Albert Einstein, one of the greatest physicists of all time.

Pillar of Modern Physics

The renowned German theoretical physicist Albert Einstein was legendary. Due to his contribution, twentieth-century physics reached an unprecedented height. He is most known for developing the Theory of Relativity; however, he also made a significant contribution to Quantum Mechanics, another pillar of Modern Physics.

In 1905 alone, Einstein published four papers that changed the scientific world forever. Those are related to Photo Electric Effect, Mass-Energy relationship, Special Theory of Relativity and Brownian Motion. In addition, he published more than 300 scientific and 150 non-scientific papers throughout his life.

Life and Work

Einstein was considered a genius, which is rather ironic as, throughout his young life, he was considered a failure by his father and his tutors in school. From a very young age, he was interested in Mathematics and Physics and absorbed algebra and Euclidean Geometry all by himself. By age 13, he became interested in Philosophy, and Kant became his favourite philosopher. At 16, he took the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School entrance examination in Zurich and excelled in Physics and Mathematics but scrapped through other general subjects. The principal of the polytechnic school advised him to attend the Argovian Cantanal School (gymnasium) in Aarau, Switzerland. Accordingly, he completed secondary education from there. Afterwards, he joined a four-year teaching diploma program in Mathematics and Physics at the Federal Polytechnic School and graduated.

After graduating, he had to take various odd jobs for sustenance and secured a job in Bern at the Swiss Patent Office as an assistant examiner. This job gave him ample opportunity for mathematical analysis and opened the door for his extensive research. With extreme patience, he pursued research but had to endure marital discord, loss of children. He also emigrated to the United States of America as he was a German-born Jew and was not safe in Switzerland.

His contributions

His path-breaking discoveries about gravity, photons etc., were not readily accepted by the scientific community. When he claimed that the path of light bends around a sufficiently heavy object, his idea was ridiculed as absurd. Although his theory paved the basis of quantum mechanics, he was not satisfied with its direction. He hoped there might be a unified theory that could relate quantum mechanics with classical mechanics. He could not find it, but renowned physicists are following his path till now.