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Albert Einstein

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   CAPTION: Albert Einstein

   Photographed by Oren J. Turner (1947)
   Photographed by Oren J. Turner (1947)
        Born      March 14, 1879
                  Ulm, Württemberg, Germany
        Died      April 18, 1955
                  Princeton, New Jersey
     Residence    Germany, Italy, Switzerland, USA
    Nationality   German (1879-96, 1914-33)
                  Swiss (1901-55)
                  American (1940-55)
       Field      Physics
    Institution   Swiss Patent Office (Berne)
                  Univ. of Zürich
                  Charles Univ.
                  Kaiser Wilhelm Inst.
                  Univ. of Leiden
                  Inst. for Advanced Study
     Alma Mater   ETH Zürich
     Known for    General relativity, Special relativity
                  Brownian motion, Photoelectric effect
   Notable Prizes Nobel Prize in Physics (1921)
                  Copley Medal (1925)

   Albert Einstein ( German pronunciation ) ( March 14, 1879 – April 18,
   1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist widely known as one of
   the greatest physicists of all time. He formulated the special and
   general theories of relativity. In addition, he made significant
   advancements to quantum theory and statistical mechanics. While best
   known for the Theory of Relativity (and specifically mass-energy
   equivalence, E=mc^2), he was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize for Physics
   for his 1905 (his " wonderful year" or "miraculous year") explanation
   of the photoelectric effect and "for his services to Theoretical
   Physics". In popular culture, the name "Einstein" has become synonymous
   with great intelligence and genius.

   Among his many investigations were: capillary action, his special
   theory of relativity which stemmed from an attempt to reconcile the
   laws of mechanics with the laws of the electromagnetic field, his
   general theory of relativity which extended the principle of relativity
   to include gravitation, relativistic cosmology, critical opalescence,
   classical problems of statistical mechanics and problems in which they
   were merged with quantum theory, including an explanation of Brownian
   motion; atomic transition probabilities, the probabilistic
   interpretation of quantum theory, the quantum theory of a monatomic
   gas, the thermal properties of light with a low radiation density which
   laid the foundation of the photon theory of light, the theory of
   radiation, including stimulated emission; the construction of a unified
   field theory, and the geometrization of physics.

Biography

Youth and college

   Young Albert before the Einsteins moved from Germany to Italy.
   Enlarge
   Young Albert before the Einsteins moved from Germany to Italy.

   Einstein was born on March 14, 1879, around 11:30 AM LMT, to a Jewish
   family, in the city of Ulm in Württemberg, Germany, about 100 km east
   of Stuttgart. His father was Hermann Einstein, a salesman who later ran
   an electrochemical works, and his mother was Pauline née Koch. They
   were married in Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt.

   At his birth, Albert's mother was reputedly frightened that her
   infant's head was so large and oddly shaped. Though the size of his
   head appeared to be less remarkable as he grew older, it's evident from
   photographs of Einstein that his head was disproportionately large for
   his body throughout his life, a trait regarded as "benign macrocephaly"
   in large-headed individuals with no related disease or cognitive
   deficits.

   Another more famous aspect of Einstein's childhood is the fact that he
   spoke much later than the average child. Einstein claimed that he did
   not begin speaking until the age of three and only did so hesitantly,
   even beyond the age of nine (see "Speculation and controversy"
   section). Because of Einstein's late speech development and his later
   childhood tendency to ignore any subject in school that bored him —
   instead focusing intensely only on what interested him — some observers
   at the time suggested that he might be "retarded", such as one of the
   Einstein family's housekeepers. This latter observation was not the
   only time in his life that controversial labels and pathology would be
   applied to Einstein. (See again, "Speculation and controversy".)

   Albert's family members were all non-observant Jews and he attended a
   Catholic elementary school. At the insistence of his mother, he was
   given violin lessons. Though he initially disliked the lessons, and
   eventually discontinued them, he would later take great solace in
   Mozart's violin sonatas.

   When Einstein was five, his father showed him a small pocket compass,
   and Einstein realized that something in "empty" space acted upon the
   needle; he would later describe the experience as one of the most
   revelatory events of his life. He built models and mechanical devices
   for fun and showed great mathematical ability early on.

   In 1889, a medical student named Max Talmud (later: Talmey), who
   visited the Einsteins on Thursday nights for six years, introduced
   Einstein to key science and philosophy texts, including Kant's Critique
   of Pure Reason. Two of his uncles would further foster his intellectual
   interests during his late childhood and early adolescence by
   recommending and providing books on science, mathematics and
   philosophy.

   Einstein attended the Luitpold Gymnasium, where he received a
   relatively progressive education. He began to learn mathematics around
   age twelve; in 1891, he taught himself Euclidean plane geometry from a
   school booklet and began to study calculus; Einstein realized the power
   of axiomatic deductive reasoning from Euclid's Elements, which Einstein
   called the "holy little geometry book" (given by Max Talmud). While at
   the Gymnasium, Einstein clashed with authority and resented the school
   regimen, believing that the spirit of learning and creative thought
   were lost in such endeavors as strict memorization.

   In 1894, following the failure of Hermann Einstein's electrochemical
   business, the Einsteins moved from Munich to Pavia, a city in Italy
   near Milan. Einstein's first scientific work, called "The Investigation
   of the State of Aether in Magnetic Fields", was written
   contemporaneously for one of his uncles. Albert remained behind in
   Munich lodgings to finish school, completing only one term before
   leaving the gymnasium in the spring of 1895 to rejoin his family in
   Pavia. He quit a year and a half prior to final examinations without
   telling his parents, convincing the school to let him go with a medical
   note from a friendly doctor, but this meant that he had no
   secondary-school certificate. That year, at the age of 16, he performed
   the thought experiment known as "Albert Einstein's mirror". After
   gazing into a mirror, he examined what would happen to his image if he
   were moving at the speed of light; his conclusion, that the speed of
   light is independent of the observer, would later become one of the two
   postulates of special relativity.

   Although he excelled in the mathematics and science part of entrance
   examinations for the Federal Polytechnic Institute in Zürich, today the
   ETH Zürich, his failure of the liberal arts portion was a setback; his
   family sent him to Aarau, Switzerland to finish secondary school, and
   it became clear that he was not going to be an electrical engineer as
   his father intended for him. There, he studied the seldom-taught
   Maxwell's electromagnetic theory and received his diploma in September
   1896. During this time, he lodged with Professor Jost Winteler's family
   and became enamoured with Sofia Marie-Jeanne Amanda Winteler, commonly
   referred to as Sofie or Marie, their daughter and his first sweetheart.
   Einstein's sister, Maja, who was perhaps his closest confidant, was to
   later marry their son, Paul, and his friend, Michele Besso, married
   their other daughter, Anna. Einstein subsequently enrolled at the
   Federal Polytechnic Institute in October and moved to Zürich, while
   Marie moved to Olsberg, Switzerland for a teaching post. The same year,
   he renounced his Württemberg citizenship.

