Cheerful scientist albert einstein. Biography and discoveries of Albert Einstein

One of the greatest minds of the twentieth century. The scientist’s main scientific discovery is the theory of relativity. He formulated the partial theory of relativity in 1905, and the general theory ten years later. A whole book could be written about the scientist’s scientific discoveries, but unfortunately, we do not have such an opportunity.

Einstein received worldwide recognition during his lifetime. Albert became the owner Nobel Prize in the field of physics. The scientist received an honorary award for his theoretical explanation of the photoelectric effect. In his theory, he explained the existence of photons, the so-called quanta of light. The theory was of great practical importance and had a great influence on the development of quantum theory. The scientist’s theories are extremely difficult to understand and perceive, but their fundamental nature can only be compared with discoveries. Einstein's uniqueness lies in the fact that the authorship of his discoveries is undeniable. We know that scientists often made many discoveries together, often without knowing it. So, for example, it happened with Cheyne and Flory, who jointly discovered penicillin, and so it happened with Niepce and many others. But this was not the case with Einstein.

Biography of Einstein very interesting and full of interesting facts. Albert was born in Germany in the city of Ulm in 1879. High school he graduated in neighboring Switzerland, and soon received Swiss citizenship. In 1905, at the University of Zurich, the young man received a doctorate in philosophical sciences. At this time, his scientific activity was actively developing. He publishes a number of works: the theory of Brownian motion, the photoelectric effect and the special theory of relativity. Soon these reports would become Albert’s calling card; the world would recognize his contemporary as a genius, a brilliant and promising scientist. The scientist’s theories will stir up the scientific community, and serious controversy will flare up around his theories. Not one scientist in the world has been subjected to such discussion and such criticism. In 1913, Albert became a professor at the University of Berlin and the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Physics, as well as a member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences.

The new positions allowed him to engage in science at any time in any quantity. It is unlikely that the German government ever regretted its favor towards the scientist. A few years later he would be awarded the Nobel Prize, raising the prestige of German science to the skies. In 1933, Einstein moved to the USA, to the state of New Jersey, to the city of Princeton. In seven years he will receive citizenship. The great scientist died in 1955. Einstein was always interested in politics and was aware of everyone. He was a convinced pacifist, an opponent of political tyranny, and at the same time was a supporter of Zionism. They say that in matters of clothing he was always an individualist; his contemporaries noted his excellent sense of humor, natural modesty and remarkable talents. Albert played the violin beautifully.

Albert Einstein is a great German theoretical physicist who made a huge contribution to the development of physics and was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1921. His legacy includes more than 300 works on physics, 150 books, several theories that were of great importance for modern science.

early years

The future great physicist was born into an ordinary Jewish family in southern Germany in 1879. Having moved to Munich, Albert began studying at a local Catholic school. At the age of 12, he realized that what is written in the Bible cannot be true, science cannot confirm it. WITH early age he began to study the violin, and he had this love for music throughout his life.
In 1895, he tried to enter the Technical School, passed mathematics brilliantly, but failed botany and French. The following year, he nevertheless entered the school at the pedagogical faculty.

Scientific activity

In 1900, Albert Einstein graduated from college and received a diploma as a teacher of physics and mathematics. The following year, he received Swiss citizenship, finally raising the required amount. But then he had serious problems with money and even had to go hungry for several days, which hit his liver hard, from which he suffered for the rest of his life.
But despite this, he continued to study physics, and in 1901 his first article was published. But in 1902 they helped him find an excellent job paying 3,500 francs a year, that is, a little less than 300 francs a month.
In January 1903, Einstein married a girl he had met while studying. 1905 became the year of revolution for all science and for Einstein himself. This year, three of his articles were published, making an immense contribution to science. These are the theory of relativity, quantum theory and Brownian motion.
These works brought him worldwide fame, and the following year he received a doctorate in physics. In 1911, he headed the department of physics at the German University. In 1913 he became a professor at the prestigious University of Berlin. In 1919 he divorced his wife.
In 1922 he received the Nobel Prize. It is interesting that before this he was nominated for it several times, almost from the beginning of his scientific career, except for a couple of years.
Albert Einstein also traveled around the world and gave lectures at the most famous universities. Because of Nazism in Germany, the great physicist left his country forever and received citizenship in the United States. Almost overnight he became one of the most famous people in this country.
The scientist always advocated peace and was an ardent opponent of any manifestations of violence, especially war. Einstein himself, as a person, was very kind, friendly, always joyfully communicated with all his fans, answered all letters, even children's.
It is interesting that, being a very rich man, he never bought himself a TV or a car.
He opposed nuclear war most vehemently and even in his last letter begged all his friends to prevent the possibility of it starting. In 1955, his health deteriorated greatly, at which time he wrote that his role on Earth was completed.
The great physicist died on April 18, 1955. Before his death, he refused a magnificent funeral; his ashes were scattered among twelve friends.

Albert Einstein is a legendary physicist, a leading light of science of the 20th century. He owns the creation general relativity And special theory of relativity, as well as a powerful contribution to the development of other areas of physics. It was GTR that formed the basis of modern physics, combining space with time and describing almost all visible cosmological phenomena, including allowing for the possibility of the existence wormholes, black holes, fabrics of space-time, as well as other gravitational-scale phenomena.

The childhood of a brilliant scientist

The future Nobel laureate was born on March 14, 1879 in the German town of Ulm. At first, nothing foreshadowed a great future for the child: the boy began to speak late, and his speech was somewhat slow.

Einstein's first scientific research took place when he was three years old. For his birthday, his parents gave him a compass, which later became his favorite toy. The boy was extremely surprised that the compass needle always pointed to the same point in the room, no matter how it was turned.

Meanwhile, Einstein's parents were concerned about his speech problems. As the scientist’s younger sister Maya Winteler-Einstein said, the boy repeated every phrase he was preparing to utter, even the simplest, to himself for a long time, moving his lips. The habit of speaking slowly later began to irritate Einstein’s teachers. However, despite this, after the first days of studying at a Catholic primary school, he was identified as a capable student and transferred to the second grade. After his family moved to Munich, Einstein began studying at a gymnasium. However, here, instead of studying, he preferred to study his favorite sciences on his own, which yielded results: in the exact sciences, Einstein was far ahead of his peers. At the age of 16 he mastered differential and integral calculus. At the gymnasium (now the Albert Einstein Gymnasium) he was not among the first students (with the exception of mathematics and Latin). Albert Einstein was disgusted by Albert Einstein's deep-rooted system of rote learning (which he later said was detrimental to the spirit of learning and creative thinking), as well as the authoritarian attitude of teachers towards students, and he often got into arguments with his teachers. At the same time, Einstein read a lot and played the violin beautifully.

Later, when the scientist was asked what prompted him to create the theory of relativity, he referred to the novels of Fyodor Dostoevsky and the philosophy of Ancient China.

Without graduating from high school, 16-year-old Albert went to enter a polytechnic school in Zurich, but “failed” the entrance exams in languages, botany and zoology. At the same time, Einstein brilliantly passed mathematics and physics, after which he was immediately invited to the senior class of the cantonal school in Aarau, after which he became a student at the Zurich Polytechnic. The teaching style and methodology at the Polytechnic differed significantly from the ossified and authoritarian German school, so further education was easier for the young man. Here his teacher was a mathematician Herman Minkowski

. They say that it was Minkowski who was responsible for giving the theory of relativity a complete mathematical form. Einstein managed to graduate from university with high score and with negative characteristics of teachers:

At the educational institution, the future Nobel laureate was known as an avid truant. Einstein later said that he “simply did not have time to go to class.”

For a long time the graduate could not find a job. “I was bullied by my professors, who did not like me because of my independence and closed my path to science,” said Einstein.

Beginning of scientific activity and first work In 1901, the Berlin Annals of Physics published his first article."Consequences of the theory of capillarity"

, dedicated to the analysis of the forces of attraction between atoms of liquids based on the theory of capillarity. Former classmate Marcel Grossman helped to overcome difficulties with employment, who recommended Einstein for the position of third-class expert at the Federal Bureau of Patents of Inventions (Bern). Einstein worked at the Patent Office from July 1902 to October 1909, primarily assessing patent applications. In 1903 he became a permanent employee of the Bureau. The nature of the work allowed Einstein to devote his free time to research in the field of theoretical physics.

Personal life Even at university, Einstein was known as a lover of women, but over time he chose, whom he met in Zurich. Mileva was four years older than Einstein, but studied in the same course as him. She studied physics, and she and Einstein were brought together by their interest in the works of great scientists. Einstein needed a friend with whom he could share his thoughts about what he was reading. Mileva was a passive listener, but Einstein was quite satisfied with this. At that time, fate did not pit him against a comrade equal to him in mental strength (this did not fully happen later), nor with a girl whose charm did not need a common scientific platform.

Einstein’s wife “shone in mathematics and physics”: she was excellent at performing algebraic calculations and had a good grasp of analytical mechanics. Thanks to these qualities, Maric could take an active part in the writing of all her husband’s major works. The union of Maric and Einstein was destroyed by the latter's inconstancy. Albert Einstein enjoyed enormous success with women, and his wife was constantly tormented by jealousy. Their son Hans-Albert later wrote: “The mother was a typical Slav with very strong and persistent negative emotions. She never forgave insults..."

For the second time, the scientist married his cousin Elsa. Contemporaries considered her a narrow-minded woman, whose range of interests was limited to clothes, jewelry and sweets.

Successful 1905

The year 1905 went down in the history of physics as the “Year of Miracles.” This year, the Annals of Physics published three outstanding papers by Einstein that marked the beginning of a new scientific revolution:

"On the electrodynamics of moving bodies"(the theory of relativity begins with this article).
“On one heuristic point of view concerning the origin and transformation of light”(one of the works that laid the foundation for quantum theory).
“On the motion of particles suspended in a fluid at rest, required by the molecular kinetic theory of heat”(work dedicated to Brownian motion and significantly advanced statistical physics).

It was these works that brought Einstein worldwide fame. On April 30, 1905, he sent the text of his doctoral dissertation on the topic “A New Determination of the Size of Molecules” to the University of Zurich. Although Einstein’s letters are already called “Mr. Professor,” he remained for four more years (until October 1909). And in 1906 he even became a class II expert.

In October 1908, Einstein was invited to read an elective course at the University of Bern, however, without any payment. In 1909, he attended a congress of naturalists in Salzburg, where the elite of German physics gathered, and met Planck for the first time; over 3 years of correspondence they quickly became close friends.

After the convention, Einstein finally received a paid position as extraordinary professor at the University of Zurich (December 1909), where his old friend Marcel Grossmann taught geometry. The pay was small, especially for a family with two children, and in 1911 Einstein without hesitation accepted an invitation to head the department of physics at the German University in Prague. During this period, Einstein continued to publish a series of papers on thermodynamics, relativity and quantum theory. In Prague, he intensifies research on the theory of gravity, setting the goal of creating a relativistic theory of gravity and fulfilling the long-standing dream of physicists - to exclude Newtonian long-range action from this area.

Active period of scientific work

In 1912, Einstein returned to Zurich, where he became a professor at his native Polytechnic and lectured there on physics. In 1913, he attended the Congress of Naturalists in Vienna, visiting 75-year-old Ernst Mach there; Once upon a time, Mach's criticism of Newtonian mechanics made a huge impression on Einstein and ideologically prepared him for the innovations of the theory of relativity. In May 1914, an invitation came from the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, signed by physicist P. P. Lazarev. However, the impressions of the pogroms and the “Beilis case” were still fresh, and Einstein refused: “I find it disgusting to go unnecessarily to a country where my fellow tribesmen are so cruelly persecuted.”

At the end of 1913, on the recommendation of Planck and Nernst, Einstein received an invitation to head the physics research institute being created in Berlin; He is also enrolled as a professor at the University of Berlin. In addition to being close to his friend Planck, this position had the advantage that it did not require him to be distracted by teaching. He accepted the invitation, and in the pre-war year 1914, the convinced pacifist Einstein arrived in Berlin. Citizenship of Switzerland, a neutral country, helped Einstein withstand militaristic pressure after the outbreak of war. He did not sign any “patriotic” appeals; on the contrary, in collaboration with the physiologist Georg Friedrich Nicolai, he compiled the anti-war “Appeal to the Europeans” in contrast to the chauvinistic manifesto of the 1993s, and in a letter to Romain Rolland wrote: “Will future generations thank our Europe, in which three centuries of the most intense cultural work only led to the fact that religious madness was replaced by nationalistic madness? Even scientists different countries act as if their brains had been amputated.”

Main work

Einstein completed his masterpiece, the general theory of relativity, in 1915 in Berlin. It presented a completely new idea of space and time. Among other phenomena, the work predicted the deflection of light rays in a gravitational field, which was subsequently confirmed by English scientists.

But Einstein received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922 not for his ingenious theory, but for his explanation of the photoelectric effect (the knocking out of electrons from certain substances under the influence of light). In just one night, the scientist became famous throughout the world.

This is interesting! The scientist's correspondence, released three years ago, says that Einstein invested most of the Nobel Prize in the United States, losing almost everything due to the Great Depression.

Despite the recognition, in Germany the scientist was constantly persecuted, not only because of his nationality, but also because of his anti-militarist views. “My pacifism is an instinctive feeling that controls me because killing a person is disgusting. My attitude does not come from any speculative theory, but is based on the deepest antipathy to any kind of cruelty and hatred,” the scientist wrote in support of his anti-war position. At the end of 1922, Einstein left Germany and went on a trip. And once in Palestine, he solemnly opens the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

More about the main scientific prize (1922)

In fact, Einstein’s first marriage broke up in 1914; in 1919, during the legal divorce proceedings, the following written promise from Einstein appeared: “I promise you that when I receive the Nobel Prize, I will give you all the money. You must agree to the divorce, otherwise you will get nothing at all." The couple were confident that Albert would become a Nobel laureate for the theory of relativity. He actually received the Nobel Prize in 1922, although with a completely different wording (for explaining the laws of the photoelectric effect). Since Einstein was away, the prize was accepted on his behalf on December 10, 1922 by Rudolf Nadolny, the German Ambassador to Sweden. Previously, he asked for confirmation whether Einstein was a citizen of Germany or Switzerland; The Prussian Academy of Sciences has officially certified that Einstein is a German subject, although his Swiss citizenship is also recognized as valid. Upon his return to Berlin, Einstein received the insignia accompanying the prize personally from the Swedish ambassador. Naturally, Einstein dedicated his traditional Nobel speech (in July 1923) to the theory of relativity. By the way, Einstein kept his word: he gave all 32 thousand dollars (the amount of the bonus) to his ex-wife.

