Albert Einstein The German-American physicist Albert Einstein, b. Ulm, Germany, Mar. 14, 1879, d. Princeton, N.J., Apr. 18, 1955, contributed more than any other scientist to the 20th-century vision of physical reality. In the wake of World War I, Einstein's theoriesespecially his theory of relativityseemed to many people to point to a pure quality of human thought, one far removed from the war and its aftermath. Seldom has a scientist received such public attention for having cultivated the fruit of pure learning. EARLY LIFE Einstein's parents, who were nonobservant Jews, moved from Ulm to Munich when Einstein was an infant. The family business was the manufacture of electrical apparatus; when the business failed (1894), the family moved to Milan, Italy. At this time Einstein decided officially to relinquish his German citizenship. Within a year, still without having completed secondary school, Einstein failed an examination that would have allowed him to pursue a course of study leading to a diploma as an electrical engineer at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (the Zurich Polytechnic). He spent the next year in nearby Aarau at the cantonal secondary school, where he enjoyed excellent teachers and first-rate facilities in physics. Einstein returned in 1896 to the Zurich Polytechnic, where he graduated (1900) as a secondary school teacher of mathematics and physics. | |
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