Albert Einstein - Greatest Brain of the 20th Century Documentary
Albert Einstein - Greatest Brain of the 20th Century Documentary
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#Biography #History #Documentary
Content
4.14 -> The man known to history as Albert Einstein
was born on the 14th of March 1879 in the
11.34 -> city of Ulm in the south of what was then
the German Empire.
15.309 -> Ulm was a major urban centre of the Kingdom
of Wurttemberg, a major constituent part of
21.18 -> the German state in the late nineteenth century.
24.82 -> His father was Hermann Einstein, an Ashkenazi
Jew from Buchau in Wurttemberg.
30.4 -> Hermann had been academically gifted and showed
a strong ability in the field of applied mathematics
35.96 -> when studying in Stuttgart, the capital of
Wurttemberg, in his youth.
40.45 -> However, the Einstein family were not wealthy
and he was forced to abandon his studies and
45.84 -> went to work in the feather-bed shop run by
his cousins, Moses and Hermann Levi, in Ulm
51.43 -> in the 1870s.
52.52 -> Albert’s mother was Pauline Koch, a member
of a family of German Jews who had developed
57.59 -> extensive connections as purveyors and merchants
in Wurttemberg.
62.07 -> She married Hermann Einstein in 1876 and Albert
was their first child.
67.39 -> A daughter, Maja or Maria Einstein, was born
two years later in 1881.
73.21 -> Albert’s youth was dictated to a considerable
extent by his father’s business dealings.
79.86 -> When he was still an infant Hermann Einstein,
following the business advice of his brother
84.25 -> Jakob, decided to move the family to Munich,
the largest city in southern Germany lying
89.409 -> some 170 kilometres to the east of Ulm.
93.04 -> This occurred in 1880 as Jakob and Hermann
sought to establish Einstein and Co. as an
99.25 -> electrical engineering company in Munich just
as the great age of electrification was about
104.58 -> to begin sweeping the western world.
106.979 -> There Albert was enrolled in a Catholic elementary
school, before being transferred to the Luitpold-Gymnasium
114.31 -> in Munich in 1887.
116.49 -> Albert remained there until 1894, but at that
stage the Einsteins were once again uprooted
123.229 -> when Hermann and Jakob failed to secure a
contract to begin the electrification of Munich.
129.069 -> Instead they headed for northern Italy, settling
first in Milan and then in Pavia.
134.099 -> Albert briefly remained in Munich to continue
his studies, but after several months became
138.819 -> disillusioned with the strict rote learning
on offer at the Gymnasium and convinced both
143.91 -> his parents and the school authorities to
let him leave to join them in Italy.
149.72 -> Albert continued his education in Italy from
1894 onwards.
154.25 -> He was already showing distinct signs of a
precocious ability as a scientist and mathematician,
159.44 -> although his father desired for him to take
a more keen interest in applied engineering
164.7 -> and so follow him into the family business.
167.59 -> In Munich in the summer of 1891 he had taught
himself algebra and the advanced geometry
173.459 -> of the ancient Greek mathematician, Euclid.
176.349 -> A family tutor by the name of Max Talmud,
who excelled himself in the fields of optometry
181.76 -> and ophthalmology, was employed by the Einsteins
to teach young Albert advanced mathematics
187.349 -> and scientific principles, but he soon found
his charge was becoming more knowledgeable
192.45 -> than he himself was, when it came to subjects
such as calculus, algebra and geometry.
198.56 -> Nor was he a prodigy who was solely interested
in scientific and mathematical topics.
203.83 -> As he entered his teenage years he was also
reading widely of some of the most advanced
209.129 -> philosophical writers of the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries, notably the German Enlightenment
215.02 -> philosopher, Immanuel Kant.
216.959 -> Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, first published
in 1781 and offering one of the most analytical
223.04 -> discussions of metaphysics, the study of the
nature of reality, is one of the densest philosophical
228.86 -> tracts ever written, yet Albert seemed to
understand it clearly at age 14, something
234.75 -> which bewildered his tutor.
237.84 -> Young Einstein’s abilities did not go unnoticed
by his teachers, tutor and parents.
243.459 -> Thus, shortly after he arrived in Pavia and
following his sixteenth birthday he was sent
248.75 -> to take the entrance exams at the Swiss Federal
Polytechnic School in the city of Zurich,
254.64 -> an advanced school of science, mathematics
and engineering.
258.51 -> Although he scored high on the technical exams,
Albert was not admitted at this time, in part
263.59 -> owing to his youth.
265.22 -> The following year he passed the Swiss Matura,
an equivalency exam in the country for those
270.59 -> who had not gone through the formal schooling
process within Switzerland, but wished to
275.18 -> complete the secondary education curriculum
there.
278.73 -> Earlier that year he had also renounced his
German citizenship to avoid being called up
283.63 -> for the required military service expected
of all young men in the country.
288.71 -> Thus it was that as a stateless individual
he finally entered the Polytechnic School
293.86 -> in Zurich in the autumn of 1896 aged seventeen.
298.139 -> There he would study physics and mathematics,
the two subjects which he had demonstrated
303.99 -> a prodigious ability in since he was a child.
307.389 -> He would remain there for four years, eventually
acquiring a diploma in 1900.
313.009 -> Einstein’s years in Zurich were those in
which his research interests began to emerge
319.121 -> in a fully formed state.
320.74 -> He was becoming an eclectic scientist, one
who might broadly be categorised as a physicist,
326.18 -> but whose area of expertise covered a wide
range of topics such as the discovery of an
331.11 -> accurate way to measure the dimensions of
tiny molecules, a field of endeavour belonging
336.3 -> to quantum mechanics, the broad science of
describing the physical properties of nature
341.389 -> at the atomic and subatomic level.
344.12 -> Additionally, he was concerned to measure
how light moves.
347.669 -> At the time he was beginning to conduct complex
research into this subject in turn-of-the-century
354.24 -> Zurich, the prevailing view amongst European
and North American scientists was that light
359.81 -> travelled exclusively in wave-patterns.
363.139 -> As would become clear in the years that followed
Einstein doubted this theory and believed
367.8 -> a further layer of complexity existed within
the mechanism whereby light travelled.
373.4 -> These and other aspects of advanced physics
were at the heart of Einstein’s research
378.33 -> in his mid-twenties.
379.91 -> They formed the core of his doctoral thesis
which he was studying for part time throughout
384.43 -> the early 1900s and which he completed in
1905 in Zurich, entitled ‘A New Determination
391.77 -> of Molecular Dimensions’.
394.63 -> His research in the early 1900s was evidently
aided by Mileva Maric, a young Serbian mathematician
401.169 -> and physicist who had begun attending the
Polytechnic School in Zurich around the same
405.95 -> time that Einstein had first been granted
teaching hours there after finishing top of
411.11 -> the class in 1899.
412.699 -> Maric was one of only two female students
attending there at the time.
417.669 -> She and Einstein were soon involved in a relationship
with each other and it is now assumed that
422.94 -> she contributed to his research, though the
exact degree to which she did so is unclear.
429.24 -> In any event her own research was interrupted
in the summer of 1901 when she fell pregnant.
435.2 -> Maric and Einstein were not yet married by
then and this was a time when having a child
440.16 -> out of wedlock was still considered a social
scandal.
