Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879, to a middle-class Jewish family in the southern German city of Ulm. He spent his childhood in Munich. His father, Hermann Einstein, started off as a featherbed salesman and eventually operated a successful electrochemical factory. His mom, a former Koch, is the one who ran the show at home. Maria (sometimes known as Maja), his only sibling, was born two years after Albert.
In his autobiography, Albert Einstein would discuss the profound impact of two early "wonders" on his development. The first was when he was five years old and he first used a compass. He couldn't see how the needle could be manipulated by something out of sight. The result would be an insatiable curiosity for forces beyond human perception. The discovery of a geometry book at the age of 12 was the second amazing event; he read it cover to cover and referred to it as his "sacred little geometry book."
Einstein fell in love with fellow student Mileva Maric during his time at Zurich Polytechnic, but his parents opposed the marriage and he lacked the funds to marry. Lieserl, the couple's illegitimate daughter, was born in early 1902. Little is known about her. Einstein married Maric in 1903 after securing a position as a secretary at the Swiss patent office in Bern; the couple would have two more children, Hans Albert (born 1904) and Eduard (born 1910).
While working at the patent office, Einstein produced some of his most creative work, publishing four revolutionary publications in 1905 alone. In the first publication, he applied quantum theory (discovered by German scientist Max Planck) to light to explain the photoelectric effect, which occurs when a material is struck by light and emits electrically charged particles. The second piece featured Einstein's experimental proof of the existence of atoms, which he obtained by investigating the Brownian motion phenomena in which microscopic particles were suspended in water. Two expeditions sent to conduct research during a solar eclipse in 1919 discovered that light rays from faraway stars were deflected or bent by the gravity of the sun in exactly the way Einstein anticipated.
In his third and most famous paper, "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies," Einstein tackled the seeming contradiction between two major physics theories: Isaac Newton's conceptions of absolute space and time, and James Clerk Maxwell's assumption that the speed of light remained constant. To accomplish this, Einstein proposed his special theory of relativity, which said that the rules of physics are the same even for objects moving at constant speeds relative to each other in various inertial frames, and that the speed of light is constant in all inertial frames. A fourth work looked at the underlying link between mass and energy, which were previously thought to be completely different notions. This relationship was described by Einstein's famous equation E = mc2 (where "c" denoted the constant speed of light).
He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921 for his work on the photoelectric effect, despite the fact that his work on relativity was still disputed at the time. Einstein quickly built on his beliefs to create a new science of cosmology, which argued that the cosmos was dynamic rather than static, capable of expanding and contracting. Many European and American universities bestowed honorary doctorates on Albert Einstein in science, medicine, and philosophy. During the 1920s, he lectured across Europe, America, and the Far East, and he was awarded Fellowships or Memberships in all of the world's important scientific institutions. In appreciation of his efforts, he received the Copley Medal of the Royal Society of London in 1925 and the Franklin Medal of the Franklin Institute in 1935.
On April 18, 1955, Einstein died of an aortic aneurysm. According to the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), a blood artery broke near his heart. Einstein denied surgery when asked whether he wanted it. "I just want to go when I want to go," he explained. "It is impolite to artificially extend life. I've done my part; now it's time for me to leave. I'll do it gracefully." Einstein's brain is presently on display at the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia.