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Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, Germany on 14th of March 1879. Five years later, in 1884, he and his family moved to Munich because of his father's new job. In 1901 he was being naturalized as a Swiss citizen. Eight years later as a Swiss Einstein became professor of theoretical physics at the University of Zurich. From 1911 to 1912 he had the same job as a professor in Prague. In 1913 he was chosen to join the Academy of Science in Berlin. Einstein recieved his German nationality back in 1914. He worked for 19 years as professor in Berlin. He was able to be a special professor in Leiden, Holland, from 1920 to 1946 officially also, but because of his emigration, he didn't work for the university for a long time before 1946. Because of the NAZI's, Einstein renounced the German citizenship in 1933. He moved to the United States and worked as a professor in Princeton, New Jersey until 1945. He officially became American in 1941. Albert Einstein died on the 18th of April 1955.
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Nuclear Energy is based on this: atomic nuclei are built of protons and neutrons. The mass of the nucleus is always a little smaller than the mass of all neutrons and protons together. We call this difference the "mass defect". According to Einstein's Theory of Relativity which he finished in 1915, E=mc2, there is a certain similarity between mass and energy. This means that the neutrons and protons contain more energy when they're split up. This amount of energy is similar to the mass defect. The mass
defect gets transformed into kinetic energy as the atoms are split in a fission reaction. According to this theory, you should add energy to the nucleus to split it. So, you can calculate the stability of the nucleus by mass defect. A stable nucleus is one which you cannot split easily. The energy comes from the binding energy that holds the subatomic particles together. It's similar to the energy stored in the chemical bonds, only far greater.
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Since the First World War, Einstein was busy with politics. Einstein shared with others his belief that war ruins human lives, which he showed to the people around him. He always supported civil disobedience, and consequently refused to serve in the German army. His colleagues didn't have any respect for his way of thinking in politics. After the war, Einstein wanted to rebuild international contact. This decision did not make him very popular either. After a while, people set up an anti-Einstein clan, and a book entitled: "100 Authors against Einstein" was published. His reaction to this was: 'If I am incorrect, 1 author would have been enough.' When Hitler rose to power in Germany in 1933, Einstein moved to the United States, and never returned to Germany.
Einstein feared that his German ex-colleagues would build an atomic bomb, and he encouraged the United States Government to develop its own nuclear device at the same time. He warned America of the possibility of a nuclear war, and proposed international treaties to limit the use of nuclear weapons.
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 Kenrick Morante from Ecuador contributed:
When he was a kid every body thought he was dumb. He had a sister that was just like him. Every one thought they were twins.
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 | Einstein around 1900.
Copyright © Joachim Reinhardt. Permission obtained on August 14th 2000, by Email message. |
| Einstein around 1930.
Copyright © Joachim Reinhardt. Permission obtained on August 14th 2000, by Email message. |
| Einstein around 1950.
Copyright © Camera Press. Permission obtained on August 14th 2000, by Email message. |
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