443.52 -> It appears that Mileva returned to her native
Serbia to have the child, who was called Lieserl
449.22 -> in their correspondence after her birth.
451.77 -> What happened to her thereafter is unclear.
454.729 -> Some sources believe she died from scarlet
fever in 1903, but others suggest she was
459.979 -> put up for adoption in Serbia.
462.259 -> It seems more likely that she died as Maric
and Einstein had married in January 1903.
467.979 -> They would go on to have two further children,
a boy, Hans Albert, born in the summer of
473.8 -> 1904, and another son, Eduard, in 1910.
478.47 ->
In may seem peculiar in retrospect, but Albert
482.27 -> did not immediately find it easy to find a
teaching position upon completing his diploma
486.67 -> in Zurich in 1900.
488.99 -> He spent the next year and a half trying in
vain to acquire a junior level lecturing and
493.979 -> research position in a Central European university,
but to no avail.
498.9 -> In the meantime, he acquired Swiss citizenship
in 1901, finally acquiring statehood after
504.729 -> half a decade of theoretically being without
a national affiliation.
509.27 -> With Swiss citizenship in hand a family friend
and associate from the Polytechnic in Zurich,
515.08 -> Max Grossman, enlisted the aid of his father
to get Einstein a post at the Swiss Patent
520.839 -> Office in the capital Bern.
523.19 -> Here Einstein worked as a patent assistant
examiner.
526.86 -> What this effectively meant was that Albert
was tasked with assessing the merits of various
531.72 -> inventions and devices which were brought
before the Patent Office by individuals who
536.8 -> wanted to have their intellectual ownership
of their invention recognised, to ensure credit
541.8 -> for the device was given to them and they
could benefit financially.
546.339 -> Einstein worked there for the next several
years.
549.18 -> Beyond serving to support his young family,
his work focused on many different devices
553.97 -> involving electrical conduction and mechanics
and it has been posited that this impacted
559.31 -> on Einstein’s own research during his formative
years.
563.87 -> The manner in which Einstein burst forth from
almost complete obscurity within the developed
569.209 -> world’s scientific community to become one
of Europe’s paramount physicists in the
573.55 -> mid-1900s is one of the strangest stories
in the history of science.
578.47 -> While he was completing his doctoral studies
and working in the Patent Office in Bern in
582.87 -> the first half of the 1900s Einstein was working
on a series of papers for publication in the
588.42 -> pages of Annalen der Physik, one of the world’s
leading academic journals for the study of
593.97 -> physics, which had been published in Germany
from 1799 onwards.
598.43 -> This eventually resulted in four separate
research papers which were all published in
602.79 -> the journal in 1905.
605.27 -> Individually they made major contributions
to various fields within the study of physics.
610.23 -> Collectively they have been deemed to represent
a revolutionising of humanity’s conception
615.459 -> of the molecular and atomic dimensions of
the natural world and the development of modern
620.72 -> physics.
621.72 -> Consequently 1905 is usually referred to by
biographers of Einstein and historians of
627.55 -> western science as the annus mirabilis, or
‘miracle year’ of Einstein’s career.
634.44 -> The first of Einstein’s four papers of 1905
was entitled ‘On a Heuristic Viewpoint Concerning
640.66 -> the Production and Transformation of Light’
and was published on the 9th of June.
645.78 -> This explained what is known as the photoelectric
effect for the first time.
650.55 -> The photoelectric effect is where electrons
are emitted when electromagnetic radiation,
656.029 -> such as light, hits off a material or substance.
659.55 -> The electrons which are emitted during such
a process are called photoelectrons.
664.47 -> Up until 1905 when Einstein described this
photoelectric effect, the prevailing view
670.65 -> amongst physicists was that light travelled
much like a wave in the ocean, but Einstein
676.04 -> explained that the photoelectric effect meant
that light also travelled in what he termed
681.06 -> to be a finite number of energy quanta, which
moved without dividing and which could only
687.26 -> be absorbed or generated as entities.
690.69 -> This not only explained much that was previously
unknown about the nature of light and electrons,
696.57 -> but had fundamental implications for understanding
how light of a certain frequency could bring
702.22 -> sufficient energy into play to liberate an
electron.
706.07 -> This built on work conducted by physicists
such as Max Planck in previous years, but
711.66 -> Einstein’s paper added extensive new details
on how energy and light interacted through
717.23 -> the photoelectric effect.
719.52 -> This had major implications for practical
applied physics and many years later this
724.98 -> discovery would be directly cited when Einstein
was awarded the Noble Prize for Physics, although
731.16 -> it was not until the mid-1920s that his findings
were fully accepted amongst physicists.
738.11 -> Just six weeks after this first paper appeared,
Einstein’s second paper of 1905, entitled
744.22 -> ‘On the Motion of Small Particles Suspended
in a Stationary Liquid, as Required by the
749.66 -> Molecular Kinetic Theory of Heat’, was published
in Annalen der Physik on the 18th of July.
755.94 -> Prior to Einstein’s paper there was no accurate
way of measuring the dimensions of molecules,
762.09 -> but several scientists in the nineteenth century
such as John Dalton had noted that chemical
767.529 -> substances tended to combine together or break
down in weighted proportions which suggested
774.04 -> that they were all made from an as yet unidentified
physical molecule that was common to all things.
781.829 -> These unitary molecules are known as atoms
today after a word which had been coined by
787.49 -> Ancient Greek philosophers of the sixth century
BC who were themselves seeking to understand
793.769 -> the nature of existence, two and a half millennia
before Einstein’s time.
799.67 -> Einstein’s second 1905 paper showed how
these atoms could be measured more comprehensively
806 -> by using what was termed Brownian Motion,
whereby particles, in this case pollen, were
812.19 -> suspended in a water solution.
814 -> Einstein’s paper, along with a corroborating
study produced by the French physicist, Jean
819.72 -> Perrin, in 1908, demonstrated unequivocally
that atoms and molecules were real entities
826.85 -> which were the building blocks of existence.
829.43 -> Thus, this second paper of 1905 was a major
contribution to humanity’s acceptance of
836.07 -> the existence of atoms and molecules and the
emergence of atomic theory as the basis of
842.49 -> much of twentieth-century physics.
845.73 -> Einstein’s third paper was published just
over two months later on the 26th of September
851.5 -> 1905.
852.85 -> This was entitled ‘On the Electrodynamics
of Moving Bodies’ and focused on the issue
858.05 -> of special relativity.
859.8 -> This sought to reconcile an equation which
the Scottish mathematician and scientist,
864.68 -> James Clerk Maxwell, had devised in the early
1860s regarding electricity and magnetism.
870.99 -> Maxwell’s equations led to difficulties
in how physicists should understand mechanics
876.55 -> which occurred close to the speed of light.
879.36 -> In response to this problem Einstein outlined
his ‘special theory of relativity’ or
885.089 -> ‘special relativity’ in his 1905 paper.
888.75 -> This stated that the speed of light is the
same for all observers regardless of the motion
894.16 -> of the light source or the observer of the
light source.
898.079 -> This opposed the idea postulated over two
centuries earlier by Isaac Newton which held
903.18 -> that the speed of light is not fixed.
905.63 -> Moreover, Einstein’s special theory of relativity
correctly assumed that when two objects are
911.69 -> involved concerning light, there is no true
way of knowing which is in motion and which
917.56 -> is not.