1923–1933 in the life of Einstein

In 1923, completing his journey, Einstein spoke in Jerusalem, where it was planned to open the Hebrew University soon (1925).

As a person of enormous and universal authority, Einstein was constantly involved in various kinds of political actions during these years, where he advocated social justice, internationalism and cooperation between countries (see below). In 1923, Einstein participated in the organization of the cultural relations society “Friends of the New Russia”. He repeatedly called for the disarmament and unification of Europe, and for the abolition of compulsory military service. Until about 1926, Einstein worked in many areas of physics, from cosmological models to research into the causes of river meanders. Further, with rare exceptions, he focuses his efforts on quantum problems and the Unified Field Theory.

In 1928, Einstein saw off Lorentz, with whom he became very friendly in his last years, on his last journey. It was Lorentz who nominated Einstein for the Nobel Prize in 1920 and supported it the following year. In 1929, the world noisily celebrated Einstein's 50th birthday. The hero of the day did not take part in the celebrations and hid in his villa near Potsdam, where he enthusiastically grew roses. Here he received friends - scientists, Tagore, Emmanuel Lasker, Charlie Chaplin and others. In 1931, Einstein visited the USA again. In Pasadena he was very warmly received by Michelson, who had four months to live. Returning to Berlin in the summer, Einstein, in a speech to the Physical Society, paid tribute to the memory of the remarkable experimenter who laid the first stone of the foundation of the theory of relativity.

Years in exile

Albert Einstein did not hesitate to accept the offer to move to Berlin. But the opportunity to communicate with major German scientists, including Planck, attracted him. The political and moral atmosphere in Germany became more and more oppressive, anti-Semitism was raising its head, and when the Nazis seized power, Einstein left Germany forever in 1933. Subsequently, as a sign of protest against fascism, he renounced German citizenship and resigned from the Prussian and Bavarian Academies of Sciences.

During the Berlin period, in addition to the general theory of relativity, Einstein developed the statistics of particles of integer spin, introduced the concept of stimulated radiation, which plays an important role in laser physics, predicted (together with de Haas) the phenomenon of the emergence of a rotational momentum of bodies when they are magnetized, etc. However, being One of the creators of quantum theory, Einstein did not accept the probabilistic interpretation of quantum mechanics, believing that a fundamental physical theory cannot be statistical in nature. He often repeated that "God doesn't play dice with the universe".

Having moved to the United States, Albert Einstein took a position as professor of physics at the new Institute for Basic Research in Princeton (New Jersey). He continued to study issues of cosmology, and also intensively searched for ways to build a unified field theory that would unify gravity, electromagnetism (and possibly the rest). And although he failed to implement this program, this did not shake Einstein’s reputation as one of the greatest natural scientists of all time.

Atomic bomb

In the minds of many people, Einstein's name is associated with the atomic problem. Indeed, realizing what a tragedy for humanity the creation of an atomic bomb in Nazi Germany could be, in 1939 he sent a letter to the President of the United States, which served as an impetus for work in this direction in America. But already at the end of the war, his desperate attempts to keep politicians and generals from criminal and insane actions were in vain. This was the biggest tragedy of his life. On August 2, 1939, Einstein, who was living in New York at the time, wrote a letter to Franklin Roosevelt to prevent the Third Reich from acquiring atomic weapons. In the letter, he called on the American president to work on his own atomic weapons.

On the advice of physicists, Roosevelt organized the Advisory Committee on Uranium, but did not find much interest in the problem of development nuclear weapons. He believed that the likelihood of its creation was low. The situation changed two years later, when physicists Otto Frisch and Rudolf Pierls discovered that a nuclear bomb could actually be made and that it was large enough to be transported by a bomber. During the war, Einstein advised the US Navy and contributed to solving various technical problems.

Post-war years

At this time, Einstein became one of the founders Pugwash Peace Scientists Movement. Although its first conference was held after Einstein’s death (1957), the initiative to create such a movement was expressed in the widely known Russell-Einstein Manifesto (written jointly with Bertrand Russell), which also warned about the dangers of the creation and use of the hydrogen bomb. As part of this movement, Einstein, who was its chairman, together with Albert Schweitzer, Bertrand Russell, Frederic Joliot-Curie and other world-famous scientists, fought against the arms race and the creation of nuclear and thermonuclear weapons.

In September 1947, in an open letter to delegations of UN member states, he proposed to reorganize the UN General Assembly, turning it into a permanent world parliament, with greater powers than the Security Council, which (in Einstein's opinion) was paralyzed in its actions by law veto. To which in November 1947, the largest Soviet scientists (S.I. Vavilov, A.F. Ioffe, N.N. Semenov, A.N. Frumkin) expressed disagreement with the position of A. Einstein (1947) in an open letter.

Last years of life. Death

Death overtook the genius at Princeton Hospital (USA) in 1955. The autopsy was performed by a pathologist named Thomas Harvey. He removed Einstein's brain for study, but instead of making it available to science, he took it for himself. Risking his reputation and job, Thomas placed the brain of the greatest genius in a jar of formaldehyde and took it to his home. He was convinced that such action was a scientific duty for him. Moreover, Thomas Harvey sent pieces of Einstein’s brain for research to leading neurologists for 40 years. The descendants of Thomas Harvey tried to return to Einstein’s daughter what was left of her father’s brain, but she refused such a “gift”. From then to this day, the remains of the brain, ironically, are in Princeton, from where it was stolen.

Scientists who examined Einstein's brain proved that the gray matter was different from normal. Scientific studies have shown that the areas of Einstein's brain responsible for speech and language are reduced, while the areas responsible for processing numerical and spatial information are enlarged. Other studies have found an increase in the number of neuroglial cells (cells of the nervous system that make up half the volume of the central nervous system. Neurons of the central nervous system are surrounded by glial cells).

Einstein was a heavy smoker

More than anything in the world, Einstein loved his violin and pipe. A heavy smoker, he once said that he believed smoking was necessary for peace and "objective judgement" in people. When his doctor prescribed him relief from bad habit, Einstein put his pipe in his mouth and lit a cigarette. Sometimes he would also pick up cigarette butts on the streets to light in his pipe.

Einstein received life membership in the Montreal Pipe Smoking Club. One day he fell overboard while on a boat, but managed to save his treasured pipe from the water. Apart from his many manuscripts and letters, the pipe remains one of the few personal items we have of Einstein.

Einstein often kept to himself

To be independent of conventional wisdom, Einstein often isolated himself in solitude. This was a childhood habit. He even started talking at the age of 7 because he did not want to communicate. He built cozy worlds and contrasted them with reality. The world of family, the world of like-minded people, the world of the patent office where I worked, the temple of science. "If wastewater lives are licking the steps of your temple, close the door and laugh... Do not give in to anger, remain as before as a saint in the temple.” He followed this advice.

Impact on culture

Albert Einstein has become the hero of a number of fictional novels, films and theatrical productions. In particular, he appears as an actor in the film by Nicholas Rog "Insignificance", the comedy by Fred Schepisi "I.Q.", the film by Philip Martin "Einstein and Eddington" (2008), in the Soviet / Russian films "Choice of Target", "Wolf Messing", a comic play by Steve Martin, the novels "Please, Monsieur Einstein" by Jean-Claude Carrier and "Einstein's Dreams" by Alan Lightman, the poem "Einstein" by Archibald MacLeish. The humorous component of the great physicist's personality appears in Ed Metzger's production of Albert Einstein: Practical Bohemian. “Professor Einstein,” who creates the chronosphere and prevents Hitler from coming to power, is one of the key characters in the alternative Universe he created in the Command & Conquer series of real-time computer strategies. The scientist in the film "Cain XVIII" is clearly made up to look like Einstein.

Photographer Arthur Sass asked Einstein to smile for the camera, to which he stuck out his tongue. This image has become an icon of modern popular culture, presenting a portrait of both a genius and a cheerful living person. On June 21, 2009, at an auction in New Hampshire, America, one of the nine original photographs printed in 1951 was sold for $74,000. A. Einstein gave this photograph to his friend, journalist Howard Smith, and signed on it that “the humorous grimace is addressed to all humanity”.

Einstein's popularity modern world so great that controversial issues arise in the widespread use of the scientist’s name and appearance in advertising and trademarks. Because Einstein bequeathed some of his property, including the use of his images, to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the brand "Albert Einstein" was registered as a trademark.

Sources

http://to-name.ru/biography/albert-ejnshtejn.htm http://www.aif.ru/dontknows/file/kakim_byl_albert_eynshteyn_15_faktov_iz_zhizni_velikogo_geniya

Albert Einstein- an outstanding theoretical physicist, one of the founders of modern theoretical physics, who is credited with developing and introducing into science a number of major physical theories, in particular, the theory of relativity. He owns the works that formed the basis of statistical physics and quantum theory. Einstein's ideas led to a fundamentally different, in comparison with Newtonian, understanding physical essence time and space, the creation of a new theory of gravity. Einstein is a Nobel Prize laureate in physics, a member of a large number of academies of sciences, and an honorary doctor of about two dozen universities. He wrote more than three hundred works on physics, approximately 150 articles and books devoted to the philosophy and history of science. The outstanding physicist was an active public figure, a humanist, and opposed any violence.

The future luminary of world science was born on March 14, 1879 in the German Württemberg, Ulm. Their family did not live very richly and in 1880 moved to Munich, where their father and his brother created a small enterprise, and Albert was sent to a local Catholic school. Popular science books freed his thinking from religious conventions and made him a great skeptic of any authority. During my childhood, I developed a lifelong passion for music.

In 1894, in connection with the interests of the company, the family moved to Italy, and a year later Albert came to them without receiving a matriculation certificate. Also in 1895, Einstein came to take exams at the Zurich Polytechnic and, having failed French and botany, was left out of work. The director, who noticed the capable mathematician, gave him good advice to get a certificate at the Swiss school of Aarau and come to them again. Thus, in October 1896, Einstein became a student at the Faculty of Education at the Polytechnic.

In 1900, a newly appointed teacher of physics and mathematics was left without work and was in great need; hunger provoked liver disease, which caused him a lot of suffering throughout his life. Nevertheless, Einstein continued to do what he loved - physics, and already in 1901 his debut article was published in a Berlin journal. With the assistance of a former classmate, he managed to get a job at the Federal Patent Office of Bern. The work made it possible to combine job responsibilities with independent developments, and already in 1905 he defended his dissertation at the University of Zurich and received a doctorate. The works of this period of Einstein's biography as a scientist became famous throughout the world, although not overnight.

The physicist worked at the patent office until October 1909. In the same year he became a professor at the University of Zurich, and in 1911 he agreed to an offer to move to the German University in Prague and head the department of physics. At this time, he continues to publish works on the theory of relativity, thermodynamics, and quantum theory in special publications. In 1912, having returned to Zurich, Einstein lectured as a professor at the Polytechnic, where he studied. At the end of the next year he becomes head of the new Berlin Physical Research Institute and a member of the Bavarian and Prussian Academies of Sciences.

After the First World War, A. Einstein, while maintaining an interest in previous areas of research, became interested in unified field theory and cosmology, the first article on which was published in 1917. During this period, he suffered a lot from the health problems that befell him at once, but did not stop work. Einstein's authority increased even more when the bending of light he predicted under certain conditions was recorded in the fall of 1919. Einstein's law of gravity left the pages of specialized literature and appeared in European newspapers, albeit in an inaccurate form. Having been nominated more than once for the Nobel Prize, Einstein became its owner only in 1921, because... For a long time, committee members could not decide to reward the owner of bold views. Officially, the prize was awarded for the theory of the photoelectric effect with the ambiguous note “For other work in the field of theoretical physics.”

When the Nazis came to power in Germany, Einstein was forced to leave Germany - as it turned out, forever. In 1933, he renounced his citizenship, resigned from the Bavarian and Prussian Academies of Sciences and emigrated to the United States. There he received a very warm welcome, maintained his reputation as a great scientist, and was given a position at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study. Being a man of science, he did not break away from social and political life, actively opposed military action, and advocated respect for human rights and humanism.

The year 1949 was marked in his biography by signing a letter to the American President, pointing out the threat posed by the development of nuclear weapons in Nazi Germany. The consequence of this appeal was the organization of similar studies in the United States. Subsequently, Einstein regarded his involvement in this as a huge mistake and the greatest tragedy, because. before his eyes, the possession of nuclear energy turned into a means of manipulation and intimidation. After the war, A. Einstein, together with B. Russell, wrote a manifesto, which became the ideological basis of the Pugwash movement of scientists for peace, together with other outstanding scientists, they warned the world about the consequences of the creation of the hydrogen bomb and the arms race. The study of cosmological problems occupied him until the end of his life, but during this period his main efforts were focused on developing a unified field theory.

At the beginning of 1955, Einstein began to feel much worse, made a will, and on April 18, 1955, while in Princeton, died of an aortic aneurysm. According to the will of the scientist, who throughout his life, despite his world fame, remained a modest, unpretentious, friendly and somewhat eccentric person, the funeral ceremony and cremation took place in the presence of only those closest to him.

