Who Was Albert Einstein?

1. A slow child who disliked school

Albert Einstein was born on 14 March 1879 in Ulm, in the Kingdom of Württemberg in the German Empire, the elder child of Hermann Einstein, who ran an electrical engineering business, and Pauline Koch. The family moved to Munich when he was a year old, and to Italy in 1894 when his father's business failed. He was a slow developer as a small child and disliked the rigid discipline of his Munich school, where he was bored by rote learning and rebellious against authority. The myth that he failed mathematics at school is false: he was excellent at mathematics from an early age, and by sixteen he had taught himself calculus. What he failed at was fitting into a system that demanded obedience rather than understanding.

The young Einstein's real education came from outside school. At twelve he was given a geometry textbook that he later called his sacred little geometry book, and he worked through it with delight. At sixteen he wrote his first scientific essay, on the state of the ether in a magnetic field, and he conducted a thought experiment that would stay with him for a decade: what would it be like to ride alongside a beam of light? That question, asked by a teenager, became the seed of special relativity. He studied mathematics and physics at the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich from 1896 to 1900, graduating with a teaching diploma, and his fellow students included Marcel Grossmann and Michele Besso, who would become his lifelong collaborators, and Mileva Marić, a Serbian physics student who became his first wife.

There is a lesson in Einstein's schooling that is often missed. He was not a prodigy who sailed through the system; he was a difficult student who clashed with it, and the system nearly rejected him. After graduating in 1900 he could not find a university post, and he supported himself with temporary teaching work before becoming a technical examiner at the Swiss Patent Office in Bern in 1902. It was in that modest job, examining other people's inventions in his spare time, that he did the work that changed physics. The patent office gave him two things a university might not have: time to think, and freedom from the pressure to publish on other people's problems. His career is a reminder that genius does not always look like success, and that institutions are not always good at recognising it.

2. The miracle year: four papers that changed physics

In 1905, while working as a patent examiner in Bern, Einstein published four papers in the journal Annalen der Physik, each of which would have been enough for a distinguished career. The first explained the photoelectric effect by treating light as packets of energy, called photons, a proposal that helped found quantum theory. The second explained Brownian motion, the jittery movement of particles in a fluid, as evidence for the existence of atoms, and it gave experimentalists a way to measure the size of atoms. The third introduced special relativity, and the fourth, a short paper, derived the mass-energy equivalence, E = mc², the most famous equation in science. No other year in the history of physics matches 1905, and no other physicist has had a year like it.

The special relativity paper is the most important of the four, and its core idea is simple to state and hard to absorb: the speed of light is the same for all observers, and therefore time and space are not absolute but relative to the observer. A clock moving fast runs slow, a rod moving fast contracts, and two events that are simultaneous for one observer are not simultaneous for another. These are not philosophical speculations; they are measured facts, confirmed by experiments with atomic clocks on aeroplanes and by the daily operation of GPS satellites, which must correct for relativistic effects to give accurate positions. Einstein's achievement was to see that the strangeness was not in the measurements but in our assumptions, and to rebuild physics on the measurements rather than on the assumptions.

The photoelectric effect paper, for which he won the Nobel Prize, is a different kind of achievement. It proposed that light comes in discrete packets, an idea that contradicted the wave theory of light that had dominated physics for a century, and it explained why shining light on a metal ejects electrons only above a certain frequency. The proposal was so radical that even Einstein's admirers were slow to accept it, and it took the work of the American physicist Robert Millikan, who spent a decade testing it, to confirm it. The irony is that Einstein, who helped found quantum theory, spent the rest of his life arguing against its interpretation, insisting that God does not play dice. His 1905 papers founded two revolutions, relativity and quantum theory, and he embraced one and resisted the other for the rest of his life.

3. General relativity: gravity as curved spacetime

In 1915 Einstein published the general theory of relativity, which describes gravity not as a force but as the curvature of spacetime by mass and energy. The idea is that massive objects, like the Sun, curve the fabric of spacetime around them, and that planets move in straight lines through curved spacetime, which look like orbits to us. The theory predicted that light would bend as it passed near the Sun, that time would run slower in a strong gravitational field, and that the orbit of Mercury would shift by a tiny amount that Newton's theory could not explain. All three predictions were confirmed: the bending of starlight was observed during the solar eclipse of 1919, the slowing of time is measured daily by GPS, and Mercury's orbit matched Einstein's calculation exactly.