   In the spring of 1896, the Serbian Mileva Marić started initially as a
   medical student at the University of Zürich, but after a term switched
   to the Federal Polytechnic Institute to study as the only woman that
   year for the same diploma as Einstein. Marić's relationship with
   Einstein developed into romance over the next few years, though his
   mother would cry that she was too old, not Jewish, and physically
   defective.

   In 1900, Einstein was granted a teaching diploma by the Federal
   Polytechnic Institute. Einstein then submitted his first paper to be
   published, on the capillary forces of a drinking straw, titled
   "Folgerungen aus den Capillaritätserscheinungen", which translated is
   "Consequences of the observations of capillarity phenomena" (found in
   "Annalen der Physik" volume 4, page 513). In it, he tried to unify the
   laws of physics, an attempt he would continually make throughout his
   life. Through his friend Michele Besso, an engineer, Einstein was
   presented with the works of Ernst Mach, and would later consider him
   "the best sounding board in Europe" for physical ideas. During this
   time, Einstein discussed his scientific interests with a group of close
   friends, including Besso and Marić. The men referred to themselves as
   the "Olympia Academy". Einstein and Marić had a daughter out of
   wedlock, Lieserl Einstein, born in January 1902. Her fate is unknown;
   some believe she died in infancy, while others believe she was given
   out for adoption.

Works and doctorate

   Einstein could not find a teaching post upon graduation, mostly because
   his brashness as a young man had apparently irritated most of his
   professors. The father of a classmate helped him obtain employment as a
   technical assistant examiner at the Swiss Patent Office in 1902. There,
   Einstein judged the worth of inventors' patent applications for devices
   that required a knowledge of physics to understand — in particular he
   was chiefly charged to evaluate patents relating to electromagnetic
   devices. He also learned how to discern the essence of applications
   despite sometimes poor descriptions, and was taught by the director how
   "to express [him]self correctly". He occasionally rectified their
   design errors while evaluating the practicality of their work.

   Einstein married Mileva Marić on January 6, 1903. Einstein's marriage
   to Marić, who was a mathematician, was both a personal and intellectual
   partnership: Einstein referred to Mileva as "a creature who is my equal
   and who is as strong and independent as I am". Ronald W. Clark, a
   biographer of Einstein, claimed that Einstein depended on the distance
   that existed in his marriage to Mileva in order to have the solitude
   necessary to accomplish his work; he required intellectual isolation.
   Abram Joffe, a Soviet physicist who knew Einstein, wrote in an obituary
   of him, "The author of [the papers of 1905] was… a bureaucrat at the
   Patent Office in Bern, Einstein-Marić" and this has recently been taken
   as evidence of a collaborative relationship. However, according to
   Alberto A. Martínez of the Centre for Einstein Studies at Boston
   University, Joffe only ascribed authorship to Einstein, as he believed
   that it was a Swiss custom at the time to append the spouse's last name
   to the husband's name. The extent of her influence on Einstein's work
   is a controversial and debated question.

   In 1903, Einstein's position at the Swiss Patent Office had been made
   permanent, though he was passed over for promotion until he had "fully
   mastered machine technology". He obtained his doctorate under Alfred
   Kleiner at the University of Zürich after submitting his thesis "A new
   determination of molecular dimensions" ("Eine neue Bestimmung der
   Moleküldimensionen") in 1905.

Annus Mirabilis Papers

   During 1905, in his spare time, he wrote four articles that
   participated in the foundation of modern physics, without much
   scientific literature to which he could refer or many scientific
   colleagues with whom he could discuss the theories. Most physicists
   agree that three of those papers (on Brownian motion, the photoelectric
   effect, and special relativity) deserved Nobel Prizes. Only the paper
   on the photoelectric effect would be mentioned by the Nobel committee
   in the award; at the time of the award, it had the most unchallenged
   experimental evidence behind it, although the Nobel committee expressed
   the opinion that Einstein's other work would be confirmed in due
   course.

   Some might regard the award for the photoelectric effect ironic, not
   only because Einstein is far better-known for relativity, but also
   because the photoelectric effect is a quantum phenomenon, and Einstein
   became somewhat disenchanted with the path quantum theory would take.

   Einstein submitted this series of papers to the "Annalen der Physik".
   They are commonly referred to as the " Annus Mirabilis Papers" (from
   Annus mirabilis, Latin for 'year of wonders'). The International Union
   of Pure and Applied Physics ( IUPAP) commemorated the 100th year of the
   publication of Einstein's extensive work in 1905 as the ' World Year of
   Physics 2005'.

   The first paper, named "On a Heuristic Viewpoint Concerning the
   Production and Transformation of Light", ("Über einen die Erzeugung und
   Verwandlung des Lichtes betreffenden heuristischen Gesichtspunkt") was
   specifically cited for his Nobel Prize. In this paper, Einstein extends
   Planck's hypothesis (E = hν) of discrete energy elements to his own
   hypothesis that electromagnetic energy is absorbed or emitted by matter
   in quanta of hν (where h is Planck's constant and ν is the frequency of
   the light), proposing a new law

          E_{\mathrm{max}} = h\nu - P\,

   to account for the photoelectric effect, as well as other properties of
   photoluminescence and photoionization. In later papers, Einstein used
   this law to describe the Volta effect (1906), the production of
   secondary cathode rays (1909) and the high-frequency limit of
   Bremsstrahlung (1911). Einstein's key contribution is his assertion
   that energy quantization is a general, intrinsic property of light,
   rather than a particular constraint of the interaction between matter
   and light, as Planck believed. Another, often overlooked result of this
   paper was Einstein's excellent estimate (6.17 \times 10^23) of
   Avogadro's number (6.02 \times 10^23). However, Einstein does not
   propose that light is a particle in this paper; the "photon" concept
   was not proposed until 1909 (see below).

   His second article in 1905, named "On the Motion—Required by the
   Molecular Kinetic Theory of Heat—of Small Particles Suspended in a
   Stationary Liquid", (" Über die von der molekularkinetischen Theorie
   der Wärme geforderte Bewegung von in ruhenden Flüssigkeiten
   suspendierten Teilchen") covered his study of Brownian motion, and
   provided empirical evidence for the existence of atoms. Before this
   paper, atoms were recognized as a useful concept, but physicists and
   chemists hotly debated whether atoms were real entities. Einstein's
   statistical discussion of atomic behaviour gave experimentalists a way
   to count atoms by looking through an ordinary microscope. Wilhelm
   Ostwald, one of the leaders of the anti-atom school, later told Arnold
   Sommerfeld that he had been converted to a belief in atoms by
   Einstein's complete explanation of Brownian motion. Brownian motion was
   also explained by Louis Bachelier in 1900.

