Albert Einstein
The foremost scientist of his age, Einstein is considered the most influential physicist of all time
Einstein renounced his German citizenship in 1896 to avoid military service
E=mc2
This equation shows that the increased relativistic mass of a body comes from the energy of motion of it when divided by the speed of light squared. It shows that mass and energy are the same physical entity and can be changed into each other directly.
Alber t Einstein was born on 14 March 1879, in Ulm, Ger many. He is considered the most influential physicist of the 20th centur y, formulating both the theories of special and general relativ it y, concepts that still under pin muc h in the fields of physics and astrophysics today. In 1921 he was awarded the prestigious Nobel Prize in Physics for his ex planation of the photoelec tr ic effect – aprocess where electrically charged particles are released from a substance when exposed to electromagnetic rad iation.
Einstein’s first real contact with sc ience came when he was a young boy, instigated by his intrigue with his fat her’s compass. Conf used by the inv isible forces that seemed to be acting upon the need le, he went through his early years fascinated by such forces. Spurred on by reading the work of Aaron Bernstein, which introduced him to the concepts of electricit y and light, Einstein ded ic ated his later teenage years to the nature of light, writing a scientific paper entitled ‘The Investigation Of The St ate Of Aether In Magnetic Field s’.