Albert Einstein, 1879 - 1955
1921 portrait by Ferdinand Schmutzer
Born: 14 March 1879, Ulm, Kingdom of Württemberg, German Empire
Died: 18 April 1955, Princeton, New Jersey
Raised in a family of non-observant Jews, Einstein attended a Catholic elementary school before entering Luitpold Gymnasium. A poor Jewish medical student ate dinner with the Einstein family every Thursday for six years, tutoring Albert in science and philosophy in exchange. He renounced his citizenship in the German Empire to avoid military service, then entered a four-year program for teachers of math and physics at the Polytechnic in Zurich. After two years trying to find a position he went to as a patent examiner at Bern where he evaluated electromechanical devices, but more importantly continued to work on his own. He published a paper on capillary forces in 1901, four years later he has his "miracle year": he finished his thesis and published four ground breaking papers on the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, special relativity, and the famous relationship between mass and energy. In 1911 he postulated that light rays would be deflected by gravity, this was confirmed during a solar eclipse in 1919 which brought him to world fame and the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics. Because his theory of special relativity was still controversial, it was his work on the photoelectric effect that was the nominal reason for the prize. He was a visiting professor at the California Institute of Technology when Hitler was elected, he returned to Europe but not to Germany, learning that there was a $5,000 bounty available for him. He joined the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, New Jersey, where he worked for the rest of his life. Hitler's rise led him to turn from pacificism to preparedness and in 1939 signed an influential letter to President Roosevelt warning of German progress in creating an atomic bomb. In 1940 Einstein became an American citizen and was active in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In 1952 he was offered the largely-ceremonial post of President of Israel. He had an abdominal aortic aneurysm which surgically reinforced in 1948 but it ruptured, he took a draft of a speech with him to the hospital but died the next day.
Biography from Wikipedia and Nobel Foundation
Albert Einstein quotes:
Quotes found : 551 — (15 per page, this is page 1 of 37) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 Next
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- A conflict arises when a religious community insists on the absolute truthfulness of all statements recorded in the Bible. This means an intervention on the part of religion into the sphere of science; this is where the struggle of the Church against the doctrines of Galileo and Darwin belongs. On the other hand, representatives of science have often made an attempt to arrive at fundamental judgments with respect to values and ends on the basis of scientific method, and in this way have set themselves in opposition to religion. These conflicts have all sprung from fatal errors. permalink
Albert Einstein - "Science, Philosophy and Religion, A Symposium" (1941) - A forced faithfulness is a bitter fruit for all concerned. permalink
Albert Einstein - letter to Dr. Eugenie Anderman (2 June 1953) - A great thought begins by seeing something differently, with a shift of the mind's eye. permalink
Albert Einstein - A happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell too much on the future. permalink
Albert Einstein - "My Future Plans" student essay at age 17 (18 September 1896) - A human being is a part of a whole, called by us 'universe,' a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest — a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. permalink
Albert Einstein - A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depends on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the measure as I have received and am still receiving. permalink
Albert Einstein - The World as I See It (1959) - A life directed chiefly toward the fulfillment of personal desires will sooner or later always lead to bitter disappointment. permalink
Albert Einstein - to T. Lee (16 January 1954) - A man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. He sits on a hot stove for a minute, it's longer than any hour. That is relativity. permalink
Albert Einstein - explanation for his secretary, Helen Dukas, to relay to reporters and laypersons - A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death. permalink
Albert Einstein - "Religion and Science" in New York Times Magazine (9 November 1930) - A new idea comes suddenly and in a rather intuitive way. But intuition is nothing but the outcome of earlier intellectual experience. permalink
Albert Einstein - Letter to Dr. H. L. Gordon (3 May 1949) - A perfection of means, and confusion of aims, seems to be our main problem. permalink
Albert Einstein - A person starts to live when he can live outside himself. permalink
Albert Einstein - A photograph never grows old. You and I change, people change all through the months and years, but a photograph always remains the same. How nice to look at a photograph of mother or father taken many years ago. You see them as you remember them. permalink
Albert Einstein - A scientist is a mimosa when he himself has made a mistake, and a roaring lion when he discovers a mistake of others. permalink
Albert Einstein - A storm broke loose in my mind. permalink
Albert Einstein
Quotes found : 551 — (15 per page, this is page 1 of 37) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 Next
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