   Einstein's third paper that year, "On the Electrodynamics of Moving
   Bodies" ("Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper"), was published in June
   1905. This paper introduced the special theory of relativity, a theory
   of time, distance, mass and energy which was consistent with
   electromagnetism, but omitted the force of gravity. While developing
   this paper, Einstein wrote to Mileva about "our work on relative
   motion", and this has led some to speculate that Mileva played a part
   in its development.

   A few historians of science believe that Einstein and his wife were
   both aware that the famous French mathematical physicist Henri Poincaré
   had already published the equations of relativity, a few weeks before
   Einstein submitted his paper. Most believe their work was independent
   and varied in many crucial ways, namely, regarding the "ether"
   (Einstein denied ether, Poincaré considered it superfluous). Similarly,
   it is debatable if he knew the 1904 paper of Hendrik Antoon Lorentz
   which contained most of the theory and to which Poincaré referred. Most
   historians, however, believe that Einsteinian relativity varied in many
   key ways from other theories of relativity which were circulating at
   the time, and that many of the questions about priority stem from the
   misleading trope of portraying Einstein as a genius working in total
   isolation. Although Einstein discussed physics with Mileva, there is no
   solid evidence that she made any significant contribution to his work.

   In a fourth paper, "Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy
   Content?", ("Ist die Trägheit eines Körpers von seinem Energieinhalt
   abhängig?"), published late in 1905, he showed that from relativity's
   axioms, it is possible to deduce the famous equation which shows the
   equivalence between matter and energy. The energy equivalence (E) of
   some amount of mass (m) is that mass times the speed of light (c)
   squared: E = mc^2. However, it was Poincaré who in 1900 first published
   the "energy equation" in slightly different form, namely as:
   m = E / c^2 — see also relativity priority dispute.

Middle years

   Einstein at the 1911 Solvay Conference.
   Einstein at the 1911 Solvay Conference.

   In 1906, Einstein was promoted to technical examiner second class. In
   1908, Einstein was licensed in Bern, Switzerland, as a Privatdozent
   (unsalaried teacher at a university). During this time, Einstein
   described why the sky is blue in his paper on the phenomenon of
   critical opalescence, which shows the cumulative effect of scattering
   of light by individual molecules in the atmosphere. In 1911, Einstein
   became first associate professor at the University of Zürich, and
   shortly afterwards full professor at the German language-section of the
   Charles University of Prague. While at Prague, Einstein published a
   paper calling on astronomers to test two predictions of his developing
   theory of relativity: a bending of light in a gravitational field,
   measurable at a solar eclipse; and a redshift of solar spectral lines
   relative to spectral lines produced on Earth's surface. A young German
   astronomer, Erwin Freundlich, began collaborating with Einstein and
   alerted other astronomers around the world about Einstein's
   astronomical tests. In 1912, Einstein returned to Zürich in order to
   become full professor at the ETH Zürich. At that time, he worked
   closely with the mathematician Marcel Grossmann, who introduced him to
   Riemannian geometry. In 1912, Einstein started to refer to time as the
   fourth dimension (although H.G. Wells had done this earlier, in 1895 in
   The Time Machine).

   In 1914, just before the start of World War I, Einstein settled in
   Berlin as professor at the local university and became a member of the
   Prussian Academy of Sciences. He took Prussian citizenship. From 1914
   to 1933, he served as director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for
   Physics in Berlin. He also held the position of extraordinary professor
   at the University of Leiden from 1920 until 1946, where he regularly
   gave guest lectures.

   In 1917, Einstein published "On the Quantum Mechanics of Radiation"
   ("Zur Quantentheorie der Strahlung," Physkalische Zeitschrift 18,
   121–128). This article introduced the concept of stimulated emission,
   the physical principle that allows light amplification in the laser. He
   also published a paper that year that used the general theory of
   relativity to model the behaviour of the entire universe, setting the
   stage for modern cosmology. In this work Einstein created the
   cosmological constant, which he later considered his "biggest blunder".

   On May 14, 1904, Albert and Mileva's first son, Hans Albert Einstein,
   was born. Their second son, Eduard Einstein, was born on July 28, 1910.
   Hans Albert became a professor of hydraulic engineering at the
   University of California, Berkeley, having little interaction with his
   father, but sharing his love for sailing and music. Eduard, the younger
   brother, intended to practice as a Freudian analyst but was
   institutionalized for schizophrenia and died in an asylum. Einstein
   divorced Mileva on February 14, 1919, and married his cousin Elsa
   Löwenthal (born Einstein: Löwenthal was the surname of her first
   husband, Max) on June 2, 1919. Elsa was Albert's first cousin
   (maternally) and his second cousin (paternally). She was three years
   older than Albert, and had nursed him to health after he had suffered a
   partial nervous breakdown combined with a severe stomach ailment; there
   were no children from this marriage.
   "Einstein theory triumphs," declared the New York Times on November 10,
   1919.
   Enlarge
   "Einstein theory triumphs," declared the New York Times on November 10,
   1919.

General relativity

   In November 1915, Einstein presented a series of lectures before the
   Prussian Academy of Sciences in which he described a new theory of
   gravity, known as general relativity. The final lecture ended with his
   introduction of an equation that replaced Newton's law of gravity, the
   Einstein field equation. This theory considered all observers to be
   equivalent, not only those moving at a uniform speed. In general
   relativity, gravity is no longer a force (as it is in Newton's law of
   gravity) but is a consequence of the curvature of space-time.
   1919 solar eclipse
   Enlarge
   1919 solar eclipse

   Einstein's published papers on general relativity were not available
   outside of Germany due to the war. News of Einstein's new theory
   reached English-speaking astronomers in England and America via Dutch
   physicists Hendrik Antoon Lorentz and Paul Ehrenfest and their
   colleague Willem de Sitter, Director of Leiden Observatory. Arthur
   Stanley Eddington in England, who was Secretary of the Royal
   Astronomical Society, asked de Sitter to write a series of articles in
   English for the benefit of astronomers. He was fascinated with the new
   theory and became a leading proponent and popularizer of relativity.
   Most astronomers did not like Einstein's geometrization of gravity and
   believed that his light bending and gravitational redshift predictions
   would not be correct. In 1917, astronomers at Mt. Wilson Observatory in
   southern California published results of spectroscopic analysis of the
   solar spectrum that seemed to indicate that there was no gravitational
   redshift in the Sun. In 1918, astronomers at Lick Observatory in
   northern California obtained photographs at a solar eclipse visible in
   the United States. After the war ended, they announced results claiming
   that Einstein's general relativity prediction of light bending was
   wrong; but they never published their results due to large probable
   errors.

