Obtaining a quality education is essential to success towards a desired career. With this quality comes the opportunity for people to express themselves and to show originality. Although he was certainly a genius in his field, Albert Einstein was never able to fully grasp this opportunity, an absolute privilege of higher education that too many students today take for granted. Despite being incredibly talented in the field of physics, the final years of his undergraduate education were marked with mediocre academic performance in subjects that simply did not pique his interest.1 What followed was a series of obstacles Einstein had to overcome, tests that proved that his determination was just as remarkable as his intelligence.
Born on March 14, 1879, in Ulm, Germany, a young Albert Einstein was prodigiously inclined to learning about science and mathematics. While his parents worked on their family-owned electrical engineering firm, Einstein worked on improving his natural talent in mathematics and sciences.2 At the young age of twelve, he had already mastered algebra and geometry, and, at fifteen, he was studying in Munich to pursue a career in theoretical physics. After withdrawing from school in Munich and spending a year of relaxation in Italy, Einstein was struck with the drive to complete his collegiate work at the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland.3 It was here, in his last year of study, that Einstein encountered his first obstacle.
By the late 1800s, Albert Einstein found himself struggling to settle into the college experience. He rarely attended his classes, hardly listened to the professors, and was overall disinterested in the lecture-style of learning. On one occasion, one of his professors told him, “You are a very clever boy… But you have one great fault: you’ll never let yourself be told anything.”4 Einstein preferred to learn on his own, relying on his friend’s, Marcel Grossmann’s, notes and the writings of prominent physicists James Clerk Maxwell and Ernst Mach to understand the content of his lectures.5 At the end of his studies at the Federal Institute of Technology, Einstein ultimately wrote a mundane and lackluster final essay, due in part to his supervisor’s wrongdoing, as it was he who prevented Einstein from truly letting his originality and passion shine. Two years later, the University of Zurich even went so far as to reject Einstein’s doctoral thesis for attempting to contradict the works of popular physicist Ludwig Boltzmann.6 Resenting the people who were supposed to launch his career, Albert Einstein had entered the ever-changing world of science as an ordinary, undistinguished graduate. However, with the power of his mind and the capacity of his endurance, he would leave this world as an extraordinary scientist.
Although he had successfully received his diploma from the Federal Institute of Technology in 1900, Einstein was unable to find a steady job as a consequence of his lackluster academic performance. Growing more and more worried about supporting his girlfriend and colleague, Mileva Maric, and their newborn daughter, Leiserl, Einstein was forced to take temporary jobs as a tutor and a substitute teacher. This was not to last, however, and, after two long years of receiving unsteady paychecks, Einstein eventually landed a job working at the patent office in Bern, Switzerland, working as an “Expert III Class.”7 Although this job provided a stable income and a chance of prominence in the scientific community, Einstein would have to break many more barriers in order to receive his desired recognition.
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In 1905, Albert Einstein published articles promoting a “special theory of relativity.” Without access to a lab at the patent office, the brilliant college graduate had conceptualized entire scenarios of physics in his head. One such scenario had to prove, in contradiction to theories proposed by legendary scientist Isaac Newton, that speed was not cumulative. For example, the speed of light is approximately 299,792 kilometers per second. If a train travelling at a high speed passes with its light on, is the light from the train travelling even faster than 299,792 kilometers per second? The simple answer, according to Einstein, would be no. However, like a true genius, Einstein had taken this specific scenario a step further. If a person at the station sees another person in a very fast-moving train, theoretically speaking, the person on the train will seem to age slower and the train itself will appear shorter in length than it actually is.8 Einstein’s beliefs implied that time, or the person’s age, and space, or the size of the train, could be warped.
