Albert Einstein

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Einstein (disambiguation).

Albert Einstein

Einstein in 1921, by Ferdinand Schmutzer

Born 14 March 1879

Ulm, Kingdom of Württemberg, German Empire

Died 18 April 1955 (aged 76)

Princeton, New Jersey, U.S.

Kingdom of Württemberg, part of the German

Citizenship
Empire (1879–1896)[note 1]
Stateless (1896–1901)

Switzerland (1901–1955)

Austria, part of the Austro-Hungarian

Empire (1911–1912)
Kingdom of Prussia, part of the German Empire

(1914–1918)[note 1]
Free State of Prussia (Weimar Republic, 1918–

1933)
 United States (1940–1955)

Education Federal polytechnic school in Zurich (Federal

teaching diploma, 1900)

University of Zurich (PhD, 1905)

Known for General relativity

Special relativity

Photoelectric effect

E=mc2 (Mass–energy equivalence)

E=hf (Planck–Einstein relation)

Theory of Brownian motion

Einstein field equations

Bose–Einstein statistics

Bose–Einstein condensate

Gravitational wave

Cosmological constant

Unified field theory

EPR paradox

Ensemble interpretation

List of other concepts

Mileva Marić
Spouses

(m. 1903; div. 1919)
Elsa Löwenthal

(m. 1919; died[1][2] 1936)

Children Lieserl

Hans Albert

Eduard "Tete"

Awards Barnard Medal (1920)

Nobel Prize in Physics (1921)

Matteucci Medal (1921)

ForMemRS (1921)[3]

Copley Medal (1925)[3]

Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical

Society (1926)[4]
Max Planck Medal (1929)

Member of the National Academy of

 Sciences (1942)[5]
Time Person of the Century (1999)

Scientific career

Fields Physics, philosophy

Institutions Swiss Patent Office (Bern) (1902–1909)

University of Bern (1908–1909)

University of Zurich (1909–1911)

Charles University in Prague (1911–1912)

ETH Zurich (1912–1914)

Prussian Academy of Sciences (1914–1933)

Humboldt University of Berlin (1914–1933)

Kaiser Wilhelm Institute (director, 1917–1933)

German Physical Society (president, 1916–1918)

Leiden University (visits, 1920)

Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton

University (1933–1955)
California Institute of Technology (visits, 1931–

1933)
University of Oxford (visits, 1931–1933)

Brandeis University (director, 1946–1947)

Thesis Eine neue Bestimmung der

Moleküldimensionen (A New Determination of

Molecular Dimensions) (1905)

Doctoral advisor Alfred Kleiner

Other academic Heinrich Friedrich Weber

advisors

Influences Hendrik Lorentz

Hermann Minkowski[citation needed]

Influenced Virtually all modern physicists

Signature

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Albert Einstein (/ˈaɪnstaɪn/ EYEN-styne;[6] German: [ˈalbɛʁt ˈʔaɪnʃtaɪn] ( listen); 14 March

1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist,[7] widely
acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time.
Einstein is best known for developing the theory of relativity, but he also made
important contributions to the development of the theory of quantum mechanics.
Relativity and quantum mechanics are the two pillars of modern physics.[3]
[8]
 His mass–energy equivalence formula E = mc2, which arises from relativity theory,
has been dubbed "the world's most famous equation". [9] His work is also known for its
influence on the philosophy of science.[10][11] He received the 1921 Nobel Prize in
Physics "for his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the
law of the photoelectric effect",[12] a pivotal step in the development of quantum
theory. His intellectual achievements and originality resulted in "Einstein" becoming
synonymous with "genius".[13]
In 1905, a year sometimes described as his annus mirabilis ('miracle year'), Einstein
published four groundbreaking papers.[14] These outlined the theory of the
photoelectric effect, explained Brownian motion, introduced special relativity, and
demonstrated mass-energy equivalence. Einstein thought that the laws of classical
mechanics could no longer be reconciled with those of the electromagnetic field,
which led him to develop his special theory of relativity. He then extended the theory
to gravitational fields; he published a paper on general relativity in 1916, introducing
his theory of gravitation. In 1917, he applied the general theory of relativity to model
the structure of the universe.[15][16] He continued to deal with problems of statistical
mechanics and quantum theory, which led to his explanations of particle theory and
the motion of molecules. He also investigated the thermal properties of light and the
quantum theory of radiation, which laid the foundation of the photon theory of light.
However, for much of the later part of his career, he worked on two ultimately
unsuccessful endeavors. First, despite his great contributions to quantum
mechanics, he opposed what it evolved into, objecting that "God does not play dice".
[17]
 Second, he attempted to devise a unified field theory by generalizing his geometric
 theory of gravitation to include electromagnetism. As a result, he became
increasingly isolated from the mainstream of modern physics.
Einstein was born in the German Empire, but moved to Switzerland in 1895,
forsaking his German citizenship (as a subject of the Kingdom of Württemberg)[note
1]
 the following year. In 1897, at the age of 17, he enrolled in the mathematics and
physics teaching diploma program at the Swiss Federal polytechnic school in Zürich,
graduating in 1900. In 1901, he acquired Swiss citizenship, which he kept for the rest
of his life, and in 1903 he secured a permanent position at the Swiss Patent Office in
Bern. In 1905, he was awarded a PhD by the University of Zurich. In 1914, Einstein
moved to Berlin in order to join the Prussian Academy of Sciences and the Humboldt
University of Berlin. In 1917, Einstein became director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute
for Physics; he also became a German citizen again, this time Prussian.
In 1933, while Einstein was visiting the United States, Adolf Hitler came to power in
Germany. Einstein, as Jewish, objected to the policies of the newly elected Nazi
government;[18] he settled in the United States and became an American citizen in
1940.[19] On the eve of World War II, he endorsed a letter to President Franklin D.
Roosevelt alerting him to the potential German nuclear weapons program and
recommending that the US begin similar research. Einstein supported the Allies but
generally denounced the idea of nuclear weapons.[20]

