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Portrait of Albert Einstein

Science · Physics

Albert Einstein

1879–1955 · German-born; Swiss and American

Theoretical physics; relativity and quantum theory

Albert Einstein, born in Ulm, transformed physics in his 1905 "miracle year" with papers on the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, special relativity and the equivalence of mass and energy (E = mc²). His general theory of relativity (1915) recast gravity as the curvature of spacetime and was famously confirmed by the 1919 solar eclipse observations. He won the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics for explaining the photoelectric effect.

How to spot them

  • ▸Annus mirabilis of 1905 while working as a patent clerk in Bern
  • ▸E = mc²; special (1905) and general (1915) relativity
  • ▸Nobel Prize 1921 for the photoelectric effect, not for relativity
  • ▸Letter to President Roosevelt (1939) warning of atomic bombs
  • ▸Declined the presidency of Israel (1952); element einsteinium; Time's Person of the Century

Key discoveries & works

On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies (1905)

The paper introducing special relativity

Explanation of the photoelectric effect using light quanta (1905)

Light behaves as particles (later called photons); the basis of his Nobel Prize

E = mc² (1905)

From the paper 'Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?'

Theory of Brownian motion (1905)

Random jiggling of tiny particles suspended in a fluid, explained as evidence for molecules, confirmed by Jean Perrin

General theory of relativity (1915)

Gravity as the curvature of spacetime; explained Mercury's orbit and predicted light bending

EPR paradox (with Podolsky and Rosen) (1935)

Argued quantum mechanics is incomplete, highlighting what became known as entanglement

Bose–Einstein statistics and condensate prediction (1924–1925)

Extended Satyendra Nath Bose's work to predict a new state of matter at very low temperatures

Key ideas

  • The speed of light in a vacuum is the same for all observers; time dilation and length contraction follow
  • Mass and energy are equivalent (E = mc²)
  • Equivalence principle: gravity and acceleration are locally indistinguishable
  • Doubted the randomness of quantum mechanics, summarised in his remark that God does not play dice
  • Introduced the cosmological constant (1917), which he reportedly later called his biggest blunder

Quick-fire facts

  • •Born in Ulm, Württemberg, on 14 March 1879; died in Princeton, New Jersey, on 18 April 1955
  • •Worked at the Swiss Patent Office in Bern from 1902 to 1909
  • •His general relativity prediction of starlight bending was confirmed by Eddington and Dyson's 1919 eclipse expeditions
  • •Awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics (presented in 1922) 'especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect'
  • •Left Germany in 1933 for the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton; became a US citizen in 1940
  • •Signed Leo Szilárd's 1939 letter to Franklin D. Roosevelt about the possibility of atomic bombs
  • •Offered the presidency of Israel in 1952, which he declined
  • •Named Time magazine's Person of the Century (1999); element 99, einsteinium, is named after him
  • •His brain was removed at autopsy by the pathologist Thomas Harvey

Drill it — 10 cards

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Sources