Albert Einstein: The Greatest Scientist of the 20th Century

The history of science is full of amazing individuals who changed the world with their ingenious ideas. Determining the best is no easy task, and people will always have different opinions when it comes to the most influential scientific mind of all time.

Yet there’s one man who will always be part of this conversation: Albert Einstein. At twenty-six years of age, this brilliant individual cemented himself in the history books with several outstanding scientific papers. This was just the start of his career, and he continued to amaze the scientific community throughout his life.

Albert Einstein’s Early Years

Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879, in the German city of Ulm beside the Danube River. His parents, Hermann Einstein and Pauline Koch, were middle-class secular Jews. Just one year after the birth of little Albert, the family moved to Munich, where Einstein’s father set up an electrical engineering business with his brother Jakob. The following year, 1881, another member of the family arrived: Maria, who then went by Maja.

Einstein was a timid child who struggled with verbal communication. While most children learn to talk after approximately 18 months, Einstein couldn’t string sentences together until he was three. 

However, Einstein was ahead of his peers in other areas, such as mathematics and problem-solving. At home, he would construct models and play with building blocks, while at school, he developed a reputation for independent learning, preferring to solve problems his own way.

Albert Einstein’s Education

By the time he became a teenager, Einstein had already discovered a love for algebra and philosophy. Some of his earliest influences were German mathematician Theodor Spieker and German philosopher Immanuel Kant. Einstein also developed an interest in music. Encouraged to pick up an instrument by his mother (a pianist), Einstein started playing the violin when he was six, though he did not start to practice seriously until he was thirteen.

Einstein’s education was inconsistent during the latter half of his adolescence. Opposed to the requirement of military service for 17-year-olds, he left the Luitpold Gymnasium in Munich and surprised his family by showing up in Pavia, Italy, where his father had moved after his father’s firm struggled.

His parents were initially worried about his prospects, fearing being a dropout and draft dodger would hinder his path. In 1895, however, Einstein to Zurich, Switzerland, and tried to get into the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School as it accepted students who passed their entrance exam even if they lacked a high school certificate.

Though Einstein scored highly in math and physics, he struggled with the language, zoology, and botany tests. He studied at the Swiss Cantonal School in Aarau for a year before retaking the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School entrance exams. This time, Einstein passed.

Contrary to what one might expect, Einstein wasn’t an ideal student. He typically attended the lectures he was interested in but neglected the others, preferring to sit and discuss physics. Einstein also fell in love with a student on his course: Mileva Marić. (Like Einstein, Mileva didn’t take her studies very seriously.) He also renounced his German citizenship.

Scientific Breakthrough

With disappointing examination results and a reputation for disobedience, Einstein failed to secure a job after graduating and faced a period of financial challenges. In the summer of 1902, he started working as a clerk at the Swiss Patent Office in Bern thanks to the recommendation of the father of a friend. In January 1903, he married Marić. In addition to his patent office work, Einstein worked on scientific papers.

In 1905, when he turned 26, Einstein submitted his PhD dissertation and published four remarkable papers. The first one discussed the photoelectric effect and proposed the wave-particle theory, arguing that light is released in packets of energy. Before this, many scientists wrongly believed light traveled exclusively in waves.

The third paper introduced the Theory of Special Relativity, stating that no object can travel as fast as light. The fourth paper featured the most famous equation in history: E = mc². For those who do not know, the equation says that the energy of a body at rest equals its mass times the speed of light squared. In other words, the formula declares that mass and time are interchangeable. Einstein’s argument that time moves slower for objects traveling at a faster speed was revolutionary at the time.

Albert Einstein in Academia

In September 1908, when he was still in his 20s, Einstein started his academic career, delivering lectures at the University of Bern. His classes weren’t very popular initially, but a fellow scientist, Hermann Minkowski, helped Einstein grow his reputation.

Minkowski delivered lectures on the theory of relativity, helping people understand the ideas and explaining how Einstein had discovered a fourth dimension: space-time. The two great minds even worked together briefly until Minkowski’s death in January 1909.

With time, Einstein’s work became more appreciated in the world of academia. He received offers from many institutions and accepted a position at the University of Berlin. The family, which now included two children, moved to the German capital, and Einstein started his new job in April 1914.

Albert Einstein’s Personal Struggles

However, Einstein’s marriage to Mileva was not going well. The young scientist had a heavy work schedule and prioritized his career over everything else. Moreover, Mileva did not like Berlin and moved back to Switzerland with the children. Einstein was looked after by his cousin Elsa, who had her own children and lived nearby.