Although receiving fifteen minutes of fame for determining that the speed of light is the same in any frame of movement and that space and time are connected, the first of Einstein’s papers did not fully garner him the praise that he deserved. The major criticism was yet another obstacle: Newtonian gravity was not solved based on Einstein’s principles. According to Newton, if two objects are near each other, the force of gravity would occur effective immediately. But how, Einstein wondered, could this be true if no effect is faster than the speed of light? Furthermore, these objects don’t have brains or physical connections holding them together. So, how do these two objects “know” how to interact?9 These were questions that needed to be expanded, problems that had to be solved. These were the problems that made Einstein’s theory of relativity generalized.
In 1907, Albert Einstein conjured up an idea that he would later call “the happiest thought of his life.” He came up with the “equivalence principle,” claiming that the effects of gravity are the same as the effects of acceleration. To prove this, he had imagined a man on Earth sitting in a closed room. If the man can’t see anything outside of the space, he wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the force of gravity on Earth and the acceleration of the room in space at 1 g, a unit of acceleration equal to about 9.8 m/s^2. With this “equivalence principle,” Einstein claimed that the effects of gravity and acceleration not only feel the same, but are the same.10 In essence, the perception of gravity was not really the force between two objects, but rather the effect of acceleration of very large objects as they bend space and warp time.
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Over the next several years, Einstein worked to perfect his generalization of the theory of relativity. Incorporating his natural childhood talent in mathematics, he put countless hours into polishing complex equations and imagining various scenarios to explain the existence and nature of the universe. However, Albert Einstein was soon faced with obstacles that were not as easy to overcome as the incorporation of Newtonian gravity. As early as Einstein’s drafting stages, a war beyond the scale of any in existence was imminent. German-born scientists living all over Europe were in support of their country’s efforts to instigate a war that Einstein, a proclaimed pacifist, strongly objected to. Although still proud to be German, he had believed that patriotism should never be mixed with violence, an ideology that quickly left the barely-established expert at the Swiss patent office socially ostracized.11 Despite being under the accusation of abandoning his country’s purpose, Einstein continued to work on his rapidly-progressing theory in isolation. While Einstein had faced a great number of obstacles throughout his life, none proved to be as heavy to overcome as abandoning his position at the patent office.
Although he had obtained a doctorate from the University of Zurich in 1906, Einstein had quit the patent office to become a professor at a university, a career that, even for him, was difficult to obtain. Jumping from post to post, Einstein had previously worked as an unpaid lecturer at Bern University in 1908, a full-time professor at the University of Zurich in 1909, and finally as a full-time professor at the University of Prague and the Federal Institute of Technology in subsequent years.12 He worked tirelessly to provide for his family, but Einstein’s busy schedule at these institutions often conflicted with his developing theory.
Day by day, month by month, and year by year, Mileva Maric and her children had grown increasingly more exhausted from moving from city to city for her now-husband’s slowly accumulating success. He was now a semi-successful professor and lecturer; she was a child-bearer who never had the opportunity to earn a doctorate simply because she failed to pass an exam. Maric had grown jealous of Einstein, tortured by the fact that he was working to improve himself in what was also her dream of success. Generalizing the entire subject of physics is certainly a long and arduous process, even for someone so smart and passionate at his work. As a result, Einstein had grown emotionally detached in his marriage, had several affairs, and for the next eight years became more and more frustrated in a subject that seemed like a bottomless pit of knowledge.13 Just as all hope seemed lost, Einstein discovered another breakthrough. It wasn’t an equation, it wasn’t another scenario, nor was it even a game-changing idea like the equivalence principle; he found Elsa Lowenthal.
By 1912, Albert Einstein had started a romantic relationship with Elsa. As they were first cousins, their love affair was widely considered taboo. What would his colleagues think of him? Would he continue to be ostracized for love as well as his proclamation for peace during World War I? In the public eye, however, their relationship, or his pacifism, ultimately did not matter to his admirers in the years to come.14 In 1915, Albert Einstein published his first articles on general relativity, to mixed reviews. He was strongly criticized for using non-Euclidean geometry to prove that space actually curved around very large objects. Some scientists, especially Newtonian physicists, believed that these characteristics of general relativity were downright impossible. For another four years, scientists continued to doubt him, but Einstein was more than determined to prove that he was correct. In 1919, he had a major opportunity, and with his perseverance, he seized it.