   In May, 1919 during British solar-eclipse expeditions (carried out in
   Sobral, Ceará, Brazil, as well as on the island of Principe, at the
   west coast of Africa) Arthur Eddington supervised measurements of the
   bending of star light as it passed close to the Sun, resulting in star
   positions appearing further away from the Sun. This effect is called
   gravitational lensing and the positions of the stars observed were
   twice that which would be predicted by Newtonian physics. These
   observations match that predicted by the Field Equation of general
   relativity. Eddington announced that the results confirmed Einstein's
   prediction and The Times reported that confirmation on November 7 of
   that year, with the headline: "Revolution in science – New theory of
   the Universe – Newtonian ideas overthrown". Nobel laureate Max Born
   viewed General Relativity as the "greatest feat of human thinking about
   nature"; fellow laureate Paul Dirac called it "probably the greatest
   scientific discovery ever made". These comments and resulting publicity
   cemented Einstein's fame. He became world-famous – an unusual
   achievement for a scientist.

   Many scientists were still unconvinced for various reasons ranging from
   the scientific (disagreement with Einstein's interpretation of the
   experiments, belief in the ether or that an absolute frame of reference
   was necessary) to the psycho-social (conservatism, anti-Semitism). In
   Einstein's view, most of the objections were from experimentalists with
   very little understanding of the theory involved. Einstein's public
   fame which followed the 1919 article created resentment among these
   scientists, some of which lasted well into the 1930s.

   On March 30, 1921, Einstein went to New York to give a lecture on his
   new Theory of Relativity, the same year he was awarded the Nobel Prize.
   Though he is now most famous for his work on relativity, it was for his
   earlier work on the photoelectric effect that he was given the Prize,
   as his work on general relativity was still disputed. The Nobel
   committee decided that citing his less-contested theory in the Prize
   would gain more acceptance from the scientific community.

Copenhagen interpretation

   Einstein and Niels Bohr sparred over quantum theory during the 1920s.
   Photo taken by Paul Ehrenfest during their visit to Leiden in December
   1925
   Enlarge
   Einstein and Niels Bohr sparred over quantum theory during the 1920s.
   Photo taken by Paul Ehrenfest during their visit to Leiden in December
   1925

   In 1909, Einstein presented a paper (Über die Entwicklung unserer
   Anschauungen über das Wesen und die Konstitution der Strahlung,
   available in its English translation The Development of Our Views on
   the Composition and Essence of Radiation) to a gathering of physicists
   on the history of aether theories and, more importantly, on the
   quantization of light. In this and an earlier 1909 paper, Einstein
   showed that the energy quanta introduced by Max Planck also carried a
   well-defined momentum and acted in many respects as if they were
   independent, point-like particles. This paper marks the introduction of
   the modern "photon" concept (although the term itself was introduced
   much later, in a 1926 paper by Gilbert N. Lewis). Even more
   importantly, Einstein showed that light must be simultaneously a wave
   and a particle, and foretold correctly that physics stood on the brink
   of a revolution that would require them to unite these dual natures of
   light. However, his own proposal for a solution — that Maxwell's
   equations for electromagnetic fields be modified to allow wave
   solutions that are bound to singularities of the field — was never
   developed, although it may have influenced Louis de Broglie's pilot
   wave hypothesis for quantum mechanics.

Determinism

   Beginning in the mid-1920s, as the original quantum theory was replaced
   with a new theory of quantum mechanics, Einstein voiced his objections
   to the Copenhagen interpretation of the new equations. His opposition
   in this regard would continue all his life. The majority see the reason
   for his objection in terms of the view that he was a rigid determinist
   (see determinism). They would cite a 1926 letter to Max Born, where
   Einstein made the remark which history recalls the most:

     Quantum mechanics is certainly imposing. But an inner voice tells me
     it is not yet the real thing. The theory says a lot, but does not
     really bring us any closer to the secret of the Old One. I, at any
     rate, am convinced that He does not throw dice.

   To this, Bohr, who sparred with Einstein on quantum theory, retorted,
   "Stop telling God what He must do!" The Bohr-Einstein debates on
   foundational aspects of quantum mechanics happened during the Solvay
   Conferences. Another important part of Einstein's viewpoint is the
   famous 1935 paper written by Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen. Some
   physicists see this work as further supporting the notion that Einstein
   was a determinist.

   There is a case to be made, however, for a quite different view of
   Einstein's objections to quantum orthodoxy. Einstein himself made
   further statements beyond that just given, and an emphatic comment on
   the matter was made by his contemporary Wolfgang Pauli. The above 'God
   does not play dice' quotation was something stated quite early, and
   Einstein's later statements were concerned with other issues. The
   Wolfgang Pauli quotation is as follows:

     …I was unable to recognize Einstein whenever you talked about him in
     either your letter or your manuscript. It seemed to me as if you had
     erected some dummy Einstein for yourself, which you then knocked
     down with great pomp. In particular Einstein does not consider the
     concept of `determinism' to be as fundamental as it is frequently
     held to be (as he told me emphatically many times) …he disputes that
     he uses as a criterion for the admissibility of a theory the
     question "Is it rigorously deterministic?"… he was not at all
     annoyed with you, but only said that you were a person who will not
     listen.
     (emphasis due to Pauli)

Incompleteness and Realism

   The Albert Einstein Memorial, Washington DC at the National Academy of
   Sciences in Washington, DC.
   Enlarge
   The Albert Einstein Memorial, Washington DC at the National Academy of
   Sciences in Washington, DC.

   Many of Einstein's comments indicate his belief that quantum mechanics
   is 'incomplete'. This was first asserted in the famous 1935 Einstein,
   Podolsky, Rosen ( EPR paradox) paper, and it appears again in the 1949
   book Albert Einstein, Philosopher-Scientist. The "EPR" paper — entitled
   "Can Quantum Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be Considered
   Complete?" — concluded: "While we have thus shown that the wave
   function does not provide a complete description of the physical
   reality, we left open the question of whether or not such a description
   exists. We believe, however, that such a theory is possible."

