Einstein was not lively when he was a child, and he could not speak when he was over three years old. His parents were worried that he was dumb and took him to the doctor for examination. Fortunately, Einstein was not dumb, but he didn't speak fluently until he was nine years old. Everything he said had to be thought hard but seriously.
At the age of four or five, Einstein was once ill in bed, and his father gave him a compass. When he found that the compass always pointed in a fixed direction, he was very surprised and felt that there must be something hidden behind this phenomenon. He played the compass happily for several days, and pestered his father and uncle Jacob to ask a series of questions. Although he can't even say the word "magnetic" well, he stubbornly wants to know why the compass can guide. This deep and lasting impression was vividly recalled by Einstein until he was 67 years old.
When Einstein was in primary school and middle school, his homework was normal. Because of his slow behavior, he doesn't like people, so his teachers and classmates don't like him. The teacher who taught him Greek and Latin hated him even more. He once publicly scolded him: "Einstein, you will never be a success when you grow up." And because he was afraid that he would affect other students in class, he wanted to kick him out of school.
Einstein's uncle Jacob is in charge of technical affairs in the electric appliance factory, while Einstein's father is in charge of business contacts. Jacob is an engineer, and he loves mathematics very much. When little Einstein comes to ask him questions, he always introduces his mathematics knowledge to him in very simple and popular language. Under the influence of his uncle, Einstein was enlightened by science and philosophy earlier.
My father's business is not good, but he is optimistic and kind-hearted. Every night at home, poor students who come to Munich are invited to dinner, which is tantamount to giving them relief. One of them is a pair of Jewish brothers Max and Bernard from Lithuania. They are both medical students. They like reading books and have a wide range of interests. They were invited to eat at Einstein's house and made good friends with shy little Einstein with black hair and brown eyes.
Max can be said to be Einstein's "first teacher". He lent him some popular natural science books. Max gave Einstein a plane geometry textbook from Spilker when he was twelve years old. Einstein recalled this sacred little book in his later years and said: "There are many assertions in this book, for example, the three heights of a triangle intersect at one point. Although they are not obvious in themselves, they can be proved reliably, so that any doubt seems impossible. This clarity and reliability left me with an indescribable impression. "
Einstein was also lucky to know the main achievements and methods in the field of natural science from an excellent popular reading. Popular reading not only enhanced Einstein's knowledge, but also touched the curious heartstrings of young people and caused him to think deeply about the problem.
At the age of sixteen, Einstein applied for the engineering department of the Federal University of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland, but failed in the entrance examination. He accepted the suggestion of the president of the Federal University of Technology and Professor Weber, a famous physicist in the university, and finished the middle school course in the state middle school in Arau, Switzerland, in order to obtain a middle school degree.
In October, 1896, Einstein stepped into the school gate of Zurich University of Technology and studied mathematics and physics in the normal department. He is very disgusted with the injected education in school, thinking that it makes people have no time or interest to think about other problems. Fortunately, the compulsory education that stifles the real scientific motivation is much less in the Federal University of Technology in Zurich than in other universities. Einstein made full use of the free air in the school and concentrated on the subject he loved. At school, he extensively read the works of masters of physics such as Helmholtz and Hertz, and he was most fascinated by Maxwell's electromagnetic theory. He has the ability of self-study, the habit of analyzing problems and the ability of independent thinking.
Early work
In p>19, Einstein graduated from Zurich University of Technology. He was refused to stay in school because he was not enthusiastic about some lessons and indifferent to the teacher. He can't find a job and lives as a tutor and substitute teacher. After a year and a half of unemployment, Marcel Grossman, a classmate who cares about and understands his talents, extended a helping hand to him. Grossman managed to persuade his father to introduce Einstein to the Swiss Patent Office as a technician.