919.019 -> Einstein had come to this realisation while
travelling in a streetcar in Bern in the early
924.04 -> summer of 1905 and looking at the clock-tower
in the centre of the city.
929.269 -> He realised that if his car suddenly started
travelling at the speed of light the clock-arms
935.18 -> on the clock-tower would suddenly appear as
though they had stopped, but the clock inside
941.23 -> the streetcar would continue to move around
as though nothing had happened because both
946.839 -> Einstein and the clock in the streetcar were
travelling at the same velocity.
951.94 -> Therefore the speed of movement was relative.
955.17 -> If the streetcar had suddenly accelerated
to the speed of light it would not mean that
959.81 -> the clock-tower had stopped, only that it
appeared to have done so relative to the speed
965.519 -> which the streetcar was now travelling at.
968.399 -> This was the special theory of relativity
at work.
973.029 -> Einstein’s fourth and final paper of his
annus mirabilis was published on the 21st
979.2 -> of November and was entitled ‘Does the Inertia
of a Body Depend Upon its Energy Context’.
985.56 -> Few have heard of that title today, but a
great many are familiar with the equation
990.5 -> which Einstein pioneered in the paper: E=mc2.
996.029 -> In brief what this means is that the energy
of a body at rest, defined as E, is equal
1002.05 -> to its mass, or m, multiplied by the speed
of light, the c of the equation, squared.
1008.8 -> This equivalency equation showed that a massive
particle possesses an energy, or ‘rest energy’
1015.389 -> which is distinct from the kinetic energy
of a particle.
1018.93 -> This would come to be known as the Mass-Energy
Equivalence and highlights how the ‘rest
1024.63 -> energy’ of a particle such as the nucleus
of an atom could be so massive as to result
1030.99 -> in an enormous amount of light and thermal
energy being released if the particle was
1036.37 -> disturbed sufficiently.
1038.289 -> As we will see, the practical application
of this equation was to have devastating consequences
1044.03 -> in later decades and Einstein later grew to
regret this aspect of his research.
1050.91 -> Einstein’s four papers published during
1905 did not simply constitute breakthroughs
1056.69 -> in the confined world of academic theoretical
physics.
1060.84 -> His research shaped the application of science
to the modern world in the decades that followed.
1065.669 -> For instance, when you walk up to an automatic
door today and it opens in front of you, this
1071.41 -> is because the sensors used in the doorway
react when the photons in the light beams
1076.659 -> they emit are obstructed, in this case by
a moving person.
1081.28 -> The sensor then tells the door to open.
1084.45 -> Einstein first explained how photons work.
1087.54 -> Solar-powered calculators and streetlights
that automatically turn on when it gets dark,
1092.55 -> amongst other innovations, also emerged from
his work on light.
1096.88 -> The ‘special theory of relativity’ helped
lead to the development of Global Positioning
1102.049 -> Systems, or GPS, over time.
1104.5 -> Thus, when you switch on Google Maps it is
effectively functioning based partly on research
1110.21 -> which Einstein published in his annus mirabilis
papers.
1114.59 -> And when a nuclear power plant creates massive
amounts of energy by harnessing the energy
1119.669 -> in the nucleus of an atom they are doing so
based on Einstein’s discoveries concerning
1125.429 -> energy and mass equivalence as contained in
the equation E=mc2.
1131.559 -> Einstein’s ground-breaking research findings
published in 1905 soon came to the attention
1138.72 -> of the European scientific community, though
at a time when people were still reliant on
1144.28 -> the circulation of hard copies of academic
journals and word of mouth for research to
1149.65 -> be disseminated it took a few years for the
import of his findings to become clear across
1155.4 -> Europe.
1156.54 -> As they did, they transformed his career.
1159.5 -> By 1908 he gained a teaching post at the University
of Bern and was able to leave his position
1165.429 -> at the Patent Office.
1167.28 -> The following year he was appointed to a new
chair of theoretical physics which had been
1172.66 -> created at the University of Zurich.
1175.5 -> He remained there for the next two years.
1178.36 -> During this time, he continued to refine some
of the points he had made in his 1905 papers,
1185.02 -> while also moving on to begin developing the
‘theory of general relativity’ as an offshoot
1190.799 -> of his work on special relativity.
1193.77 -> The theory of general relativity holds that
the observable gravitational attraction between
1199.58 -> two masses results from the warping of space
and time by those two masses.
1205.6 -> This research made major initial contributions
to the science of black holes and other mass
1211.42 -> objects within the universe.
1214.58 -> In 1911 Einstein left Switzerland, after over
fifteen years there to take up a new position
1220.25 -> which had been offered to him at the Charles
Ferdinand University in Prague, the oldest
1225.88 -> university in what is now Czechia, but which
was then a constituent part of the Austro-Hungarian
1232.77 -> Empire.
1233.77 -> In tandem he was offered Austrian citizenship.
1237.049 -> Although he spent just over a year there he
published upwards of a dozen papers on topics
1242.09 -> such as the mathematics of radiation, quantum
theory and gravitation.
1246.95 -> Before long a new offer pulled him back to
Switzerland.
1250.169 -> This was an invitation to teach at his old
alma mater, the Polytechnic School in Zurich.
1256.02 -> He was there by the summer of 1912 and would
spend the next year lecturing to classes who
1261.23 -> were increasingly familiar with the growing
fame of the German physicist, while also researching
1266.96 -> problems on gravitation and molecular heat.
1270.41 -> Much of this latter work was undertaken in
conjunction with Marcel Grossman, the Swiss
1275.46 -> colleague who had attended the Polytechnic
with Einstein in the late 1890s and whose
1280.429 -> family had aided him in acquiring his earlier
position at the Bern Patent Office.
1286.47 ->
In the spring of 1913, less than a year after
1289.429 -> taking up his position in Zurich, Einstein
was visited in Switzerland by Max Planck and
1295.52 -> Walther Nernst, two of the foremost scientists
of the age.
1299.62 -> Both worked in Berlin and had come to Zurich
to convince Einstein to return to the land
1304.919 -> of his birth to take up a position at the
University of Berlin.
1309.23 -> The post came with automatic membership of
the Prussian Academy of Sciences, as well
1313.84 -> as his appointment as director of the Kaiser
Wilhelm Institute for Physics.
1319.22 -> This would allow Einstein to concentrate on
his research and build a team of researchers
1323.929 -> around him.
1325.159 -> It was an offer he couldn’t refuse and was
made more attractive by the prospect of being
1329.659 -> close to his cousin, Elsa, who lived in Germany
and whom Einstein had begun corresponding
1335.029 -> with frequently since the spring of 1912.
1338.289 -> Thus, early in 1914 Albert made the move to
the German capital.
1343.679 -> His first wife, Mileva, agreed to move at
first with their two sons, but she was immediately
1349.309 -> unhappy in Berlin, and sensed Albert was growing
closer to his cousin and soon decided to return
1355.83 -> to Zurich with their children.
1357.82 -> They remained separated until 1919 when they
finally divorced, at which time Einstein married
1363.97 -> Elsa.
1365.049 -> By then both she and Albert were in their
forties and this second marriage of Einstein’s
1369.919 -> did not result in any further children, though
Albert became step-father to Elsa’s two
1375.42 -> daughters from her previous marriage.