   In the Schilpp book, Einstein sets up a fascinating experimental
   proposal somewhat similar to Schrödinger's cat. He begins by addressing
   the problem of the radioactive decay of an atom. If one begins with an
   undecayed atom and one waits a certain time interval, then quantum
   theory gives the probability that the atom has undergone the
   transformation of radioactive decay. Einstein then imagines the
   following system as a means to detect the decay:


   Albert Einstein

     Rather than considering a system which comprises only a radioactive
   atom (and its process of transformation), one considers a system which
   includes also the means for ascertaining the radioactive transformation
   — for example, a Geiger-counter with automatic registration mechanism.
   Let this include a registration-strip, moved by a clockwork, upon which
   a mark is made by tripping the counter. True, from the point of view of
         quantum mechanics this total system is very complex and its
       configuration space is of very high dimension. But there is in
       principle no objection to treating this entire system from the
     standpoint of quantum mechanics. Here too the theory determines the
     probability of each configuration of all coordinates for every time
   instant. If one considers all configurations of the coordinates, for a
     time large compared with the average decay time of the radioactive
    atom, there will be (at most) one such registration-mark on the paper
    strip. To each co-ordinate- configuration must correspond a definite
    position of the mark on the paper strip. But, inasmuch as the theory
            yields only the relative probability of the thinkable
    coordinate-configurations, it also offers only relative probabilities
      for the positions of the mark on the paperstrip, but no definite
                           location for this mark.


   Albert Einstein

   Einstein continues:


   Albert Einstein

          If we attempt [to work with] the interpretation that the
      quantum-theoretical description is to be understood as a complete
         description of the individual system, we are forced to the
    interpretation that the location of the mark on the strip is nothing
     which belongs to the system per se, but that the existence of that
        location is essentially dependent upon the carrying out of an
    observation made on the registration-strip. Such an interpretation is
   certainly by no means absurd from a purely logical point of standpoint;
       yet there is hardly anyone who would be inclined to consider it
      seriously. For, in the macroscopic sphere it simply is considered
   certain that one must adhere to the program of a realistic description
   in space and time; whereas in the sphere of microscopic situations, one
      is more readily inclined to give up, or at least to modify, this
                                  program."
                         (emphasis due to Einstein)


   Albert Einstein

   Einstein never rejected probabilistic techniques and thinking, in and
   of themselves. Einstein himself was a great statistician, using
   statistical analysis in his works on Brownian motion and
   photoelectricity and in papers published before 1905; Einstein had even
   discovered Gibbs ensembles. According to the majority of physicists,
   however, he believed that indeterminism constituted a criteria for
   strong objection to a physical theory. Pauli's testimony contradicts
   this, and Einstein's own statements indicate a focus on incompleteness,
   as his major concern.

   More recent times have given us another twist to this business. John
   Stewart Bell discovered further interesting results ( Bell's Theorem
   and Bell's inequality) in his researches on the Einstein, Podolsky, and
   Rosen paper. There is a divergence in thinking as to the conclusions
   derivable from this, in conjunction with the EPR analysis. According to
   Bell, quantum nonlocality has been established, while others see the
   death of determinism.

Summary

   Whatever his inner convictions, Einstein agreed that the quantum theory
   was the best available, but he looked for a more "complete"
   explanation, i.e., either more deterministic or one that could more
   fundamentally explain the reason for probabilities in a logical way. He
   could not abandon the belief that physics described the laws that
   govern "real things", nor could he abandon the belief that there are no
   explanations that contain contradictions, which had driven him to his
   successes explaining photons, relativity, atoms, and gravity.

Bose-Einstein statistics

   In 1924, Einstein received a short paper from a young Indian physicist
   named Satyendra Nath Bose describing light as a gas of photons and
   asking for Einstein's assistance in publication. Einstein realized that
   the same statistics could be applied to atoms, and published an article
   in German (then the lingua franca of physics) which described Bose's
   model and explained its implications. Bose-Einstein statistics now
   describe any assembly of these indistinguishable particles known as
   bosons. The Bose-Einstein condensate phenomenon was predicted in the
   1920s by Bose and Einstein, based on Bose's work on the statistical
   mechanics of photons, which was then formalized and generalized by
   Einstein. The first such condensate in alkali gases was produced by
   Eric Cornell and Carl Wieman in 1995 at the University of Colorado at
   Boulder, though Bose-Einstein Condensation has been observed in
   superfluid Helium-4 since the 1930s. Einstein's original sketches on
   this theory were recovered in August 2005 in the library of Leiden
   University.

   Einstein also assisted Erwin Schrödinger in the development of the
   quantum Boltzmann distribution, a mixed classical and quantum
   mechanical gas model although he realized that this was less
   significant than the Bose-Einstein model and declined to have his name
   included on the paper.

Einstein refrigerator

   In 1926, Einstein and former student Leó Szilárd co-invented the
   Einstein refrigerator. On November 11, 1930, U.S. Patent 1,781,541 was
   awarded to Albert Einstein and Leó Szilárd for the refrigerator. The
   patent covered a thermodynamic refrigeration cycle providing cooling
   with no moving parts, at a constant pressure, with only heat as an
   input. The refrigeration cycle used ammonia, butane, and water.

World War II

   When Adolf Hitler came to power in January 1933, Einstein was a guest
   professor at Princeton University, a position which he took in December
   1932, after an invitation from the American educator, Abraham Flexner.
   In 1933, the Nazis passed " The Law of the Restoration of the Civil
   Service," which forced all Jewish university professors out of their
   jobs. Throughout the 1930s, a campaign to label Einstein's work as
   "Jewish physics"—in contrast with "German" or "Aryan physics"—was led
   by Nobel laureates Philipp Lenard and Johannes Stark. With the
   assistance of the SS, the Deutsche Physik supporters worked to publish
   pamphlets and textbooks denigrating Einstein's theories and attempted
   to politically blacklist German physicists who taught them, notably
   Werner Heisenberg. Einstein renounced his Prussian citizenship and
   stayed in the United States, where he was given permanent residency. He
   accepted a position at the newly founded Institute for Advanced Study
   in Princeton, New Jersey, where he concentrated on developing a unified
   field theory (see below). Einstein became an American citizen in 1940,
   though he still retained Swiss citizenship.

   In 1939, under the encouragement of Szilárd, Einstein sent a letter to
   President Franklin Delano Roosevelt urging the study of nuclear fission
   for military purposes, under fears that the Nazi government would be
   first to develop nuclear weapons. Roosevelt started a small
   investigation into the matter which eventually became the massive
   Manhattan Project. Einstein himself did not work on the bomb project,
   however, and, according to Linus Pauling, he later regretted having
   signed this letter.

   The International Rescue Committee was founded in 1933 at the request
   of Albert Einstein to assist opponents of Adolf Hitler.

   For more information, see the section below on Einstein's political
   views.

