life Einstein has gone bad. In 1919, he divorced his wife (under a divorce agreement, he ceded to her, in particular, the rights to the Nobel Prize if she was ever received). At the same time, he began dating his cousin Elsa Löwenthal, whom he later married.

In 1915, when Einstein was giving a series of lectures in Göttingen, there were unfinished places in the theory of relativity that required mathematical revision. listened to lectures David Gilbert did this work and published his results before Einstein. The two scientists clashed for some time over scientific priority, but then became friends.

Departure for the USA

In the 1920s and 30s he was famous, especially abroad. He traveled a lot around the world, contacting colleagues and lecturing at various universities, and also engaged in social and political activities, helping socialists, pacifists and Zionists.

In 1930, his eldest son Eduard fell ill with schizophrenia and was hospitalized for the rest of his life.

Scientist Albert Einstein gained fame thanks to his scientific work, which allowed him to become one of the founders of theoretical physics. One of his most famous works- general and special theory of relativity. This scientist and thinker has more than 600 works on a variety of topics.

Nobel Prize

In 1921, Albert Einstein won the Nobel Prize in Physics. He received an award for discovery of the photoelectric effect.

At the presentation, other works of the physicist were also discussed. In particular, the theory of relativity and gravity was supposed to be evaluated after their confirmation in the future.

Einstein's theory of relativity

It is curious that Einstein himself explained his theory of relativity with humor:

If you hold your hand over the fire for one minute, then it will seem like an hour, but an hour spent with your girlfriend will seem like one minute.

That is, time flows in different circumstances in different ways. The physicist also spoke about other scientific discoveries in a peculiar way. For example, everyone can be sure that it is impossible to do something definite until there is an "ignoramus" who will do it only because he does not know about the opinion of the majority.

Albert Einstein said that he discovered his theory of relativity quite by accident. One day he noticed that a car moving relative to another car at the same speed and in the same direction remains stationary.

These 2 cars, moving relative to the Earth and other objects on it, relative to each other are at rest.

The famous formula E=mc 2

Einstein argued that if a body generates energy in video radiation, then the decrease in its mass is proportional to the amount of energy released by it.

This is how the well-known formula was born: the amount of energy is equal to the product of the mass of the body and the square of the speed of light (E=mc 2). The speed of light is 300,000 kilometers per second.

Even a negligibly small mass accelerated to the speed of light will radiate great amount energy. The invention of the atomic bomb confirmed the correctness of this theory.

short biography

Albert Einstein was born March 14, 1879 in the small German town of Ulm. He spent his childhood in Munich. Albert's father was an entrepreneur, his mother was a housewife.

The future scientist was born weak, with a big head. His parents were afraid that he would not survive. However, he survived and grew up with an increased curiosity about everything. However, he was very persistent.

Study period

Einstein was bored studying at the gymnasium. In his free time, he read non-fiction books. His greatest interest at that time was astronomy.

After graduating from high school, Einstein leaves for Zurich and goes to study at the Polytechnic School. Upon graduation, he receives a diploma physics and mathematics teachers. Alas, as many as 2 years of looking for a job did not give a result.

During this period, Albert had a hard time, besides, due to constant hunger, he developed a liver disease that tormented him until the end of his life. But even these difficulties did not discourage him from studying physics.

Career and first successes

IN 1902 In the same year, Albert takes a job at the Berne Patent Office as a technical examiner on a small salary.

By 1905, Einstein already had 5 scientific papers. In 1909 he became professor of theoretical physics at the University of Zurich. In 1911 he became a professor at the German University in Prague, from 1914 to 1933 he was a professor at the University of Berlin and director of the Berlin Institute of Physics.

He worked on his theory of relativity for 10 years and completed it only in 1916. In 1919 there was a solar eclipse. It was observed by scientists of the Royal Society of London. They also confirmed the probable correctness of Einstein's theory of relativity.

Emigration to the USA

IN 1933 The Nazis came to power in Germany. All scientific papers and other works were burned. The Einstein family emigrated to the United States. Albert became professor of physics at the Institute for Basic Research at Princeton. IN 1940 year he renounces his German citizenship and becomes officially an American citizen.

In recent years, the scientist lived in Princeton, worked on unified theory fields, in moments of rest he played the violin, rode a boat on the lake.

Albert Einstein died April 18, 1955. After his death, his brain was studied for genius, but nothing exceptional was found.