1905
Einstein Einstein wrote four fundamental papers, all in a few months. The first paper claimed that light must sometimes behave like a stream of particles with discrete energies, "quanta." The second paper offered an experimental test for the theory of heat and proof of the existence of atoms. The third paper addressed a central puzzle for physicists of the day – the connection between electromagnetic theory and ordinary motion – and solved it using the "principle of relativity." The fourth showed that mass and energy are two parts of the same thing, mass-energy (E=mc2).
"I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts; the rest are details."
1909
Einstein became an assistant professor at the University of Zurich, his first full-time physics job. In 1911 he moved on to the German University of Prague. He continued to publish important physics papers, and was beginning to meet fellow scientists, for example, at the exclusive Solvay Conference. The next year he returned to the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich as Professor.
1914
Einstein's family
Einstein moved to Berlin, taking a research post that freed him from teaching duties. He separated from his wife and two sons. When the First World War broke out, Einstein rejected Germany's aggressive war aims, supporting the formation of a pacifist group.
1915
After a decade of thought, with entire years spent in blind alleys, Einstein completed his general theory of relativity. Overturning ancient notions of space and time, he reached a new understanding of gravity. Meanwhile he continued to sign petitions for peace.
"The years of anxious searching in the dark, with their intense longing, their alternations of confidence and exhaustion and the final emergence into the light – only those who have experienced it can understand it."
1918
Hale As Germany collapsed, Einstein became more involved in politics and supported a new progressive party. The next year he remarried. And his general theory of relativity received stunning confirmation from British astronomers: as Einstein had predicted, gravity bends starlight. In the popular eye he became a symbol of science and of thought at its highest.
1921
Einstein Aided by his fame, Einstein championed the fledgling German republican government and other liberal causes. Partly as a result of this, he and his theory of relativity came under vicious attack from anti-Semites. He began travelling, attended an International Trade Union Congress in Amsterdam, and visited the United States to help raise funds for the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The following year he received the Nobel Prize.
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in public affairs
1924
Einstein Einstein contributed to the struggling new quantum theory. Meanwhile, he searched for a way to unify the theories of electromagnetism and gravity. In 1929 he announced a unified field theory, but the mathematics could not be compared with experiments; his struggle toward a useful theory had only begun. Meanwhile he argued with his colleagues, challenging their belief that quantum theory can give a complete description of phenomena.
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to interpret quanta
1933
anti-semetic cartoon Unwilling to live in Germany under the new Nazi government, Einstein joined the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. He turned away from strict pacifism, and warned world political leaders to prepare for German aggression. He also worked to rescue Jewish and other political victims of the Nazis.
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