12 min

Albert Einstein Audio Biography Albert Einstein Genius - Audio Biography

    • Documentary

This is your Albert Einstein Audio Biography.


Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879 in Ulm, Germany. He was the first child born to Hermann and Pauline Einstein. His father was an engineer and salesman who moved his family to Munich when Einstein was an infant. As a child, Einstein spoke slowly and pausing to consider what to say next. His parents worried that he may be intellectually disabled. However, he showed great curiosity about science and mathematics, making advanced devices and models on his own when given parts.


At age five, Einstein's father showed him a pocket compass. Einstein was struck that invisible forces caused the needle to move, helping develop his fascination with invisible forms of causation and energy that would inform his later scientific work. By age twelve, he had taught himself Euclidean geometry from a book. Contrary to popular myth, there is no evidence Einstein struggled in grade school math. However, he did clash with authoritarian teaching styles. After being expelled, the family relocated to Italy before Einstein left to study in Switzerland.


In 1896, Einstein enrolled at the Swiss Federal Polytechnic in Zurich where he met his future wife Mileva Maric. They had two sons together prior to their divorce in 1919. Einstein completed his coursework to graduate as a teacher in physics and mathematics in 1900. His early career was hampered by his inability to find a permanent position for several years after graduation, working a series of temporary jobs.


He gained Swiss citizenship in 1901 and found steady work in 1902 at a patent office in Bern, eventually rising to technical examiner second class. In his spare time, he further developed some earlier academic work he had been working on related to the nature of light. This led him to unleash a series of four seminal papers in 1905 later known as his Annus Mirabilis or miracle year.


At age 26, Einstein published these monumental early papers covering his theory of photoelectric effect, mechanical foundation for diffusion laws, determination of molecular dimensions, and the introduction of his special theory of relativity. They rapidly made him a household name within the physics world upon their wider distribution starting in 1906. The University of Zurich awarded him a Ph.D. in 1905 without examination in appreciation of his new ideas. In 1908, Einstein began lecturing at the University of Bern until 1911 when he moved to Prague to become a professor at German Charles-Ferdinand University. By this time he had abandoned a largely fruitless pursuit of coming up with experiment designs to prove his work and settled into further developing the mathematics and theory itself.


In 1912, Einstein returned to Zurich and was soon promoted to full professor at his alma matter, the Swiss Federal Polytechnic. That same year, he had found new ways extending his earlier work in relativity to address gravity and acceleration itself, developing what would eventually become known as the general theory of relativity. At around this time, Einstein also began predicting the phenomenon of light being bent by gravity when passing by a massive object, which would later be confirmed during observations of the bending path of starlight passing by the sun during a 1919 solar eclipse expedition organized by Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington. The global attention this confirmation drew sparked Einstein's rise to scientific superstardom beyond just physics circles.


After decade of effort in fits and starts, by 1915 Einstein had fully formulated the general theory of relativity with help from his long-time friend Marcel Grossman, a mathematician. This cemented his reputation as among the era's most influential physicists. In his later years, Einstein would occupy a professor position within the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin starting in 1914. After...

This is your Albert Einstein Audio Biography.


Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879 in Ulm, Germany. He was the first child born to Hermann and Pauline Einstein. His father was an engineer and salesman who moved his family to Munich when Einstein was an infant. As a child, Einstein spoke slowly and pausing to consider what to say next. His parents worried that he may be intellectually disabled. However, he showed great curiosity about science and mathematics, making advanced devices and models on his own when given parts.


At age five, Einstein's father showed him a pocket compass. Einstein was struck that invisible forces caused the needle to move, helping develop his fascination with invisible forms of causation and energy that would inform his later scientific work. By age twelve, he had taught himself Euclidean geometry from a book. Contrary to popular myth, there is no evidence Einstein struggled in grade school math. However, he did clash with authoritarian teaching styles. After being expelled, the family relocated to Italy before Einstein left to study in Switzerland.


In 1896, Einstein enrolled at the Swiss Federal Polytechnic in Zurich where he met his future wife Mileva Maric. They had two sons together prior to their divorce in 1919. Einstein completed his coursework to graduate as a teacher in physics and mathematics in 1900. His early career was hampered by his inability to find a permanent position for several years after graduation, working a series of temporary jobs.


He gained Swiss citizenship in 1901 and found steady work in 1902 at a patent office in Bern, eventually rising to technical examiner second class. In his spare time, he further developed some earlier academic work he had been working on related to the nature of light. This led him to unleash a series of four seminal papers in 1905 later known as his Annus Mirabilis or miracle year.


At age 26, Einstein published these monumental early papers covering his theory of photoelectric effect, mechanical foundation for diffusion laws, determination of molecular dimensions, and the introduction of his special theory of relativity. They rapidly made him a household name within the physics world upon their wider distribution starting in 1906. The University of Zurich awarded him a Ph.D. in 1905 without examination in appreciation of his new ideas. In 1908, Einstein began lecturing at the University of Bern until 1911 when he moved to Prague to become a professor at German Charles-Ferdinand University. By this time he had abandoned a largely fruitless pursuit of coming up with experiment designs to prove his work and settled into further developing the mathematics and theory itself.


In 1912, Einstein returned to Zurich and was soon promoted to full professor at his alma matter, the Swiss Federal Polytechnic. That same year, he had found new ways extending his earlier work in relativity to address gravity and acceleration itself, developing what would eventually become known as the general theory of relativity. At around this time, Einstein also began predicting the phenomenon of light being bent by gravity when passing by a massive object, which would later be confirmed during observations of the bending path of starlight passing by the sun during a 1919 solar eclipse expedition organized by Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington. The global attention this confirmation drew sparked Einstein's rise to scientific superstardom beyond just physics circles.


After decade of effort in fits and starts, by 1915 Einstein had fully formulated the general theory of relativity with help from his long-time friend Marcel Grossman, a mathematician. This cemented his reputation as among the era's most influential physicists. In his later years, Einstein would occupy a professor position within the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin starting in 1914. After...

12 min