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The Man Who Changed the Century
- from Veronica Sheriff
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- Shanksville-Stonycreek High School
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By Hannah Hunt
"Albert Einstein, a popular German theoretical physicist and mathematician during the early 1900’s, stated, “the true sign of intelligence is not knowledge, but imagination.” During his lifetime, he answered questions that had not been answered for centuries and came up with mathematically correct theories that blew the minds of other scientists in his generation. He discovered the general theory of relativity and the formula for energy. His discoveries have helped develop other inventions, such as the atomic bomb used in Hiroshima on December 31, 1946, and they continue to be used in today’s society.
Born on March 14, 1879 in Germany, Albert Einstein grew up with a small Jewish family. His father was salesman and engineer while his mother stayed at home. He had one older brother and one younger sister named Maja. He attended school at the Luitpold Gymnasium in Munich. He struggled with speech challenges, so he had Max Talmud, a polish medical student, tutor him. Then, in his teenage years, he published his first major paper, “The Investigation of the State of Aether in Magnetic Fields.”
When he turned eighteen, he dropped out of school and was admitted into the military. A few years later, he went back to highschool to get his diploma and was accepted into the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich. While attending Polytechnic, he fell in love with Mileva Maric from his physics class. In 1902, they had a daughter, Lieserl, who was put up for adoption. Once Einstein had a steady job working for the Swiss patent office, they got married and, later, had two sons. His marriage was not a happy one because they got divorced in 1919. Mileva had an emotional breakdown; however, Einstein married another girl a few months after the divorce. He continued to see other women during his second marriage, as well.
While working at the patent office, Albert Einstein first discovered the formula for energy on November 21, 1905. This famous equation is shown as
E = mc2
This equation demonstrates how mass can be thought to be a condensed form of energy. Although the calculations were correct, the formula went against the law of conservation of mass and law of conservation of energy. The law of conservation of mass states that all mass is conserved and the law of conservation of energy says that all energy is conserved. However, Einstein proved that mass and energy can convert into each other because mass and energy are essentially the same thing. In the end, Einstein changed the original concept of the law of conservation of mass and the law of conservation of energy.
On November 25, 1915, Albert Einstein published the general theory of relativity which explains how mass and energy warps spacetime. The equation is represented as
.
Despite how easy the equation appears to be, it is actually quite difficult to answer because it is enacted on a nonlinear system. He claimed that the speed of light variable was a constant and, later, he proved the hypothesis correct when he measured the velocity of light inside a vacuum with various size objects acting upon it. As he focused on this equation with various objects, he concluded that massive objects create a distortion in space-time.
Today, the general theory of relativity continues to inspire new inventions and theories. Although Global positioning systems do not move at the speed of light, they still are moving very fast; therefore, they use relativity. “The signals generated by the global positioning systems reach the ground stations on Earth. Since the stations have a higher gravitational pull, Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity equation is used to ensure precision and accuracy(Schutz).” Scientists make calculations as accurate as seven nanoseconds. Without the general theory of relativity, the GPS would be almost five miles off from the desired destination.
In 1921, Albert Einstein won the Nobel Prize for Physics because of his theory on the photoelectric effect. However, he was not awarded until the following year because his theories on relativity were still held questionable. In his speech, he still decided to talk about his thoughts of relativity, along with the photoelectric effect. While traveling the world to speak about his theories, Adolf Hitler began gaining power. Hitler labeled his work as “Jewish physics,” which meant that he was a Nazi target. Therefore, in 1933, he fled to the United States where he worked at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, New Jersey.
While in the United States, he worked on weapons for the Navy during World War 2. He also donated millions of dollars to the military by auctioning off manuscripts. A few years later, he became a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. After the war, he focused more on his relativity projects, specifically wormholes. He strongly believed in quantum theory; however, many people disagreed with that concept so he was isolated by other physicists. He had always felt like a loner, so he reserved his studies to only the colleagues he worked with.
On April 17, 1955, he was writing a speech for Israel’s seventh anniversary when he suddenly suffered from an abdominal aortic aneurysm. He was taken to the University Medical Center at Princeton but refused to have surgery. He said, “I want to go when I want. It is tasteless to prolong life artificially. I have done my share, it is time to go. I will do it elegantly.” The next morning, he died at the age of seventy-six. Without the permission of Einstein’s family, Thomas Stoltz Harvey autopsied his body and removed his brain. Today, his preserved brain is located at the Princeton University Medical Center.
Albert Einstein is known to be one of the most intelligent physicists of all time. He solved answers to questions that were far too difficult for any human before him to solve. During his time, he proved that the speed of light was a constant and that mass and energy can essentially be considered the same thing. Later, he won the Nobel Prize for Physics because of his photoelectric effect. Although he might have been ahead of his generation, his theories are mathematically correct and are highly popular today."
Works Cited
"Albert Einstein." Biography.com. A&E Networks Television, 25 Mar. 2017. Web. 27 Apr. 2017.
http://www.biography.com/people/albert-einstein-9285408
"Albert Einstein." ###i
Schutz, Bernard F. A First Course in General Relativity. Cambridge U Press 2016, Print