Unified field theory

   Einstein's research efforts after developing the theory of general
   relativity consisted primarily of a long series of attempts to
   generalize his theory of gravitation in order to unify and simplify the
   fundamental laws of physics, particularly gravitation and
   electromagnetism. In 1950, he described this work, which he referred to
   as the Unified Field Theory, in a Scientific American article. Einstein
   was guided by a belief in a single origin for the entire set of
   physical laws.

   Einstein became increasingly isolated in his research on a generalized
   theory of gravitation and his attempts were ultimately unsuccessful. In
   particular, his pursuit of a unification of the fundamental forces
   ignored work in the physics community at large (and vice versa), most
   notably the discovery of the strong and weak nuclear forces, which were
   not understood independently until around 1970, fifteen years after
   Einstein's death. Einstein's goal of unifying the laws of physics under
   a single model survives in the current drive for unification of the
   forces.

Final years

   In 1948, Einstein served on the original committee which resulted in
   the founding of Brandeis University. A portrait of Einstein was taken
   by Yousuf Karsh on February 11 of that same year. In 1952, the Israeli
   government proposed to Einstein that he take the post of second
   president. He declined the offer, and is believed to be the only United
   States citizen ever to have been offered a position as a foreign head
   of state. Einstein's refusal might have stemmed from his disapproval of
   some of the Israeli policies during the war of independence.

   He died at 1:15 AM in Princeton hospital in Princeton, New Jersey, on
   April 18, 1955 at the age of 76 from internal bleeding, which was
   caused by the rupture of an aortic aneurism, leaving the Generalized
   Theory of Gravitation unsolved. The only person present at his
   deathbed, a hospital nurse, said that just before his death he mumbled
   several words in German that she did not understand. He was cremated
   without ceremony on the same day he died at Trenton, New Jersey, in
   accordance with his wishes. His ashes were scattered at an undisclosed
   location.

   An autopsy was performed on Einstein by Dr. Thomas Stoltz Harvey, who
   removed and preserved his brain. Harvey found nothing unusual with his
   brain, but in 1999 further analysis by a team at McMaster University
   revealed that his parietal operculum region was missing and, to
   compensate, his inferior parietal lobe was 15% wider than normal. The
   inferior parietal region is responsible for mathematical thought,
   visuospatial cognition, and imagery of movement. Einstein's brain also
   contained 73% more glial cells than the average brain.

Beliefs

Religious views

   Einstein was an Honorary Associate of the Rationalist Press Association
   beginning in 1934, and was an admirer of Ethical Culture. He served on
   the advisory board of the First Humanist Society of New York.

Quotations on religion

          I came — though the child of entirely irreligious (Jewish)
          parents — to a deep religiousness, which, however, reached an
          abrupt end at the age of twelve.

          I do not think that it is necessarily the case that science and
          religion are natural opposites. In fact, I think that there is a
          very close connection between the two. Further, I think that
          science without religion is lame and, conversely, that religion
          without science is blind. Both are important and should work
          hand-in-hand.

          A Jew who sheds his faith along the way, or who even picks up a
          different one, is still a Jew.

          It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious
          convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do
          not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but
          have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be
          called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the
          structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.

   As an adult, he called his religion a "cosmic religious sense".

   In The World As I See It he wrote:

          You will hardly find one among the profounder sort of scientific
          minds without a peculiar religious feeling of his own. But it is
          different from the religion of the naive man.

          For the latter God is a being from whose care one hopes to
          benefit and whose punishment one fears; a sublimation of a
          feeling similar to that of a child for its father, a being to
          whom one stands to some extent in a personal relation, however
          deeply it may be tinged with awe.

          But the scientist is possessed by the sense of universal
          causation. The future, to him, is every whit as necessary and
          determined as the past. There is nothing divine about morality,
          it is a purely human affair. His religious feeling takes the
          form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law,
          which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared
          with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings
          is an utterly insignificant reflection.

   In response to the telegrammed question of New York's Rabbi Herbert S.
   Goldstein in 1929: "Do you believe in God? Stop. Answer paid 50 words."
   Einstein replied "I believe in Spinoza's God, Who reveals Himself in
   the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God Who concerns Himself with
   the fate and the doings of mankind." Note that Einstein replied in only
   25 (German) words. Spinoza was a naturalistic pantheist.

Scientific philosophy

   In the "Copenhagen Interpretation" section (1.3.2) above, reference was
   made to the disagreement regarding Einstein's actual position regarding
   the quantum theory. The famous quotation "God does not play dice" is
   often used to support the majority view that he disliked the theory due
   to its indeterminism.

   Others make the case for a different view. They note that the 1926
   "Dice" quotation occurred when the quantum theory was just in its first
   year of discovery and in the subsequent 30 years of his life, one would
   be hard pressed to find a similar comment from the man. Instead
   Einstein focused on the conceptually independent subject of
   'incompleteness'. This attention is shown both in his 1935 "EPR" paper,
   and in his 1949 Geiger counter registration strip thought-experiment
   (see section 1.3.2.2). Further evidence against the
   "Einstein-determinist" view is W. Pauli's quotation: "he (Einstein)
   disputes that he uses as a criterion for the admissibility of a theory
   the question 'Is it rigorously deterministic?'".

   The following general assessment was given by his colleague Nathan
   Rosen:

          I think that the things which impressed me most were the
          simplicity of his thinking and his faith in the ability of the
          human mind to understand the workings of nature. Throughout his
          life, Einstein believed the human reason was capable of leading
          to theories that would provide correct descriptions of physical
          phenomena. In building a theory, his approach had something in
          common with that of an artist; he would aim for simplicity and
          beauty (and beauty for him was, after all, essentially
          simplicity). The crucial question that he would ask, when
          weighing an element of a theory was: "Is it reasonable?" No
          matter how successful a theory appeared to be, if it seemed to
          him not to be reasonable (the German word that he used was
          "vernunftig"), he was convinced that the theory could not
          provide a really fundamental understanding of nature.

Political views

   Einstein and Solomon Mikhoels, the chairman of the Soviet Jewish
   Anti-Fascist Committee, in 1943.
   Enlarge
   Einstein and Solomon Mikhoels, the chairman of the Soviet Jewish
   Anti-Fascist Committee, in 1943.

   Einstein considered himself a pacifist and humanitarian, and in later
   years, a committed democratic socialist. He once said, "I believe
   Gandhi's views were the most enlightened of all the political men of
   our time. We should strive to do things in his spirit: not to use
   violence for fighting for our cause, but by non-participation of
   anything you believe is evil." Deeply influenced by Gandhi, Einstein
   once said of Gandhi, "Generations to come will scarce believe that such
   a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth."
   Einstein's views were sometimes controversial. In a 1949 article
   entitled "Why Socialism?", Albert Einstein described the "predatory
   phase of human development", exemplified by a chaotic capitalist
   society, as a source of evil to be overcome. He disapproved of the
   totalitarian regimes in the Soviet Union and elsewhere, and argued in
   favour of a democratic socialist system which would combine a planned
   economy with a deep respect for human rights. Einstein was a co-founder
   of the liberal German Democratic Party and a member of the
   AFL-CIO-affiliated union the American Federation of Teachers.