1378.47 -> Einstein’s arrival in Berlin was immediately
interrupted by the outbreak of the First World
1383.78 -> War.
1384.78 -> For years tensions had been building between
the major European powers over issues as disparate
1390.309 -> as colonial rivalry in Africa, the vacuum
left by the collapse of Ottoman power in the
1395.72 -> Balkans and the naval race between Britain
and Germany.
1399.87 -> These all coalesced in the summer of 1914
into the outbreak of a pan-European war which
1405.82 -> soon became a worldwide conflict.
1408.75 -> When it erupted, and Germany’s invasion
of neutral Belgium as a means of striking
1413.169 -> quickly at north-eastern France drew widespread
international condemnation, a document entitled
1419.91 -> ‘Manifesto of the Ninety-Three’ and addressed
‘To the Civilized World’ was soon being
1425.539 -> circulated in Germany.
1427.41 -> The move was led by figures like Adolf van
Baeyer, the 1905 recipient of the Nobel Prize
1433.159 -> in Chemistry, and Paul Ehrlich, the 1908 recipient
of the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his pioneering
1439.75 -> work in chemotherapy, and was effectively
a letter from dozens of prominent German academics
1445.75 -> sounding their support for Germany’s war
effort.
1448.47 -> Einstein, who was a life-long pacifist, refused
to sign it and instead, with several other
1454.44 -> German academics drew up the ‘Manifesto
to the Europeans’.
1458.559 -> This expressed the idea that Europe’s sense
of common culture could be harnessed to bring
1464.18 -> the war to a swift end.
1466.149 -> Unfortunately, their hopes were not met and
the war was to drag on for four more years
1470.68 -> of interminable conflict, followed by years
more of revolution and civil war across much
1476.86 -> of the continent.
1479.23 -> Despite the ongoing war, Einstein was able
to commence new research in a concerted manner
1484.549 -> in Berlin from 1915 onwards as the initial
shock of the outbreak of the war lessened.
1490.41 -> However, it was not until 1917 that the Kaiser
Wilhelm Institute was finally established
1496.429 -> in Berlin with Einstein as its first director.
1500.279 -> Funding and administrative delays wrought
by the war effort had delayed its inception.
1505.98 -> He would serve as head of the Institute for
the next sixteen years.
1510.059 -> Meanwhile, in 1916 he was admitted as a member
of the German Physical Society, which had
1515.28 -> been established in 1845 and is the world’s
oldest major academic body of physicists.
1522.399 -> Foreign honours would also follow in the years
ahead, including membership of the Royal Netherlands
1527.34 -> Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1920 and admittance
as a foreign member in 1921 to the Royal Society,
1536.08 -> arguably the world’s most prestigious scientific
society and one which dated back to 1660 when
1542.461 -> it was founded in London.
1545.16 ->
Such honours aside, Einstein continued to
1547.46 -> break new ground in his research in the mid-1910s.
1550.529 -> For instance, in 1916 he hypothesised the
existence of gravitational waves, which are
1557.32 -> effectively ripples in the curvature of space
time.
1561.21 -> These could not be detected using the instrumentation
available in the early twentieth century,
1566.69 -> but in 2016, a century after Einstein predicted
their existence, they were finally confirmed
1572.75 -> by American scientists.
1574.77 -> He was also beginning to theorise the existence
of what we now know to be black holes, points
1580.48 -> in space where gravity is so strong that neither
light nor particles can effectively escape
1585.84 -> from them and which distort space and time.
1589.37 -> As with so much else, his work on black holes
was pioneering and paved the way for many
1594.559 -> of his successors to produce detailed accounts
of the building blocks of the universe later
1600.28 -> in the twentieth century.
1601.899 -> He could, however, be mistaken too.
1604.74 -> In 1917 he began working on what he termed
the ‘cosmological constant’, a theory
1610.83 -> which supposed the existence of a static universe.
1614.98 -> Many years later when the American astronomer
Edwin Hubble discovered the recession of nebulae
1620.1 -> in the universe, Einstein realised his earlier
theory of the ‘cosmological constant’
1626.19 -> was incorrect and referred to it as his, quote,
“biggest blunder” throughout his career.
1633.73 -> His other great research project of the war
years, though, was far from a blunder.
1638.37 -> Einstein had been working on the concept of
relativity for over a decade and ‘special
1643.79 -> relativity’ was the subject of one of his
acclaimed papers of 1905.
1648.71 -> Yet it was not until the mid-1910s that he
began finalising his research on the subject
1654.07 -> of general relativity.
1656.299 -> The general theory of relativity outlined
the geometric theory of gravitation.
1662.12 -> This moved far beyond Newtonian ideas concerning
gravity to explain gravitational pull and
1668.62 -> the full complexity of geometric gravity as
it applies to the universe and not just individual
1675.08 -> planets.
1676.08 -> There is an ongoing debate as to who actually
arrived at the general theory of relativity
1681.659 -> first, as his contemporary, the German mathematician,
David Hilbert, essentially arrived at nearly
1687.69 -> identical conclusions as Einstein did in the
mid-1910s.
1692.649 -> As with Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell
Wallace, who both broadly developed the theory
1697.11 -> of natural selection at the same time in the
mid-nineteenth century, both Einstein and
1702.85 -> Hilbert were in communication with each other
and Einstein had visited the University of
1708.07 -> Gottingen where Hilbert was working in 1915
to present lectures on his own findings.
1714.69 -> What seems relatively clear is that Einstein
and Hilbert influenced each other sufficiently
1720.1 -> that they both arrived at the same conclusions
concerning general relativity within days
1725.4 -> of each other in the winter of 1915.
1729.51 -> In late 1918 Europe and the wider world began
to emerge from the grip of the First World
1735.22 -> War, although in some countries such as Russia,
Hungary, Turkey and Ireland the end of the
1740.86 -> war saw the commencement of bitter civil wars
which eclipsed anything that those countries
1745.659 -> had seen during the war itself.
1748.12 -> Yet with the resumption of some form of normal
life academic discourse resumed fully and
1753.72 -> research began to be disseminated widely again.
1757.21 -> Thus, Einstein and Hilbert’s work on the
general theory of relativity reached a wider
1762.07 -> audience within the community of Europe and
America’s physicists.
1766.37 -> As it did there was an increasing appreciation
of how ground-breaking their studies were.
1771.57 -> Then, in the summer of 1919, the theory was
confirmed as being accurate by Sir Arthur
1777.99 -> Eddington, an English astronomer and mathematician,
during a solar eclipse.
1783.19 -> This time the popular newspapers picked up
the story, proclaiming that Einstein’s theory
1787.97 -> had overthrown the model of the universe developed
by Isaac Newton nearly 250 years earlier.
1794.28 -> Given all of this, it is perhaps unsurprising
that in 1921 the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm
1801.71 -> decided to award Einstein the Nobel Prize
for Physics.
1806.029 -> They specifically cited his work in discovering
the photoelectric effect in his paper from
1811.539 -> 1905 in the award designation, but it could
just as easily have been awarded for a wide
1817.76 -> range of research findings over the previous
fifteen or so years.
1823.66 -> Receipt of the Nobel Prize in 1921 and the
opening up of the world during the boom time
1829.07 -> years of the 1920s after years of war and
social discord saw Einstein and Elsa, whom
1835.82 -> he had just recently married, decide to travel
internationally.
