Albert Einstein (March 14th, 1879 with Ulm, Württemberg, Germany - April 18th, 1955 with Princeton, New Jersey, the United States) was a German Physicien , then Apatride (1896), Suisse (1899), and finally helvético - American (1940).
It published the restricted Theory of relativity in 1905 and a theory of gravity known as General relativity in 1915. It largely contributed to the development of the quantum Mécanique and the Cosmologie. It received the Nobel Prize of physics in 1921 for its explanation of the photoelectric Effet. Its work is in particular known for the equation E=mc ² which quantifies the supplied energy in the matter.
Biography
The August 8th 1876, Hermann Einstein (* August 30th 1847 with Buchau; † October 10th 1902 with Milan) wife Pauline Koch. Three years later, the March 14th 1879, Albert, their first child, is born in their apartment with Ulm in Germany. The young Albert makes two discovered: the Compass at five years and the scientific rigor in a book, the Small Bible of the Geometry , at thirteen years. Einstein will remain faithful to its Jewish origins; in addition, it will be implied in the Zionist cause starting from his voyage to the in April 1921 United States, intended in particular for the collection of funds to the profit of the future State of Israel.
It makes its primary and secondary studies with the Hochschule d' Aargau , where it obtains its diploma the September 30th 1896. It has excellent results in Mathématiques, but refuses to be informed in Biologie and Social sciences, because it does not see the interest to learn from the disciplines which one finds everywhere in the books. He regards science as the fruit of the human reason and the reflection. He asks his father to give him nationality Suisse in order to join his emigrated family with Milan in Italy.
He enters to the federal Polytechnic school of Zurich (ETH) in 1896. He binds to it friendship with the mathematician Marcel Grossmann, who will help it later when he is with the catches with the not-Euclidean geometries. He meets there also Mileva Maric, his first wife. He obtains his diploma in 1900. He reads much: during this time, it almost exhaustively deepens excellent books of reference, like those of Boltzmann, Helmholtz and Nernst. It has like reading also the Mécanique of Ernst Mach. According to several biographies, of 1900 with 1902 will be a time of precariousness for Einstein which will postulate at many stations without being accepted. The misery of Einstein enormously worried his/her father who in vain tried to help it to find an employment. Albert resigned himself to forget the university to seek an administrative work.
In 1902, it is engaged with the Office of the patents of Bern, which enables him to live correctly while working its theories steadily. At the end of 1902 is born Lieserl, girl of Mileva and Albert. The historians discovered the existence of this girl only in 1986 (when letters exchanged between Albert and Maric were discovered). One is unaware of what became Lieserl, the most current thesis being a death in low age. Albert and Maric marry in 1903, after the death of the father of this last. In 1904, Hans-Albert is born. In the years 1905-1909, it publishes four articles which open new ways in research (Nuclear physics, Celestial mechanics…) Four years after these articles, he is recognized by his pars. The job offers multiply. Eduard is born in 1910 and in 1913, Albert is named with the Academy of Science of Prussia. That implies that it with the Prussian citizenship, in addition to Switzerland.
In 1914, it moves in Germany and lives with Berlin many years, and the German proposals for a work enable him to be devoted entirely to its research task. At this time, Mileva and Albert separate, and this last starts to attend a Berliner cousin, Elsa. A little before the First World War, it clamp its pacifist opinions. The situation darkens in Germany in the years 1920; one trails it in mud like Juif and Pacifiste. Albert sees his threatened life.
In 1933, it learns that its house of Berlin was plundered by bands Nazis. A little later Hitler arrives at the capacity. Einstein decides to be exiled. His/her Eduard son is schizophrenic and will pass his life in a Swiss private clinic.
Einstein dies the April 18th 1955 of a Aneurysmal rupture, its brain is hypertrophied on the left. One will scatter his ashes in a secret held place, in accordance with his will but, in spite of its last wills, its brain and its eyes are preserved by the medical examiner who made his Autopsie.