Einstein thanked Grossman for his help all his life. In the letter of mourning for Grossman, he said that when he graduated from college, "he was suddenly abandoned by everyone and faced life at a loss." He helped me, and through him and his father, I later went to Haller (then director of the Swiss Patent Office) and entered the patent office. This is a bit like saving my life. Without him, I probably wouldn't starve to death, but my spirit would be depressed. "
On February 21st, 192, Einstein obtained Swiss nationality and moved to Bern, waiting for the recruitment of the Patent Office. On June 23, 192, Einstein was officially employed by the Patent Office as a third-class technician, whose job was to examine various technological inventions and creations that applied for patent rights. In 193, he married his college classmate mileva mari.
from p>19 to 194, Einstein wrote a paper every year and published it in the German Journal of Physics. The first two articles are about the thermodynamics of liquid surface and electrolysis, trying to give chemistry a mechanical basis. Later, I found that this road was impassable and turned to study the mechanical basis of thermodynamics. In 191, some basic theories of statistical mechanics were put forward, and three papers from 192 to 194 all belonged to this field.
in p>194, the paper carefully discussed the fluctuation phenomenon predicted by statistical mechanics, and found that the energy fluctuation depends on Boltzmann constant. It not only applies this result to mechanical systems and thermal phenomena, but also boldly applies it to radiation phenomena, and obtains the formula of radiation energy fluctuation, thus deriving Wien's displacement law. The study of fluctuation phenomenon made him make a major breakthrough in both radiation theory and molecular motion theory in 195.
the miracle of 195
in 195, Einstein created an unprecedented miracle in the history of science. In this year, he wrote six papers. During the half year from March to September, he made four epoch-making contributions in three fields by using his spare time outside of working eight hours a day in the patent office. He published four important papers on the theory of light quantum, molecular size measurement, Brownian motion theory and special relativity.
in March, 195, Einstein sent the paper that he thought was correct to the editorial department of the German Annual Journal of Physics. He said shyly to the editor, "I will be very happy if you can find space in your annual report to publish this paper for me." This "embarrassed" paper is called "A Speculative View on the Generation and Transformation of Light".
in this paper, the quantum concept put forward by Planck in 19 is extended to the propagation of light in space, and the light quantum hypothesis is put forward. It is considered that: for the time average, light behaves as fluctuation; For instantaneous values, light appears as particles. This is the first time in history to reveal the unity of fluctuation and particle of microscopic objects, that is, wave-particle duality.
at the end of this article, he easily explained the photoelectric effect which can't be explained by classical physics with the concept of optical quantum, and deduced the relationship between the maximum energy of photoelectrons and the frequency of incident light. This relationship was not confirmed by Millikan's experiment until 1 years later. In 1921, Einstein won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his achievement of "the discovery of the law of photoelectric effect".
This is just the beginning. Albert Einstein kept pace with each other in the three fields of light, heat and electrophysics, which was out of control. In April, 195, Einstein completed the New Method for Determining Molecular Size, and in May, he completed the Motion of Suspended Particles in Static Liquid Required by the Theory of Thermal Molecular Motion. These are two papers on Brownian motion. Einstein's purpose at that time was to determine the actual size of molecules by observing the irregular motion of suspended particles caused by the fluctuation of molecular motion, so as to solve the problem of whether atoms exist, which has been debated in scientific and philosophical circles for more than half a century.
Three years later, French physicist Perrin confirmed Einstein's theoretical prediction with precise experiments. Thus, the objective existence of atoms and molecules is proved beyond reproach, which makes ostwald, the German chemist who is the most firmly opposed to atomism and the founder of the theory of energy, take the initiative to announce in 198 that "the atomic hypothesis has become a scientific theory with a solid foundation".
in June, 195, Einstein finished his long paper on electrodynamics of moving bodies, which initiated a new era in physics, and put forward the special theory of relativity completely. This is the result of Einstein's 1-year brewing and exploration. To a great extent, it solved the crisis of classical physics at the end of the 19th century, changed the concept of time and space of Newtonian mechanics, exposed the equivalence of matter and energy, and created a brand-new world of physics, which is the greatest revolution in the field of modern physics.
Special relativity can not only explain all phenomena that classical physics can explain, but also explain some physical phenomena that classical physics can't, and predict many new effects. The most important conclusion of special relativity is that the principle of conservation of mass has lost its independence, and it is integrated with the law of conservation of energy, so that mass and energy can be transformed into each other. Others are the slow scaling of the clock, the constant speed of light, the zero rest mass of photons and so on. Classical mechanics has become a limit case of relativistic mechanics at low speed. In this way, mechanics and electromagnetism are unified on the basis of kinematics.
In September, 195, Einstein wrote a short article, Is the inertia of an object related to the energy it contains? ",as an inference of relativity. The equivalence of mass and energy is the theoretical basis of nuclear physics and particle physics, and it also opens the way for the release and utilization of nuclear energy in the 194s.