1839.669 -> In early April 1921 they sailed into New York
City where the couple were greeted by the
1845.12 -> Mayor, John Francis Hylan, and a delegation
of some of the most senior members of the
1850.429 -> city’s Jewish community.
1852.42 -> Weeks of lectures and receptions followed,
notably at Columbia University in New York
1857.44 -> and Princeton University in New Jersey.
1860.47 -> Later that month Einstein met President Warren
Harding in the White House.
1865.789 -> Afterwards they left for a Pacific voyage
to the Empire of Japan and then onwards to
1870.85 -> Singapore and India before reaching the Middle
East.
1874.039 -> There Einstein visited Palestine, which had
become subject to a British mandate following
1879.58 -> the end of the First World War and where the
Jewish Zionist movement was attempting to
1884.48 -> establish a new state for the world’s Jews
after centuries of being scattered around
1889.5 -> the globe.
1890.95 -> Afterwards he returned to Germany, but the
1921 to 1922 trip was the beginning of a pattern
1897.399 -> of significant trips to different parts of
the world.
1900.08 -> For instance, in 1925 he visited South America,
spending weeks in Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil,
1907.64 -> countries which were booming economically
and socially in the early twentieth century
1912.01 -> and where Einstein was revered within the
academic community.
1917.08 -> In the mid-1920s Einstein became involved
in a scientific debate which was widely reported
1922.96 -> on at the time.
1924.679 -> This was between himself and Niels Bohr, a
Danish physicist who had won the Nobel Prize
1930.36 -> in Physics in 1922, twelve months after Einstein
had been awarded the same honour.
1935.809 -> A dispute had been building between Einstein
and Bohr throughout the mid-1920s over their
1942.519 -> differing interpretations of quantum theory.
1945.94 -> Much of this centred on Bohr’s refusal to
believe that photons, which Einstein had first
1951.6 -> theorised the existence of in 1905, were real.
1955.929 -> He did not accept that they did exist until
1925 and even then their debates raged on
1962.7 -> over other elements of their respective views
on quantum mechanics.
1967.49 -> Debates were held in London and elsewhere
between 1922 and 1925, but culminated in a
1973.71 -> famous academic disputation in 1927 at the
Fifth Solvay Conference at the International
1980.72 -> Solvay Institutes of Physics and Chemistry
in Brussels.
1985.27 -> Here Bohr and Einstein continued their debate,
with both figures arguing points which eventually
1990.94 -> proved to be accurate.
1992.45 -> However, beyond the theoretical arguments
the Conference is noteworthy for the number
1996.909 -> of the world’s most accomplished physicists
it drew together.
2001.34 -> Seventeen of the twenty-nine attendees had
already or later received Nobel Prize awards,
2007.48 -> while Einstein and Bohr were joined by figures
including Marie Curie, Werner Heisenberg and
2013.58 -> Erwin Schrodinger.
2014.58 -> It points to the sheer level of brilliance
of the European scientific community in the
2019.779 -> interwar period.
2022.11 -> The late 1920s also saw Einstein re-conceptualising
his own theories of the universe.
2028.639 -> This was in response to the discovery by the
American astronomer, Edwin Hubble, of the
2033.99 -> recession of the nebulae, or what is now termed
Hubble’s Law.
2038.429 -> This states that galaxies are moving away
from Earth at speeds which are proportionate
2043.97 -> to the distance they are from the Milky Way.
2047.049 -> These speeds are always faster, meaning that
the further a cosmic body is from the Earth
2053.25 -> the faster it will move away from the Earth.
2056.27 -> These findings, which were made public in
1929, required Einstein to abandon his current
2062.119 -> theory of the universe at that time, which
was known as the cosmological constant, which
2067.879 -> supposed that the universe was largely static
in the way that it expanded, i.e. that the
2073.79 -> cosmos had been expanding since the Big Bang
at a relatively constant speed.
2079.32 -> Hubble’s discoveries forced Einstein to
re-evaluate his hypothesis, as it was now
2084.72 -> clear that the universe was expanding at an
ever greater speed.
2089.35 ->
Hubble’s discovery was also partly responsible
2092.629 -> for Einstein’s decision to embark on a new
journey to the United States in December 1930.
2098.93 -> He wanted to meet Hubble and thank him for
his research, which he duly did in 1931.
2104.4 -> However, the trip is generally more remembered
for Einstein’s visit to California where
2109.81 -> the ostensible purpose of the voyage was to
take up a two month visiting fellowship at
2115.14 -> the California Institute of Technology, better
known as Caltech today.
2120.24 -> During this sojourn Einstein ominously noted
that science had as much, and perhaps a greater,
2125.85 -> capacity to do harm than to do good within
human society, a reference no doubt to the
2131.32 -> increasing use of technology in warfare, an
issue the pacifist Einstein found abhorrent.
2137.68 -> This same aversion to the growing militarism
of the 1930s led Einstein to have an affinity
2143.16 -> with the novelist Upton Sinclair and the actor
Charlie Chaplin, both of whom he met in Los
2148.66 -> Angeles during his visit and who were both
publicly affirmed pacifists themselves.
2154.22 -> Einstein’s growing friendship with Chaplin
led him to attend the premier of his new film,
2159.96 -> City Lights, a silent film which was significant
in establishing the romantic comedy genre
2165.53 -> in American movies.
2167.38 -> When Albert and Elsa Einstein entered the
cinema with Chaplin, Einstein was cheered
2172.38 -> with the same regard a Hollywood icon could
obtain.
2176.319 -> It was also the beginnings of a long friendship
with Chaplin which saw the actor visit Einstein’s
2182.21 -> Berlin apartment shortly afterwards and Einstein
renewed their acquaintance when he himself
2187.05 -> returned again to America early in 1933.
2192 -> While Einstein had been holding his positions
in Germany and travelling widely in the 1920s
2197.47 -> and early 1930s, as his fame and accomplishments
increased, the political environment back
2203.67 -> in his native Germany was changing for the
worse.
2207.119 -> Germany had been mired in political chaos
in the aftermath of the First World War, but
2212.05 -> from 1923 onwards had entered into a period
of pronounced prosperity and instability.
2218.57 -> That was shattered late in 1929 when the stock
markets on Wall Street in New York City crashed
2224.8 -> and a massive economic depression set in across
the developed world.
2229.54 -> In Germany, as millions lost their jobs and
their economic security, a huge proportion
2234.49 -> of the population turned in national elections
to the rabidly anti-semitic National Socialist
2240.569 -> German Workers’ Party, or Nazis, under their
leader Adolf Hitler.
2245.54 -> In Reichstag elections in 1932 they became
the largest political party in Germany and
2251.349 -> in the first months of 1933 Hitler became
Chancellor of the country.
2256.81 -> Within weeks the party effectively turned
Germany into a one-party, fascist state.
2261.43 -> This was extremely ominous for the country’s
Jewish population, and individuals like Einstein.
2267.35 -> In the United States he decided not to return
to Germany and instead the Einsteins settled
2272.45 -> in America after a brief visit to Antwerp
in Belgium where Albert handed his German
2277.349 -> passport into the German embassy and renounced
his citizenship.
2281.869 -> In Berlin the Nazis had already searched his
apartment twice on account of his Jewish heritage
2287.29 -> and over the next year or so Jewish academics
such as himself were forced out of their positions
2292.71 -> across Germany.