Soon after, Europe was enveloped in one of the greatest conflicts of the twentieth century: World War I. As a pacifist, Einstein opposed the war, but his stance on war was not popular in the German academic community. The Manifesto of the Ninety-Three, signed by 93 German professors, helped galvanize support for the war. Einstein signed a counter-manifesto, but his signature was just one of four.

The scientist’s poor health did not help matters. In 1917, his work on the theory of relativity was put on hold due to a stomach ulcer and jaundice, which caused the skin and eyes to turn yellow. He also lost weight during this time.

Elsa still cared for him, and over time, the cousins became closer. The two developed romantic feelings for each other and became lovers. After officially divorcing Mileva in February 1919, Einstein married Elsa several months later.

The Eddington Experiment: Proving Einstein’s Theory

Though Einstein had already established himself in the scientific community, some still doubted his theory. But this all changed on May 29, 1919, thanks to the Eddington Experiment.

Conducted by British astronomers Frank Watson Dyson and Arthur Stanley Eddington, the Eddington Experiment set out to prove Einstein’s theory of relativity by utilizing a total solar eclipse. With the moon temporarily blocking out the sun, the background stars were more easily visible, allowing the scientists to measure the gravitational deflection of the light coming from them.

They did this by comparing photographs taken during the eclipse with pictures taken six months earlier when the sun was shining down on the other side of the world. The two batches of images were compared, revealing the stars photographed during the eclipse appeared to have moved slightly.

The experiment proved Einstein was right about the relationship between mass, gravity, and speed: a massive object (like the sun) bends light. After the results were shown to the Royal Society and the Royal Astronomical Society, academic and public interest in Einstein reached new heights.

The University of Princeton gave him an honorary degree, while the Royal Swedish Academy of Science presented the scientist with the Nobel Prize for Physics.

The Rise of Fascism

After returning to Berlin, Einstein continued working independently and alongside others. A notable collaborator was the Indian scientist Satyendra Nath Bose. Together, they developed the Bose-Einstein condensate and Bose-Einstein statistics.

But his peaceful lifestyle was under threat from a dangerous ideology: fascism. Einstein was singled out and referred to as a “Communist Jew” by the German press and accused of cultural internationalism and international treason. The Nazis also froze his bank account and burned copies of his books.

Luckily, the Einsteins were in California when the Nazis came to power in January 1933, as he was a visiting professor at the California Institute of Technology. While it was much safer for Einstein on the other side of the Atlantic, he also encountered hostilities in the US, with some taking issue with his left-leaning, pacifist views.

What Was Albert Einstein’s Role in the Manhattan Project?

During World War II, Einstein had to deal with the mounting threat of nuclear war. Horrified that the Nazis would try to develop a nuclear bomb, he signed a letter written by the Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard. The letter was sent to Franklin D. Roosevelt, warning the president about the potential nuclear threat from Germany.

This missive prompted Roosevelt into action, for he was determined to develop nuclear weapons before the Nazis did. The Manhattan Project, headed by American physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, led to the creation of the world’s first atomic bomb. 

It was a colossal project, employing approximately 130,000 people. But Einstein was not one of them. Due to his political views, he was seen as a potential security risk and barred from working on the Manhattan Project.

In August 1945, the US dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to force Japan to surrender.

Einstein regretted signing the Szilard letter and campaigned against nuclear weapons in the post-war years. Shortly before his death, he signed the Russell-Einstein Manifesto, calling for global peace.

Albert Einstein’s Death & Legacy

Einstein died at the age of 76 on April 18, 1955. The cause of death was a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm.

Albert Einstein left behind a phenomenal legacy, and many regard him as an era-defining genius. His theory of relativity and his ideas about space-time were revolutionary. Popular ideas like the Big Bang Theory simply would not exist without his work.

No one denies his impact on science, but there will always be those who object to Einstein’s political views, particularly his pacifist attitudes. Some have also taken issue with his support of Zionism. Yet it is important to note that Einstein took a balanced approach to this issue. He argued that Zionists harmed their cause by asking for too much and expecting political rule over Palestine.

Politics aside, it would be difficult to find anyone in today’s scientific community who disputes Einstein’s achievements. Though it took some time for his contemporaries to appreciate him fully, Einstein is now regarded as the greatest scientist of the 20th century.