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A rare total solar eclipse was steadily approaching Germany, which was, in the minds of Berlin’s civilians, generally considered an incredible sight. Einstein had also considered the eclipse as an event to behold, but for a much different reason: he wanted to prove that if large objects bent space, the sun would do the same. As a result, the light reflected from the stars in the sky is also bent. Newtonian physicists, civilians, and Einstein himself were all anxious to directly observe such an incredible sight. All in attendance were in doubt of his beautiful theory, but as the moon had completely blocked the sun, their doubt turned to astonishment. The stars in the sky failed to appear in the same positions as seen at night; the positions of the stars during the eclipse were not only very different, but appeared at the precise locations that the brilliant scientist had earlier predicted. Einstein was correct.15
The solar eclipse of 1919 had transformed Albert Einstein into an overnight sensation. His theory quickly made the front page of many newspapers in several countries across Europe. In Germany, he was hailed as a national treasure, and his name along with the word “relativity” had been spoken in countless European households. Two years later, at the age of forty-two, Albert Einstein won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his contributions to this realm of science, a well-deserved award after a lifetime’s worth of hard work, perseverance, and tests of his intelligence.16 Today, he remains one of the smartest, most prominent, and most popular scientists in human history.
- Pedro G. Ferreira, The Perfect Theory: A Century of Geniuses and the Battle Over General Relativity (New York: Houghton Mufflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2014), 2. ↵
- Europe Since 1914: Encyclopedia of the Age of War and Reconstruction, s. v. “Einstein, Albert (1879-1955).” ↵
- Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography, 2008, s. v. “Einstein, Albert.” ↵
- Pedro G. Ferreira, The Perfect Theory: A Century of Geniuses and the Battle Over General Relativity (New York: Houghton Mufflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2014), 2. ↵
- Europe Since 1914: Encyclopedia of the Age of War and Reconstruction, s. v. “Einstein, Albert (1879-1955).” ↵
- Pedro G. Ferreira, The Perfect Theory: A Century of Geniuses and the Battle Over General Relativity (New York: Houghton Mufflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2014), 2. ↵
- Europe Since 1914: Encyclopedia of the Age of War and Reconstruction, s. v. “Einstein, Albert (1879-1955).” ↵
- Pedro G. Ferreira, The Perfect Theory: A Century of Geniuses and the Battle Over General Relativity (New York: Houghton Mufflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2014), 6. ↵
- Pedro G. Ferreira, The Perfect Theory: A Century of Geniuses and the Battle Over General Relativity (New York: Houghton Mufflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2014), 9. ↵
- Jeffrey O. Bennett, What Is Relativity? An Intuitive Introduction to Einstein’s Ideas, and Why They Matter (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014), 87-113. ↵
- Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography, 2008, s. v. “Einstein, Albert.” ↵
- Europe Since 1914: Encyclopedia of the Age of War and Reconstruction, s. v. “Einstein, Albert (1879-1955).” ↵
- Europe Since 1914: Encyclopedia of the Age of War and Reconstruction, s. v. “Einstein, Albert (1879-1955).” ↵
- >Europe Since 1914: Encyclopedia of the Age of War and Reconstruction, s. v. “Einstein, Albert (1879-1955).” ↵
- Europe Since 1914: Encyclopedia of the Age of War and Reconstruction, s. v. “Einstein, Albert (1879-1955).” ↵
- Science in the Early Twentieth Century: An Encyclopedia s. v. “Nobel Prize.” ↵
51 comments
Arturo Canchola
This article was a very interesting read. While I’ve learned of Einstein’s theories of General Relativity and Special Relativity, I’ve never learned the details of his personal life. This article presents Einstein in a very interesting and personal light, quite different than the view presented in modern-day science classes. He’s overcome many obstacles in his life to reach the prestige he’s claimed, and understanding how he’s overcome these obstacles makes what work he’s done in his life even more worthy of praise.
