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Author photo. Albert Einstein in 1947 [Photograph by Oren Jack Turner, Princeton, N.J.; source: Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID cph.3b46036]

Albert Einstein in 1947 [Photograph by Oren Jack Turner, Princeton, N.J.; source: Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID cph.3b46036]

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Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879 in Ulm. He spent his childhood in Munich where his family owned a small machine shop. By the age of twelve, Einstein had taught himself Euclidean Geometry. His family moved to Milan, where he stayed for a year, and he used it as an excuse to drop out of school, which bored him. He finished secondary school in Aarau, Switzerland and entered the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. Einstein graduated in 1900, by studying the notes of a classmate since he did not attend his classes out of boredom, again. His teachers did not like him and would not recomend him for a position in the University. For two years, Einstein worked as a substitute teacher and a tutor before getting a job, in 1902, as an examiner for a Swiss patent office in Bern. In 1905, he received his doctorate from the University of Zurich for a theoretical dissertation on the dimension of molecules. Einstein also published three theoretical papers of central importance to the development of 20th Century physics. The first was entitled "Brownian Motion," and the second "Photoelectric Effort," which was a revolutionary way of thinking and contradicted tradition. No one accepted the proposals of the first two papers. Then the third one was published in 1905 and called "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies." Einstein's words became what is known today as the special theory of relativity and said that the physical laws are the same in all inertial reference systems and that the speed of light in a vacuum is a universal constant. Virtually no one understood or supported Einstein's argument. Einstein left the patent office in 1907 and received his first academic appointment at the University of Zurich in 1909. In 1911, he moved to a German speaking university in Prague, but returned to Swiss National Polytechnic in Zurich in 1912. By 1914, Einstein was appointed director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Physics in Berlin. His chief patron in those early days was German physicist Max Planck and lent much credibility to Einstein's work. Einstein began working on generalizing and extending his theory of relativity, but the full general theory was not published until 1916. In 1919, he predicted that starlight would bend in the vicinity of a massive body, such as the sun. This theory was confirmed during a solar eclipse and cause Einstein to become world renowned after the phenomenon. Einstein received be Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921. With his new fame, Einstein attempted to further his own political and social views. He supported pacifism and Zionism and opposed Germany's involvement in World War I. His support of Zionism earned him attacks from both Anti-Semitic and right wing groups in Germany. Einstein left Germany for the United States when Hitler came into power, taking a position at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Once there, he renounced his stand on pacifism in the face of Nazi rising power. In 1939 he collaborated with other physicists in writing a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt informing him of the possibility that the Nazis may in fact be attempting to create an atomic bomb. The letter bore only Einstein's signature but lent credence to the letter and spurred the U.S. race to create the bomb first. Einstein became an American citizen in 1940. After the war, Einstein was active in international disarmament as well as world government. He was offered the position of President of Israel but turned the honor down. Albert Einstein died on April 18, 1955 in Princeton, New Jersey. (Bowker Author Biography) — biography from Relativity: The Special and General Theory… (more)
Ideas and Opinions 1,879 copies, 10 reviews
The World as I See It 1,006 copies, 13 reviews
The Meaning of Relativity 703 copies, 3 reviews
Out of My Later Years 651 copies, 2 reviews
The Principle of Relativity 395 copies, 2 reviews
The World As I See It (Abridged) 235 copies, 4 reviews
Essays in Science 215 copies, 2 reviews
Essays in Humanism 154 copies, 2 reviews
Sidelights on Relativity 147 copies, 3 reviews
Why War? 130 copies, 2 reviews
The New Quotable Einstein 89 copies, 1 review
Einstein on Peace 74 copies, 1 review
Living Philosophies 57 copies, 1 review
Teoria dei quanti di luce 42 copies, 1 review
Albert Einstein: Rebel Lives 35 copies, 2 reviews
Why Socialism? 25 copies
Briefe. 24 copies
Notas autobiográficas 11 copies, 1 review
Pensées intimes 9 copies, 1 review
Opere scelte 9 copies
MIS Creencias 5 copies, 1 review
Space-Time 1 copy
O poder nu 1 copy
'La fisica 1 copy
Relativity 1 copy
The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing (Contributor) 785 copies, 6 reviews
The Universe and Dr. Einstein (Foreword, some editions) 621 copies, 1 review
A golden treasury of Jewish literature (Contributor) 73 copies, 1 review
Emanuel Lasker: The Life of a Chess Master (Foreword, some editions) 65 copies
Introduction to Socialism (Contributor) 38 copies
The Signet Book of American Essays (Contributor) 36 copies
Where Is Science Going? (Foreword) 35 copies
All About Us (Foreword, some editions) 24 copies
Albert Einstein (Associated Name) 21 copies
Het derde Testament : Joodse verhalen (Contributor, some editions) 6 copies
The Foundations of Einstein's Theory of Gravitation (Preface, some editions) 4 copies
The Best from Cosmopolitan (Contributor) 4 copies
On Relativity (Contributor) 3 copies
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