Contents

 1Life and career

o 1.1Early life and education
o 1.2Marriages and children
o 1.3Patent office
o 1.4First scientific papers
o 1.5Academic career
o 1.61921–1922: Travels abroad
o 1.71925: Visit to South America
o 1.81930–1931: Travel to the US
o 1.91933: Emigration to the US
 1.9.1Refugee status
 1.9.2Resident scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study
 1.9.3World War II and the Manhattan Project
 1.9.4US citizenship
o 1.10Personal views
 1.10.1Political views
 1.10.1.1Relationship with Zionism
 1.10.2Religious and philosophical views
 1.10.3Love of music
o 1.11Death
 2Scientific career
o 2.11905 – Annus Mirabilis papers
o 2.2Statistical mechanics
 2.2.1Thermodynamic fluctuations and statistical physics
 2.2.2Theory of critical opalescence
o 2.3Special relativity
o 2.4General relativity
  2.4.1General relativity and the equivalence principle
 2.4.2Gravitational waves
 2.4.3Hole argument and Entwurf theory
 2.4.4Physical cosmology
 2.4.5Energy momentum pseudotensor
 2.4.6Wormholes
 2.4.7Einstein–Cartan theory
 2.4.8Equations of motion
o 2.5Old quantum theory
 2.5.1Photons and energy quanta
 2.5.2Quantized atomic vibrations
 2.5.3Adiabatic principle and action-angle variables
 2.5.4Bose–Einstein statistics
 2.5.5Wave–particle duality
 2.5.6Zero-point energy
 2.5.7Stimulated emission
 2.5.8Matter waves
o 2.6Quantum mechanics
 2.6.1Einstein's objections to quantum mechanics
 2.6.2Bohr versus Einstein
 2.6.3Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen paradox
o 2.7Unified field theory
o 2.8Other investigations
o 2.9Collaboration with other scientists
 2.9.1Einstein–de Haas experiment
 2.9.2Schrödinger gas model
 2.9.3Einstein refrigerator
 3Non-scientific legacy
 4In popular culture
 5Awards and honors
 6Publications
o 6.1Scientific
o 6.2Others
 7See also
 8Notes
 9References
o 9.1Works cited
 10Further reading
 11External links

Life and career

Early life and education
See also: Einstein family
Einstein at the age of three in 1882

Albert Einstein in 1893 (age 14)

Albert Einstein was born in Ulm,[7] in the Kingdom of Württemberg in the German

Empire, on 14 March 1879 into a family of secular Ashkenazi Jews.[21][22] His parents
were Hermann Einstein, a salesman and engineer, and Pauline Koch. In 1880, the
family moved to Munich, where Einstein's father and his uncle Jakob
founded Elektrotechnische Fabrik J. Einstein & Cie, a company that manufactured
electrical equipment based on direct current.[7]
Albert attended a Catholic elementary school in Munich, from the age of five, for
three years. At the age of eight, he was transferred to the Luitpold-Gymnasium (now
known as the Albert-Einstein-Gymnasium), where he received advanced primary and
secondary school education until he left the German Empire seven years later. [23]
In 1894, Hermann and Jakob's company lost a bid to supply the city of Munich with
electrical lighting because they lacked the capital to convert their equipment from
the direct current (DC) standard to the more efficient alternating current (AC)
standard.[24] The loss forced the sale of the Munich factory. In search of business, the
Einstein family moved to Italy, first to Milan and a few months later to Pavia. When
the family moved to Pavia, Einstein, then 15, stayed in Munich to finish his studies at
the Luitpold Gymnasium. His father intended for him to pursue electrical engineering,
but Einstein clashed with the authorities and resented the school's regimen and
teaching method. He later wrote that the spirit of learning and creative thought was
lost in strict rote learning. At the end of December 1894, he traveled to Italy to join
his family in Pavia, convincing the school to let him go by using a doctor's note.
[25]
 During his time in Italy he wrote a short essay with the title "On the Investigation of
the State of the Ether in a Magnetic Field".[26][27]
Einstein excelled at math and physics from a young age, reaching a mathematical
level years ahead of his peers. The 12-year-old Einstein taught himself algebra and
Euclidean geometry over a single summer.[28] Einstein also independently discovered
his own original proof of the Pythagorean theorem aged 12.[29] A family tutor Max
Talmud says that after he had given the 12-year-old Einstein a geometry textbook,
after a short time "[Einstein] had worked through the whole book. He thereupon
devoted himself to higher mathematics... Soon the flight of his mathematical genius
was so high I could not follow."[30] His passion for geometry and algebra led the 12-
year-old to become convinced that nature could be understood as a "mathematical
structure".[30] Einstein started teaching himself calculus at 12, and as a 14-year-old he
says he had "mastered integral and differential calculus".[31]
At the age of 13, when he had become more seriously interested in philosophy (and
music),[32] Einstein was introduced to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Kant became
his favorite philosopher, his tutor stating: "At the time he was still a child, only
thirteen years old, yet Kant's works, incomprehensible to ordinary mortals, seemed
to be clear to him."[30]

