20th Century Figure -- Albert

¶ … 20th Century Figure -- Albert Einstein

Despite the current cartoonish popularity, one of the seminal minds of the 20th century, with far reaching effects even today and certainly contributing to the new age of man, Albert Einstein is one of the most important figures of the 20th century. Einstein's work had such far reaching effects, his theories touched modern science, politics, philosophy, and even art -- so much so that Time Magazine named him "Person of the Century" in 1999.

What made Einstein so special? What made him stand out from a host of extremely bright and gifted physicists of the 20th century? Probably more than anything, Einstein's journey from obscurity to the development of the 20th century's most seminal theory combined with a passion for life and unique sense of creativity. His many contributions to thought in this century include the Special Theory of Relativity, General Theory of Relativity, Statistical Mechanics, and work on a Unified Field Theory. He published over 300 scientific papers and books, and over 150 non-scientific works; quite a feat for someone as busy as he was (Golden, 1999).

Einstein was already publishing papers on magnetic fields, and he decided to apply to the Hochschule in Zurich, Switzerland instead of High School, but he failed the entrance exam. Instead, he went to Aarau to finish school, then in 1896 enrolled in the math and physics program at the Polytech in Zurich, graduating in 1890. In 1891 he was granted Swiss citizenship, which he held for the rest of his life (Isaacson, 2008). After graduation, Einstein was unable to find a teaching post, but he was able after almost two years of searching to get a job in the Berne Patent Office. During this time he had no personal contact with the professional physics community, but in 1905 had four papers published in the leading physics journals of the time. In 1915, after some work with other physicists, Einstein published his General Theory of Relativity, in a form still used today -- explaining gravitation as a distortion of the structure of space-time by matter. (Isaacson, 2008).

Einstein spent the World War I years in Berlin, continuing to publish and gain attention from the worldwide scientific community. In 1922 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, "for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect"(Lieber, 2008). From then on Einstein was in demand as a lecturer, teacher, and colleague (not always agreed with). He used his previous work to continually work on what he called his Unified Field Theory, which attempted to bring numerous disciplines together in one solid theory of the universe. Still, his work was seminal for much of modern physics, and his work remains the basis for current work in the Grand Unification Theory (Weinberg, 1999).