His fourth paper, about special relativity, explained that space and time are interwoven, a shocking idea now considered a foundational principle of astronomy.Įinstein expanded on relativity in 1916 with his theory of gravitation: general relativity. Other papers that year were on Brownian motion, suggesting the existence of molecules and atoms, and the photoelectric effect, showing that light is made of particles later called photons. One of them described the relationship between matter and energy, neatly summarized E = mc 2. That year he published his four most important papers. Read more: 5 Interesting Things About Albert EinsteinĪs a scientist, Einstein’s watershed year was 1905, when he was working as a clerk in the Swiss Patent Office, having failed to attain an academic position after earning his doctorate. The marriage lasted until her death in 1936. (Einstein never actually failed math, contrary to popular lore.) He married twice, the second time to his first cousin, Elsa Löwenthal. As a teenager, he wrote a paper on magnetic fields.

“Einstein remains the last, and perhaps only, physicist ever to become a household name,” says James Overduin, a theoretical physicist at Towson University in Maryland.īorn in Ulm, Germany, in 1879, Einstein was a precocious child. His prowess in physics made him one of the greatest scientists of all time. Time magazine named him Person of the Century. As a publicist might say, he was the whole package: distinctive look (untamed hair, rumpled sweater), witty personality (his quips, such as God not playing dice, would live on) and major scientific cred (his papers upended physics). Museum officials told them “no ticket, no show,” setting the stage for, in the words of the Chicago Tribune, “the first science riot in history.” Einstein was not present, but 4,500 mostly ticketless people still showed up for the viewing. 8, 1930, and the New York museum was showing a film about Albert Einstein and his general theory of relativity. Upon arriving at a lecture hall, the mob broke down the door. Screams rang out as some runners fell and were trampled. A crowd barged past dioramas, glass displays, and wide-eyed security guards in the American Museum of Natural History.

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