Einstein's Matura certificate, 1896[note 2]

In 1895, at the age of 16, Einstein took the entrance examinations for the
Swiss Federal polytechnic school in Zürich (later the Eidgenössische Technische
Hochschule, ETH). He failed to reach the required standard in the general part of the
examination,[33] but obtained exceptional grades in physics and mathematics. [34] On
the advice of the principal of the polytechnic school, he attended the Argovian
cantonal school (gymnasium) in Aarau, Switzerland, in 1895 and 1896 to complete
his secondary schooling. While lodging with the family of Jost Winteler, he fell in love
with Winteler's daughter, Marie. Albert's sister Maja later married Winteler's son
Paul.[35] In January 1896, with his father's approval, Einstein renounced his citizenship
in the German Kingdom of Württemberg to avoid military service.[36] In September
1896 he passed the Swiss Matura with mostly good grades, including a top grade of
6 in physics and mathematical subjects, on a scale of 1–6.[37] At 17, he enrolled in the
four-year mathematics and physics teaching diploma program at the Federal
polytechnic school. Marie Winteler, who was a year older, moved to Olsberg,
Switzerland, for a teaching post.[35]
Einstein's future wife, a 20-year-old Serbian named Mileva Marić, also enrolled at the
polytechnic school that year. She was the only woman among the six students in the
mathematics and physics section of the teaching diploma course. Over the next few
years, Einstein's and Marić's friendship developed into a romance, and they spent
countless hours debating and reading books together on extra-curricular physics in
which they were both interested. Einstein wrote in his letters to Marić that he
preferred studying alongside her.[38] In 1900, Einstein passed the exams in Maths and
Physics and was awarded a Federal teaching diploma. [39] There is eyewitness
evidence and several letters over many years that indicate Marić might have
collaborated with Einstein prior to his landmark 1905 papers, [38][40][41] known as
the Annus Mirabilis papers, and that they developed some of the concepts together
during their studies, although some historians of physics who have studied the issue
disagree that she made any substantive contributions. [42][43][44][45]
Marriages and children

Albert Einstein and Mileva Marić Einstein, 1912

Early correspondence between Einstein and Marić was discovered and published in
1987 which revealed that the couple had a daughter named "Lieserl", born in early
1902 in Novi Sad where Marić was staying with her parents. Marić returned to
Switzerland without the child, whose real name and fate are unknown. The contents
of Einstein's letter in September 1903 suggest that the girl was either given up for
adoption or died of scarlet fever in infancy.[46][47]
Einstein and Marić married in January 1903. In May 1904, their son Hans Albert
Einstein was born in Bern, Switzerland. Their son Eduard was born in Zürich in July
1910. The couple moved to Berlin in April 1914, but Marić returned to Zürich with
their sons after learning that, despite their close relationship before, [38] Einstein's chief
romantic attraction was now his cousin Elsa Löwenthal;[48] she was his first cousin
maternally and second cousin paternally.[49] Einstein and Marić divorced on 14
February 1919, having lived apart for five years.[50][51] As part of the divorce settlement,
Einstein agreed to give Marić any future (in the event, 1921) Nobel Prize money. [52]
In letters revealed in 2015, Einstein wrote to his early love Marie Winteler about his
marriage and his strong feelings for her. He wrote in 1910, while his wife was
pregnant with their second child: "I think of you in heartfelt love every spare minute
and am so unhappy as only a man can be." He spoke about a "misguided love" and
a "missed life" regarding his love for Marie.[53]
Einstein married Löwenthal in 1919,[54][55] after having had a relationship with her since
1912.[49][56] They emigrated to the United States in 1933. Elsa was diagnosed with
heart and kidney problems in 1935 and died in December 1936. [57]
In 1923, Einstein fell in love with a secretary named Betty Neumann, the niece of a
close friend, Hans Mühsam.[58][59][60][61] In a volume of letters released by Hebrew
University of Jerusalem in 2006,[62] Einstein described about six women, including
Margarete Lebach (a blonde Austrian), Estella Katzenellenbogen (the rich owner of a
florist business), Toni Mendel (a wealthy Jewish widow) and Ethel Michanowski (a
Berlin socialite), with whom he spent time and from whom he received gifts while
being married to Elsa.[63][64] Later, after the death of his second wife Elsa, Einstein was
briefly in a relationship with Margarita Konenkova. Konenkova was a Russian spy
who was married to the Russian sculptor Sergei Konenkov (who created the bronze
bust of Einstein at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton).[65][66][failed verification]
Einstein's son Eduard had a breakdown at about age 20 and was diagnosed
with schizophrenia.[67] His mother cared for him and he was also committed to
asylums for several periods, finally, after her death, being committed permanently
to Burghölzli, the Psychiatric University Hospital in Zürich. [68]
Patent office