Biography from Wikipedia

Albert Einstein(German: Albert Einstein, MFA [ˈalbɐt ˈaɪ̯nʃtaɪ̯n]; March 14, 1879 (18790314), Ulm, Württemberg, Germany - April 18, 1955, Princeton, New Jersey, USA) - theoretical physicist, one of the founders of modern theoretical physics, laureate Nobel Prize in Physics 1921, public figure and humanist. Lived in Germany (1879-1893, 1914-1933), Switzerland (1893-1914) and the USA (1933-1955). Honorary doctor of about 20 leading universities in the world, member of many Academies of Sciences, including foreign honorary member of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1926).

He also predicted gravitational waves and "quantum teleportation", and predicted and measured the Einstein-de Haas gyromagnetic effect. Since 1933, he worked on problems of cosmology and unified field theory. He actively opposed war, against the use of nuclear weapons, for humanism, respect for human rights, and mutual understanding between peoples.

Einstein played a decisive role in popularizing and introducing new physical concepts and theories into scientific circulation. First of all, this relates to a revision of the understanding of the physical essence of space and time and to the construction of a new theory of gravity to replace the Newtonian one. Einstein also, together with Planck, laid the foundations of quantum theory. These concepts, repeatedly confirmed by experiments, form the foundation of modern physics.

early years

Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879 in the southern German city of Ulm, into a poor Jewish family.

Hermann Einstein and Paulina Einstein (née Koch), father and mother of the scientist

Father, Hermann Einstein (1847-1902), was at that time a co-owner of a small enterprise producing feather stuffing for mattresses and feather beds. Mother, Pauline Einstein (née Koch, 1858-1920), came from the family of wealthy corn merchant Julius Derzbacher (he changed his surname to Koch in 1842) and Yetta Bernheimer.

In the summer of 1880, the family moved to Munich, where Hermann Einstein, together with his brother Jacob, founded a small company selling electrical equipment. Albert's younger sister Maria (Maya, 1881-1951) was born in Munich.

Albert Einstein received his primary education at a local Catholic school. According to his own recollections, as a child he experienced a state of deep religiosity, which ended at the age of 12. Through reading popular science books, he became convinced that much of what is stated in the Bible cannot be true, and the state is deliberately deceiving the younger generation. All this made him a freethinker and forever gave rise to a skeptical attitude towards authorities. Of his childhood impressions, Einstein later recalled as the most powerful: the compass, Euclid's Principia, and (around 1889) Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. In addition, on the initiative of his mother, he began playing the violin at the age of six. Einstein's passion for music continued throughout his life. Already in the USA in Princeton, in 1934 Albert Einstein gave a charity concert, where he performed Mozart’s works on the violin for the benefit of scientists and cultural figures who emigrated from Nazi Germany.

At the gymnasium (now the Albert Einstein Gymnasium in Munich) he was not among the first students (with the exception of mathematics and Latin). Albert Einstein was disgusted by Albert Einstein's deep-rooted system of rote learning (which he later said was detrimental to the spirit of learning and creative thinking), as well as the authoritarian attitude of teachers towards students, and he often got into arguments with his teachers.

In 1894, the Einsteins moved from Munich to the Italian city of Pavia, near Milan, where the brothers Hermann and Jacob moved their company. Albert himself remained with relatives in Munich for some more time to complete all six classes of the gymnasium. Having never received his matriculation certificate, he joined his family in Pavia in 1895.

In the fall of 1895, Albert Einstein arrived in Switzerland to take the entrance exams to the Higher Technical School (Polytechnic) in Zurich and, upon graduation, become a physics teacher. Having shown himself brilliantly in the mathematics exam, he at the same time failed the exams in botany and French, which did not allow him to enter the Zurich Polytechnic. However, the director of the school advised the young man to enter the graduating class of a school in Aarau (Switzerland) in order to receive a certificate and repeat admission.

At the cantonal school of Aarau, Albert Einstein devoted his free time to studying Maxwell's electromagnetic theory. In September 1896, he successfully passed all final exams at school, with the exception of the French language exam, and received a certificate, and in October 1896 he was admitted to the Polytechnic at the Faculty of Education. Here he became friends with a fellow student, mathematician Marcel Grossman (1878-1936), and also met a Serbian medical student, Mileva Maric (4 years older than him), who later became his wife. That same year, Einstein renounced his German citizenship. To obtain Swiss citizenship, he was required to pay 1,000 Swiss francs, but the family's poor financial situation allowed him to do this only after 5 years. This year, his father’s enterprise finally went bankrupt; Einstein’s parents moved to Milan, where Herman Einstein, already without his brother, opened a company selling electrical equipment.

The teaching style and methodology at the Polytechnic differed significantly from the ossified and authoritarian German school, so further education was easier for the young man. He had first-class teachers, including the wonderful geometer Hermann Minkowski (Einstein often missed his lectures, which he later sincerely regretted) and the analyst Adolf Hurwitz.

Beginning of scientific activity

In 1900, Einstein graduated from the Polytechnic with a diploma in teaching mathematics and physics. He passed the exams successfully, but not brilliantly. Many professors highly appreciated the abilities of the student Einstein, but no one wanted to help him continue scientific career. Einstein himself later recalled:

I was bullied by my professors, who did not like me because of my independence and closed my path to science.

Although the following year, 1901, Einstein received Swiss citizenship, he could not find a permanent job until the spring of 1902 - even as a school teacher. Due to lack of income, he literally starved, not eating for several days in a row. This became the cause of liver disease, from which the scientist suffered for the rest of his life.

Despite the hardships that plagued him in 1900-1902, Einstein found time to further study physics. In 1901, the Berlin Annals of Physics published his first article, “Consequences of the Theory of Capillarity” ( Folgerungen aus den Capillaritätserscheinungen), dedicated to the analysis of the forces of attraction between atoms of liquids based on the theory of capillarity.

Former classmate Marcel Grossman helped overcome the difficulties, recommending Einstein for the position of third-class expert at the Federal Patent Office for Inventions (Bern) with a salary of 3,500 francs per year (during his student years he lived on 100 francs per month).

Einstein worked at the Patent Office from July 1902 to October 1909, primarily assessing patent applications. In 1903 he became a permanent employee of the Bureau. The nature of the work allowed Einstein to devote his free time to research in the field of theoretical physics.

In October 1902, Einstein received news from Italy of his father's illness; Hermann Einstein died a few days after his son's arrival.

On January 6, 1903, Einstein married twenty-seven-year-old Mileva Maric. They had three children. The first, even before marriage, was born daughter Lieserl (1902), but biographers were unable to find out her fate. Most likely, she died in infancy - in the last surviving letter from Einstein, where she is mentioned (September 1903), we are talking about some complications after scarlet fever.

Since 1904, Einstein collaborated with Germany's leading physics journal, the Annals of Physics, providing abstracts of new papers on thermodynamics for its abstract supplement. Probably, the authority this acquired in the editorial office contributed to his own publications in 1905.

1905 - “Year of Miracles”

The year 1905 went down in the history of physics as the “Year of Miracles” (Latin: Annus Mirabilis). This year, the Annals of Physics published three outstanding papers by Einstein that marked the beginning of a new scientific revolution:

“Towards the electrodynamics of moving bodies” (German: Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper). The theory of relativity begins with this article.
“On a heuristic point of view concerning the origin and transformation of light” (German: Über einen die Erzeugung und Verwandlung des Lichts betreffenden heuristischen Gesichtspunkt). One of the works that laid the foundation for quantum theory.
“On the motion of particles suspended in a fluid at rest, required by the molecular kinetic theory of heat” (German: Über die von der molekularkinetischen Theorie der Wärme geforderte Bewegung von in ruhenden Flüssigkeiten suspendierten Teilchen) - a work devoted to Brownian motion and which significantly advanced statistical physics.

Einstein was often asked the question: how did he create the theory of relativity? Half jokingly, half seriously, he answered:

Why did I create the theory of relativity? When I ask myself this question, it seems to me that the reason is as follows. A normal adult does not think about the problem of space and time at all. In his opinion, he had already thought about this problem in childhood. I developed intellectually so slowly that space and time were occupied by my thoughts when I became an adult. Naturally, I could penetrate deeper into the problem than a child with normal inclinations.

Special theory of relativity

Throughout the 19th century, a hypothetical medium, the ether, was considered the material carrier of electromagnetic phenomena. However, by the beginning of the 20th century, it became clear that the properties of this medium are difficult to reconcile with classical physics. On the one hand, the aberration of light suggested the idea that the ether is absolutely motionless, on the other hand, Fizeau’s experiment testified in favor of the hypothesis that the ether is partially carried away by moving matter. Michelson's experiments (1881), however, showed that no “ethereal wind” exists.

In 1892, Lorentz and (independently) George Francis Fitzgerald suggested that the ether is motionless, and the length of any body contracts in the direction of its movement. However, the question remained open as to why the length was reduced in exactly such proportion as to compensate for the “etheric wind” and prevent the existence of the ether from being discovered. Another serious difficulty was the fact that Maxwell's equations did not correspond to Galileo's principle of relativity, despite the fact that electromagnetic effects depend only on relative movements. The question was investigated under what coordinate transformations Maxwell's equations are invariant. The correct formulas were first written down by Larmore (1900) and Poincaré (1905), the latter proved their group properties and proposed calling them Lorentz transformations.

Poincaré also gave a generalized formulation of the principle of relativity, which also covered electrodynamics. Nevertheless, he continued to recognize the ether, although he was of the opinion that it would never be discovered. In a report at the physics congress (1900), Poincaré first expressed the idea that the simultaneity of events is not absolute, but represents a conditional agreement (“convention”). It was also suggested that the speed of light is limiting. Thus, at the beginning of the 20th century, there were two incompatible kinematics: classical, with Galilean transformations, and electromagnetic, with Lorentz transformations.

Einsteinhaus- Einstein's house in Bern, where the theory of relativity was born

Einstein, thinking largely independently on these topics, suggested that the first is an approximate case of the second for low speeds, and that what was considered the properties of the ether is in fact a manifestation of the objective properties of space and time. Einstein came to the conclusion that it was absurd to invoke the concept of the ether only to prove the impossibility of observing it, and that the root of the problem lay not in dynamics, but deeper - in kinematics. In the above-mentioned seminal article “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies,” he proposed two postulates: the universal principle of relativity and the constancy of the speed of light; from them one can easily derive the Lorentz contraction, Lorentz transformation formulas, the relativity of simultaneity, the uselessness of the ether, a new formula for adding velocities, the increase of inertia with speed, etc. In another of his articles, which was published at the end of the year, the formula E = m c 2 appeared , which defines the relationship between mass and energy.

Some scientists immediately accepted this theory, which later became known as the “special theory of relativity” (STR); Planck (1906) and Einstein himself (1907) built relativistic dynamics and thermodynamics. Former teacher Einstein, Minkowski, introduced in 1907 mathematical model kinematics of the theory of relativity in the form of the geometry of a four-dimensional non-Euclidean world and developed the theory of invariants of this world (the first results in this direction were published by Poincaré in 1905).

However, many scientists considered the “new physics” too revolutionary. She abolished the ether, absolute space and absolute time, revised Newtonian mechanics, which served as the basis of physics for 200 years and was invariably confirmed by observations. Time in the theory of relativity flows differently in different reference systems, inertia and length depend on speed, movement faster than light is impossible, the “twin paradox” arises - all these unusual consequences were unacceptable to the conservative part of the scientific community. The matter was also complicated by the fact that STR did not initially predict any new observable effects, and the experiments of Walter Kaufmann (1905-1909) were interpreted by many as a refutation of the cornerstone of SRT - the principle of relativity (this aspect was finally clarified in favor of STR only in 1914-1916). Some physicists, after 1905, tried to develop alternative theories(for example, Ritz in 1908), but later the irreparable discrepancy between these theories and experiment became clear.

Many prominent physicists remained faithful to classical mechanics and the concept of the ether, among them Lorentz, J. J. Thomson, Lenard, Lodge, Nernst, Wien. At the same time, some of them (for example, Lorentz himself) did not reject the results of the special theory of relativity, but interpreted them in the spirit of Lorentz’s theory, preferring to look at the space-time concept of Einstein-Minkowski as a purely mathematical technique.

The decisive argument in favor of the truth of STR was the experiments to test the General Theory of Relativity. Over time, experimental confirmation of the SRT itself gradually accumulated. Quantum field theory, the theory of accelerators are based on it, it is taken into account in the design and operation of satellite navigation systems (even corrections to the general theory of relativity were needed here), etc.

Quantum theory

To resolve the problem that went down in history as the “Ultraviolet catastrophe” and correspondingly reconcile theory with experiment, Max Planck suggested (1900) that the emission of light by a substance occurs discretely (indivisible portions), and the energy of the emitted portion depends on the frequency of the light. For some time, even its author himself considered this hypothesis as a conventional mathematical technique, but Einstein, in the second of the above-mentioned articles, proposed a far-reaching generalization of it and successfully applied it to explain the properties of the photoelectric effect. Einstein put forward the thesis that not only radiation, but also the propagation and absorption of light are discrete; Later these portions (quanta) were called photons. This thesis allowed him to explain two mysteries of the photoelectric effect: why the photocurrent did not arise at any frequency of light, but only starting from a certain threshold, depending only on the type of metal, and the energy and speed of the emitted electrons depended not on the intensity of the light, but only on its frequency. Einstein's theory of the photoelectric effect corresponded with experimental data with high accuracy, which was later confirmed by Millikan's experiments (1916).

Initially, these views were met with misunderstanding by most physicists; even Planck and Einstein had to be convinced of the reality of quanta. Gradually, however, experimental data accumulated that convinced skeptics of the discrete nature of electromagnetic energy. The final point in the debate was the Compton effect (1923).

In 1907, Einstein published the quantum theory of heat capacity (the old theory at low temperatures was very inconsistent with experiment). Later (1912) Debye, Born and Karman refined Einstein's theory of heat capacity, and excellent agreement with experiment was achieved.