The eclipse expedition of 1919 made Einstein famous overnight. The British astronomer Arthur Eddington led an expedition to observe the eclipse from West Africa, and his measurements showed that starlight was bent by the Sun by the amount Einstein predicted. The news was reported around the world, and Einstein became the first scientist to be a global celebrity. The fame had a double edge: it gave him a platform to speak about politics and peace, which he used for the rest of his life, but it also made him a target, and it meant that his later work was judged by the public as well as by physicists. He never again had a result as dramatic as 1919, and he spent the rest of his career in the shadow of his own early triumph.

General relativity is now the foundation of modern cosmology, the study of the universe as a whole. It predicts black holes, gravitational waves and the expansion of the universe, all of which have been observed, most recently the detection of gravitational waves in 2015, a century after Einstein predicted them. It also has a practical side that Einstein never imagined: without corrections for both special and general relativity, GPS navigation would be wrong by kilometres within a day. The theory is a reminder that the most abstract physics can become the most practical, and that a theory written on paper in 1915 can still be guiding satellites in 2026. Isaac Newton had given the world a clockwork universe; Einstein gave it a flexible one, and the flexibility turned out to be real.

4. The Nobel Prize and the quantum argument

Einstein won the Nobel Prize in Physics for 1921, awarded in 1922, for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect, not for relativity. The Nobel committee's decision reflected the state of physics at the time: relativity was still disputed, and some members of the committee were sceptical of it, while the photoelectric effect had been confirmed by experiment. Einstein's Nobel lecture was, pointedly, on relativity, and he used the occasion to present the theory the committee had declined to honour. The prize made him a public figure of a new kind, a scientist whose name was known to people who understood none of his work, and it gave him a financial security he had never had, which he used to support his family and his causes.

His later career was dominated by two things: the search for a unified field theory, a single framework that would unite gravity and electromagnetism, and his argument with quantum theory. He believed that quantum mechanics, with its probabilities and its uncertainty, was incomplete, and that a deeper theory would restore determinism to physics. He expressed this in the famous remark that God does not play dice, and he spent decades trying to find the deeper theory. His opponents, above all Niels Bohr, argued that quantum mechanics was complete and that Einstein's objections were philosophical rather than scientific. The argument was never resolved in Einstein's lifetime, and it remains open today, though the evidence has mostly favoured Bohr.

The unified field theory was a failure, and Einstein knew it. He worked on it for thirty years, in Princeton, largely alone, and he produced nothing that physicists found useful. Some biographers see this as a tragedy, the waste of a great mind on a problem that was not ready to be solved. Others see it as a mark of his integrity: he followed the problem he thought mattered, even when it led nowhere, rather than following the fashion of his field. Abdus Salam, who shared the Nobel Prize for unifying two forces, was working in the tradition Einstein had started, and his success showed that unification was possible, but not in the way Einstein had imagined. Einstein's failure is part of his story, and it makes him more human than the legend of effortless genius.

5. Refugee, public figure and the atomic letter

Einstein was in America when Hitler came to power in 1933, and he never returned to Germany. His property was seized, his books were burned, and he became a refugee, settling in Princeton, New Jersey, where he worked at the Institute for Advanced Study for the rest of his life. He became an American citizen in 1940, and he used his fame to speak against Nazism, against racism in America, and for the rights of refugees. He was a pacifist for much of his life, but the rise of Hitler changed his mind about absolute pacifism, and he came to believe that force was sometimes necessary to stop a greater evil. That change is one of the most debated parts of his biography, because it shows a man of principle revising his principles under pressure.

In 1939 Einstein signed a letter to President Roosevelt, drafted by the physicist Leo Szilard, warning that Germany might develop an atomic bomb and urging the United States to begin research. The letter helped lead to the Manhattan Project, which built the atomic bomb, and Einstein later regretted signing it, saying that had he known the Germans would not succeed in building a bomb, he would have done nothing. He did not work on the Manhattan Project himself, and he was denied a security clearance, partly because of his political views. After the war he campaigned against nuclear weapons, and he was one of the most prominent voices calling for international control of atomic energy. His critics say the letter makes him responsible for the bomb; his defenders say he warned of a danger that was real, that he had no part in building the weapon, and that his later campaigning against it shows where his conscience lay.