2295.079 -> In the United States, following his decision
to seek permanent residence there in 1933,
2300.849 -> Einstein quickly acquired a position at the
Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton
2305.21 -> University in New Jersey.
2307.41 -> It was the institution which he would spend
the longest portion of his career at, and
2312.71 -> barring a directorship at Brandeis University
in Massachusetts in the mid-1940s, Einstein
2318.41 -> was primarily associated with Princeton for
the remainder of his life.
2322.859 -> In the mid-to-late 1930s Einstein undertook
some further notable work here on the East
2328.54 -> Coast of America.
2329.819 -> A particularly significant engagement resulted
from collaboration with Nathan Rosen, a Jewish
2335.35 -> American physicist.
2337.41 -> Together Einstein and Rosen produced a model
of what a wormhole might look like.
2342.99 -> Wormholes are theoretical structures which
might connect disparate points in space-time
2348.29 -> together.
2349.29 -> At the time that Einstein and Rosen produced
their theoretical ‘wormhole bridge’ they
2353.971 -> were a relatively novel concept, but they
have latterly come to form a fundamental aspect
2360.04 -> of theoretical writings on space travel.
2363.16 -> In due course they became a mainstay of science
fiction writing from the middle of the twentieth
2367.83 -> century onwards.
2370.349 -> While Einstein was teaching in the United
States in the 1930s developments were occurring
2375.31 -> back in his homeland of Germany which would
soon have global implications.
2380.89 -> Following their initial rise to power in 1933
the Nazis had made clear their intent to overturn
2386.92 -> the terms of the Treaty of Versailles which
had brought the First World War to an end.
2392.23 -> In the mid-1930s they began rearming Germany,
recruiting hundreds of thousands of soldiers
2397.76 -> into the military and building thousands of
tanks, fighter planes and bombers.
2402.77 -> Then, beginning in the spring of 1938, the
Nazis used diplomatic coercion to annex Austria
2409.51 -> into a Greater Germany and to seize territory
from its other neighbours such as Czechoslovakia
2414.4 -> and Lithuania.
2415.91 -> When Hitler then invaded Poland in September
1939 Britain and France determined that they
2421.49 -> could no longer appease the Nazis and declared
war on Germany.
2426.06 -> In the immediate term the government of President
Franklin Delano Roosevelt did not have public
2430.93 -> support for American involvement in what was
deemed within the US to be a European war
2436.77 -> which it should not involve itself in.
2438.49 -> However, when Germany’s ally the Empire
of Japan attacked the US Pacific Fleet at
2444.23 -> rest in Pearl Harbour in Hawaii in December
1941 the United States also entered the Second
2450.79 -> World War.
2451.79 -> More than any war in human history it was
one which would be shaped by scientific innovation.
2459.27 -> Despite his pacifism Einstein was soon involved
in correspondence with the US government concerning
2464.48 -> the growing conflict.
2466.5 -> Indeed this had commenced weeks before the
war erupted in Europe.
2470.69 -> Early in 1939 European physicists had discovered
nuclear fission using uranium.
2476.62 -> With this discovery the theoretical possibility
of developing a nuclear bomb of some kind
2481.75 -> moved ever closer.
2483.26 -> A number of European physicists, foremost
amongst which was the Hungarian Leo Szilard,
2488.92 -> realised exactly how possible it now was that
a dedicated research team could develop a
2493.64 -> nuclear warhead.
2495.339 -> This deeply worried many European scientists,
as many of the continent’s leading physicists
2500.66 -> worked in Germany and could be co-opted into
helping the Nazis develop a nuclear weapon,
2506.22 -> one which Hitler and his accomplices would
have little compunctions about using as a
2510.78 -> conventional weapon of war despite its absolutely
cataclysmic capacity for the loss of human
2517.17 -> life.
2518.17 -> Consequently, Szilard and two fellow Hungarian
physicists, Edward Teller and Eugene Wigner,
2524.14 -> composed a letter to the US government warning
of the risks of the Nazis developing a nuclear
2529.31 -> weapon before any other state.
2531.859 -> They sent this to America where Einstein appended
his signature to it before it was sent to
2537.579 -> the administration of President Roosevelt.
2540.329 -> What has become known as the Einstein-Szilard
Letter was influential in the months that
2545.28 -> followed in the US initiating its own programme
to develop a nuclear weapon.
2552.22 -> The Manhattan Project, the US government’s
programme to develop a nuclear weapon, was
2557.05 -> initiated on a piecemeal basis late in 1939,
just weeks after the receipt of the Einstein-Szilard
2564.109 -> Letter.
2565.13 -> This ran enormously against Einstein’s own
pacifist inclinations, though the possibility
2570.31 -> of the Nazis acquiring such a weapon before
the US had forced him into warning the government
2575.829 -> of the dangers of this occurring.
2577.49 -> This aside, he viewed war of any kind as a
disease which should be resisted by all of
2583.77 -> civil society in the modern world.
2586.309 -> Accordingly he did not play a role in the
Manhattan Project itself.
2591.14 -> Rather it was led by Robert Oppenheimer, an
American theoretical physicist.
2595.73 -> Though its activities were limited between
1939 and 1941, once the United States entered
2602.23 -> the war in December 1941 funding and resources
increased enormously, particularly so as it
2609.051 -> became increasingly apparent that the Nazis
were in fact trying to develop super-weapons
2614.329 -> such as a nuclear bomb at various installations
in Europe, notably in Norway where what is
2620.63 -> known as ‘heavy water’ was being produced,
a form of hydrogen with different nuclear
2626.099 -> properties which could conceivably be used
to manufacture a nuclear weapon.
2630.78 -> The research here, though, was slow and was
scuppered on numerous occasions by sabotage
2635.64 -> missions launched by British Special Forces
and Free Norwegian fighters.
2640.859 -> By that time the Manhattan Project was employing
upwards of 130,000 people in the United States
2647.42 -> and a nuclear reactor had been demonstrated
in Chicago as early as 1942.
2652.86 -> Eventually, in mid-July 1945 the world’s
first nuclear device was detonated in the
2659.28 -> desert of New Mexico.
2662.04 -> By the time the first nuclear weapon was detonated
the Second World War had already been over
2667.14 -> in Europe for several weeks.
2669.13 -> However, because of the agreed Allied policy
of leaving the conclusion of the war in the
2673.9 -> Pacific against the Empire of Japan until
after Nazi Germany had been defeated, the
2680.03 -> conflict was still raging there by the summer
of 1945.
2683.66 -> Accordingly the administration of President
Harry Truman quickly decided to use the new
2688.29 -> weapon against Japan in the belief that doing
so would ultimately save over a million lives
2694.76 -> if it forced Japan to surrender quickly.
2697.17 -> Thus, on the 6th of August 1945 the first
nuclear weapon used in warfare was dropped
2703.15 -> on the city of Hiroshima, killing upwards
of 75,000 people on the first day and a further
2710.339 -> 60,000 or so in the months that followed,
from radiation sickness.
2714.7 -> Three days later a second nuclear device of
a slightly different kind was dropped on the
2719.74 -> city of Nagasaki, killing upwards of 80,000
people across the initial destruction zone
2725.51 -> and as a result of the after effects.
