Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein

Because he was the biggest physicist of the twentieth century, because he used his celebrity for preaching the peace and because he always stayed a simple man, I consider Albert Einstein as my hero.

Born the 14th of March 1879 at Ulm, Germany, Albert Einstein rapidly got a passion for Science. When he was five, a compass was offered to him by his father. Albert was fascinated by this surprising object which always showed the North. At the age of thirty, he read a book of geometry that profoundly changed him and taught scientific rigour.

He passed his schooling at Hochschule School, Aargau, and got his certificate in 1896. He was excellent in mathematics but rather bad in subjects like biology or human sciences.

After this certificate, he left Germany and tried to enter in Polytechnic School of Zurich. He failed! He paid for his weaknesses in natural sciences and languages. But, the Polytechnic director, impressed by this mathematics results, suggested to Albert to have the diploma in another school in Aarau. Albert accepted and succeeded the Polytechnic competition the second time.

He got his diploma in 1900 and looked for a job. But, after two years of vain research, he accepted an administrative job where he had to examine and class inventions. At this time, Albert worked hard the night on different scientific theories. It is at this period that he moved to Berne and married Mileva Maritch, an old school friend. They had two children, Hans-Albert in 1904 and Eduard in 1910.

Years 1905 to 1909 were a turning point in Albert life. Indeed, at this time, he published a series of four revolutionary scientific articles:

• The first is about the corpuscular nature of the light.
• The second is a new theory, the restricted relativity which unified theories of matter and light.
• The third is the famous formula E=mc² that founded the base of nuclear technology.
• The last is on the Brownian movements.

It’s important to know that, when he published these articles, he continued to be a functionary in the license office. The scientists of this period were surprised by this man who was immediately appointed professor at Zurich’s university. He continued this search on general relativity and deepened this knowledge in mathematics (non-Euclidean geometry).

In 1912, he became professor at Zurich’s Polytechnic School and the next year, he was nominated at Sciences university of Prussia. He met a lot of other brilliant scientists like Marie Curie, Max Planck and Paul Langevin.
In 1914, the war exploded. Einstein used his notoriety for preaching the peace.
In 1915, he published the general relativity theory that contradicts Newton’s laws. He won the acknowledgment he deserved.
In 1928, Albert Einstein was nominated President of Human Right; he continued to preach the peace and to defend the Jewish cause.

But, during the twenties and the thirties, the situation in Germany became worse and Einstein’s house was attacked in 1933 by Nazis. Albert had to move to the United States of America, where he worked for Princeton University. His work was used for creation of the atomic bomb but Einstein regretted that all the rest of his life.

Einstein died the 18th of April 1955 because of an aneurismal rupture. The scientific community lost one of its best members.