Einstein's public life also included causes that are less well known. He was a supporter of Zionism, though he declined the presidency of Israel when it was offered to him in 1952, saying he lacked the practical ability for the job. He was a critic of segregation in America, and he befriended the singer and activist Paul Robeson. He was investigated by the FBI, which kept a file on him for decades, because of his left-wing associations. These activities made him a controversial figure in America during the Cold War, and they are a reminder that his fame was not only scientific: he was, for much of his life, a political figure as well, and his opinions were sought on questions far beyond physics.

6. The man behind the image

Einstein's image, the wild white hair, the moustache, the rumpled clothes, the tongue sticking out in a famous photograph, is the most recognisable image of science in the world, and it has obscured the man behind it. He was, by all accounts, warm, humorous and kind, but also distant, self-absorbed and difficult in his personal life. His first marriage, to Mileva Marić, ended in divorce in 1919, and their relationship has been the subject of intense debate: some have argued that Marić contributed to his early work, while others say the evidence does not support that claim. His second marriage, to his cousin Elsa, was happier, and he was devoted to his children and stepchildren, though he was often absent, absorbed in his work.

The debate about Marić deserves a fair hearing. She was a talented physicist who studied with Einstein at Zurich, and they discussed physics together in their early years. Some historians have suggested that she helped with the mathematics of the 1905 papers, or that the papers were a joint effort. The surviving letters show that they worked together and that Einstein valued her judgement, but they do not show that she wrote the papers, and most historians conclude that the ideas were Einstein's, while acknowledging that Marić's role has been underestimated. The debate is part of a larger question about how science credits collaboration, and it is a reminder that even the most solitary-seeming achievements are made in conversation with others.

Einstein's later years in Princeton were quiet. He worked on his unified field theory, he received visitors from around the world, and he became a kind of sage, consulted on everything from religion to politics. He was a vegetarian in his later years, he played the violin, and he was known for his kindness to children and to strangers. He also remained, to the end, a rebel against authority, refusing to wear socks, refusing to take himself seriously, and insisting that imagination was more important than knowledge. That insistence, that the ability to imagine what might be true matters more than the ability to memorise what is known, is the best summary of his method, and it is why his story is still told to schoolchildren.

7. Legacy: the physicist who rewrote reality

Einstein is generally considered the most influential physicist of the twentieth century, and his legacy is secure in a way that few scientists' legacies are. Special and general relativity replaced Newton's picture of absolute space and time with spacetime curved by mass and energy, and his explanation of the photoelectric effect helped found quantum theory. Both theories underpin modern physics, from GPS navigation, which must correct for relativistic effects, to cosmology, which uses general relativity to describe the universe, to the lasers and solar cells that depend on the photoelectric effect. His work is not a museum piece; it is in daily use, in technologies he never imagined, and it will remain in use for as long as physics is done.

His legacy is also cultural. He made the scientist a public figure, and he showed that a physicist could speak about war, peace and human rights and be heard. Stephen Hawking, who occupied Newton's chair at Cambridge, was the most famous physicist of the next generation, and he acknowledged Einstein as his model, both as a scientist and as a public figure. Marie Curie, who won two Nobel Prizes, was the most famous scientist of the generation before Einstein, and her fame was based on her work alone; Einstein's fame was based on his work and on his voice, and that combination changed what it meant to be a scientist.

For readers who want to go further, the best starting point is Einstein's own writing, above all his 1905 papers and his popular book Relativity: The Special and the General Theory, which he wrote for non-specialists and which is still the clearest introduction to his ideas. The Nobel Prize website gives the citation and his own account of the work, and several modern biographies trace the full arc of his life, from the patent office to Princeton. The biography on this site gives the verified facts of his life; his papers give his mind, and they are the reason he is still read, still argued about, and still, more than seventy years after his death, the face of science itself.

