Albert Einstein Biography For Kids

Albert Einstein was born in March 14, 1879 in Germany. He was a slow learner and did not speak until after he was 2. Once his dad gave him a compass and Einstein would spend hours just looking at the compass and trying to figure out why it always pointed in north direction, no matter where he moved.

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At the age of 15 his parents went to Italy to work, leaving him in Munich, to complete his studies. It was then, that Einstein became more interested in knowing why things worked the way they worked. Einstein had mastered Calculus on his own at the age of 15, however he was never a student who would follow rules. He skipped classes to spend more time in lab. In class the professors thought he would never achieve big in life.

He failed the entrance exam at University of Zurich, but got accepted the next year. In the University he met Mileva, the only woman in his class. Einstein eventually married Mileva and had two sons with her. In the year 1900 Albert Einstein was a 21-year-old graduate at the Swiss Federal Polytechnique and desperately looking for a job, but was not given a chance even for the position of a lab assistant, so he decided to sell insurance.

Later, his friends got him a job of a patent officer at the Swiss Patent Office, not a glamorous job for sure.

With his newfound job at the swiss patent office he could spare enough time to discuss latest work in Physics with his close friends. Those discussions led him to produce minor research papers, but the miracle year was yet to come.

The year 1905 is considered as the miracle year for Einstein, when he published 4 papers of unrelated topics and each of these papers dramatically transformed the way the world started looking at time, space, relativity and the enigmatic universe.

In March 1905 when Einstein published his paper on Photoelectric effect.

May 1905 saw the release of Einstein’s second paper, tackling the centuries old debate of whether atoms actually existed.

His 3rd article, on theory of special relativity came in Jun 1905. In his 4th paper that came in September 1905 Einstein stated the equation, E=mc2 the most famous and consequential equation in the history.

But the scientific community was still silent, until his papers fell into the hands of Max Planc, another great Physicist. Gradually his work was being noticed by the scientific community, as a result, he was offered the position of a scientist at the University of Zurich. The 32-year-old patent clerk finally became Professor Albert Einstein.

Einstein had a great sense of humour and loved talking to people. Often when he was stuck with any problem in Physics, he would play violin.

Later Einstein also propounded the famous theory of relativity. But he had to wait for about ten years, until he could prove his general theory of relativity.

During the same time his marriage fell apart, and he divorced his wife Mileva to marry his cousin Elsa. In 1915 he discovered the field equation of gravity, which explained how gravity is a result of the distortion of space-time. This theory also predicted the existence of gravitational waves, which was discovered only recently in February, 2016.

Finally, in the year 1919 his general theory of relativity was confirmed by measuring the bending of starlight during a solar eclipse and then Einstein became a celebrity.

Einstein won the Nobel Prize for explaining the Photoelectric Effect in the year 1921.

People who are passionate about their work, don’t wait for recognition. It’s the excellence in work that they strive for, not recognition. And patience is not an easy bee to keep, but the honey it makes it the best.

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Albert Einstein For Kids