Brownian motion

In 1827, Robert Brown observed under a microscope and subsequently described the chaotic movement of flower pollen floating in water. Einstein, based on molecular theory, developed a statistical and mathematical model of such movement. Based on his diffusion model, it was possible, among other things, to estimate with good accuracy the size of molecules and their number per unit volume. At the same time, Smoluchowski, whose article was published several months later than Einstein, came to similar conclusions. Einstein presented his work on statistical mechanics, entitled “A New Determination of the Size of Molecules,” to the Polytechnic as a dissertation and in the same 1905 received the title of Doctor of Philosophy (equivalent to a candidate of natural sciences) in physics. The following year, Einstein developed his theory into new article“On the theory of Brownian motion,” and subsequently returned to this topic several times.

Soon (1908), Perrin's measurements completely confirmed the adequacy of Einstein's model, which became the first experimental proof of the molecular kinetic theory, which was subject to active attacks from positivists in those years.

Max Born wrote (1949): “I think that these studies of Einstein, more than all other works, convince physicists of the reality of atoms and molecules, of the validity of the theory of heat and the fundamental role of probability in the laws of nature.” Einstein's work on statistical physics is cited even more often than his work on relativity. The formula he derived for the diffusion coefficient and its relationship with the dispersion of coordinates turned out to be applicable in the most general class of problems: Markov diffusion processes, electrodynamics, etc.

Later, in the article “Toward the Quantum Theory of Radiation” (1917), Einstein, based on statistical considerations, first suggested the existence of a new type of radiation occurring under the influence of an external electromagnetic field (“induced radiation”). In the early 1950s, a method of amplifying light and radio waves based on the use of stimulated radiation was proposed, and in subsequent years it formed the basis of the theory of lasers.

Bern - Zurich - Prague - Zurich - Berlin (1905-1914)

The work of 1905 brought Einstein, although not immediately, worldwide fame. On April 30, 1905, he sent the text of his doctoral dissertation on the topic “A New Determination of the Size of Molecules” to the University of Zurich. The reviewers were Professors Kleiner and Burkhard. On January 15, 1906, he received his doctorate in physics. He corresponds and meets with the most famous physicists in the world, and Planck in Berlin includes the theory of relativity in his curriculum. In letters he is called “Mr. Professor,” but for another four years (until October 1909) Einstein continued to serve in the Patent Office; in 1906 he was promoted (he became an expert of class II) and his salary was increased. In October 1908, Einstein was invited to read an elective course at the University of Bern, but without any payment. In 1909, he attended a congress of naturalists in Salzburg, where the elite of German physics gathered, and met Planck for the first time; over 3 years of correspondence they quickly became close friends.

After the congress, Einstein finally received a paid position as extraordinary professor at the University of Zurich (December 1909), where his old friend Marcel Grossmann taught geometry. The pay was small, especially for a family with two children, and in 1911 Einstein without hesitation accepted an invitation to head the department of physics at the German University in Prague. During this period, Einstein continued to publish a series of papers on thermodynamics, relativity and quantum theory. In Prague, he intensifies research on the theory of gravity, setting the goal of creating a relativistic theory of gravity and fulfilling the long-standing dream of physicists - to exclude Newtonian long-range action from this area.

In 1911, Einstein participated in the First Solvay Congress (Brussels), dedicated to quantum physics. There his only meeting took place with Poincaré, who did not support the theory of relativity, although he personally had great respect for Einstein.

A year later, Einstein returned to Zurich, where he became a professor at his native Polytechnic and lectured there on physics. In 1913, he attended the Congress of Naturalists in Vienna, visiting 75-year-old Ernst Mach there; Once upon a time, Mach's criticism of Newtonian mechanics made a huge impression on Einstein and ideologically prepared him for the innovations of the theory of relativity. In May 1914, an invitation came from the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, signed by physicist P. P. Lazarev. However, the impressions of the pogroms and the “Beilis case” were still fresh, and Einstein refused: “I find it disgusting to go unnecessarily to a country where my fellow tribesmen are so cruelly persecuted.”

Citizenship of Switzerland, a neutral country, helped Einstein withstand militaristic pressure after the outbreak of war. He did not sign any “patriotic” appeals; on the contrary, in collaboration with the physiologist Georg Friedrich Nicolai, he compiled the anti-war “Appeal to the Europeans” as a counterweight to the chauvinistic manifesto of the 1993s, and in a letter to Romain Rolland he wrote:

Will future generations thank our Europe, in which three centuries of the most intense cultural work only led to the fact that religious madness was replaced by nationalistic madness? Even scientists from different countries behave as if their brains were amputated.

General Relativity (1915)

Descartes also declared that all processes in the Universe are explained by the local interaction of one type of matter with another, and from the point of view of science, this short range thesis was natural. However, Newton's theory of universal gravitation sharply contradicted the thesis of short-range action - in it the force of attraction was transmitted incomprehensibly through completely empty space, and infinitely quickly. Essentially, Newton's model was purely mathematical, without any physical content. Over the course of two centuries, attempts were made to correct the situation and get rid of the mystical long-range action, to fill the theory of gravitation with real physical content - especially since after Maxwell, gravity remained the only refuge of long-range action in physics. The situation became especially unsatisfactory after the approval of the special theory of relativity, since Newton's theory was incompatible with Lorentz transformations. However, before Einstein, no one managed to correct the situation.

Einstein's main idea was simple: the material carrier of gravity is space itself (more precisely, space-time). The fact that gravity can be considered as a manifestation of the properties of the geometry of four-dimensional non-Euclidean space, without involving additional concepts, is a consequence of the fact that all bodies in the gravitational field receive the same acceleration (“Einstein’s principle of equivalence”). With this approach, four-dimensional space-time turns out to be not a “flat and indifferent stage” for material processes; it has physical attributes, and first of all, metric and curvature, which influence these processes and themselves depend on them. If special relativity is a theory of uncurved space, then general theory of relativity, according to Einstein, was supposed to consider a more general case, space-time with a variable metric (pseudo-Riemannian manifold). The reason for the curvature of space-time is the presence of matter, and the greater its energy, the stronger the curvature. Newton’s theory of gravity is an approximation of the new theory, which is obtained if we take into account only the “curvature of time,” that is, the change in the time component of the metric (the space in this approximation is Euclidean). The propagation of gravitational disturbances, that is, changes in the metric during the movement of gravitating masses, occurs at a finite speed. From this moment on, long-range action disappears from physics.

The mathematical formulation of these ideas was quite labor-intensive and took several years (1907-1915). Einstein had to master tensor analysis and create its four-dimensional pseudo-Riemannian generalization; consultations and collaboration first with Marcel Grossman, who became a co-author of Einstein’s first papers on the tensor theory of gravity, and then with the “king of mathematicians” of those years, David Hilbert. In 1915, the field equations of Einstein's general theory of relativity (GR), generalizing Newton's, were published almost simultaneously in papers by Einstein and Hilbert.

The new theory of gravity predicted two previously unknown physical effects, fully confirmed by observations, and also accurately and completely explained the secular shift of Mercury's perihelion, which had long puzzled astronomers. After this, the theory of relativity became an almost universally accepted foundation of modern physics. In addition to astrophysics, general relativity has found practical application, as mentioned above, in global positioning systems (Global Positioning Systems, GPS), where coordinate calculations are made with very significant relativistic corrections.

Berlin (1915-1921)

In 1915, in a conversation with the Dutch physicist Vander de Haas, Einstein proposed a scheme and calculation of the experiment, which, after successful implementation, was called the “Einstein-de Haas effect.” The result of the experiment inspired Niels Bohr, who two years earlier had created a planetary model of the atom, since it confirmed that circular electron currents exist inside atoms, and electrons in their orbits do not emit. It was these provisions that Bohr based his model on. In addition, it was discovered that the total magnetic moment was twice as large as expected; the reason for this became clear when spin, the electron's own angular momentum, was discovered.

In June 1916, in the article “ Approximate integration of equations gravitational field » Einstein first presented the theory of gravitational waves. Experimental verification of this prediction was carried out only a hundred years later (2015).

After the end of the war, Einstein continued to work in the previous areas of physics, and also worked on new areas - relativistic cosmology and the “Unified Field Theory”, which, according to his plan, was supposed to combine gravity, electromagnetism and (preferably) the theory of the microworld. The first article on cosmology, " Cosmological considerations for general relativity", appeared in 1917. After this, Einstein experienced a mysterious “invasion of disease” - except serious problems with the liver, a stomach ulcer was discovered, then jaundice and general weakness. He did not get out of bed for several months, but continued to work actively. Only in 1920 did the diseases recede.

In June 1919, Einstein married his maternal cousin Else Löwenthal (née Einstein) and adopted her two children. At the end of the year, his seriously ill mother Paulina moved in with them; she died in February 1920. Judging by the letters, Einstein took her death seriously.

In the autumn of 1919, the English expedition of Arthur Eddington, at the moment of an eclipse, recorded the deflection of light predicted by Einstein in the gravitational field of the Sun. Moreover, the measured value corresponded not to Newton’s, but to Einstein’s law of gravity. The sensational news was reprinted in newspapers throughout Europe, although the essence of the new theory was most often presented in a shamelessly distorted form. Einstein's fame reached unprecedented heights.

In May 1920, Einstein, along with other members of the Berlin Academy of Sciences, was sworn in as a civil servant and legally considered a German citizen. However, he retained Swiss citizenship until the end of his life. In the 1920s, receiving invitations from everywhere, he traveled extensively throughout Europe (using a Swiss passport), giving lectures to scientists, students and the inquisitive public. He also visited the United States, where a special congratulatory resolution of Congress was adopted in honor of the eminent guest (1921). At the end of 1922, he visited India, where he had long communication with Rabindranath Tagore, and China. Einstein met the winter in Japan, where he was caught by the news that he had been awarded the Nobel Prize.

Nobel Prize (1922)

Einstein was repeatedly nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physics. The first such nomination (for the theory of relativity) took place, on the initiative of Wilhelm Ostwald, already in 1910, but the Nobel Committee considered the experimental evidence of the theory of relativity insufficient. Einstein's nomination was repeated every year thereafter, except in 1911 and 1915. Among the recommenders in different years There were such outstanding physicists as Lorentz, Planck, Bohr, Wien, Khvolson, de Haas, Laue, Zeeman, Kamerlingh Onnes, Hadamard, Eddington, Sommerfeld and Arrhenius.

However, members of the Nobel Committee for a long time did not dare to award the prize to the author of such revolutionary theories. In the end, a diplomatic solution was found: the 1921 prize was awarded to Einstein (in November 1922) for the theory of the photoelectric effect, that is, for the most indisputable and experimentally tested work; however, the text of the decision contained a neutral addition: “... and for other work in the field of theoretical physics.”

As I have already informed you by telegram, the Royal Academy of Sciences, at its meeting yesterday, decided to award you the Prize in Physics for the past year, thereby recognizing your work in theoretical physics, in particular the discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect, without taking into account your work on the theory of relativity and theories of gravity, which will be evaluated once they are confirmed in the future.

Since Einstein was away, the prize was accepted on his behalf on December 10, 1922 by Rudolf Nadolny, the German Ambassador to Sweden. Previously, he asked for confirmation whether Einstein was a citizen of Germany or Switzerland; The Prussian Academy of Sciences has officially certified that Einstein is a German subject, although his Swiss citizenship is also recognized as valid. Upon his return to Berlin, Einstein received the insignia accompanying the prize personally from the Swedish ambassador.

Naturally, Einstein dedicated his traditional Nobel speech (in July 1923) to the theory of relativity.

Berlin (1922-1933)

In 1923, completing his journey, Einstein spoke in Jerusalem, where it was planned to open the Hebrew University soon (1925).

In 1924, a young Indian physicist, Shatyendranath Bose, wrote to Einstein in a brief letter asking for help in publishing a paper in which he put forward the assumption that formed the basis of modern quantum statistics. Bose proposed to consider light as a gas of photons. Einstein came to the conclusion that the same statistics could be used for atoms and molecules in general. In 1925, Einstein published Bose's paper in a German translation, followed by his own paper in which he outlined a generalized Bose model applicable to systems of identical particles with integer spin called bosons. Based on this quantum statistics, now known as Bose-Einstein statistics, both physicists in the mid-1920s theoretically substantiated the existence of a fifth state of matter - the Bose-Einstein condensate.

The essence of the Bose-Einstein “condensate” is the transition large number particles of an ideal Bose gas into a state with zero momentum at temperatures approaching absolute zero, when the de Broglie wavelength of the thermal motion of particles and the average distance between these particles are reduced to the same order. Since 1995, when the first such condensate was obtained at the University of Colorado, scientists have practically proven the possibility of the existence of Bose-Einstein condensates made of hydrogen, lithium, sodium, rubidium and helium.

In 1929, the world noisily celebrated Einstein's 50th birthday. The hero of the day did not take part in the celebrations and hid in his villa near Potsdam, where he enthusiastically grew roses. Here he received friends - scientists, Rabindranath Tagore, Emmanuel Lasker, Charlie Chaplin and others.

In 1931, Einstein visited the USA again. In Pasadena he was very warmly received by Michelson, who had four months to live. Returning to Berlin in the summer, Einstein, in a speech to the Physical Society, paid tribute to the memory of the remarkable experimenter who laid the first stone of the foundation of the theory of relativity.

In addition to theoretical research, Einstein also owned several inventions, including:

very low voltage meter (together with the Habicht brothers, Paul and Konrad);
a device that automatically determines exposure time when taking photographs;
original hearing aid;
silent refrigerator (shared with Szilard);
gyro-compass.

Until about 1926, Einstein worked in many areas of physics, from cosmological models to research into the causes of river meanders. Further, with rare exceptions, he focuses his efforts on quantum problems and the Unified Field Theory.