2728.05 -> Japan did quickly surrender, but Einstein
was appalled by the ferocity of the attacks
2733.65 -> and the fallout from them.
2735.26 -> Shortly after the bombings he declared that,
“The time has come now, when man must give
2741.49 -> up war.
2742.63 -> It is no longer rational to solve international
problems by resorting to war.”
2747.23 -> He subsequently expressed his regret that
his research on the molecular structure of
2751.559 -> the world and the concept of mass energy and
equivalence, which he had first published
2756.49 -> in 1905, had contributed towards the development
of the nuclear weapons.
2763.359 -> The post-war years saw Einstein continue to
research and publish, though by then he was
2768.73 -> nearing his seventies and the pressures of
his public profile and some health concerns
2773.45 -> restricted how much he could accomplish.
2776.4 -> Nevertheless, at Princeton in the late 1940s
he developed what he referred to as his Unified
2782.599 -> Field Theory, findings which he published
in Scientific American in 1950 as ‘On the
2789.72 -> Generalized Theory of Gravitation’.
2792.15 -> This Unified Field Theory sought to develop
a single, unified theoretical framework which
2797.78 -> could be used to understand the fundamental
forces of nature and the universe.
2802.49 -> Efforts had been undertaken by many physicists
throughout the first half of the twentieth
2806.94 -> century to develop such a unified theory,
but none had met with acceptance across the
2812.42 -> academic community.
2814.34 -> Einstein’s theory attempted to incorporate
elements of his work on general relativity,
2820.41 -> electromagnetism and gravity and proposed
a single origin for the entire set of physical
2826.34 -> laws, one which could unify forces such as
gravitation, electromagnetic forces and even
2831.72 -> the curvature of space-time with which much
of Einstein’s work in the 1930s had been
2837.65 -> concerned.
2838.75 -> Ultimately his work and that of others in
developing such a unified theory were unsuccessful,
2844.8 -> but his research in this respect is nevertheless
regarded as being consequential in the further
2850.589 -> development of differential geometry, the
study of the geometry of smooth shapes and
2856.44 -> surfaces, particularly as they apply to space.
2860.39 ->
The years following the end of the Second
2862.2 -> World War in America also saw Einstein acquire
a form of celebrity within mainstream society
2868.76 -> which was largely unprecedented for a theoretical
physicist.
2872.8 -> In many ways this went back all the way to
the early 1920s and Einstein’s first arrival
2878.839 -> in New York City.
2880.48 -> His theory of relativity had just been confirmed
by other scientists, changing our fundamental
2886.369 -> understanding of the universe, while Einstein
was the recipient of the Nobel Prize.
2891.78 -> The New York Times had run a story in December
1919 proclaiming that Einstein had, quote,
2899.06 -> “destroyed space and time,” through his
research findings.
2903.29 -> Here was the most fundamental overhaul of
human thought since Charles Darwin’s Theory
2907.82 -> of Natural Selection a half a century earlier,
but Einstein’s work was greeted with applause
2913.869 -> whereas Darwin’s had been viewed as sacrilegious.
2917.23 -> His associations with figures like Charlie
Chaplin in Hollywood and his increasingly
2921.8 -> iconic physical appearance all made him a
more identifiable figure in the years that
2927.059 -> followed.
2928.059 -> Most tellingly, by the 1940s it was becoming
apparent how Einstein’s revolutionary ideas
2934.15 -> were changing society and the world in practical
ways, not just from the perspective of theoretical
2940.559 -> physics.
2941.75 -> As all of this occurred he became a figure
as feted within American society as Stephen
2947.15 -> Hawking later would be in the second half
of the twentieth century, or figures like
2951.599 -> James Lovelock and Richard Dawkins in the
early twenty-first century.
2957.329 -> By the time his working life came to an end
Einstein’s written and published output
2962.26 -> was enormous.
2963.45 -> Though it may seem unusual to many, Einstein’s
primary academic output was in the shape of
2969.23 -> papers in academic journals, of which there
were nearly 300 over a span of 55 years, rather
2976.1 -> than books.
2977.39 -> This was and remains the primary means of
communicating research for academics working
2982.059 -> in the hard sciences.
2984.049 -> Such books as Einstein authored, of which
there were over a dozen, were generally reproductions
2989.609 -> of work he had already published as academic
papers, the idea being to tie together his
2995.619 -> existing work on general relativity and other
topics or to try to make the material more
3001.21 -> accessible to a general audience.
3003.72 -> Some of these were used as advanced undergraduate
and postgraduate textbooks for students of
3009.42 -> theoretical physics for years to come in universities.
3013.42 -> Additionally, translations were made into
multiple languages, ensuring that Einstein’s
3018.7 -> work was accessible in dozens of countries
by the middle of the twentieth century.
3024.27 -> Beyond this academic output, Einstein was
a voracious correspondent and at the Albert
3029.91 -> Einstein Archives at the Hebrew University
of Jerusalem there are over 3,500 pages of
3036.88 -> his private correspondence dating from 1912
to 1955.
3041.23 -> He also wrote widely on various political,
philosophical, religious and humanitarian
3047.04 -> issues, Unsurprisingly, collected editions
of Einstein’s work, correspondence and other
3052.44 -> writings, such as those published since the
late 1980s by the academic press of Princeton
3057.619 -> University, the university where Albert spent
nearly all of his career in the United States,
3063.2 -> have stretched into dozens of lengthy volumes.
3067.27 ->
The individual who produced this enormous
3069.589 -> body of work was, despite his brilliance and
celebrity, a resoundingly modest individual.
3075.9 -> He once proclaimed of himself, quote, “I
have no special talents, I am only passionately
3082.47 -> curious.”
3083.799 -> He never acquired the trappings of wealth
or fame and indeed visitors to his home in
3088.03 -> Berlin in the 1920s or America in the post-1933
period were generally struck by the modesty
3094.77 -> of the abode, where the most lavish adornment
was usually a piano so that Einstein could
3100.359 -> play the classical music he loved.
3102.94 -> His family life, it must be admitted, was
difficult.
3106.46 -> His two biological sons went to live with
their mother after she and Albert separated
3111.44 -> in 1914 and thereafter their relationship
was somewhat distant.
3116.54 -> Hans later immigrated to the United States
in 1938, where they reconnected, but Eduard
3122.309 -> remained in Europe and despite maintaining
a correspondence with his father never saw
3127.43 -> him again after Albert left for America in
the early 1930s.
3131.809 -> Eduard later developed psychiatric problems
and was institutionalised in Zurich.
3137.41 -> Albert’s marriage to Elsa was also strained
long before her death in New Jersey in 1936
3143.93 -> and it has been widely speculated that Einstein
retreated into his scientific inquiries at
3149.339 -> times as a substitute for his own weaknesses
when it came to emotional relationships.
3154.79 -> Politically, he was humane, holding a lifelong
aversion to violence and war.
3159.94 -> He deeply admired Mahatma Gandhi and his non-violent
opposition to British rule in India and the
3165.55 -> two became correspondents.
3167.46 -> Over time his political views moved towards
a criticism of capitalism and advocacy of
3173.67 -> socialism, while he also wrote on numerous
occasions about the desire for a system of
3178.45 -> global government and an end to competition
between nation states.
