Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein is known all over the world as a brilliant physicist and the founder of the theory of relativity. He is perhaps the greatest scientist of the 20th century. Some of his ides made possible the A-bombs, as well as TV and other inventions. He was born in 1879 in a small German town. The Einstein family soon moved to Munich, where Albert went to school. Neither his parents, nor his school teachers thought much of his mental abilities. In 1895 Albert failed the entrance examination to a technical college in Zurich. A year ago, however, he managed to pass the exam and entered the college. After graduating from college, Einstein started to work at the Swiss Patent Office in Bern. In 1905 he wrote a short article in a science magazine. This was his "Special Theory of Relativity", the basis of Atomic energy. Later he became a professor in several European universities and in 1914 moved to Berlin as a member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences. After ten years of work, he created his "General Theory of Relativity". In 1921 Einstein received the Nobel Prize for Physics. A Jew, and a pacifist, he was attacked by Nazis, and when Hitler came to power in 1933 he decided to settle in the USA. After the war he spoke out passionately against nuclear weapons and repression. Einstein died in 1955. The artificial element einsteinium has been named in his honour.