   Einstein was very much involved in the Civil Rights movement. He was a
   close friend of Paul Robeson for over 20 years. Einstein was a member
   of several civil rights groups (including the Princeton chapter of the
   NAACP) many of which were headed by Paul Robeson. He served as co-chair
   with Paul Robeson of the American Crusade to End Lynching. When W.E.B.
   DuBois was frivolously charged with being a communist spy during the
   McCarthy era while he was in his 80s, Einstein volunteered as a
   character witness in the case. The case was dismissed shortly after it
   was announced that he was to appear in that capacity. Einstein was
   quoted as saying that "racism is America's greatest disease".

   The U.S. FBI kept a 1,427 page file on his activities and recommended
   that he be barred from immigrating to the United States under the Alien
   Exclusion Act, alleging that Einstein "believes in, advises, advocates,
   or teaches a doctrine which, in a legal sense, as held by the courts in
   other cases, 'would allow anarchy to stalk in unmolested' and result in
   'government in name only'", among other charges. They also alleged that
   Einstein "was a member, sponsor, or affiliated with thirty-four
   communist fronts between 1937 and 1954" and "also served as honorary
   chairman for three communist organizations". Many of the documents in
   the file were submitted to the FBI, mainly by civilian political
   groups, and not written by the FBI.

   Einstein opposed tyrannical forms of government, and for this reason
   (and his Jewish background), opposed the Nazi regime and fled Germany
   shortly after it came to power. Einstein initially favored construction
   of the atomic bomb, in order to ensure that Hitler did not do so first,
   and even sent a letter to President Roosevelt (dated August 2, 1939,
   before World War II broke out, and probably written by Leó Szilárd)
   encouraging him to initiate a program to create a nuclear weapon.
   Roosevelt responded to this by setting up a committee for the
   investigation of using uranium as a weapon, which in a few years was
   superseded by the Manhattan Project.

   After the war, though, Einstein lobbied for nuclear disarmament and a
   world government: "I do not know how the Third World War will be
   fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
   A 5 Israeli pound note from 1968 with the portrait of Einstein.
   Enlarge
   A 5 Israeli pound note from 1968 with the portrait of Einstein.

   While Einstein was a supporter of Zionism in the cultural sense, he
   often expressed reservations regarding its application in terms of
   nationalism. During a speech at the Commodore Hotel in New York, he
   told the crowd "My awareness of the essential nature of Judaism resists
   the idea of a Jewish state with borders, an army, and a measure of
   temporal power, no matter how modest. I am afraid of the inner damage
   Judaism will sustain." He also signed an open letter published in the
   New York Times condemning Menachem Begin and his nationalistic Herut
   party, especially for the treatment of the indigenous Arabs at Deir
   Yassin by Herut’s predecessor Irgun.

   Despite these reservations, he was active in the establishment of the
   Hebrew University in Jerusalem, which published (1930) a volume titled
   About Zionism: Speeches and Lectures by Professor Albert Einstein, and
   to which Einstein bequeathed his papers. In later life, in 1952, he was
   offered the post of second president of the newly created state of
   Israel, but declined the offer, saying that he lacked the necessary
   people skills. However, Einstein was deeply committed to the welfare of
   Israel and the Jewish people for the rest of his life.

   Albert Einstein was closely associated with plans for what the press
   called "a Jewish-sponsored non-quota university," from August 19, 1946,
   with the announcement of the formation of the Albert Einstein
   Foundation for Higher Learning, Inc. until June 22, 1947, when he
   withdrew support and barred the use of his name by the foundation. The
   university opened in 1948 as Brandeis University.

   Einstein, along with Albert Schweitzer and Bertrand Russell, fought
   against nuclear tests and bombs. As his last public act, and just days
   before his death, he signed the Russell-Einstein Manifesto, which led
   to the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs.

Citizenship

   Einstein was born a German citizen. At the age of 17, on January 28,
   1896, he was released from his German citizenship by his own request
   and with the approval of his father. He remained stateless for five
   years. On February 21, 1901, he gained Swiss citizenship, which he
   never revoked. Einstein obtained Prussian citizenship in April 1914
   when he entered the Prussian civil service, but due to the political
   situation and the persecution of Jewish people in Nazi Germany, he left
   civil service in March 1933 and thus also lost the Prussian
   citizenship. On October 1, 1940, Einstein became an American citizen.
   He remained both an American and a Swiss citizen until his death on
   April 18, 1955.

Popularity and cultural impact

   According to "A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History",
   Einstein is "the greatest scientist of the twentieth century and one of
   the supreme intellects of all time". His popularity has also led to
   widespread use of Einstein's image in advertising and merchandising,
   including the registration of "Albert Einstein" as a trademark.

Entertainment

   Albert Einstein has been the subject of and inspiration for a number of
   novels, films and plays, including Jean-Claude Carrier's 2005 French
   novel, Einstein S'il Vous Plait (Please Mr Einstein), Nicolas Roeg's
   film Insignificance, Fred Schepisi's film I.Q. (where he was portrayed
   by Walter Matthau), Alan Lightman's collection of short stories
   Einstein's Dreams, and Steve Martin's comedic play Picasso at the Lapin
   Agile. He was the subject of Philip Glass's groundbreaking 1976 opera
   Einstein on the Beach. His humorous side is also the subject of Ed
   Metzger's one-man play Albert Einstein: The Practical Bohemian.

   He is often used as a model for depictions of mad scientists and
   absent-minded professors in works of fiction; his own character and
   distinctive hairstyle suggest eccentricity, or even lunacy, and are
   widely copied or exaggerated. TIME magazine writer Frederic Golden
   referred to Einstein as "a cartoonist's dream come true."

   On Einstein's 72nd birthday in 1951, the UPI photographer Arthur Sasse
   was trying to persuade him to smile for the camera. Having done this
   for the photographer many times that day, Einstein stuck out his tongue
   instead. The image has become an icon in pop culture for its contrast
   of the genius scientist displaying a moment of levity. Yahoo Serious,
   an Australian film maker, used the photo as an inspiration for the
   intentionally anachronistic movie Young Einstein. The image is also
   used in a poster used in the UK as part of dyslexia education, which
   has a string of posters showing great scientists, thinkers and artists
   and talks about the unfounded (not specified within the posters) claims
   that they had/have dyslexia.