First publications (1902-1909)
The annus mirabilis
1905 is the year miracle for Einstein, that where are published four of its articles in the review Annalen der Physik (initially sent to Conrad Habicht):
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the first, published in March, exposes a revolutionary point of view on the corpuscular natural of the light, by the study of the photoelectric Effet. Einstein entitled it: On a heuristic point of view concerning the production and the transformation of the light . It reports its research there on the origin of the particulate emissions, while being based on work of Planck which had, in 1900, established a formula of a quantified radiation, i.e. discontinuous. Planck had been in fact constrained to approach the light radiation emitted by a hot body in a manner which disconcerted it: to put in adequacy its formula and the experimental results, it had had to suppose that the current of particles was divided into blocks of energy, that it called quanta. Although he thought that these quanta did not have a true existence, its theory seemed promising and several physicists worked there. Einstein reinvests the results of Planck to study the photoelectric effect, and he concludes while stating that the Lumière behaved at the same time like a Onde and at the same time like a flow of particles. He put then fine at an old debate of more than one century on nature of the light and opened the way with basic research. The photoelectric effect thus provided a simple confirmation of the assumption of the quanta of max Planck. In 1920, the quanta were called the Photons.
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Two months later, in May, Einstein makes publish a second article on the Brownian Movement. He explained this movement by a complete distorsion with the principle of Entropie such as statement following work of Newton on the mechanical forces: according to him, the Molécule S drew to them kinetic energy from the Chaleur. This article is even more fundamental owing to the fact that it gave a theoretical proof (checked in experiments by Jean Perrin in 1912) of the existence of the Atome S and the molecules. The Brownian movement was explained at the same time as Einstein by Marian Smoluchowski, and also by Louis Bachelier in 1900.
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the third article is more important, because it represents the intuitive rupture of Einstein with the Newtonian physical . In that On the electrodynamics of the bodies moving , the physicist attacks the Postulat of a space and of an absolute time, as defined by the mechanics of Newton, and with the existence of the ether, inert interstellar medium which were to support the light like the Eau or the Air support the sound waves in their displacements. This article, published in June, pleasing with two conclusions: the ether does not exist not, and the time and space are relative. New the absolute that Einstein builds is now detached from the quantitative nature of these two concepts - space and time, but with the conservation of their relation through the various reference frames of studies. Consequences of this revolutionary vision of the physics, which rises from the idea that Einstein had in the way in which the physical laws were to force the universe, hustled the theoretical physics as well as its practical applications. The exact contribution of Einstein compared to Henri Poincaré and some other physicists is disputed enough today (see Controverse on the paternity of relativity).
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the last article, published in September, to the title does the inertia of a body gives depend on its contents in energy? a famous answer: the formula of equivalence mass-energy. It is a result of the any news restricted Relativité, which will be of an major importance for a number of unsuspected fields of studies then: nuclear physics, celestial mechanics, until the weapons and nuclear plants.
During this period, it founds with Maurice Solovine (which will translate its works into French) and Conrad Habicht the Academy Olympia, circle of discussion meeting in the 49, Kramgasse, and organizing stroll in mountain.
Years of recognition (1910-1935)
Four years after these articles, he is recognized by his pars. The supply of labors multiply. His/her Eduard son is born in 1910.
In 1911, it is invited to the first Congrès Solvay, in Belgium, which gathers the most known scientists. It meets there inter alia Marie Curie, max Planck and Paul Langevin.
It is named with the Academy of Science of Prussia in 1913.
In 1914, it moves in Germany and lives with Berlin many years, and the German proposals for a work enable him to be devoted entire to its research task. At this time, Mileva and Albert separate, and this last starts to attend a Berliner cousin, Elsa. It clamp with the accesses of the First World War its pacifist opinions.
The town of Berlin had promised the gift of a house to him. With time, it will be finally only one ground on which it had to make build its pocket. It chooses a calm place with Caputh, close to the Lake Havelsee, where it often sailed.
In a book of 1916, it published its theory of the gravitation, known today under the name of the General relativity. The installation of this theory was justified in a " preoccupation with a coherence scientifique".
