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German Culture: Albert Einstein

Robert Easton

Albert Einstein made enormous advances in physics and became the first, and perhaps only, 'super star scientist', achieving great fame throughout the world. He campaigned for many political issues, and his pressuring US President Roosevelt to develop the atom bomb may have been crucial to the outcome of the Second World War.

Einstein was born in Germany on March 14th 1879 and died in the US in 1955. After his death his body was cremated but his brain was examined and preserved in a jar. Contrary to many peoples' expectations nothing unusual was found (it was of average weight).

However in 1999 further investigations found that one area of his brain sometimes associated with speech was missing. Consequently his inferior parietal lobe, an area responsible for mathematical thought and spatial awareness, was 15% wider than normal.

The young Einstein did not learn to speak until the age of 3 and was not a good student. One teacher suggested he left school, since his presence ruined the other pupils' respect for the teacher. He did leave the school at fifteen when he moved to Milan after the collapse of the family business. At this time he officially relinquished his German citizenship. He muddled through his studies until he finally took a job at the Swiss patent office.

Apart from his scientific genius there were two other factors that really contributed to Einstein's fame: the fact that some of his greatest discoveries were made in isolation from the rest of the scientific community, and that he took an active interest in politics.

Many of Einstein's most significant breakthroughs came during one 'annus mirabilis' whilst he was still working at the patent office in Bern. In 1905 he published four major papers, including one on the photoelectric effect which won him the Nobel prize for physics (in 1921!), another about his 'special theory of relativity', and one on his most famous accomplishment, the equation E=mc2.

E=mc2 is the same as saying Energy = Mass x (Speed Of Light)2, which means that the total amount of energy which can be obtained from any object is equivalent to the object's mass multiplied by the speed of light squared.

This allows us to work out that a kilogram of anything from sheep's wool to boiled peas would, if its mass were entirely converted into energy, produce the same amount of energy as the explosion of 21 millions tons of TNT.

E=mc2 was derived from Einstein's special theory of relativity, which he later developed into a general theory of relativity, perhaps his most significant contribution to science.

In this theory gravity is no longer a force, but a consequence of the curvature of space-time. This theory is still almost universally accepted and provided scientists with the tools to understand discoveries made long after Einstein's death.

At the outbreak of World War I a group of leading German scientists signed a manifesto supporting Germany's conduct. Einstein was one of only four who signed an anti-war counter-manifesto. After defeat in 1918 there was chaos in Germany, and one of Einstein's lectures in the University of Berlin was 'cancelled due to revolution'.

After the formation of the Weimar Republic, Einstein once again took up German citizenship to show his support for the new democracy. Einstein acted as an unofficial representative for the new republic, working for better relations with France and campaigning against fascism.

Unfortunately much of Einstein's effort was in vain and he was unable to stop the rise of Nazism in Germany. In 1933 he once again renounced his German citizenship but he had little choice as he was one of the first to be stripped of German citizenship by the Nazis, who said the physics he developed was incorrect 'Jewish-Communist Physics'.

Einstein later settled in the United States. In 1939 he and several other scientists wrote a letter to US President Roosevelt pointing out the danger of the Nazis developing an atom bomb before the Allies. The letter carried only Einstein's signature, and it was the only part he played in the development of the atom bomb.

His political activity meant he could not get the necessary security clearance for such sensitive work, and besides he always preferred working in isolation than in co-ordinated teams. The FBI had a 1400 page file on Einstein which claimed he was affiliated with 34 communist fronts and was honorary chairman of 3 communist organisations.

In his later years Einstein searched for a unifying theory of gravity and electromagnetism but met with little success. He became a national icon in the US and received thousands of letters from the public. He was married twice, but he had strained relations with some of his children. 2005 was declared International Year of Physics in recognition of his achievements.

Other articles by Robert Easton
The Amber Room
The Berlin Wall
Austrian Beer
Austrian Food
German Beer
German Cars
German Food
German Music
German Philosophers
German Politics
German Stereotypes
Hiking in Austria
Johannes Gutenberg
Michael Schumacher
Sex in Germany
Sex in Austria
Sex in Switzerland
Skiing in Switzerland
Swiss Stereotypes
William Tell

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