Einstein in 1904 (age 25)

After graduating in 1900, Einstein spent almost two years searching for a teaching
post. He acquired Swiss citizenship in February 1901, [69] but was not conscripted for
medical reasons. With the help of Marcel Grossmann's father, he secured a job
in Bern at the Swiss Patent Office,[70][71] as an assistant examiner – level III.[72][73]
Einstein evaluated patent applications for a variety of devices including a gravel
sorter and an electromechanical typewriter.[73] In 1903, his position at the Swiss
Patent Office became permanent, although he was passed over for promotion until
he "fully mastered machine technology". [74]
Much of his work at the patent office related to questions about transmission of
electric signals and electrical-mechanical synchronization of time, two technical
problems that show up conspicuously in the thought experiments that eventually led
Einstein to his radical conclusions about the nature of light and the fundamental
connection between space and time.[14]
With a few friends he had met in Bern, Einstein started a small discussion group in
1902, self-mockingly named "The Olympia Academy", which met regularly to discuss
science and philosophy. Sometimes they were joined by Mileva who attentively
listened but did not participate.[75] Their readings included the works of Henri
Poincaré, Ernst Mach, and David Hume, which influenced his scientific and
philosophical outlook.[76]
First scientific papers

Cover image of the PhD dissertation of Albert Einstein defended in 1905.

In 1900, Einstein's paper "Folgerungen aus den

Capillaritätserscheinungen" ("Conclusions from the Capillarity Phenomena") was
published in the journal Annalen der Physik.[77][78] On 30 April 1905 Einstein completed
his dissertation, A New Determination of Molecular Dimensions[79] with Alfred Kleiner,
serving as pro-forma advisor.[79][80] His thesis was accepted in July 1905, and Einstein
was awarded a PhD on 15 January 1906.[79][80][81]
Also in 1905, which has been called Einstein's annus mirabilis (amazing year), he
published four groundbreaking papers, on the photoelectric effect, Brownian
motion, special relativity, and the equivalence of mass and energy, which were to
bring him to the notice of the academic world, at the age of 26. [82]
Academic career
By 1908, he was recognized as a leading scientist and was appointed lecturer at
the University of Bern. The following year, after he gave a lecture
on electrodynamics and the relativity principle at the University of Zurich, Alfred
Kleiner recommended him to the faculty for a newly created professorship in
theoretical physics. Einstein was appointed associate professor in 1909. [83]
Einstein became a full professor at the German Charles-Ferdinand University in
Prague in April 1911, accepting Austrian citizenship in the Austro-Hungarian
Empire to do so.[84][85] During his Prague stay, he wrote 11 scientific works, five of them
on radiation mathematics and on the quantum theory of solids.
Olympia Academy founders: Conrad Habicht, Maurice Solovine and Albert Einstein

In July 1912, he returned to his alma mater in Zürich. From 1912 until 1914, he was
a professor of theoretical physics at the ETH Zurich, where he taught analytical
mechanics and thermodynamics. He also studied continuum mechanics, the
molecular theory of heat, and the problem of gravitation, on which he worked with
mathematician and friend Marcel Grossmann.[86]
When the "Manifesto of the Ninety-Three" was published in October 1914—a
document signed by a host of prominent German intellectuals that justified
Germany's militarism and position during the First World War—Einstein was one of
the few German intellectuals to rebut its contents and sign the pacifistic "Manifesto to
the Europeans".[87]

The New York Times reported confirmation of "the Einstein theory" (specifically, the bending of light by
gravitation) based on 29 May 1919 eclipse observations in Príncipe (Africa) and Sobral (Brazil), after the
findings were presented on 6 November 1919 to a joint meeting in London of the Royal Society and
the Royal Astronomical Society.[88]