The keystone of the theory is the “Equations of the field” which describe the behavior of the field of gravitation (the metric one of the space time) according to the energy content and material. For a long time, it was claimed that David Hilbert was the first to have found these equations (following discussions with Einstein however). But of the more recent historical research by Leo Corry in 1997 showed than in the first version of the article published by Hilbert (former to that of Einstein), the equations are false. Hilbert arrived at the correct equations that after publication of those by Einstein which obtained them however in a way different from that adopted by Hilbert. However, the article of Corry was criticized by Prof Friedwardt Winterberg in 2004 in the Naturforsch newspaper, reaffirming the thesis of the anteriority of David Hilbert. The theory of relativity like its works of 1905 and 1916 form the base of modern physics. The relation between Einstein and the quantum physics are very remarkable - on a side, some of its theories are the base of the quantum physics, in particular its explanation of the photoelectric effect, on another side, he refused many ideas and interpretations of the quantum Mécanique later.
In 1927, invited to the fifth Congress Solvay, it has many conversations with Niels Bohr on this subject. He says then: “Did Gott würfelt nicht” (“God does not play dice”) to mark its opposition to probabilistic interpretation of the quantum physics, it with what Niels Bohr answer “Which are you Albert Einstein to say to God what it must make? ”. The quantum paradox that it will manage to specify later with Podolsky and Rosen with Princeton (Paradoxe EPR) remains very important today.
Famous genius
The checking by the eclipse
To check general relativity, a measurement of the deviation of the luminous rays in the neighborhoods of a mass, at the time of a solar eclipse is planned. The first forwarding is programmed in 1915, but is made impossible by the First World War. In 1919, Arthur Eddington carries out famous measurement. He announces that the results are in conformity with the theory of Einstein. It appears well later that because of cloudy time, the margin of error was quite higher than the phenomenon to measure. Stephen Hawking explains in a Short history of time that this kind of false good performance is current when one can with what expect. As meanwhile, other measurements had confirmed the deviation of the light, the prestige of general relativity was not shaken by it.
Einstein leaves to expose its theory in the whole world, where it is celebrated. The situation darkens in Germany in the Années 1920; he is trailed in mud as a Jew, and sees his safety threatened with the arrival of the Nazism in the company.
In 1925, he is prize winner of the Médaille Copley. In 1928, it is named president of the League of the Human rights. In 1932, it learns that its house of Berlin was plundered by the bands Nazis. A little later Hitler arrives at the capacity. It decides not to more put the feet in Germany. He works then with the the United States, in particular with the Institute for Advanced Study of Princeton. In 1935, he is prize winner of the Franklin Médaille.
He informs the president Franklin Roosevelt of the possible use of an atomic bomb. He will rewrite to him later to ask him to give up this idea, but two nuclear bombs will be used against the Japan in 1945.
His/her Eduard son is schizophrenic and will pass his life in a Swiss private clinic.
Einstein dies the April 18th 1955 of a rupture of Anévrisme. One will scatter his ashes in a secret held place, but one preserved his brain and his eyes.
Einstein and the policy
In policy, Einstein was before all pacifist, even if it could disadvise the Conscientious objection to a young European who wrote to him in the Années 1930, “for the safeguard of its country and civilization”. Einstein is related to many pacifist causes, because it always agreed to defend a cause that it found just. He thus answered the communist that the people were to initially deal with pacifism in order to have the requirements for then being able to make Socialisme. He will pronounce this apophtegme: “If a man can test some pleasure to ravel in row with the sounds of a music, I mistake this man… He does not deserve an human brain since a spinal-cord satisfies it. ” (in How I see the world , published as from 1934) thus referring to the army, institution which he scorned.
In 1913, he is co-signatory of a petition for the peace which three German scientists will sign. It is during Manifeste of the 93 intellectual German.
Einstein was one to support Sionisme. In 1920, it accompanies the leader Zionist Chaim Weizmann with the the United States in a campaign by harvest of funds. It also goes in Palestine agent within the framework of the inauguration of the Hebraic Université of Jerusalem. Its apparations give a prestic policy to the Zionist cause. Following an invitation to be established in Jerusalem, he writes in his notebook of voyage that “the heart says yes (...) but the reason says not”. According to Tom Segev, Einstein appreciates its voyage in Palestine and the honors which are made to him. It brings back nevertheless a black spot when seeing Jews requesting in front of the Wailing Wall, Einstein comments on that it acts people stuck to last and making abstration of the present.