3183.23 -> He held positive views of the United States,
deeming the country to be a meritocracy, but
3188.849 -> the FBI had developed a dossier on him before
he ever fully relocated to America from Europe
3195.42 -> and by the mid-1950s it ran to over 1,400
pages, a not wholly unusual development for
3202.839 -> a former German and an academic in post-war
America.
3206.73 -> An intrinsic part of Einstein’s character
was his Jewish heritage, though he himself
3212.65 -> was a professed agnostic and viewed the Bible
as a collection of “primitive legends”.
3218.61 -> His Jewish heritage also shaped his life from
the 1930s onwards as it saw him relocate to
3224.299 -> the United States in the face of the Nazi
threat.
3227.69 -> Einstein also became noted in his later years
for his support for Zionism and the state
3232.7 -> of Israel.
3233.839 -> He had visited Palestine back in the 1920s
when it was being governed as a British mandate
3239.26 -> in the aftermath of the First World War.
3241.93 -> At that time hundreds of thousands of Jews
were already living in or migrating to the
3247.11 -> region with the goal of reforming a Jewish
state after nearly 2,000 years of being dispersed
3252.78 -> around the world.
3254.23 -> In 1925 Einstein agreed to be listed amongst
the first Board of Governors of the Hebrew
3259.76 -> University of Jerusalem when it was established
that year.
3264.18 -> Then in the aftermath of the Second World
War hundreds of thousands of Europe’s Jews
3269.44 -> who had survived the Holocaust perpetrated
by the Nazis during the Second World War headed
3274.619 -> for the Holy Land.
3276.08 -> When the British mandate there expired in
March 1948 the Jewish people declared a new
3280.94 -> state of Israel for the Jewish people in the
Levant.
3284.359 -> In 1952 Einstein was offered the ceremonial
position of President of the country, though
3289.851 -> he declined on account of his age and inability
to leave the United States at that stage.
3296.29 -> Einstein remained supportive of the Zionist
movement until his death but one wonders what
3301.66 -> the pacifist in him would have made of the
Israeli state as it descended into interminable
3307.109 -> warfare with its Muslim neighbours from the
Suez Crisis of 1956 onwards.
3313.51 ->
By the time Israel entered into the Suez Crisis
3316.45 -> or the Second Arab-Israeli War against its
southern neighbour Egypt in 1956, Einstein
3323 -> had died.
3324.3 -> Shortly after the end of the Second World
War he had begun to suffer from an abdominal
3328.839 -> aortic aneurysm, an enlargement of the abdominal
aorta, the largest artery in the abdomen.
3335.329 -> It can become blocked, much like any other
part of the circulatory system owing to high
3340.329 -> blood pressure, high cholesterol and smoking.
3344.15 -> Einstein had the issue operated on successfully
in 1948 by reinforcing the aorta wall, but
3350.619 -> despite improving his lifestyle, including
adopting a vegetarian diet, the problem resurfaced
3356.18 -> again early in 1955 when the aorta ruptured,
causing internal bleeding.
3361.849 -> He was admitted to hospital on the 17th of
April, but refused emergency surgery to try
3366.73 -> to intervene to stop the bleeding, proclaiming
philosophically that it was best to meet death
3372.44 -> with dignity when one’s time had come.
3375.23 -> He died the following day on the 18th of April
1955 at 76 years of age.
3381.299 -> The surgeon who carried out his autopsy afterwards
removed Einstein’s brain for scientific
3386.9 -> study, though this was done without the permission
of his family.
3390.76 -> It was subsequently dissected and the remains
of it are today found in the National Museum
3395.93 -> of Health and Medicine in Washington D.C.,
while some sections were put on display in
3401.38 -> the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia in 2013.
3405.26 -> It has been suggested that the abnormal number
of glial cells in his brain might account
3410.47 -> for Einstein’s inordinate aptitude for mathematical
equations.
3414.77 -> His body was cremated shortly after his death
in New Jersey and his ashes were modestly
3419.79 -> scattered at an undisclosed location.
3423.66 -> Albert Einstein was one of the most influential
thinkers in the history of science.
3428.65 -> So significant were his findings in his research
over a span of half a century that his surname
3434.13 -> has become synonymous with elevated intelligence.
3438.19 -> Perhaps what is most unusual about this is
that it all sprang from relatively humble
3443.569 -> beginnings.
3444.569 -> In the 1890s he was effectively an international
nomad when he was still a teenager and young
3449.95 -> man, moving between his native Germany, Italy
and Switzerland as his parents tried to balance
3455.569 -> their financial and business situation with
their awareness of their son’s precocious
3460.4 -> abilities as a mathematician and physicist.
3463.25 -> His time at the Polytechnic School in Zurich
provided some stability, but Central Europe’s
3469.22 -> universities saw fit not to hire him when
he completed his initial studies there and
3474.059 -> instead he spent several years working in
the Swiss Patent Office in Bern.
3478.96 -> It was here, while evaluating inventions during
the day, and starting a young family, that
3484.25 -> he began working on some of the most significant
research in the field of physics ever undertaken.
3490.27 -> The result, in the annus mirabilis of 1905,
were four ground-breaking studies which revolutionised
3497.44 -> humanity’s understanding of the nature of
the universe, at once revealing the existence
3502.84 -> of photons and the nuclear and atomic building
blocks of existence.
3508.52 -> 1905 changed everything.
3511.089 -> In the years that followed Einstein was promoted
year on year to ever more significant academic
3516.97 -> positions, until he eventually reached the
peak of European academia in Berlin just as
3522.72 -> the First World War broke out.
3525.069 -> In the midst of that calamitous conflict he
developed the general theory of relativity.
3530.38 -> In 1921 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in
Physics for his work, though more accolades
3535.77 -> followed in the decades ahead.
3537.89 -> What is perhaps most notable about Einstein’s
career, however, from the 1920s onwards is
3543.5 -> the public profile he developed.
3546.18 -> Visits to the United States, South America,
across Europe and the Middle East allowed
3551 -> him to advocate on behalf of a number of causes.
3554.42 -> The most significant was his ringing of the
alarm bells about the threat posed by Nazi
3559.39 -> Germany from 1933 onwards.
3562.74 -> Indeed he immediately renounced his German
citizenship when Hitler seized power and moved
3567.609 -> to the United States.
3569.01 -> There he continued to note the dangers posed
by the possibility of the Nazis acquiring
3574.26 -> a nuclear weapon.
3575.51 -> However, it was a double-edged sword for Einstein
the pacifist, for the cost of seeing Nazi
3581.01 -> Germany defeated in the nuclear race was seeing
the US drop its own atomic bombs on Hiroshima
3587.17 -> and Nagasaki in 1945.
3590.13 -> In the aftermath of the war he used his position
to advocate on behalf of a state for the Jewish
3595.71 -> people in the Middle East following the Holocaust.
3598.78 -> When he died in 1955 he was the most acclaimed
scientist in the world, one who ultimately
3604.99 -> influenced the entire fields of physics, mathematics
and cosmology in the modern era.
3611.19 -> The history of the twentieth century might
well have been significantly different had
3615.539 -> it not been for Einstein.
3618.569 -> What do you think of Albert Einstein?
3620.839 -> Was he the most revolutionary intellectual
in modern history and what might explain his
3626.559 -> inordinate intellect?
3628.23 -> Please let us know in the comment section,
and in the meantime, thank you very much for
3633.87 -> watching.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zk-NVPYPWk