In the spring of 1913, Einstein was enticed to move to Berlin with an offer that
included membership in the Prussian Academy of Sciences, and a linked University
of Berlin professorship, enabling him to concentrate exclusively on research. [56] On 3
July 1913, he became a member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences in
Berlin. Max Planck and Walther Nernst visited him the next week in Zurich to
persuade him to join the academy, additionally offering him the post of director at
the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics, which was soon to be established.
[89]
 Membership in the academy included paid salary and professorship without
teaching duties at Humboldt University of Berlin. He was officially elected to the
academy on 24 July, and he moved to Berlin the following year. His decision to move
to Berlin was also influenced by the prospect of living near his cousin Elsa, with
whom he had started a romantic affair. Einstein assumed his position with the
academy, and Berlin University,[90] after moving into his Dahlem apartment on 1 April
1914.[56][91] As World War I broke out that year, the plan for Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for
Physics was delayed. The institute was established on 1 October 1917, with Einstein
as its director.[92] In 1916, Einstein was elected president of the German Physical
Society (1916–1918).[93]
In 1911, Einstein used his 1907 Equivalence principle to calculate the deflection
of light from another star by the Sun's gravity. In 1913, Einstein improved upon those
calculations by using Riemannian space-time to represent the gravity field. By the fall
of 1915, Einstein had successfully completed his general theory of relativity, which
he used to calculate that deflection, and the perihelion precession of Mercury.[56][94] In
1919, that deflection prediction was confirmed by Sir Arthur Eddington during
the solar eclipse of 29 May 1919. Those observations were published in the
international media, making Einstein world-famous. On 7 November 1919, the
leading British newspaper The Times printed a banner headline that read:
"Revolution in Science – New Theory of the Universe – Newtonian Ideas
Overthrown".[95]
In 1920, he became a Foreign Member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts
and Sciences.[96] In 1922, he was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his
services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the
photoelectric effect".[12] While the general theory of relativity was still considered
somewhat controversial, the citation also does not treat even the cited photoelectric
work as an explanation but merely as a discovery of the law, as the idea of photons
was considered outlandish and did not receive universal acceptance until the 1924
derivation of the Planck spectrum by S. N. Bose. Einstein was elected a Foreign
Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS) in 1921.[3] He also received the Copley
Medal from the Royal Society in 1925.[3]
Einstein resigned from the Prussian Academy in March 1933. Einstein's scientific
accomplishments while in Berlin, included finishing the general theory of relativity,
proving the gyromagnetic effect, contributing to the quantum theory of radiation,
and Bose–Einstein statistics.[56]
1921–1922: Travels abroad

Einstein with his second wife, Elsa, in 1921

Einstein's official portrait after receiving the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics

Einstein visited New York City for the first time on 2 April 1921, where he received an
official welcome by Mayor John Francis Hylan, followed by three weeks of lectures
and receptions.[97] He went on to deliver several lectures at Columbia
University and Princeton University, and in Washington, he accompanied
representatives of the National Academy of Sciences on a visit to the White House.
On his return to Europe he was the guest of the British statesman and
philosopher Viscount Haldane in London, where he met several renowned scientific,
intellectual, and political figures, and delivered a lecture at King's College London.[98][99]
He also published an essay, "My First Impression of the U.S.A.", in July 1921, in
which he tried briefly to describe some characteristics of Americans, much as
had Alexis de Tocqueville, who published his own impressions in Democracy in
America (1835).[100] For some of his observations, Einstein was clearly surprised:
"What strikes a visitor is the joyous, positive attitude to life ... The American is
friendly, self-confident, optimistic, and without envy." [101]
In 1922, his travels took him to Asia and later to Palestine, as part of a six-month
excursion and speaking tour, as he visited Singapore, Ceylon and Japan, where he
gave a series of lectures to thousands of Japanese. After his first public lecture, he
met the emperor and empress at the Imperial Palace, where thousands came to
watch. In a letter to his sons, he described his impression of the Japanese as being
modest, intelligent, considerate, and having a true feel for art. [102] In his own travel
diaries from his 1922–23 visit to Asia, he expresses some views on the Chinese,
Japanese and Indian people, which have been described as xenophobic and racist
judgments when they were rediscovered in 2018.[103][104]
Because of Einstein's travels to the Far East, he was unable to personally accept the
Nobel Prize for Physics at the Stockholm award ceremony in December 1922. In his
place, the banquet speech was made by a German diplomat, who praised Einstein
not only as a scientist but also as an international peacemaker and activist. [105]
On his return voyage, he visited Palestine for 12 days, his only visit to that region. He
was greeted as if he were a head of state, rather than a physicist, which included a
cannon salute upon arriving at the home of the British high commissioner, Sir
Herbert Samuel. During one reception, the building was stormed by people who
wanted to see and hear him. In Einstein's talk to the audience, he expressed
happiness that the Jewish people were beginning to be recognized as a force in the
world.[106]
Einstein visited Spain for two weeks in 1923, where he briefly met Santiago Ramón y
Cajal and also received a diploma from King Alfonso XIII naming him a member of
the Spanish Academy of Sciences.[107]