Frequently asked questions

Sources and further reading

• NobelPrize.org — Albert Einstein, facts and prize motivation
• Encyclopaedia Britannica — Albert Einstein
• Wikipedia — Albert Einstein
• NobelPrize.org — Einstein, questions and answers

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• Who Was Abraham Lincoln? — Abraham Lincoln preserved the Union through the Civil War and ended slavery. This explains his rise, his presidency and his contested legacy.
• Who Was Ada Lovelace? — Ada Lovelace published the first program for a programmable machine in 1843. This explains her notes, her vision of computing and the debate over her role.
• Who Was Adolf Hitler? — Adolf Hitler led the Nazi Party and ruled Germany as dictator from 1933 to 1945, started the Second World War in Europe and was central to the Holocaust.
• Who Was Alan Turing? — Alan Turing defined modern computing, broke German naval Enigma and proposed the Turing test. This explains his science, his war work and his tragic end.
• Who Was Alexander Graham Bell? — Alexander Graham Bell patented the first practical telephone in 1876. This explains his work with the deaf, the patent fight and his wider inventions.
• Who Was Alexander the Great? — Alexander the Great built one of history's largest empires before dying at 32. This explains his conquests, his cities and the debate over his legacy.
• Who Was Alfred Nobel? — Alfred Nobel invented dynamite, held 355 patents and founded the Nobel Prizes. This explains his explosives empire, his will and the prizes' legacy.
• Who Was Allama Iqbal? — Allama Iqbal was Pakistan's national poet, whose ideas shaped the case for Pakistan. This explains his poetry, his philosophy and his legacy.
• Who Was Benazir Bhutto? — Benazir Bhutto was the first woman to lead a Muslim-majority country, serving as prime minister of Pakistan in 1988-90 and 1993-96.
• Who Was Bob Marley? — Bob Marley took reggae from Jamaica to the world and became a symbol of peace, resistance and unity. This explains his life, his music and his legacy.
• Who Was Bruce Lee? — Bruce Lee was the martial artist and actor who carried Hong Kong action cinema to the world and founded Jeet Kune Do, leaving a lasting influence.
• Who Was Charles Darwin? — Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, published in On the Origin of Species in 1859, became the foundation of modern biology.
• Who Was Charles Dickens? — Charles Dickens was the greatest novelist of the Victorian era, whose serialised novels mixed comedy, social criticism and unforgettable characters.
• Who Was Charlie Chaplin? — Charlie Chaplin created the Little Tramp, the most famous screen character of the silent era, and directed classics City Lights and The Great Dictator.
• Who Was Cleopatra? — Cleopatra VII was the last ruler of Ptolemaic Egypt, a multilingual stateswoman who kept her kingdom independent for 21 years before Rome annexed it.
• Who Was Diego Maradona? — Diego Maradona was an Argentine footballer who captained Argentina to the 1986 World Cup and is widely regarded as one of the greatest players in history.
• Who Was Don Bradman? — Don Bradman was an Australian cricketer who averaged 99.94 in Test cricket, a record so far ahead of any other batsman that it remains famous in sport.
• Who Was Elvis Presley? — Elvis Presley took gospel, country and rhythm and blues and turned them into rock and roll, becoming the most famous singer of his century.
• Who Was Emily Dickinson? — Emily Dickinson was an American poet who wrote nearly 1,800 poems in private in Amherst, Massachusetts, and was barely published in her lifetime.
• Who Was Faiz Ahmed Faiz? — Faiz Ahmed Faiz was Pakistan's most celebrated modern Urdu poet, whose verse joined romantic lyricism with resistance to injustice.
• Who Was Franz Beckenbauer? — Franz Beckenbauer was a German footballer known as Der Kaiser, who won the World Cup as captain in 1974 and as manager in 1990.
• Who Was Freddie Mercury? — Freddie Mercury was the lead singer of Queen, a four-octave voice and fearless showman who wrote Bohemian Rhapsody and We Are the Champions.
• Who Was Frida Kahlo? — Frida Kahlo was a Mexican painter known for uncompromising, brilliantly coloured self-portraits exploring identity, the body and death.
• Who Was Galileo Galilei? — Galileo Galilei reshaped astronomy with his telescopic discoveries of 1610, defended a Sun-centred universe, and was tried by the Inquisition in 1633.
• Who Was Genghis Khan? — Genghis Khan united the Mongol tribes and built the largest contiguous land empire in history, a conqueror and lawgiver whose legacy is still argued over.