Interpretation of quantum mechanics

The birth of quantum mechanics took place with the active participation of Einstein. In publishing his seminal works, Schrödinger admitted (1926) that he was greatly influenced by “the brief but infinitely prescient remarks of Einstein.”

In 1927, at the Fifth Solvay Congress, Einstein decisively opposed the “Copenhagen interpretation” of Max Born and Niels Bohr, which interpreted the mathematical model of quantum mechanics as essentially probabilistic. Einstein said that supporters of this interpretation “make a virtue out of necessity,” and the probabilistic nature only indicates that our knowledge of the physical essence of microprocesses is incomplete. He sarcastically remarked: “ God doesn't play dice"(German: Der Herrgott würfelt nicht), to which Niels Bohr objected: "Einstein, don't tell God what to do". Einstein accepted the “Copenhagen interpretation” only as a temporary, unfinished option, which, as physics progressed, should be replaced by a complete theory of the microworld. He himself made attempts to create a deterministic nonlinear theory, the approximate consequence of which would be quantum mechanics.

In 1933, Einstein wrote:

The real goal of my research has always been to simplify theoretical physics and unify it into a coherent system. I was able to satisfactorily realize this goal for the macrocosm, but not for quanta and the structure of atoms. I think that, despite significant advances, modern quantum theory is still far from a satisfactory solution to the last group of problems.

In 1947, he restated his position in a letter to Max Born:

Of course, I understand that the fundamentally statistical point of view, the need for which was first clearly recognized by you, contains a significant amount of truth. However, I cannot seriously believe in it, because this theory is incompatible with the basic position that physics must represent reality in space and time without mystical long-range actions. What I am firmly convinced of is that in the end they will settle on a theory in which the naturally related things will not be probabilities, but facts.

Einstein debated this topic until the end of his life, although few physicists shared his point of view. Two of his articles contained descriptions of thought experiments that, in his opinion, clearly showed the incompleteness of quantum mechanics; The so-called “Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Paradox” (May 1935) received the greatest resonance. The discussion of this important and interesting problem continues to this day. Paul Dirac in his book “Memoirs of an Extraordinary Era” wrote:

I do not exclude the possibility that Einstein’s point of view may ultimately turn out to be correct, because the current stage of development of quantum theory cannot be considered as final.<…>Modern quantum mechanics is a great achievement, but it is unlikely to last forever. It seems very likely to me that sometime in the future there will be an improved quantum mechanics in which we return to causality, and which will justify Einstein's point of view. But such a return to causality can only be possible at the cost of abandoning some other fundamental idea that we now unconditionally accept. If we are to revive causality, we will have to pay for it, and for now we can only guess which idea must be sacrificed.

Princeton (1933-1945). The fight against Nazism

As the economic crisis in Weimar Germany grew, political instability intensified, contributing to the strengthening of radical nationalist and anti-Semitic sentiments. Insults and threats against Einstein became more frequent; one of the leaflets even offered a large reward (50,000 marks) for his head. After the Nazis came to power, all of Einstein’s works were either attributed to “Aryan” physicists or declared a distortion of true science. Lenard, who headed the “German Physics” group, proclaimed: “The most important example of the dangerous influence of Jewish circles on the study of nature is represented by Einstein with his theories and mathematical chatter, composed of old information and arbitrary additions ... We must understand that it is unworthy of a German to be the spiritual follower of a Jew " An uncompromising racial cleansing unfolded in all scientific circles in Germany.

In 1933, Einstein had to leave Germany, to which he was very attached, forever. He and his family traveled to the United States of America with guest visas. Soon, in protest against the crimes of Nazism, he renounced German citizenship and membership in the Prussian and Bavarian Academies of Sciences and stopped communicating with the scientists who remained in Germany - in particular, with Max Planck, whose patriotism was hurt by Einstein's harsh anti-Nazi statements.

After moving to the United States, Albert Einstein received a position as professor of physics at the newly created Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton, New Jersey). The eldest son, Hans-Albert (1904-1973), soon followed him (1938); he subsequently became a recognized expert in hydraulics and a professor at the University of California (1947). Younger son Einstein, Eduard (1910-1965), around 1930, fell ill with a severe form of schizophrenia and ended his days in a Zurich psychiatric hospital. Cousin Einstein, Lina, died in Auschwitz, another sister, Bertha Dreyfus, died in the Theresienstadt concentration camp.

In the USA, Einstein instantly became one of the most famous and respected people in the country, gaining a reputation as the most brilliant scientist in history, as well as the personification of the image of the “absent-minded professor” and the intellectual capabilities of man in general. In January of the following year, 1934, he was invited to the White House to President Franklin Roosevelt, had a cordial conversation with him and even spent the night there. Every day Einstein received hundreds of letters of various contents, which (even children’s ones) he tried to answer. Being a world-renowned natural scientist, he remained an approachable, modest, undemanding and affable person.

In December 1936, Elsa died of heart disease; three months earlier, Marcel Grossmann died in Zurich. Einstein's loneliness was brightened up by his sister Maya, stepdaughter Margot (Elsa's daughter from her first marriage), secretary Ellen Dukas, cat Tiger and white terrier Chico. To the surprise of the Americans, Einstein never acquired a car or a television. Maya was partially paralyzed after a stroke in 1946, and every evening Einstein read books to his beloved sister.

In August 1939, Einstein signed a letter written on the initiative of Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard addressed to US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The letter alerted the President to the possibility that Nazi Germany was capable of creating an atomic bomb. After months of deliberation, Roosevelt decided to take this threat seriously and launched his own atomic weapons project. Einstein himself did not take part in this work. He later regretted the letter he signed, realizing that for the new US leader Harry Truman, nuclear energy served as a tool of intimidation. Subsequently, he criticized the development of nuclear weapons, their use in Japan and tests at Bikini Atoll (1954), and considered his involvement in accelerating work on the American nuclear program to be the greatest tragedy of his life. His aphorisms became widely known: “We won the war, but not the peace”; “If the third world war will be fought with atomic bombs, then the fourth will be fought with stones and sticks.”

During the war, Einstein advised the US Navy and contributed to solving various technical problems.

Princeton (1945-1955). Fight for peace. Unified field theory

In the post-war years, Einstein became one of the founders of the Pugwash Peace Scientists' Movement. Although its first conference was held after Einstein’s death (1957), the initiative to create such a movement was expressed in the widely known Russell-Einstein Manifesto (written jointly with Bertrand Russell), which also warned about the dangers of the creation and use of the hydrogen bomb. As part of this movement, Einstein, who was its chairman, together with Albert Schweitzer, Bertrand Russell, Frederic Joliot-Curie and other world-famous scientists, fought against the arms race and the creation of nuclear and thermonuclear weapons.

Until the end of his life, Einstein continued to work on the study of cosmological problems, but he directed his main efforts to the creation of a unified field theory. He was helped in this by professional mathematicians, including (at Princeton) John Kemeny. Formally, there were some successes in this direction - he even developed two versions of the unified field theory. Both models were mathematically elegant, from which not only the general theory of relativity followed, but also the entire electrodynamics of Maxwell - but they did not give any new physical consequences. But Einstein was never interested in pure mathematics, in isolation from physics, and he rejected both models. At first (1929) Einstein tried to develop the ideas of Kaluza and Klein - the world has five dimensions, and the fifth has micro-dimensions and is therefore invisible. It was not possible to obtain new physically interesting results with its help, and the multidimensional theory was soon abandoned (to be later revived in superstring theory). The second version of the Unified Theory (1950) was based on the assumption that spacetime has not only curvature, but also torsion; it also organically included general relativity and Maxwell’s theory, but it was not possible to find a final edition of the equations that would describe not only the macroworld, but also the microworld. And without this, the theory remained nothing more than a mathematical superstructure over a building that did not need this superstructure at all.

Weil recalled that Einstein once told him: “Physics cannot be constructed speculatively, without a guiding visual physical principle.”

Last years of life. Death

In 1955, Einstein's health deteriorated sharply. He wrote a will and told his friends: “I have fulfilled my task on Earth.” His last work was an unfinished appeal calling for the prevention of nuclear war.

During this time, Einstein was visited by historian Bernard Cohen, who recalled:

I knew that Einstein big man and a great physicist, but I had no idea of the warmth of his friendly nature, his kindness and great sense of humor. During our conversation it did not feel like death was near. Einstein's mind remained alive, he was witty and seemed very cheerful.

Stepdaughter Margot recalled her last meeting with Einstein in the hospital:

He spoke with deep calm, even with slight humor about doctors, and waited for his death as an upcoming “natural phenomenon.” As fearless as he was during life, he met death so calmly and peacefully. Without any sentimentality and without regrets, he left this world.

Albert Einstein died on April 18, 1955 at 1 hour 25 minutes, at the age of 77 in Princeton from an aortic aneurysm. Before his death, he uttered a few words in German, but the American nurse could not reproduce them later. Not accepting any form of personality cult, he prohibited lavish burial with loud ceremonies, for which he wished that the place and time of the burial not be disclosed. On April 19, 1955, the funeral of the great scientist took place without wide publicity, attended by only 12 of his closest friends. His body was burned at the Ewing Cemetery Crematory ( Ewing Cemetery), and the ashes are scattered to the wind.

Personal position

Human qualities

Close friends describe Einstein as a sociable, friendly, cheerful person; they note his kindness, willingness to help at any moment, complete absence of snobbery, and endearing human charm. His excellent sense of humor is often noted. When Einstein was asked where his laboratory was, he smiled and showed a fountain pen.

Einstein was passionate about music, especially the works of the 18th century. Over the years, his favorite composers have included Bach, Mozart, Schumann, Haydn and Schubert, and in recent years, Brahms. He played the violin well, which he never parted with. From fiction, he spoke with admiration about the prose of Leo Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Dickens, and the plays of Brecht. He was also interested in philately, gardening, and sailing (he even wrote an article about the theory of yacht control). In his private life he was unpretentious; at the end of his life he invariably appeared in his favorite warm sweater.

Despite his colossal scientific authority, he did not suffer from excessive conceit; he readily admitted that he could be wrong, and if this happened, he publicly admitted his error. This happened, for example, in 1922, when he criticized the article of Alexander Friedman, who predicted the expansion of the Universe. Having then received a letter from Friedman explaining the controversial details, Einstein reported in the same journal that he was wrong, and Friedman’s results were valuable and “shed new light” on possible models of cosmological dynamics.

Injustice, oppression, lies always provoked his angry reaction. From a letter to sister Maya (1935):

It seems that people have lost the desire for justice and dignity, have ceased to respect what, at the cost of enormous sacrifices, the previous, better generations were able to conquer... Ultimately, the basis of all human values is morality. The clear awareness of this in a primitive era testifies to the unparalleled greatness of Moses. What a contrast with today's people!

The most hated word in the German language for him was Zwang- violence, coercion.

Einstein’s attending physician, Gustav Bucchi, said that Einstein hated posing for the artist, but as soon as he admitted that he hoped to get out of poverty thanks to his portrait, Einstein immediately agreed and patiently sat in front of him for long hours.

At the end of his life, Einstein briefly formulated his value system: “The ideals that illuminated my path and gave me courage and courage were goodness, beauty and truth.”

Political beliefs

Socialism

Albert Einstein was a staunch democratic socialist, humanist, pacifist and anti-fascist. Einstein's authority, achieved thanks to his revolutionary discoveries in physics, allowed the scientist to actively influence socio-political transformations in the world.

In an essay entitled "Why Socialism?" ( "Why Socialism?"), published as an article in the largest Marxist magazine in the United States, Monthly Review, Albert Einstein outlined his vision of socialist transformation. In particular, the scientist substantiated the unviability of the economic anarchy of capitalist relations, which is the cause of social injustice, and called the main vice of capitalism “neglect of the human person.” Condemning the alienation of man under capitalism, the desire for profit and acquisition, Einstein noted that a democratic society in itself cannot limit the willfulness of the capitalist oligarchy, and ensuring human rights becomes possible only in a planned economy. It should be noted that the article was written at the invitation of Marxist economist Paul Sweezy at the height of the McCarthyite “witch hunt” and expressed the scientist’s civic position.

Because of his “leftism,” the scientist was often attacked by right-wing conservative circles in the United States. Back in 1932, the American Women's Patriotic Corporation demanded that Einstein not be allowed into the United States, since he was a known troublemaker and friend of the communists. The visa was nevertheless issued, and Einstein sadly wrote in the newspaper: “Never before have I received such an energetic refusal from the fair sex, and if I did, it was not from so many at once.” During the rampant McCarthyism, the FBI had a personal file of the “unreliable” Einstein, consisting of 1,427 pages. In particular, he was accused of “preaching a doctrine aimed at establishing anarchy.” FBI archives also indicate that the physicist was the object of close attention from the intelligence services, since during 1937-1955 Einstein “was or was a sponsor and honorary member of 34 communist fronts,” was the honorary chairman of three such organizations, and among his relatives friends were people “sympathizers with communist ideology.”

Relation to the USSR

Einstein advocated building a democratic socialism that would combine social protection and economic planning with a democratic regime and respect for human rights. He wrote about Lenin in 1929: “I respect in Lenin a man who used all his strength with complete self-sacrifice of his personality to implement social justice. His method seems inappropriate to me. But one thing is certain: people like him are the guardians and renewers of the conscience of mankind.”.

Einstein did not approve of the totalitarian methods of building a socialist society observed in the USSR. In a 1933 interview, Einstein explained why he never accepted an invitation to come to the USSR: he was against any dictatorship that “enslaves the individual through terror and violence, whether they manifest themselves under the flag of fascism or communism.” In 1938, Einstein wrote several letters to Stalin and other leaders of the USSR, in which he asked for a humane treatment of foreign physicist emigrants repressed in the USSR. In particular, Einstein was worried about the fate of Fritz Noether, Emmy Noether's brother, who hoped to find refuge in the USSR, but was arrested in 1937 and soon (in September 1941) executed. In a conversation in 1936, Einstein called Stalin a political gangster. In a letter to Soviet scientists (1948), Einstein pointed out such negative features of the Soviet system as the omnipotence of the bureaucracy, the tendency to turn Soviet power into “a kind of church and brand as traitors and vile villains all who do not belong to it.” At the same time, Einstein always remained a supporter of rapprochement and cooperation between Western democracies and the socialist camp.

