Facts about Albert Einstein
- 11
Einstein's theory of general relativity predicted that light bends around massive objects, confirmed during the 1919 solar eclipse when British astronomer Arthur Eddington measured starlight deflection exactly as Einstein's equations had calculated.
- 10
Einstein's first wife Mileva Marić, a Serbian physicist, collaborated on his early relativity work before their 1919 divorce stripped her of recognition for contributions to his groundbreaking theories.
- 09
Following his 1933 emigration to America, Einstein spent his final 22 years at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study, where he pursued a unified field theory he never successfully completed.
- 08
Four years before his death, Einstein's final written words were in German, a language he had abandoned for English decades earlier, reflecting his complex relationship with his birthplace.
- 07
On July 25, 1946, Einstein became a U.S. citizen while maintaining his Swiss citizenship, making him a dual national for the final nine years of his life.
- 06
Albert Einstein's hair became increasingly wild and unkempt after 1950, reportedly because he disliked haircuts and used his distinctive appearance as a deliberate rejection of conventional expectations.
- 05
The 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics went to Einstein for his photoelectric effect discovery, not relativity theory, which the Nobel Committee considered too controversial at that time.
- 04
During World War II, a 1939 letter signed by Einstein warned President Roosevelt that Nazi Germany might develop atomic bombs, catalyzing the Manhattan Project.
- 03
At age 26, Albert Einstein renounced his German citizenship in 1896 to avoid military service, remaining stateless until obtaining Swiss citizenship in 1901.
- 02
Einstein's brain weighed 1,230 grams, slightly below the human average, yet showed unusual structural features in regions associated with mathematical reasoning.
- 01
In 1905, Albert Einstein published four groundbreaking papers while working as a patent clerk in Bern, Switzerland, earning him recognition as his annus mirabilis year.