• Who Was George Washington? — George Washington won American independence, presided over the Constitutional Convention, and as first president defined the office — then walked away.
• Who Was Guglielmo Marconi? — Guglielmo Marconi was an Italian inventor who built the first practical wireless telegraph and sent the first transatlantic radio signal in 1901.
• Who Was Henry Ford? — Henry Ford was an American industrialist who founded the Ford Motor Company, built the Model T and perfected the moving assembly line.
• Who Was Isaac Newton? — Isaac Newton wrote the laws of motion and universal gravitation, invented calculus and transformed optics, leaving a lasting legacy in science.
• Who Was James Watt? — James Watt did not invent the steam engine, but his separate condenser of 1765 made it efficient enough to power the Industrial Revolution.
• Who Was Jane Austen? — Jane Austen published six novels in her lifetime, anonymously, and died at 41. This explains her life, her novels, her irony and her growing reputation.
• Who Was Jesus Christ? — Jesus of Nazareth is the central figure of Christianity, the world's largest religion. This explains his life in the Gospels, his teachings and his legacy.
• Who Was Johan Cruyff? — Johan Cruyff was the star of Total Football, won three Ballon d'Or awards, and as a manager built the Barcelona team that shaped modern football.
• Who Was Johannes Gutenberg? — Johannes Gutenberg built the first mechanised printing press in Europe and printed the Gutenberg Bible around 1455, changing how the world shared ideas.
• Who Was John Keats? — John Keats died of tuberculosis in Rome at 25, having written his six great odes in a single year. This explains his short life, his poetry and his fame.
• Who Was Joseph Stalin? — Joseph Stalin led the Soviet Union from the 1920s until 1953, industrialised the country and led it through the Second World War, ruling through terror.
• Who Was Julius Caesar? — Julius Caesar conquered Gaul, crossed the Rubicon and remade Rome's calendar and government, and was murdered by senators who feared he would be king.
• Who Was Kobe Bryant? — Kobe Bryant won five NBA championships with the Los Angeles Lakers and became known for the Mamba Mentality, on and off the court.
• Who Was Leo Tolstoy? — Leo Tolstoy wrote War and Peace and Anna Karenina, then abandoned literary fame for a radical moral philosophy that influenced Gandhi and the world.
• Who Was Leonardo da Vinci? — Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper and filled notebooks with anatomy and engineering, becoming the symbol of the Renaissance.
• Who Was Ludwig van Beethoven? — Ludwig van Beethoven wrote nine symphonies, 32 piano sonatas and the Missa Solemnis, much of it while deaf. This explains his life and legacy.
• Who Was Mahatma Gandhi? — Mahatma Gandhi led India to independence through nonviolent resistance, and his ideas shaped civil-rights movements worldwide.
• Who Was Mao Zedong? — Mao Zedong founded the People's Republic of China in 1949 and led it until 1976, bringing unification and the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution.
• Who Was Margaret Thatcher? — Margaret Thatcher was the first woman to serve as British prime minister, leading the UK from 1979 to 1990 through reform, the Falklands War and division.
• Who Was Marie Curie? — Marie Curie discovered polonium and radium and remains the only person to win Nobel Prizes in two different sciences, a pioneer of radioactivity research.
• Who Was Marilyn Monroe? — Marilyn Monroe was the biggest star of the 1950s, the blonde bombshell of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Some Like It Hot, who fought the studio system.
• Who Was Mark Twain? — Mark Twain, born Samuel Langhorne Clemens, wrote Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn and became America's most famous humorist.
• Who Was Maya Angelou? — Maya Angelou was a poet, memoirist and civil rights activist whose autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings made her widely read.
• Who Was Michael Jackson? — Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, made Thriller, the best-selling album in history, and changed music video, dance and pop stardom.
• Who Was Mirza Ghalib? — Mirza Ghalib (1797-1869) is the pre-eminent Urdu and Persian poet of the last Mughal era, whose ghazals on love, loss and doubt are still recited.