Pacifism

To justify his anti-war position, Einstein wrote:

My pacifism is an instinctive feeling that controls me because killing a person is disgusting. My attitude does not come from any speculative theory, but is based on the deepest antipathy to any kind of cruelty and hatred.

He rejected nationalism in all its manifestations and called it “the measles of humanity.” In 1932, in order to prevent the Nazis from winning the elections, he signed the appeal of the International Socialist Union of Struggle with a call for a united workers' front of the Social Democratic and Communist parties.

During the war, Einstein, temporarily abandoning his fundamental pacifism, took an active part in the fight against fascism. After the war, Einstein supported nonviolent means of struggle for the rights of the masses, especially noting the services of Mahatma Gandhi: “I consider Gandhi’s views the most outstanding of all the politicians of our contemporaries. We should try to act in this spirit: not to use violence to fight for our rights.".

He served on the advisory board of the First Humanist Society of New York with Julian Huxley, Thomas Mann, and John Dewey. First Humanist Society of New York).

Fight for human rights

An opponent of colonialism and imperialism, Albert Einstein, along with Henri Barbusse and Jawaharlal Nehru, participated in the Brussels Congress of the Anti-Imperialist League (1927). He actively contributed to the struggle of the black population of the United States for civil rights, being for two decades a close friend of the famous black singer and actor Paul Robeson in the USSR. Upon learning that the elderly William Du Bois had been declared a “Communist spy,” Einstein demanded that he be called as a witness for the defense, and the case was soon closed. He strongly condemned the “case of Oppenheimer,” who in 1953 was accused of “communist sympathies” and removed from secret work.

In 1946, Einstein was among the activists who collaborated to open a secular Jewish university at Middlesex University, but when his proposal to appoint the British Labor economist Harold Laski as president of the university was rejected (as a person supposedly “alien to American principles of democracy”), the physicist withdrew his support and later, when the institution opened as Louis Brandeis University, refused an honorary degree from it.

Zionism

Alarmed rapid growth anti-Semitism in Germany, Einstein supported the call of the Zionist movement to create a Jewish national home in Palestine and spoke on this topic with a number of articles and speeches. The idea of opening the Hebrew University in Jerusalem (1925) received especially active support on his part. He explained his position:

Until recently I lived in Switzerland, and while I was there I was not aware of my Jewishness...
When I arrived in Germany, I first learned that I was a Jew, and more non-Jews than Jews helped me make this discovery... Then I realized that only a joint cause, which would be dear to all Jews in the world, could lead to the revival of the people...
If we did not have to live among intolerant, soulless and cruel people, I would be the first to reject nationalism in favor of universal humanity.

A consistent internationalist, he defended the rights of all oppressed peoples - Jews, Indians, African Americans, etc. Although he initially believed that the Jewish home could do without a separate state, borders and army, in 1947 Einstein welcomed the creation of the state of Israel, hoping for a binational Arab-Jewish solution to the Palestinian problem. He wrote to Paul Ehrenfest in 1921: “Zionism represents a truly new Jewish ideal and can restore to the Jewish people the joy of existence." After the Holocaust, he noted: “Zionism did not protect German Jewry from destruction. But for those who survived, Zionism gave them the inner strength to endure the disaster with dignity, without losing healthy self-esteem.” In 1952, Einstein received an offer from then Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion to become the second president of Israel, which the scientist politely refused, citing a lack of experience and ability to work with people. Einstein bequeathed all his letters and manuscripts (and even the copyright for the commercial use of his image and name) to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Philosophy

Einstein was always interested in the philosophy of science and left a number of in-depth studies on this topic. The 1949 anniversary collection for his 70th birthday was called (presumably with his knowledge and consent) “Albert Einstein. Philosopher-scientist." Einstein considered Spinoza to be the closest philosopher to himself in terms of worldview. The rationalism of both of them was all-encompassing and extended not only to the sphere of science, but also to ethics and other aspects of human life: humanism, internationalism, love of freedom, etc. are good not only in themselves, but also because they are the most reasonable. The laws of nature objectively exist, and they are understandable for the reason that they form world harmony, reasonable and aesthetically attractive at the same time. This is the main reason for Einstein’s rejection of the “Copenhagen interpretation” of quantum mechanics, which, in his opinion, introduced an irrational element and chaotic disharmony into the picture of the world.

In his book The Evolution of Physics, Einstein wrote:

With the help of physical theories, we try to find our way through the labyrinth of observed facts, to organize and comprehend the world of our sensory perceptions. We want observed facts to follow logically from our concept of reality. Without faith that it is possible to embrace reality with our theoretical constructs, without faith in the internal harmony of our world, there could be no science. This faith is and will always remain the main motive of all scientific creativity. In all our efforts, in every dramatic struggle between old and new, we recognize the eternal desire for knowledge, an unshakable faith in the harmony of our world, constantly increasing as the obstacles to knowledge grow.

In science, these principles meant a strong disagreement with the then fashionable positivist concepts of Mach, Poincaré and others, as well as a rejection of Kantianism with its ideas of “a priori knowledge.” Positivism played a certain positive role in the history of science, as it stimulated the skeptical attitude of leading physicists, including Einstein, towards previous prejudices (primarily the concept of absolute space and absolute time). It is known that Einstein, in a letter to Mach, called himself his student. However, Einstein called the philosophy of the positivists stupid. Einstein explained the essence of his disagreements with them:

...A priori we should expect a chaotic world that cannot be known through thinking. One could (or should) only expect that this world is subject to law only to the extent that we can order it with our minds. This would be an ordering similar to the alphabetical ordering of words in a language. On the contrary, the ordering introduced, for example, by Newton's theory of gravity, is of a completely different nature. Although the axioms of this theory were created by man, the success of this enterprise presupposes a significant orderliness of the objective world, which a priori we have no reason to expect. This is what the “miracle” is, and the further our knowledge develops, the more magical it becomes. Positivists and professional atheists see this as vulnerable spot, for they feel happy in the knowledge that they not only managed to successfully expel God from this world, but also “deprive this world of miracles.”

Einstein's philosophy was based on completely different principles. In his autobiography (1949) he wrote:

There, outside, there was this big world, existing independently of us people, and standing before us as a huge eternal mystery, accessible, however, at least in part, to our perception and our mind. The study of this world beckoned as a liberation, and I soon became convinced that many of those whom I had learned to value and respect found their inner freedom and confidence by devoting themselves entirely to this activity. Mental grasp within the limits of the possibilities available to us of this extrapersonal world seemed to me, half consciously, half unconsciously, as the highest goal... The prejudice of these scientists [positivists] against the atomic theory can undoubtedly be attributed to their positivist philosophical attitude. This is an interesting example of how philosophical prejudices interfere with the correct interpretation of facts, even by scientists with bold thinking and subtle intuition.

In the same autobiography, Einstein clearly formulates two criteria of truth in physics: a theory must have “external justification” and “internal perfection.” The first means that the theory must be consistent with experience, and the second means that it must, from minimal premises, reveal the deepest possible patterns of the universal and reasonable harmony of the laws of nature. The aesthetic qualities of the theory (original beauty, naturalness, grace) thereby become important physical advantages.

A theory is more impressive the simpler its premises, the more diverse the subjects it relates, and the wider the scope of its application.

Einstein defended his belief in an objective reality that exists independently of human perception during his famous conversations with Rabindranath Tagore, who equally consistently denied such a reality. Einstein said:

Our natural point of view regarding the existence of truth independent of man cannot be explained or proven, but everyone believes in it, even primitive people. We attribute superhuman objectivity to truth. This reality, independent of our existence, our experience, our mind, is necessary for us, although we cannot say what it means.

Einstein's influence on twentieth-century philosophy of science is comparable to the influence he had on twentieth-century physics. The essence of the approach he proposed in the philosophy of science lies in the synthesis of a variety of philosophical teachings that Einstein proposed to use depending on the problem being solved by science. He believed that for a real scientist, as opposed to a philosopher, epistemological monism is unacceptable. Based on a specific situation, the same scientist can be an idealist, a realist, a positivist, and even a Platonist and Pythagorean. Since such eclecticism may seem unacceptable to a consistent systematic philosopher, Einstein believed that a real scientist in the eyes of such a philosopher looks like an opportunist. The approach advocated by Einstein received modern philosophy scientific name is “epistemological opportunism”.

Religious views

Einstein's religious views have been the subject of long-standing controversy. Some claim that Einstein believed in the existence of God, others call him an atheist. Both of them used the words of the great scientist to confirm their point of view.

In 1921, Einstein received a telegram from New York rabbi Herbert Goldstein: “Do you believe in God period paid answer 50 words.” Einstein put it in 24 words: “I believe in Spinoza’s God, who manifests himself in the natural harmony of existence, but not at all in the God who worries about the destinies and affairs of people.”. He put it even more harshly in an interview with the New York Times (November 1930): “I do not believe in a God who rewards and punishes, in a God whose goals are molded from our human goals. I do not believe in the immortality of the soul, although weak minds, obsessed with fear or absurd selfishness, find refuge in such a belief.”

In 1940 he described his views in a magazine "Nature", in an article entitled "Science and Religion". There he writes:

In my opinion, a religiously enlightened person is one who, to the greatest extent possible, has freed himself from the fetters of egoistic desires and is absorbed in the thoughts, feelings and aspirations that he holds because of their superpersonal nature... regardless of whether an attempt is made to connect them with a divine being, for otherwise Buddha or Spinoza could not be considered religious personalities. The religiosity of such a person lies in the fact that he has no doubts about the significance and greatness of these superpersonal goals, which cannot be rationally justified, but do not need it... In this sense, religion is the ancient desire of humanity to clearly and fully understand these values and goals and strengthen and expand their influence.

He goes on to make some connection between science and religion and says that “Science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the desire for truth and understanding. But the source of this feeling originates from the field of religion. From there comes the belief in the possibility that the rules of this world are rational, that is, comprehensible to reason. I cannot imagine a real scientist without a strong belief in this. The situation can be described figuratively as follows: science without religion is lame, and religion without science is blind.”. The phrase “science without religion is lame, and religion without science is blind” is often quoted out of context, depriving it of meaning.

Einstein then writes again that he does not believe in a personal God and states:

There is neither the dominance of man nor the dominance of deity as independent causes of natural phenomena. Of course, the doctrine of God as a person intervening in natural phenomena, can never literally be refuted by science, for this doctrine can always find refuge in those areas where scientific knowledge is not yet able to penetrate. But I am convinced that such behavior of some representatives of religion is not only unworthy, but also fatal.

In 1950, in a letter to M. Berkowitz, Einstein wrote: “I am agnostic towards God. I am convinced that for a clear understanding of the paramount importance moral principles in the matter of improving and ennobling life, the concept of a legislator is not required, especially a legislator working on the principle of reward and punishment.”.

Once again Einstein described his religious views, responding to those who attributed his belief in the Judeo-Christian God:

What you read about my religious beliefs is, of course, a lie. A lie that is systematically repeated. I do not believe in God as a person and I have never hidden this, but expressed it very clearly. If there is something in me that can be called religious, then it is undoubtedly an unlimited admiration for the structure of the universe to the extent that science reveals it.

In 1954, a year and a half before his death, Einstein, in a letter to the German philosopher Eric Gutkind, described his attitude towards religion as follows:

“The word “God” is to me only a manifestation and product of human weaknesses, and the Bible is a collection of venerable, but still primitive legends, which, nevertheless, are rather childish. No interpretation, even the most sophisticated, can change this (for me).”

Original text(English)
The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this.

The most comprehensive overview of Einstein's religious views was published by his friend, Max Jammer, in the book Einstein and Religion (1999). However, he admits that the book is not based on his direct conversations with Einstein, but on the study of archival materials. Jammer considers Einstein to be a deeply religious man, calls his views a “cosmic religion” and believes that Einstein did not identify God with Nature, like Spinoza, but considered him a separate non-personal entity, manifested in the laws of the Universe as “a spirit significantly superior to man,” according to Einstein himself.

At the same time, Einstein’s closest student Leopold Infeld wrote that “when Einstein talks about God, he always means the internal connection and logical simplicity of the laws of nature. I would call this a “materialistic approach to God.”

Grades and memory

Charles Percy Snow on Einstein:

If Einstein had not existed, 20th century physics would have been different. This cannot be said about any other scientist... He occupied a position in public life that is unlikely to be occupied by another scientist in the future. No one, in fact, knows why, but he entered the public consciousness of the whole world, becoming a living symbol of science and the ruler of the thoughts of the twentieth century.
He said: “Caring for man and his fate should be the main goal in science. Never forget this among your drawings and equations.” Later he also said: “Only the life that is lived for people is valuable”...
Einstein was the most noble man we have ever met.

Robert Oppenheimer: “There was always a kind of magical purity about him, at once childlike and infinitely stubborn.”

Bertrand Russell:

I think his work and his violin gave him a significant measure of happiness, but deep sympathy for people and interest in their fate protected Einstein from a degree of hopelessness unbecoming for such a person... Communication with Einstein brought extraordinary satisfaction. Despite his genius and fame, he behaved absolutely simply, without the slightest pretense of superiority... He was not only a great scientist, but also a great man.

H. H. Hardy described Einstein in two words: “Meek and wise.”

Confession

USSR postage stamp issued for the 100th anniversary of Albert Einstein (DFA [ITC “Mark”] No. 4944)

The archives of the Nobel Committee preserve about 60 nominations by Einstein in connection with the formulation of the theory of relativity; his candidacy was consistently nominated every year from 1910 to 1922 (except for 1911 and 1915). However, the prize was awarded only in 1922 - for the theory of the photoelectric effect, which seemed to members of the Nobel Committee to be a more indisputable contribution to science. As a result of this nomination, Einstein received the (previously deferred) prize for 1921 at the same time as Niels Bohr, who was awarded the 1922 prize.