Albert Einstein at a session of the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation (League of Nations)

of which he was a member from 1922 to 1932

From 1922 to 1932, Einstein was a member of the International Committee on

Intellectual Cooperation of the League of Nations in Geneva (with a few months of
interruption in 1923–1924),[108] a body created to promote international exchange
between scientists, researchers, teachers, artists, and intellectuals. [109] Originally
slated to serve as the Swiss delegate, Secretary-General Eric Drummond was
persuaded by Catholic activists Oskar Halecki and Giuseppe Motta to instead have
him become the German delegate, thus allowing Gonzague de Reynold to take the
Swiss spot, from which he promoted traditionalist Catholic values. [110] Einstein's
former physics professor Hendrik Lorentz and the Polish chemist Marie Curie were
also members of the committee.[111]
1925: Visit to South America
In the months of March and April 1925, Einstein visited South America, where he
spent about a month in Argentina, a week in Uruguay, and a week in Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil.[112] Einstein's visit was initiated by Jorge Duclout (1856–1927) and Mauricio
Nirenstein (1877–1935)[113] with the support of several Argentine scholars,
including Julio Rey Pastor, Jakob Laub, and Leopoldo Lugones. The visit by Einstein
and his wife was financed primarily by the Council of the University of Buenos
Aires and the Asociación Hebraica Argentina (Argentine Hebraic Association) with a
smaller contribution from the Argentine-Germanic Cultural Institution. [114]
1930–1931: Travel to the US
In December 1930, Einstein visited America for the second time, originally intended
as a two-month working visit as a research fellow at the California Institute of
Technology. After the national attention he received during his first trip to the US, he
and his arrangers aimed to protect his privacy. Although swamped with telegrams
and invitations to receive awards or speak publicly, he declined them all. [115]
After arriving in New York City, Einstein was taken to various places and events,
including Chinatown, a lunch with the editors of The New York Times, and a
performance of Carmen at the Metropolitan Opera, where he was cheered by the
audience on his arrival. During the days following, he was given the keys to the city
by Mayor Jimmy Walker and met the president of Columbia University, who
described Einstein as "the ruling monarch of the mind". [116] Harry Emerson Fosdick,
pastor at New York's Riverside Church, gave Einstein a tour of the church and
showed him a full-size statue that the church made of Einstein, standing at the
entrance.[116] Also during his stay in New York, he joined a crowd of 15,000 people
at Madison Square Garden during a Hanukkah celebration.[116]

Albert Einstein (left) and Charlie Chaplin at the Hollywood premiere of City Lights, January 1931

Einstein next traveled to California, where he met Caltech president and Nobel

laureate Robert A. Millikan. His friendship with Millikan was "awkward", as Millikan
"had a penchant for patriotic militarism", where Einstein was a pronounced pacifist.
[117]
 During an address to Caltech's students, Einstein noted that science was often
inclined to do more harm than good. [118]
This aversion to war also led Einstein to befriend author Upton Sinclair and film
star Charlie Chaplin, both noted for their pacifism. Carl Laemmle, head of Universal
Studios, gave Einstein a tour of his studio and introduced him to Chaplin. They had
an instant rapport, with Chaplin inviting Einstein and his wife, Elsa, to his home for
dinner. Chaplin said Einstein's outward persona, calm and gentle, seemed to
conceal a "highly emotional temperament", from which came his "extraordinary
intellectual energy".[119]
Chaplin's film, City Lights, was to premiere a few days later in Hollywood, and
Chaplin invited Einstein and Elsa to join him as his special guests. Walter Isaacson,
Einstein's biographer, described this as "one of the most memorable scenes in the
new era of celebrity".[118] Chaplin visited Einstein at his home on a later trip to Berlin
and recalled his "modest little flat" and the piano at which he had begun writing his
theory. Chaplin speculated that it was "possibly used as kindling wood by the Nazis".
[120]

1933: Emigration to the US

Cartoon of Einstein after shedding his "pacifism" wings (Charles R. Macauley, c. 1933)

In February 1933, while on a visit to the United States, Einstein knew he could not
return to Germany with the rise to power of the Nazis under Germany's new
chancellor, Adolf Hitler.[121][122]
While at American universities in early 1933, he undertook his third two-month
visiting professorship at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. In
February and March 1933, the Gestapo repeatedly raided his family's apartment in
Berlin.[123] He and his wife Elsa returned to Europe in March, and during the trip, they
learned that the German Reichstag had passed the Enabling Act on 23 March,
transforming Hitler's government into a de facto legal dictatorship, and that they
would not be able to proceed to Berlin. Later on, they heard that their cottage had
been raided by the Nazis and Einstein's personal sailboat confiscated. Upon landing
in Antwerp, Belgium on 28 March, Einstein immediately went to the German
consulate and surrendered his passport, formally renouncing his German citizenship.
[124]
 The Nazis later sold his boat and converted his cottage into a Hitler Youth camp.
[125]

Refugee status

Albert Einstein's landing card (26 May 1933), when he landed in Dover (United Kingdom)
from Ostend (Belgium) to visit Oxford

