The next person I would like to introduce you to is Albert Einstein, German theoretical physicist who developed the theory of relativity along with one of the two pillars of modern physics.

Albert was born in Ulm a city in the old German Empire in 1879, he was a non-observant Jew, but attended Catholic elementary school in Munich for 3 years, then at 8 years old he transferred to the Lutipold Gymnasium this is where he received his advanced primary and secondary education until his family left the German Empire 7 years later. Einstein in school excelled in special reasoning and visual imagination.  Albert attributed his conception of his relativity theory to a thought experiment. In this experiment he envisioned himself riding on a streetcar traveling at the speed of light. Albert due to his Dyslexia which went undiagnosed at the time struggled in school and he didn’t learned to talk or write for a while. This is a reason his mind was so imaginative such as in his quote “Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world”.

Alberts work is known for its influence on the philosophy of science itself and is best known to the public for his famous formula for mass energy E=mc^2. He would receive the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921 for his services to theoretical physics and his discovery of the law of photoelectric effect which is seen as a pivotal step in the development of quantum theory. Except for a 1 year where Einstein lived in Czechoslovakia, he then in Switzerland between 1895 and 1914, he renounced his German citizenship in 1896 and would go on to receive an academic diploma from the Swiss federal polytechnic school in 1900. He acquired Swiss citizenship in 1901 after 5 years without a official country to call home and he kept for the rest of his life. Albert was awarded a PhD by the University of Zurich in 1905 then that same year, he published four groundbreaking papers. Albert visited the U.S. in 1933 and then is when Hitler came to power in Germany and with his Jewish background Albert would not return to Germany. He would then settle in the U.S. and would receive his American citizenship in 1940. Now being one of the most prominent physicist in the U.S. he wrote a letter to President Roosevelt on the Germanys potential development of “extremely powerful bombs of a new type” this meaning nuclear weapons and he recommended that the US begin similar research as soon as possible. This would then lead to the development of the Manhattan Project and to the creation and use of the atom bomb by the U.S. on Japan to bring World War II to an end. Albert would join other scientist and warned of the danger of nuclear weapons as well, he would later be affiliated with the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University until his death in 1955. It is truly amazing how much one man was able to accomplish in his lifetime not just help changing science as the world new it but changing the world in the process his work and life would make the name Einstein associated with genius forever.