Einstein was awarded honorary doctorates from numerous universities, including: Geneva, Zurich, Rostock, Madrid, Brussels, Buenos Aires, London, Oxford, Cambridge, Glasgow, Leeds, Manchester, Harvard, Princeton, New York (Albany) , Sorbonne.

Some other awards:

Title of honorary citizen of New York (1921) and Tel Aviv (1923);
Barnard Medal (1921);
Matteucci Medal (1921);
German Order of Merit (1923; Einstein renounced this order in 1933);
Copley Medal (1925), "for the theory of relativity and contributions to quantum theory";
Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Great Britain (1926);
Max Planck Medal (1929), German Physical Society (German: Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft);
Jules Jansen Prize (1931), French Astronomical Society (French: Société astronomique de France);
Gibbs Lecture (1934);
Franklin Medal (1935), Franklin Institute.

Posthumously, Albert Einstein was also noted for a number of distinctions:

1992: He was named number 10 on Michael Hart's list of the most influential people in history.
1999: Time magazine named Einstein "Person of the Century."
1999: A Gallup poll named Einstein number 4 on the list of the most admired people of the 20th century.
2005 was declared the Year of Physics by UNESCO on the occasion of the centenary of the “year of miracles”, culminating in the discovery of the special theory of relativity.

In the capital of the United States and in Jerusalem near the Israeli Academy of Sciences, monuments to Einstein by Robert Burks were erected.

In 2015, in Jerusalem, on the territory of the Hebrew University, a monument to Einstein was erected by Moscow sculptor Georgy Frangulyan.

Some memorable places associated with Einstein:

Ulm, Bahnhofstrasse, building 135, here Einstein was born and lived until the family moved to Munich (1880). The house was destroyed by Allied bombing in the spring of 1945.
Bern, Kramgasse street ( Kramgasse), house 49, lived from 1903 to 1905. Now it houses the Albert Einstein House Museum. There is also a separate Einstein Museum in the Historical Museum of Bern on Helvetiaplatz.
Zurich, Mussonstrasse, house 12, lived from 1909 to 1911.
Zurich, Hofstrasse, house 116, lived from 1912 to 1914.
Berlin, Wittelsbacherstrasse, house 13, lived from 1914 to 1918. This Berlin house, like the next one, was destroyed during the hostilities of 1945.
Berlin, Haberlandstrasse, building 5, lived from 1918 to 1933.
Princeton, 112 Mercer Street, lived from 1933 to 1955.

Memorial plaques:

To Aarau

In Prague

In Berlin

In Milan

In Malta

Named after Einstein

Einstein - a unit of the number of photons used in photochemistry
Chemical element einsteinium (No. 99 in Periodic table elements of D.I. Mendeleev)
Asteroid (2001) Einstein
Einstein Crater on the Moon
NASA's Einstein Observatory Satellite (HEAO2) with X-ray telescope (1978-1982)
Quasar "Einstein Cross"

“Einstein rings” - an effect created by “gravitational lenses”
Astrophysical Observatory Potsdam
Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics, Holm, Germany
Several prestigious awards for scientific achievements:
- International UNESCO Albert Einstein Gold Medal
- Einstein Prize(Lewis and Rose Strauss Foundation, USA)
- Albert Einstein Medal(Swiss Albert Einstein Society, Bern)
- Albert Einstein Prize(World Cultural Council, World Cultural Council)
- Einstein Prize(American Physical Society, APS)
Gymnasiums in Munich, St. Augustin and Angermünde
Several medical facilities, including:
- Medical Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania ( Albert Einstein Medical Center)
- Yeshiva University College of Medicine
Street adjacent to Tel Aviv University in Israel.

Cultural influence

Albert Einstein has become the hero of a number of fictional novels, films and theatrical productions. In particular, he appears as a character in the film by Nicholas Rog “Insignificance”, the comedy by Fred Schepisi “I.Q.” (in which he is played by Walter Matthau), Philip Martin's film Einstein and Eddington ( Einstein and Eddington) 2008, in the Soviet / Russian films “Choice of Target”, “Wolf Messing”, the comic play by Steve Martin, the novels of Jean-Claude Carrier “Please Monsieur Einstein” ( Einstein S'il Vous Plait) and Alan Lightman's "Einstein's Dreams" ( Einstein's Dreams), Archibald MacLeish's poem "Einstein". The humorous component of the great physicist's personality appears in Ed Metzger's production of Albert Einstein: Practical Bohemian. “Professor Einstein,” who creates the chronosphere and prevents Hitler from coming to power, is one of the key characters in the alternative Universe he created in a series of computer real-time strategies Command & Conquer. The scientist in the film "Cain XVIII" is clearly made up to look like Einstein.

The appearance of Albert Einstein, usually seen as an adult in a simple sweater with disheveled hair, has become a staple in popular culture's portrayal of "mad scientists" and "absent-minded professors." In addition, it actively exploits the motif of the great physicist’s forgetfulness and impracticality, which is transferred to the collective image of his colleagues. Time magazine even called Einstein “a cartoonist’s dream come true.” Albert Einstein’s photographs became widely known. The most famous one was made at the physicist’s 72nd birthday (1951). Photographer Arthur Sass asked Einstein to smile for the camera, to which he stuck out his tongue. This image has become an icon of modern popular culture, presenting a portrait of both a genius and a cheerful living person. On June 21, 2009, at an auction in New Hampshire, America, one of the nine original photographs printed in 1951 was sold for $74,000. A. Einstein gave this photograph to his friend, journalist Howard Smith, and signed on it that “The humorous grimace is addressed to all of humanity.”

Einstein's popularity in the modern world is so great that controversial issues arise in the widespread use of the scientist's name and appearance in advertising and trademarks. Because Einstein bequeathed some of his property, including the use of his images, to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the brand "Albert Einstein" was registered as a trademark.

Important character in the Command & Conquer: Red Alert series
Super-specialist in the game Civilization IV, where he is an outstanding scientist, a gift to civilization
One of the characters in the American film "IQ" (1994)
in the album B&W (2006) by the group “Pilot”

Filmography

film “I killed Einstein, gentlemen” (Czechoslovakia, 1969)
film “Intelligence Quotient” (English I.Q.) (USA, 1994)
d/f “Albert Einstein. Formula of Life and Death" (English: Einstein's Equation of Life and Death) (BBC, 2005).
d/f "Einstein's Big Idea" (USA, France, Germany, UK, 2005)
feature film “Einstein and Eddington” (BBC/HBO, 2008, directed by Philip Martin; Andy Serkis starred as Einstein).
t/s “Einstein. Theory of Love" (Russia, 2013; 4 episodes) - role played by Dmitry Pevtsov
t/s “Genius” (National Geographic, 2017)

Myths and alternative versions

The versatile scientific and political activity of Albert Einstein gave rise to an extensive mythology, as well as a considerable number of unconventional assessments of various aspects of his activity. Already during the scientist’s lifetime, an extensive literature arose that downplayed or denied his importance in modern physics. A significant role in its emergence was played by the “Aryan” physicists Philipp Lenard and Johannes Stark, as well as the mathematician E. Whittaker. Such literature became especially widespread in Nazi Germany, where, for example, the special theory of relativity was entirely attributed to “Aryan” scientists. Attempts to downplay Einstein's role in the development of modern physics continue to this day. For example, not long ago the version about Einstein appropriating the scientific discoveries of his first wife, Mileva Maric, was resurrected. Maxim Chertanov published reasoned criticism of such fabrications in his ZhZL biography of Einstein.

Below is a brief summary of such myths, as well as those alternative versions that have been discussed in serious literature.

Scientific achievements of Mileva Maric

One of the many myths associated with Einstein is that Mileva Maric, his first wife, allegedly helped him develop the theory of relativity or was even its true author. This question has been studied by historians. No documentary evidence has been found for such a conclusion. Mileva did not show any special abilities in mathematics or physics; she was not even able (with two attempts) to pass the final exams at the Polytechnic. Not a single scientific work of hers is known - neither during the years of her life with Einstein, nor later (she died in 1948). Her recently published correspondence with Einstein does not contain any mention on her part of the ideas of the theory of relativity, while Einstein's letters in response contain numerous reflections on these topics.

Who is the author of the theory of relativity - Einstein or Poincare

In discussions of the history of the special theory of relativity (SRT), an accusation against Einstein arises from time to time: why in his first article “On the electrodynamics of moving bodies” did he not refer to the work of his predecessors, in particular the work of Poincaré and Lorentz? Sometimes it is even asserted that SRT was created by Poincaré, and Einstein’s article contained nothing new.

Until the end of his life, Lorentz never became a supporter of the theory of relativity and always refused the honor of being considered its “forerunner”: “The main reason why I could not propose a theory of relativity is that I adhered to the idea that only the variable t can be considered true time, and the local time t ′ proposed by me should be considered only as an auxiliary mathematical quantity.” In a letter to Einstein, Lorentz recalled:

I felt the need for a more general theory, which I tried to develop later... The credit for developing such a theory belongs to you (and, to a lesser extent, to Poincaré).

Insufficient attention to Poincaré's substantive work did occur, but, in fairness, this reproach should be addressed not only to Einstein, but to all physicists of the early 20th century. Even in France, in the work on SRT, Poincaré’s contribution was initially ignored, and only after the final approval of SRT (1920s) did historians of science rediscover the forgotten works and give Poincaré his due:

Having given impetus to further theoretical research, Lorentz’s work did not have any significant impact on the subsequent process of approval and recognition of the new theory... But Poincaré’s work also failed to solve this problem... Poincaré’s fundamental research did not have a noticeable impact on the views of a wide circle of scientists...

The reasons for this are the lack of consistency in Poincaré's relativistic articles and the significant differences between Einstein and Poincaré in the physical understanding of relativism. The formulas given by Einstein, although superficially similar to Poincaré’s formulas, had a different physical content.

Einstein himself explained that in his work “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies” two provisions were new: “the idea that the meaning of the Lorentz transformation goes beyond the framework of Maxwell’s equations and concerns the essence of space and time... and the conclusion that “Lorentz invariance “is a general condition for every physical theory.” P. S. Kudryavtsev wrote in “History of Physics”:

The true creator of the theory of relativity was Einstein, and not Poincare, not Lorentz, not Larmore or anyone else. The fact is that all these authors did not break away from electrodynamics and did not consider the problem from a broader point of view... Einstein’s approach to this problem is a different matter. He looked at it from a fundamentally new position, from a completely revolutionary point of view.

At the same time, discussing the history of the creation of the theory of relativity, Max Born came to the conclusion that:

...the special theory of relativity is not the work of one person, it arose as a result of the joint efforts of a group of great researchers - Lorentz, Poincaré, Einstein, Minkowski. The fact that only Einstein's name is mentioned has a certain justification, since the special theory of relativity was, after all, only the first step towards the general one, which embraced gravity.

It should also be noted that neither Lorentz nor Poincaré ever challenged Einstein's priority in the theory of relativity. Lorentz treated Einstein very warmly (it was he who recommended Einstein for the Nobel Prize), and Poincaré gave Einstein a high and friendly assessment in his famous testimonial.

Who discovered the formula E=mc²

The law of the relationship between mass and energy E=mc² is Einstein’s most famous formula. Some sources question Einstein's priority, pointing out that similar or even the same formulas were discovered by historians of science in the earlier works of G. Schramm (1872), N. A. Umov (1873), J. J. Thomson (1881), O Heaviside (1890), A. Poincaré (1900) and F. Gazenorl (1904). All these studies related to a special case - the supposed properties of the ether or charged bodies. For example, Umov studied the possible dependence of the density of the ether on the energy density of the electromagnetic field, and the Austrian physicist F. Gazenorl, in his works of 1904-1905, suggested that the radiation energy is equivalent to additional “electromagnetic mass” and is related to it by the formula: E = 3 4 m c 2 .

Einstein was the first to present this relationship as a universal law of dynamics, applicable to all types of matter and not limited to electromagnetism. In addition, most of the listed scientists associated this law with the existence of a special “electromagnetic mass” that depends on energy. Einstein combined all types of masses and noted an inverse relationship: the inertia of any physical object increases with increasing energy.

Hilbert and the gravitational field equations

As mentioned above, the final equations of the gravitational field of the general theory of relativity (GTR) were derived almost simultaneously (in different ways) by Einstein and Hilbert in November 1915. Until recently, it was believed that Hilbert received them 5 days earlier, but published them later: Einstein presented his work containing the correct version of the equations to the Berlin Academy on November 25, and Hilbert’s note “Foundations of Physics” was announced 5 days earlier, on November 20 1915 at a report at the Göttingen Mathematical Society, and then transferred to the Royal Scientific Society in Göttingen. Gilbert's article was published on March 31, 1916. The two scholars, in preparing their manuscripts, conducted a lively correspondence, some of which has survived; it clearly shows that both researchers had a mutual and fruitful influence on each other. In the literature, the field equations are called “Einstein’s equations.”

In 1997, new documents were discovered, namely a proof of Hilbert's article, dated December 6. From this discovery, L. Corrie and his co-authors who made it concluded that Hilbert wrote down the “correct” field equations not 5 days earlier, but 4 months later than Einstein. It turned out that Hilbert's work, prepared for publication earlier than Einstein's, differs significantly from its final printed version in two respects:

It does not contain the field equations in their classical form, first published in Einstein's article (the expression with the absolute derivative is not disclosed). Later, however, it was discovered that the upper third of the 8th sheet of proof had been cut off for some reason; however, the context of this lacuna does not give reason to assume that this particular fragment contained the field equations.
In addition to the field equations, Hilbert introduced additional 4 non-generally covariant conditions, which, in his opinion, are necessary for the unique solution of the equations.