Speculation and controversy

   There are innumerable speculations which suggest that Einstein was a
   poor student, a slow learner, or had a form of autism (such as
   High-functioning autism, or Asperger syndrome), dyslexia, and/or
   attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. According to the biography by
   Pais (page 36, among others), such speculations are unfounded. Some
   researchers have periodically claimed otherwise, but most historians
   and doctors are skeptical of retrospective medical diagnoses,
   especially for complex and, in the case of ADHD,
   diagnostically-controversial conditions. Examinations of Albert
   Einstein's brain after his death have not produced any conclusive
   evidence of any particular condition.
   Einstein's matura, obtained in 1896. 6 is the best possible mark.
   Enlarge
   Einstein's matura, obtained in 1896. 6 is the best possible mark.

   The recurring rumor that Einstein failed in mathematics during his
   education is untrue. On the contrary, Einstein always showed great
   talent at mathematics; when he obtained his matura, he obtained the
   best mark (6/6) in algebra, geometry, physics and history, among all of
   the classes that he took. The grading system of Switzerland, where 6 is
   the best mark, may have been confused with the German system, in which
   1 is the best mark. As can be seen from his Matura grades, indicated in
   the graphic to the right (also found in "Einstein: A Hundred Years of
   Relativity" by W. Andrew Robinson, p.27), Albert Einstein failed French
   (3/6) and received poor grades (4/6) in drawing, (both artistic- and
   technical) and geography. His performance (5/6) in all other subjects
   studied in high school, namely Natural history, German literature and
   Italian literature as well as chemistry, was significantly above
   average. Furthermore, Robinson states on pages 33 through to 35 that
   Einstein's interests mainly spanned in science and mathematics and that
   he disliked "games and physical training". Einstein also had problems
   with the heavy emphasis on the humanities; that is on classical studies
   and to a "lesser extent German history and literature, to the detriment
   of modern foreign languages." Robinson states that this explains
   Einstein's lack of competence in French literature and English studies,
   for instance. In 1920 Einstein told a Berlin interviewer that the
   school of matriculation exam should be abolished. "Let us return to
   Nature, which upholds the principle of getting the maximum amount of
   effect from the minimum effort, whereas the matriculation test does
   exactly the opposite."

   As for Einstein's childhood trait of delayed speech development, a few
   have speculated that Einstein had elective mutism and may have refused
   to speak until he could do so in complete sentences. Though this
   concept fits with a profile of a sensitive perfectionist (when Einstein
   did begin to speak, he would often softly "rehearse" what he meant to
   say before uttering the statement outright), it is somewhat dated
   insofar as selective mutism- as it is now known- is no longer
   considered to be a matter of willful silence: it presently refers to
   individuals with verbal ability who cannot speak in certain social
   circumstances. This would not apply to Einstein, who could not speak at
   all until the time that he did.

   According to neuroscientist Steven Pinker, the autopsy of Einstein's
   brain exhibited a more likely possibility that Einstein, as a child,
   had been displaying a lesser known type of language delay relating to
   extraordinary and rapid prenatal development of areas of the brain
   responsible for spatial and analytical reasoning which, in competing
   for "brain real estate", had temporarily robbed resources from
   functions of the brain responsible for speech development. Pinker and
   others have extended this speculation to explain the asynchronous
   development of other famously gifted late-talkers, such as
   mathematician Julia Robinson, pianists Arthur Rubinstein and Clara
   Schumann, and physicists Richard Feynman and Edward Teller, to name a
   few, who were also said to have shared several of Einstein's other
   childhood peculiarities, such as monumental tantrums, rugged
   individualism and highly selective interests. A syndrome — the
   "Einstein syndrome" — was even coined by journalist and economist
   Thomas Sowell as a non-pathologizing means to describe this series of
   traits seen in a small percentage (though how small is debatable) of
   late-talking children who go on to develop into analytically advanced
   and socially conscious adults without (or in spite of) intense
   therapeutic intervention.

Personal relations

   Letters written by Einstein to his relatives and kept at the Hebrew
   University of Jerusalem, have revealed that during the course of his
   life, he had a dozen lovers, two of whom he married. Barbara Wolff of
   the Hebrew University's Albert Einstein Archives has made public about
   3,500 pages of correspondence including letters to his first and second
   wives and children between the years 1912–1955. In letters to his
   second wife Elsa and her daughter Margot he claimed that he had been
   showered with unwanted attention from women. One of his lovers, a
   Berlin socialite Ethel Michanowski, "followed me [to England], and her
   chasing me is getting out of control." His son Eduard's schizophrenia
   troubled Einstein greatly, and he often expressed the idea that it
   would have been better if Eduard had not been born. He adored his
   stepdaughter and in a letter to Elsa in 1924, he writes: "I love her
   [Margot] as much as if she were my own daughter, perhaps even more so,
   since who knows what kind of brat she would have become [had I fathered
   her]." The letters have been claimed as evidence to dispel myths that
   Einstein was cold toward his family.

Licensing

   Einstein bequeathed his estate, as well as the use of his image (see
   personality rights), to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Einstein
   actively supported the university during his life and this support
   continues with the royalties received from licensing activities. The
   Roger Richman Agency licences the commercial use of the name "Albert
   Einstein" and associated imagery and likenesses of Einstein, as agent
   for the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. As head licensee the agency can
   control commercial usage of Einstein's name which does not comply with
   certain standards (e.g., when Einstein's name is used as a trademark,
   the ™ symbol must be used). As of May, 2005, the Roger Richman Agency
   was acquired by Corbis.

Honours

   Einstein has received a number of posthumous honours. For example:
     * In 1999, he was named Person of the Century by TIME magazine.
     * Also in 1999, Gallup Poll recorded him as the fourth most admired
       person of the 20th century.
     * The year 2005 was designated as the " World Year of Physics" by
       UNESCO for its coinciding with the centennial of the " Annus
       Mirabilis" papers.
     * The National Academy of Sciences commissioned the " Albert Einstein
       Memorial", a monumental bronze sculptor by Robert Berks, at its
       Washington, D.C. campus, adjacent to the National Mall.

   Among Einstein's many namesakes are:
     * a unit used in photochemistry, the einstein.
     * the chemical element 99, einsteinium.
     * the asteroid 2001 Einstein.
     * the Albert Einstein Award.
     * the Albert Einstein Peace Prize.
     * the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University
       opened in 1955.
     * the Albert Einstein Medical Centre in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Works by Einstein

   Einstein published over fifty scientific papers during his lifetime. He
   also published several non-scientific works, including About Zionism
   (1930), Why War? (1933, co-authored by Sigmund Freud), The World As I
   See It (1934), and Out of My Later Years (1950).

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