It analyzed well the evolution of the situation between the two wars in Germany. It had rather witty remarks, because it had a very rational vision of the men: “For the moment, I am a German scientist, but if I have suddenly become a pet peeve, I will be a Swiss Jew”). He received death threats as of 1922. Violent attacks took place against the Theory of relativity in Germany (but also in Russia). For example, Philipp Lenard, “chief of Aryan or German physics” allotted to Friedrich Hasenöhrl the formula E=mc ² to make an Aryan creation of it. . Einstein resigned of the academy of Prussia in 1933. It was on the other hand excluded from that of Bavaria, that it could not voluntarily leave in time. This year, Einstein, travels abroad, did not turn over from there to Germany, where the Nazi regime avit taken the capacity in January. After a stay in Belgium, it declined a proposal of France to accommodate it as professor at the Collège de France, and left to the United States in Princeton.
The August 2nd 1939, it wrote a letter with Roosevelt which contributed to engage the Projet Manhattan. In 1945, when it understands that the United States will produce the first atomic bomb of the history, it takes the initiative to write once again in Roosevelt to request it to give up this weapon. After the war, Einstein militates for a world atomic disarmament, until before its death in 1955 where he confesses to Linus Pauling: “I made a great error in my life, when I signed this letter. ” Einstein was expressed on its socialist convictions in 1949, that is to say into full MacCarthysme, in a test entitled “Why the Socialisme” (published in the Monthly Review). Its correspondence reveals that it carried out a bringing together between MacCarthysme and the events of the Années 1930 in Germany. He wrote with the judge in charge of of the Rosenberg business to ask their grace, helped of many people who wanted to immigrate in the United States; contacted by William Frauenglass, an English professor of suspecté college of communist sympathies, it wrote a text denouncing MacCarthysme openly and encouraging the intellectuals to resist so that it describes as “evil”. FBI (makes of it its president, J. Edgar Hoover) opened a file on him, available on their site. Joseph McCarthy itself attacks Einstein with the Congress by treating it “of enemy of America”. One suspects his secretary, Helen Dukas, of espionage for Moscow. The media break out. In the middle of this organized lynching, Bertrand Russell takes his defense. The business was classified in 1954, no proof not having been found.
In December 1948, it Co-sign a letter condemning the Massacre of Deir Yassin.
It is désappointé by what it can know of the Soviet Union. It appears to him that the principle of the government of the people by themselves, the fact of working for themselves, seems more favourable to him with individual blooming than that of the exploitation of the great number by a minority. In addition, it prefaced the Black Book, collection of testimonys on the extermination of the Jews by the Nazis during the war in the Soviet Russia.
Ben Gourion proposed to him in 1952 the presidency of the State of Israel, which he refused. The ambassador tells the reasons of his refusal: “Initially, if I know the laws of the universe, I do not know almost anything with the human beings. Moreover, it seems that a president of Israel must sometimes sign things which he disapproves, and nobody can imagine that I can do that. ” It bequeathed its files to the university of Jerusalem.
Einstein was altogether pacifist with extremely rational philosophy, a little contemplative, a a little asocial being which liked humanity. He constantly scorned human agitation and always preferred the calm one. To know his thoughts on the Religion or the War, one can read his quotations.
He fought during the Cold war while being expressed against the Arms race, appealing, for example with Bertrand Russell and Joseph Rotblat, the scientists with more responsibilities, the governments with a renouncement common to their proliferation and their use, and the people to seek other means of obtaining peace (creation of the emergency Comité of the scientists nuclear physicists in 1946, Manifeste Russell-Einstein in 1954). He was named director of the Committee to the Atomic energy of the United Nations, but resigned when he realized of his uselessness. Let us specify that it did not take part in the construction of the atomic bomb. It did not have even the idea of it. It was Robert Oppenheimer which directed it.
He always insisted on the need for creating a world State.
Social life
Einstein had relationships to quantity of scientific, political and artistic personalities. Its correspondence was very rich.
Its connections with the women were dark. It often misled Mileva, and was very hard with Elsa. They made room with share and it could prohibit its office to him, being almost made be useful (“I treated my wife like an employee, but an employee whom I could not congédier”).