In April 1933, Einstein discovered that the new German government had passed
laws barring Jews from holding any official positions, including teaching at
universities.[124] Historian Gerald Holton describes how, with "virtually no audible
protest being raised by their colleagues", thousands of Jewish scientists were
suddenly forced to give up their university positions and their names were removed
from the rolls of institutions where they were employed. [126]
A month later, Einstein's works were among those targeted by the German Student
Union in the Nazi book burnings, with Nazi propaganda minister Joseph
Goebbels proclaiming, "Jewish intellectualism is dead." [124] One German magazine
included him in a list of enemies of the German regime with the phrase, "not yet
hanged", offering a $5,000 bounty on his head. [124][127] In a subsequent letter to
physicist and friend Max Born, who had already emigrated from Germany to
England, Einstein wrote, "... I must confess that the degree of their brutality and
cowardice came as something of a surprise." [124] After moving to the US, he described
the book burnings as a "spontaneous emotional outburst" by those who "shun
popular enlightenment", and "more than anything else in the world, fear the influence
of men of intellectual independence".[128]
Einstein was now without a permanent home, unsure where he would live and work,
and equally worried about the fate of countless other scientists still in Germany.
Aided by the Academic Assistance Council, founded in April 1933 by British liberal
politician William Beveridge to help academics escape Nazi persecution, Einstein
was able to leave Germany.[129] He rented a house in De Haan, Belgium, where he
lived for a few months. In late July 1933, he went to England for about six weeks at
the personal invitation of British naval officer Commander Oliver Locker-Lampson,
who had become friends with Einstein in the preceding years. Locker-Lampson
invited him to stay near his Cromer home in a wooden cabin on Roughton Heath in
the Parish of Roughton, Norfolk. To protect Einstein, Locker-Lampson had two
bodyguards watch over him at his secluded cabin; a photo of them carrying shotguns
and guarding Einstein was published in the Daily Herald on 24 July 1933.[130][131]
Locker-Lampson took Einstein to meet Winston Churchill at his home, and
later, Austen Chamberlain and former Prime Minister Lloyd George.[132] Einstein asked
them to help bring Jewish scientists out of Germany. British historian Martin
Gilbert notes that Churchill responded immediately, and sent his friend,
physicist Frederick Lindemann, to Germany to seek out Jewish scientists and place
them in British universities.[133] Churchill later observed that as a result of Germany
having driven the Jews out, they had lowered their "technical standards" and put the
Allies' technology ahead of theirs.[133]
Einstein later contacted leaders of other nations, including Turkey's Prime
Minister, İsmet İnönü, to whom he wrote in September 1933 requesting placement of
unemployed German-Jewish scientists. As a result of Einstein's letter, Jewish
invitees to Turkey eventually totaled over "1,000 saved individuals". [134]
Locker-Lampson also submitted a bill to parliament to extend British citizenship to
Einstein, during which period Einstein made a number of public appearances
describing the crisis brewing in Europe.[135] In one of his speeches he denounced
Germany's treatment of Jews, while at the same time he introduced a bill promoting
Jewish citizenship in Palestine, as they were being denied citizenship elsewhere.
[136]
 In his speech he described Einstein as a "citizen of the world" who should be
offered a temporary shelter in the UK. [note 3][137] Both bills failed, however, and Einstein
then accepted an earlier offer from the Institute for Advanced Study, in Princeton,
New Jersey, US, to become a resident scholar.[135]
Resident scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study