Edith Santos Sevilla
Albert Einstein one of the greatest minds in science, in my opinion what made him a good scientist was how he saw everything around him. Not only did he work during the day, but even he was living his life he thought as a scientist. Even with things that he faced and lived in his personal life he was influenced and it made him analyze things. One of the things that made him different was that even when people asked him to be different or told him that he was wrong, he always stood for what he believed was right. Overall the article was descriptive and had a combination of his personal life and his life a scientist.
Tyler Caron
Albert Einstein is definitely one of the most well known men in history. He has changed the world for the better. I do feel that it is a little odd that he had a romantic relationship with his first cousin, Elsa. His works in science have proven to be helpful. The man has his own element named after him which is pretty cool.
Bruno Lezama
It is the first time that I read about the life of Einstein. He had a life that reflexes the perseverant of a person to achieve something, in this case, the improvement of his theories. I can’t believe how Einstein was so sure about his special theory of relativity that when the eclipse came, he took advantage of this and proved his theory. I find this article like a really good example of fighting for your ideas.
Pablo Ruiz
This article is very good at telling us the story of Einsteins upbringing. It highlights how even one of the smartest men ever have to face obstacles to get to where he wanted to be. I had never known about the story of the eclipse. This event was what put him on the map and gave him credibility and we rarely here about it. Einstein was brilliant and its clear based on how he could not be taught by someone else and chose to gain his knowledge by using his mind and reading books.
Jacqueline Mendez
Very interesting article. I’ve known a little bit about Einstein’s early life but just small facts, this article gave me more of an insight of him. I did not know he was Jewish during the Nazi raids. That’s actually really scary. It’s crazy how he helped build that atomic bomb that destroyed millions of lives. But this man gave the world so many things that will forever help us learn even more of this world.
Alexander Avina
I really enjoyed reading this article. I was unaware of a lot of Einstein’s early life and was glad to learn of his perseverance through the turbulent times in his life. It is almost unbelievable that such a brilliant individual could face so much rejection within their early life. It was interesting to learn about Einstein’s specific accomplishments and his contributions to society as a whole. He was truly one of the brightest minds in the history of mankind. This was a very well-written and interesting article.
Jose De Julian
Albert Einstein’s Life showcases what determination and perseverance can get you in life. Although it wasn’t easy with rejection, instability, and marital issues Einstein was able to perfect his theory of relativity and find a stable job as a professor at the University of Prague. He was able to do so much during his lifetime and his life long work gained him the recognition that has made him a science icon today. I found it interesting that his wife was jealous of him and his because he was stealing her dream and Einstein ended up divorcing his wife and married his cousin.
Kenneth Gilley
This article beautifully showcases the value of dogged perseverance. Albert Einstein had to overcome scholastic hardships, rejection by his colleagues, a difficult job market, ridicule of his theories, and marital discord. Nevertheless, he triumphed over all and became one of the most revered scientists in history. Another of Einstein’s woes was not mentioned in this article. In 1933, Hitler’s Nazi regime drove Einstein and thousands of other Jewish scientists out of Germany. Einstein overcame even that blow, and became an icon in his new homeland, America.
Mariana Gutierrez
Albert Einstein’s life is truly a great example of having the drive of continuously learning and the wonders of having such curiosity can take one to endless opportunities. I remember doing research on Einstein for a group project in high school, and I was just amazed at how much this incredible person has accomplished in his lifetime. I admire Einstein’s dedication to his work, and for never giving up, even when others doubted him. I felt so many emotions while reading this article, I love how this story about Einstein’s life really shows who he was as a human being, just learning his way, and finding out what he loved, and doing his passion.