This means that Hilbert’s version was initially unfinished and not completely generally covariant; the work took on its final form only before printing, when Einstein’s work had already seen the light. During the final edits, Hilbert inserted into his article references to Einstein’s parallel December work, added a remark that the field equations can be presented in a different form (he then wrote out Einstein’s classical formula, but without proof), and removed all discussions about additional conditions . Historians believe that this edit was largely influenced by Einstein's article.

The conclusion of L. Corrie was also confirmed in the article by T. Sauer.

In addition to Corrie, F. Vinterberg took part in further polemics, criticizing Corrie (in particular, for his silence about the presence of a lacuna in the proof).

Academician A. A. Logunov (with co-authors) also made an attempt to challenge the conclusions cited by Corrie and repeated by a number of other authors. He noted that the part of the 8th sheet that has not been preserved may contain something significant, for example, equations in classical form, and, in addition, these equations can be obtained “in a trivial way” from the Lagrangian explicitly written out in the proof. On this basis, Logunov proposed calling the field equations “Hilbert-Einstein equations.” This proposal by Logunov did not receive noticeable support from the scientific community.

A recent article by Ivan Todorov contains a fairly complete overview of the current situation and history of the issue. Todorov characterizes Logunov’s reaction as too angry ( uncommonly angry reaction), however, he believes that it was provoked by the excessive one-sidedness of the position of Corrie et al. He agrees that “Only at the stage of proofreading does Hilbert suppress all extra conditions and recognize the unqualified physical relevance of the covariant equation.” , but notes that Hilbert's influence and collaboration with him was decisive for the acceptance of general covariance also by Einstein himself. Todorov does not find excessive conflict useful for the history of science and believes that it would be much more correct, following the example of Einstein and Hilbert themselves, not to make the priority issue a stumbling block at all.

It should also be emphasized that Einstein’s actual priority in creating the general theory of relativity was never disputed, including by Hilbert. One of the myths associated with Einstein claims that Hilbert himself, without any influence from Einstein, derived the main equations of General Relativity. Hilbert himself did not think so and never claimed priority in any part of GTR:

Hilbert readily admitted and often spoke about it in lectures that the great idea belonged to Einstein. “Any boy on the streets of Göttingen understands more about four-dimensional geometry than Einstein,” he once remarked. “And yet it was Einstein, not mathematicians, who did this work.”

Did Einstein recognize ether?

There is a statement that Einstein, who initially denied the ether in his 1905 work “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies,” where he called the introduction of “luminiferous ether” is unnecessary, later recognized its existence and even wrote a paper entitled “Ether and the Theory of Relativity” (1920).

There is terminological confusion here. Einstein never recognized the luminiferous ether of Lorentz-Poincaré. In the mentioned article, he proposes to return the term “ether” to its original (from ancient times) meaning: a material filler of emptiness. In other words, and Einstein directly writes about this, the ether in the new understanding is the physical space of the general theory of relativity:

Some important argument can be made in favor of the ether hypothesis. To deny the ether ultimately means to accept that empty space has no physical properties. The basic facts of mechanics do not agree with this view...
To summarize, we can say that the general theory of relativity endows space with physical properties; thus, in this sense, the ether exists. According to the general theory of relativity, space is unthinkable without ether; indeed, in such a space not only would the propagation of light be impossible, but scales and clocks could not exist and there would be no space-time distances in the physical sense of the word. However, this ether cannot be imagined as consisting of parts traceable in time; Only weighty matter has this property; in the same way, the concept of movement cannot be applied to it.

This new meaning of the old term, however, did not find support in the scientific world.

The establishment of Einstein's ideas (quantum theory and especially the theory of relativity) in the USSR was not easy. Some scientists, especially young scientists, perceived new ideas with interest and understanding; already in the 1920s, the first domestic works and textbooks on these topics appeared. However, there were physicists and philosophers who strongly opposed the concepts of " new physics"; Among them, A.K. Timiryazev (son of the famous biologist K.A. Timiryazev), who criticized Einstein even before the revolution, was especially active. His articles in the magazines “Krasnaya Nov” (1921, No. 2) and “Under the Banner of Marxism” (1922, No. 4) were followed by Lenin’s critical remark:

If Timiryazev, in the first issue of the magazine, should have stipulated that the theory of Einstein, who himself, according to Timiryazev, does not lead any active campaign against the foundations of materialism, has already been seized upon by a huge mass of representatives of the bourgeois intelligentsia of all countries, then this applies not to Einstein alone, but to a number, if not most, of the great transformers of natural science since the end of the 19th century.

Also in 1922, Einstein was elected a foreign corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Nevertheless, during 1925-1926 Timiryazev published at least 10 anti-relativistic articles.

K. E. Tsiolkovsky also did not accept the theory of relativity, who rejected relativistic cosmology and the limitation on the speed of movement, which undermined Tsiolkovsky’s plans for populating space: “His second conclusion: the speed cannot exceed the speed of light... these are the same six days allegedly used to create peace." Nevertheless, towards the end of his life, Tsiolkovsky apparently softened his position, because at the turn of the 1920s and 1930s, in a number of works and interviews, he mentioned Einstein’s relativistic formula E = m c 2 without critical objections. However, Tsiolkovsky never came to terms with the impossibility of moving faster than light.

Although criticism of the theory of relativity among Soviet physicists ceased in the 1930s, the ideological struggle of a number of philosophers against the theory of relativity as “bourgeois obscurantism” continued and especially intensified after the removal of Nikolai Bukharin, whose influence had previously softened the ideological pressure on science. The next phase of the campaign began in 1950; it was probably connected with similar in spirit campaigns against genetics (Lysenkoism) and cybernetics of that time. Not long before (1948), the Gostekhizdat publishing house published a translation of the book “The Evolution of Physics” by Einstein and Infeld, equipped with an extensive preface entitled: “On ideological vices in the book of A. Einstein and L. Infeld “The Evolution of Physics”. Two years later, the magazine “Soviet Book” published devastating criticism of both the book itself (for its “idealistic bias”) and the publishing house that published it (for its ideological error).

This article opened a whole avalanche of publications that were formally directed against Einstein’s philosophy, but at the same time they accused a number of major Soviet physicists of ideological mistakes - Ya. I. Frenkel, S. M. Rytov, L. I. Mandelstam and others. Soon, an article by M. M. Karpov, associate professor of the Department of Philosophy at Rostov State University, “On the Philosophical Views of Einstein” (1951) appeared in the journal “Questions of Philosophy,” where the scientist was accused of subjective idealism, disbelief in the infinity of the Universe and other concessions to religion. In 1952, an article by the prominent Soviet philosopher A. A. Maksimov was published, which condemned not only philosophy, but also Einstein personally, “for whom the bourgeois press created advertising for his numerous attacks on materialism, for promoting views that undermine the scientific worldview, emasculating ideologically science." Another prominent philosopher, I.V. Kuznetsov, stated during the 1952 campaign: “The interests of physical science urgently require deep criticism and decisive exposure the whole system Einstein's theoretical views." However, the critical importance of the “atomic project” in those years, the authority and decisive position of the academic leadership prevented a defeat of Soviet physics similar to the one inflicted on geneticists. After Stalin's death, the anti-Einstein campaign was quickly curtailed, although a considerable number of “Einstein subverters” can still be found today.

Other myths

In 1962, a logic puzzle known as Einstein's Riddle was first published. This name was probably given to it for advertising purposes, because there is no evidence that Einstein had anything to do with this mystery. She is also not mentioned in any biography of Einstein.
A famous biography of Einstein states that in 1915, Einstein allegedly helped design a new model of military aircraft. This activity is difficult to reconcile with his pacifist beliefs. The investigation showed, however, that Einstein was simply discussing with a small aircraft company an idea in the field of aerodynamics - a catback wing (a hump on the top of the airfoil). The idea turned out to be unsuccessful and, as Einstein later put it, frivolous; however, a developed theory of flight did not yet exist.
George Gamow, in a 1956 paper and 1970 autobiography, wrote that Einstein called the introduction of the cosmological constant “the greatest mistake of his life” (modern physics has again legitimized this constant). There is no confirmation of this phrase from other acquaintances of Einstein, and Gamow had a strong reputation as a joker and lover of practical jokes. In his letters, Einstein expressed himself cautiously and entrusted the solution of this problem to future astrophysicists. According to Linus Pauling, Einstein told him that he had made only one major mistake in his life - signing a letter to Roosevelt.
Einstein is often mentioned among vegetarians. Although he supported the movement for many years, he only began following a strict vegetarian diet in 1954, about a year before his death.
There is an unsubstantiated legend that before his death, Einstein burned his last scientific papers, which contained a discovery that was potentially dangerous to humanity. This topic is often associated with the "Philadelphia Experiment". The legend is often mentioned in various media; the film “The Last Equation” was based on it.

Proceedings

List of scientific publications by Albert Einstein

In the original language

Einstein Archives Online. Retrieved January 20, 2009. Archived August 11, 2011.
Einstein's works in the ETH library. Retrieved February 11, 2009. Archived August 11, 2011.
Complete list of Einstein's scientific works

In Russian translation

Einstein A. Collection of scientific works in four volumes. - M.: Science, 1965-1967.
- Volume 1. Works on the theory of relativity 1905-1920.
- Volume 2. Works on the theory of relativity 1921-1955.
- Volume 3. Works on kinetic theory, radiation theory and fundamentals of quantum mechanics 1901-1955.
- Volume 4. Articles, reviews, letters. Evolution of physics.
The principle of relativity. - Collection of works on the special theory of relativity. Compiled by A. A. Tyapkin. - M.: Atomizdat, 1973.
Einstein A. Works on the theory of relativity. - M.: Amphora, 2008. - (On the shoulders of giants. Library of S. Hawking).
Einstein A. The essence of the theory of relativity = Meaning of relativity. - M.: IL, 1955.
Einstein A. Theory of relativity. Selected works. - Izhevsk: Scientific publishing house. Center “Regular and Chaotic Dynamics”, 2000. - 224 p.
Einstein A. Physics and reality. - M.: Nauka, 1965.
Einstein A., Infeld L. Evolution of physics. - M.: Nauka, 1965.
Albert Einstein in the library of the Skepticism magazine website. Retrieved January 25, 2009. Archived August 11, 2011.
Einstein A. Why socialism? Monthly Review (1949). Retrieved January 8, 2009. Archived August 11, 2011.
Einstein on religion. - M.: Alpina non-fiction, 2010. - 144 p.

Albert Einstein was born in 1879 in the city of Ulm, located in Germany. His father sold electrical equipment, his mother was a housewife. Later the family moved to Munich, where young Albert entered a Catholic school. Einstein continued his education at the Higher Technical School of Zurich, after which he was destined for a career school teacher mathematics and physics.

For a long time, the future famous physicist could not find a teaching position, so he became a technical assistant at the Swiss patent office. When dealing with patents, the scientist could trace the connection between the achievements of contemporary science and technical innovations, which greatly expanded his scientific horizons. In his free time from work, Einstein dealt with issues directly related to physics.

In 1905 he managed to publish several important works, which were devoted to Brownian motion, quantum theory and relativity. The great physicist was the first to introduce into science a formula that reflected the relationship between mass and energy. This relationship formed the basis of the principle of conservation of energy, established in relativism. All modern nuclear energy is based on Einstein's formula.

Einstein and his theory of relativity

Einstein formulated the foundations of the famous theory of relativity in 1917. His concept substantiated the principle of relativity and transferred it to systems that are capable of moving with acceleration along curved trajectories. General relativity became an expression of the connection between the space-time continuum and the distribution of mass. Einstein based his concept on the theory of gravity proposed by Newton.

The theory of relativity was a truly revolutionary concept for its time. Its recognition was helped by the facts observed by scientists that confirmed Einstein’s calculations. World-wide fame came to the scientist after a solar eclipse that took place in 1919, observations of which showed the validity of the conclusions of this brilliant theoretical physicist.

Albert Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1922 for his work in the field of theoretical physics. Later, he seriously studied issues of quantum physics and its statistical component. In the last years of his life, the physicist worked on the creation of a unified field theory, in which he intended to combine the principles of the theory of electromagnetic and gravitational interactions. But Einstein never managed to complete this work.

early years

Scientific activity

The childhood of a brilliant scientist

Later, when the scientist was asked what prompted him to create the theory of relativity, he referred to the novels of Fyodor Dostoevsky and the philosophy of Ancient China.

For a long time the graduate could not find a job. “I was bullied by my professors, who did not like me because of my independence and closed my path to science,” said Einstein.

Successful 1905

Active period of scientific work

Main work

More about the main scientific prize (1922)

1923–1933 in the life of Einstein

Years in exile

Atomic bomb

Post-war years

Last years of life. Death

Einstein was a heavy smoker

Einstein often kept to himself

Impact on culture

Sources

Biography from Wikipedia

early years

Beginning of scientific activity

1905 - “Year of Miracles”

Special theory of relativity

Quantum theory

Brownian motion

Bern - Zurich - Prague - Zurich - Berlin (1905-1914)

General Relativity (1915)

Berlin (1915-1921)

Nobel Prize (1922)

Berlin (1922-1933)

Interpretation of quantum mechanics

Princeton (1933-1945). The fight against Nazism

Princeton (1945-1955). Fight for peace. Unified field theory

Last years of life. Death

Personal position

Human qualities

Political beliefs

Socialism

Relation to the USSR

Pacifism

Fight for human rights

Zionism

Philosophy

Religious views

Grades and memory

Confession

Named after Einstein

Cultural influence

Filmography

Myths and alternative versions

Scientific achievements of Mileva Maric

Who is the author of the theory of relativity - Einstein or Poincare

Who discovered the formula E=mc²

Hilbert and the gravitational field equations

Did Einstein recognize ether?

Other myths

Proceedings

In the original language

In Russian translation

Einstein and his theory of relativity

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