Prof (Dr) Jaipal Singh
Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879 in Ulm – in the German empire. At the time of his birth, he was born as a deformed abnormal child. His head was much larger than his body. Even, he started speaking late – at the age of four. But undoubtedly he was a keen observer as was stated by his Father – Herman Einstein and Mother – Pauline Koch/Einstein. On his fifth birthday, his father gifted him a magnetic compass. The needle of the compass used to be in the North-South Direction. This observation of direction of magnetic compass needle became his first step of thought and created an interest in exploring science behind it. His father who is engineer cum sales man, by profession, wanted him to be a good businessman. His father and uncle together had already opened a toy manufacturing company operated on direct current.But his inclination in exploring the truth through scientific reasoning remain a source of inspiration for him and that indulged him in scientific world as a theoretical researcher. It is pertinent to mention here that after one year of his birth, his father Herman Einstein, mother Pauline Koch moved to Munich along with other family members. At the age of 5, he joined the Catholic Elementary School in Munich. After that, he joined Luitpold Gymnasium, where he received his primary and secondary school education. He used to have differences with his teachers, authority of the school, about their way of teaching and had a great quest to raise typical questions in the class due to his indifferent IQ level from other students. His schooling remained in and out due to his indifferent attitude of acquiring knowledge, way of thoughtful learning and inquisitive nature. He believed that with this kind of stereotype teaching, creative mind of children was lost and they only knew the strict rote learning. In view of Albert Einstein, “Education is that which remains forever with the person he learnt in a school – even if one has forgotten everything”. At the age of 12, Einstein started learning Calculus on his own, and when he became 14 years old, he mastered Integral and Differential Calculus. Einstein did his Technical High School education in Milan. He matriculated from the Zurich Polytechnic in 1896 and graduated from the Swiss Federal Polytechnic school in zurich in the year 1900. Here also, he had problems with authority and left his academic institutions without a degree on several occasions. By now, Einstein’s father wanted him to do electrical engineering even if he don’t want to do business. But, after completing his graduation in the year 1900, he started working as a patent clerk at the Swiss Patent Office in Bern in 1902. While working there, he completed his Ph.D, from the University of Zurich in 1905 and after that he became the professor at the same University.
During this period he gave the famous theory of mass-energy equivalence relationship (E = mc2). By this time, he had become the most famous and popular scientist of theoretical Physics. By the end of World War-I, Albert Einstein had become so popular that his emerging popularity had made some other scientists to feel jealous of him and they started creating hurdles in his path of success in the scientific field and even some had spent a career time in trying to discredit him. One among them was the Nobel Prize winner Philipp Lenard. Bur Einstein was a good ‘world citizen’ because he believed in universal peace and harmony. When there was the monkey’s race for becoming atomic power, using his concept of mass energy equivalent relation, he was worried about the aftermath of the atom bomb. He was really a world citizen who was concerned with humanity. His concern of devastation – proved true when America, built his own atomic bomb and successfully tested on July 16, 1945 at the Trinity test site at Alamogordo – New Mexico. America dropped the same type of atom bomb in Japan during World War II at Hiroshima (American B-29 Bomber on August 6, 1945 in which 80,000 people immediately killed and more than tens of thousands later die due to radiation exposure) and three days later on Nagasaki (American another B-29 Bomber on Aug 9, 1945 in which 40,000 people immediately killed and more than tens of thousands later die due to radiation exposure). This compelled Japan’s emperor Hirohito to announce unconditional surrender in World war II on August 15, 1945. However, throughout his life, Albert Einstein, was against the atomic bomb dropped on Japan and remained in shocked state till his death for this in human act of America on mankind and other living beings. Albert Einstein was one of the best scientists, theoretical physicist and mathematicians of the world. At the age of 12, Einstein started learning Calculus on his own, and when he became 14 years old, he mastered Integral and Differential Calculus. He had published more than 300 research papers on science in his life and had contributed to the advancement of science. He is called as the “Father of Modern Physics” of 20th century. The whole world celebrates his birth day as World Genius Day. Albert Einstein was a very intelligent person. He had no time for a social life. He always remained busy with his research and office work. His life revolved around his research, office work first and then secondly on family only. This might be the reason that why Einstein’s married life remained in trouble for many years before separation. Einstein got married in 1903 to Maric. Though Einstein mother didn’t wanted Einstein to marry with Mileva Maric because of two simple reasons: 1. she was three year older than him and 2. She was more intelligent than Albert Einstein and a book rather than a woman. Einstein’s mother was bother of Mileva’s intelligence. However, Later on after his mother’s consent he got married to her( Mileva Maric), at the age of 24. His married life of 16 years with her, from 1903 until 1919, remained disturbed though this couple had one illegitimate girl child, Lieserl / Maja, out of wedlock in 1902. Two years later, in 1904, Hans Albert was born, followed by Eduard in 1910. The boys were close to their father until Albert Einstein and Mileva separated in 1914 and finally divorced in 1919. The theoretical physicist settled his disturbed married life by handing over all his Nobel Prize money to Maric and their two sons.
Albert Einstein married second time to his cousin Elsa from 1919 until her death in 1936. He had no children from his second married life. As Einstein doesn’t have any living heirs. He bequeathed all his personal papers, intellectual property rights and the right to use his image to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Einstein gained worldwide popularity for his Special theory of relativity (1905) and General theory of relativity (1915). Though his work on relativity was unique and of immense importance but he was never credited with a noble prize for the said theory – which he truly deserves but remained unlucky due to many unfolded reasons. No doubt, he was awarded Nobel Prize once in his life time for his commendable research on laws of photo electric effect in the year 1921 but he is the man who deserved Noble Prize even more than twice due to his revolutionary inventions and contributions to science, society and mankind. Other important inventions and contributions of Einstein’s are Determination of Avogadro’s Number, Quantum Theory of Light (that light is a particle or photon), Wave-Particle Duality, Brownian movement (On the existence of atoms), Bose-Einstein Condensatation and many more inventions and publications to his credit. On 17th April 1955, Einstein underwent internal bleeding in the lower abdominal, and he was taken to a hospital where the doctors asked him to undergo a surgery. Hard worker, dedicated and committed scientist of 20th century the noble laureate – Albert Einstein refused to undergo this surgery, and said that he would go with almighty decision and that it is tasteless to prolong life artificially. Albert Einstein died on 18th April 1955 at Princeton Hospital, New Jersey at the age of 76 years. In gist, the author’s view is that strong determination and deep concentration is the key to success in achieving any goal.
(The author is Principal, SG GDC Doongi, Rajouri).