• Who Was Muhammad Ali Jinnah? — Muhammad Ali Jinnah was the barrister and statesman who led the All-India Muslim League and became Pakistan's first Governor-General in 1947.
• Who Was Muhammad Ali? — Muhammad Ali was the three-time heavyweight champion who called himself The Greatest, and the most famous athlete of the twentieth century.
• Who Was Napoleon Bonaparte? — Napoleon Bonaparte rose from Corsica to Emperor of the French, redrew the map of Europe, and left a legal code that still shapes law across the world.
• Who Was Nelson Mandela? — Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in prison under apartheid, then became South Africa's first democratically elected president and a Nobel Peace laureate.
• Who Was Nikola Tesla? — Nikola Tesla developed the alternating-current power system, the induction motor and the Tesla coil, making long-distance electric power practical.
• Who Was Osama bin Laden? — Osama bin Laden founded al-Qaeda in 1988 and organised the September 11, 2001 attacks, in which nearly 3,000 people were killed.
• Who Was Pablo Neruda? — Pablo Neruda was Chile's great poet, a Nobel laureate, a communist senator and a diplomat. This explains his poetry, his politics and his death.
• Who Was Pablo Picasso? — Pablo Picasso co-founded Cubism, painted Guernica, and spent 75 years breaking the rules of art — the most influential artist of the twentieth century.
• Who Was Pelé? — Pele is the only footballer to win three World Cups, the youngest winner, and the game's first global icon. This is his life, his goals and his legacy.
• Who Was Pope Francis? The People's Pope — Pope Francis, the first pope from the Americas and the first Jesuit pope, led the Catholic Church from 2013 to 2025 with an emphasis on mercy and the poor.
• Who Was Prophet Muhammad? — The Prophet Muhammad is the founder of Islam, the world's second-largest religion. This explains his life, his teachings and his legacy.
• Who Was Queen Elizabeth II? — Queen Elizabeth II reigned for 70 years, from 1952 to 2022 — the longest reign in British history. This explains her life, her reign and her legacy.
• Who Was Rabindranath Tagore? — Rabindranath Tagore was the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, and the author of the national anthems of India and Bangladesh.
• Who Was Rosa Parks? — Rosa Parks was not a tired seamstress who acted on impulse. She was a trained activist and NAACP secretary whose bus refusal was a deliberate act.
• Who Was Rosalind Franklin? — Rosalind Franklin's X-ray image, Photograph 51, gave Watson and Crick the key evidence for the double helix. This is her life and the credit debate.
• Who Was Rumi? — Rumi, the thirteenth-century Persian poet of Konya, wrote the Masnavi and the Divan-e Shams, and became the most widely read poet in the world.
• Who Was Shane Warne? — Shane Warne took 708 Test wickets, bowled the Ball of the Century in 1993 and won the 1999 World Cup with Australia. This explains his career.
• Who Was Stephen Hawking? — Stephen Hawking was a theoretical physicist who showed that black holes emit radiation and wrote A Brief History of Time. He died in 2018, aged 76.
• Who Was Steve Jobs? — Steve Jobs co-founded Apple in 1976, was forced out in 1985, built Pixar, and returned to launch the iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad. He died in 2011, aged 56.
• Who Was Thomas Edison? — Thomas Edison held 1,093 US patents, invented the phonograph and the practical incandescent lamp, and built the first commercial electric power system.
• Who Was Vincent van Gogh? — Vincent van Gogh produced about 2,100 artworks in a single decade, including The Starry Night and Sunflowers, and became famous only after his death at 37.
• Who Was William Shakespeare? — William Shakespeare is the most performed playwright in history, yet almost nothing is reliably known about his private life.
• Who Was William Wordsworth? — William Wordsworth launched English Romanticism with Lyrical Ballads and wrote The Prelude, the great autobiographical poem. This explains his life.
• Who Was Winston Churchill? — Winston Churchill led Britain through the Second World War and won the Nobel Prize in Literature, and his record on empire is still debated.
• Who Was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart? — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a child prodigy who composed more than 600 works before his death at 35, defining the Classical era.
• Why Van Gogh Became Famous After Death — Vincent van Gogh died in 1890 almost unknown, and within a few decades his paintings were among the most loved in the world.