Portrait of Einstein taken in 1935 at Princeton

On 3 October 1933, Einstein delivered a speech on the importance of academic

freedom before a packed audience at the Royal Albert Hall in London, with The
Times reporting he was wildly cheered throughout. [129] Four days later he returned to
the US and took up a position at the Institute for Advanced Study, [135][138] noted for
having become a refuge for scientists fleeing Nazi Germany. [139] At the time, most
American universities, including Harvard, Princeton and Yale, had minimal or no
Jewish faculty or students, as a result of their Jewish quotas, which lasted until the
late 1940s.[139]
Einstein was still undecided on his future. He had offers from several European
universities, including Christ Church, Oxford, where he stayed for three short periods
between May 1931 and June 1933 and was offered a five-year
research fellowship (called a "studentship" at Christ Church),[140][141] but in 1935, he
arrived at the decision to remain permanently in the United States and apply for
citizenship.[135][142]
Einstein's affiliation with the Institute for Advanced Study would last until his death in
1955.[143] He was one of the four first selected (along with John von Neumann, Kurt
Gödel, and Hermann Weyl[144]) at the new Institute, where he soon developed a close
friendship with Gödel. The two would take long walks together discussing their
work. Bruria Kaufman, his assistant, later became a physicist. During this period,
Einstein tried to develop a unified field theory and to refute the accepted
interpretation of quantum physics, both unsuccessfully.
World War II and the Manhattan Project
See also: Einstein–Szilárd letter
In 1939, a group of Hungarian scientists that included émigré physicist Leó
Szilárd attempted to alert Washington to ongoing Nazi atomic bomb research. The
group's warnings were discounted. Einstein and Szilárd, along with other refugees
such as Edward Teller and Eugene Wigner, "regarded it as their responsibility to
alert Americans to the possibility that German scientists might win the race to build
an atomic bomb, and to warn that Hitler would be more than willing to resort to such
a weapon."[145][146] To make certain the US was aware of the danger, in July 1939, a
few months before the beginning of World War II in Europe, Szilárd and Wigner
visited Einstein to explain the possibility of atomic bombs, which Einstein, a pacifist,
said he had never considered.[147] He was asked to lend his support by writing a letter,
with Szilárd, to President Roosevelt, recommending the US pay attention and
engage in its own nuclear weapons research.
The letter is believed to be "arguably the key stimulus for the U.S. adoption of
serious investigations into nuclear weapons on the eve of the U.S. entry into World
War II".[148] In addition to the letter, Einstein used his connections with the Belgian
Royal Family[149] and the Belgian queen mother to get access with a personal envoy to
the White House's Oval Office. Some say that as a result of Einstein's letter and his
meetings with Roosevelt, the US entered the "race" to develop the bomb, drawing on
its "immense material, financial, and scientific resources" to initiate the Manhattan
Project.
For Einstein, "war was a disease ... [and] he called for resistance to war." By signing
the letter to Roosevelt, some argue he went against his pacifist principles. [150] In 1954,
a year before his death, Einstein said to his old friend, Linus Pauling, "I made one
great mistake in my life—when I signed the letter to President Roosevelt
recommending that atom bombs be made; but there was some justification—the
danger that the Germans would make them ..."[151] In 1955, Einstein and ten other
intellectuals and scientists, including British philosopher Bertrand Russell, signed a
manifesto highlighting the danger of nuclear weapons.[152]
US citizenship
Einstein accepting US citizenship certificate from judge Phillip Forman

Einstein became an American citizen in 1940. Not long after settling into his career
at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, he expressed his
appreciation of the meritocracy in American culture compared to Europe. He
recognized the "right of individuals to say and think what they pleased" without social
barriers. As a result, individuals were encouraged, he said, to be more creative, a
trait he valued from his early education.[153]
Einstein joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People (NAACP) in Princeton, where he campaigned for the civil rights of African
Americans. He considered racism America's "worst disease", [127][154] seeing it as
"handed down from one generation to the next". [155] As part of his involvement, he
corresponded with civil rights activist W. E. B. Du Bois and was prepared to testify on
his behalf during his trial in 1951.[156] When Einstein offered to be a character witness
for Du Bois, the judge decided to drop the case.[157]
In 1946, Einstein visited Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, a historically black
college, where he was awarded an honorary degree. Lincoln was the first university
in the United States to grant college degrees to African Americans; alumni
include Langston Hughes and Thurgood Marshall. Einstein gave a speech about
racism in America, adding, "I do not intend to be quiet about it." [158] A resident of
Princeton recalls that Einstein had once paid the college tuition for a black student.
[157]
 Einstein has said, "Being a Jew myself, perhaps I can understand and empathize
with how black people feel as victims of discrimination". [154]
Personal views
Political views
Main article: Political views of Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein with his wife Elsa Einstein and Zionist leaders, including the future president of
Israel, Chaim Weizmann, his wife Vera Weizmann, Menahem Ussishkin, and Ben-Zion Mossinson on
arrival in New York City in 1921
In 1918, Einstein was one of the founding members of the German Democratic
Party, a liberal party.[159] Later in his life, Einstein's political view was in favor
of socialism and critical of capitalism, which he detailed in his essays such as "Why
Socialism?"[160][161] His opinions on the Bolsheviks also changed with time. In 1925, he
criticized them for not having a 'well-regulated system of government' and called
their rule a 'regime of terror and a tragedy in human history'. He later adopted a more
moderated view, criticizing their methods but praising them, which is shown by his
1929 remark on Vladimir Lenin: "In Lenin I honor a man, who in total sacrifice of his
own person has committed his entire energy to realizing social justice. I do not find
his methods advisable. One thing is certain, however: men like him are the
guardians and renewers of mankind's conscience." [162] Einstein offered and was called
on to give judgments and opinions on matters often unrelated to theoretical physics
or mathematics.[135] He strongly advocated the idea of a democratic global
government that would check the power of nation-states in the framework of a world
federation.[163] He wrote "I advocate world government because I am convinced that
there is no other possible way of eliminating the most terrible danger in which man
has ever found himself."[164] The FBI created a secret dossier on Einstein in 1932, and
by the time of his death his FBI file was 1,427 pages long. [165]
Einstein was deeply impressed by Mahatma Gandhi, with whom he exchanged
written letters. He described Gandhi as "a role model for the generations to come".
[166]
 The initial connection was established on 27 September 1931, when Wilfrid
Israel took his Indian guest V. A. Sundaram to meet his friend Einstein at his summer
home in the town of Caputh. Sundaram was Gandhi's disciple and special envoy,
whom Wilfrid Israel met while visiting India and visiting the Indian leader's home in
1925. During the visit, Einstein wrote a short letter to Gandhi that was delivered to
him through his envoy, and