In this short period of six months, Einstein's breakthrough achievement in science can be said to be "unprecedented". Even if he gave up physics research, even if he only accomplished any of the above three achievements, Einstein would leave an extremely important mark in the history of physics development. Einstein dispelled the "dark clouds in the clear sky of physics" and ushered in a more brilliant new era of physics.
exploration of general relativity
Einstein was not satisfied after the establishment of special relativity, and tried to extend the application scope of relativity principle to non-inertial systems. He found a breakthrough from Galileo's discovery that all objects in the gravitational field have the same acceleration, and put forward the equivalence principle in 197. In this year, Minkowski, his university teacher and famous geometer, put forward the four-dimensional spatial representation of special relativity, which provided a useful mathematical tool for the further development of relativity. Unfortunately, Einstein did not realize its value at that time.
Einstein thought that the discovery of the equivalence principle was the happiest thought in his life, but his later work was very hard and took a big detour. In 1911, he analyzed the rigid rotating disk and realized that Euclidean geometry in the gravitational field was not strictly effective. At the same time, it is found that Lorentz variation is not universal, and the principle of equivalence is only effective in an infinitesimal area. At this time, Einstein already had the idea of general relativity, but he still lacked the necessary mathematical foundation to establish it.
in p>1912, Einstein returned to work at his alma mater in Zurich. With the help of his classmate Grossman, a professor of mathematics at his alma mater, he found a mathematical tool to establish general relativity in Riemann geometry and tensor analysis. After a year of hard cooperation, they published an important paper "Outline of General Relativity and Theory of Gravity" in 1913, and put forward the gauge field theory of gravity. This is the first time to combine gravity with metric, so that Riemann geometry has real physical meaning.
However, the gravitational field equation they got at that time was covariant only for linear transformation, and did not have covariant under arbitrary coordinate transformation required by the principle of general relativity. This is because Einstein was not familiar with tensor operation at that time, and mistakenly thought that as long as he adhered to the law of conservation, he had to limit the choice of coordinate system, and in order to maintain causality, he had to give up the requirement of universal covariation.
Long and difficult exploration
After the establishment of the general theory of relativity, Einstein still felt unsatisfied. It is necessary to extend the general theory of relativity to include not only the gravitational field but also the electromagnetic field. He believes that this is the third stage of the development of relativity, namely the unified field theory.
after p>1925, Einstein went all out to explore the unified field theory. In the first few years, he was very optimistic and thought that victory was in sight; Later, it was found that there were many difficulties. He thought that the existing mathematical tools were not enough. Exploration of turning to pure mathematics after 1928. He tried various methods, but he didn't get any results with real physical significance.
During the 3 years from p>1925 to 1955, except for the completeness of quantum mechanics, gravitational waves and the motion of general relativity, Einstein devoted almost all his scientific creative energy to the exploration of unified field theory.
in p>1937, with the cooperation of two assistants, he deduced the equation of motion from the equation of gravitational field of general relativity, which further revealed the unity of space-time, matter and motion. This was a major development of general relativity and the last major achievement of Einstein in scientific creation.
In the unified field theory, he never succeeded. He never got discouraged and always started from scratch with confidence. Because he was far away from the mainstream of physics research at that time, he attacked the difficult problems that could not be solved at that time alone. Therefore, contrary to the situation in the 192s, he was very isolated in the physics field in his later years. However, he remained fearless and unswervingly followed his own path. Until the day before his death, he was still preparing to continue his mathematical calculation of the unified field theory in his hospital bed.
the style of the greatest scientist
Einstein won many awards and honorary doctorates for his achievements in science. If the average person would hang these things high. But Einstein put all the above things, including the Nobel Prize certificates, in a box at sixes and sevens, without looking at them. Infield said that he sometimes felt that Einstein might not even know what the Nobel Prize meant. It is said that on the day of winning the prize, his face was as calm as usual, and he didn't show any special happiness or excitement.
When Einstein lived in Switzerland as a teenager, he lived a poor student's life. He didn't demand much material life, so he was satisfied with a plate of spaghetti with a little sauce. After becoming famous, he became a professor and later immigrated to the United States to avoid the persecution of the Nazis. He had the conditions to live a good material life, but he still kept a simple and unpretentious life like a poor student.