Mileva Maric
Mileva Maric, reached Coxalgia (lame) and with the dark physique, is also raises of Polytechnicum. She falls pregnant and will be confined in her parents in Serbia of a little girl, Lieserl, that the father and the mother will have to give up. No one does not know what became this girl of Einstein. But this drama will break the life of Mileva and, in the long term, that of the couple.
Einstein always fled human agitation, refused the easy effects and the judgments with the punch. I am a recluse who likes humanity , and for him One cannot support morals on constant rules .
Other personalities
It maintained all its life a friendly relation with the queen Elisabeth Belgium, with which it played of the Violon (“I am astonished by the short memory of the men as for the political facts. Yesterday the Lawsuit of Nuremberg, today the rearmament of Germany… ”).
In 1933, it publishes with Sigmund Freud an exchange of letters entitled Pourquoi the war?
Einstein and astrology
Contrary to the quotation which is attached to him by many publications, in particular that of the astrologer Elisabeth Teissier, Einstein saw in the Astrologie only trickery. It in particular expressed its very negative opinion on the subject in an introduction which it wrote in 1951 for the work of Carola Baumgardt.
Quotation apocryphal book which is allotted to him: Astrology is a science in oneself, it. I learned much thanks to it and I owe him much. Knowledge geophysics highlights the capacity of stars and planets on the terrestrial destiny. In its turn, in a certain direction, astrology reinforces it. This is why it is a species of elixir of life for humanity.
This false originates in the Huters astrologischer Kalender of 1960, published in 1959. The sentence was thus forged approximately five years after the death of Einstein.
Einstein and vegetarianism
In the line of his anticonformist standpoint, Albert Einstein supported the cause vegetarian. He regarded the Végétarisme as an ideal without however practicing it itself in spite of some problems of conscience. He considered mainly the health reasons but also believed in the beneficial effect of the mode vegetarian on the temperament of the men. It is only one year before its death which it put into practice this mode.
The brain of Einstein
In 1978, the journalist Steven Levy learns by his employer the newspaper New Jersey Monthly that the Cerveau of the scientist would have been preserved and asks him to recover it.
Levy will be accompanied by a cameraman during his search and the film diffused in the Années 1990 on the small screen in France. After a long investigation, it indeed finds it with Wichita, Kansas, at the pathologist who had carried out his extraction, Dr. Thomas Harvey.
The media camped obviously in front of its residence in search of information creating nuisances enormously to him. Thereafter, Dr. Harvey acknowledged that it had not found anything of private individual in his physical structure whom can explain his genius.
But of more recent studies (appeared in particular in Science and Vie ) show that the brain of Einstein had a high number of Astrocyte S. the researchers with whom one owes this discovery are unaware of if that is responsible for sound Intelligence, they up to that point neglected the astrocytes in their neurological research being interested above all in the Neuron S.
Others
A einstein is a measuring unit equal to the Nombre of Avogadro time the energy of a photon (light). There exists a chemical element: the Einsteinium.
2005 was the world year of physics, but also the year of Einstein, in commemoration of the centenary of the annus mirabilis .
Inventions and patents
Einstein was other than a theorist, it invented also apparatuses and deposited many patents in collaboration with friends.
Here are some examples:
- supersensitive Voltmeter: In 1908, with Paul Habicht, it develops a Voltmètre able to measure tensions about ten-thousandths of Volt. This “multiplier of Einstein-Habicht potential” will be marketed as from 1912.
- Réfrigérateur: With its former student and friendly Leo Szilard, it creates several types of refrigerators (a system with absorption, a system with diffusion and an electromagnetic system). This last system is pressed on a “electromagnetic pump” which is still used to transport sodium in the fast reactors to coolant sodium (2005). The refrigerators were not marketed.
- hearing Aid: One of the forty patents deposited with Leó Szilárd.
Distinctions
Works
- How I see the world , collection Champs 183, Flammarion, 1989. Collection of articles.
- Why the War? (1933), Shores, 2005, with Sigmund Freud.
- Francoise Balibar (ED.), Albert Einstein: physics, philosophy, political , editions of the Threshold. Deliver pocket which contains “selected pieces” resulting from the preceding selection.
Appendices
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