Albert Einstein was one of the most famous scientists of the 20th century. He is best known for his theory of relativity, which is a theory that explains the physical laws that govern how objects move. Einstein was also a very successful mathematician and physicist.
Einstein was born in Ulm, Germany in 1879. His father was a salesman and his mother was a housewife. Einstein showed signs of being a genius from an early age. When he was five years old, he began to learn mathematics on his own. By age 12, he had already mastered calculus.
In 1895, Einstein failed an entrance exam to an engineering school in Zurich, Switzerland. He then attended the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, where he studied physics and mathematics. After graduating in 1900, Einstein couldn’t find a job as a physicist, so he took a job as a patent clerk at the Swiss Patent Office in Bern.
While working at the patent office, Einstein continued to do scientific research on the side. In 1905, he published four papers that would change physics forever. These papers were on the topics of Brownian motion, photoelectric effect, special relativity, and mass-energy equivalence (E = mc2). The papers made him famous within the scientific community and earned him a teaching position at the University of Bern.
In 1909, Einstein became a professor at the German University in Prague. The following year, he returned to Zurich to take up a position at ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology). While working at ETH Zurich, Einstein completed his theory of general relativity . This theory explained gravity as being caused by curvature in spacetime . It also predicted phenomena such as black holes and gravitational waves , which were later confirmed by observations . In 1915 , Einstein published his paper on general relativity , which is considered one of his greatest accomplishments . After World War I ended , Einstein returned to Germany and became director ofthe Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics in Berlin . However , due to rising anti-Semitism , he decided to leave Germany permanently