Phoenix Journal 208 - Four Winds 10

ALBERT EINSTEIN
In 1905, Albert Einstein (1879-1955) came on the scene and seemed to solve the problem. Waves had to
have continuous values according to the accepted classical theories at the time, but Planck had shown that
light values were discrete, not continuous. Einstein figured that if light is not a wave, then light must be a
particle! It must be a particle that has energy E=h ! The particle became known as the photon. When this
viewpoint was applied to the black body and photoelectric problems, the problems seemed to be successfully
solved.
The Encyclopedia Britannica starts an article about Einstein by saying he “was one of the greatest figures
in physics.” A close look at the facts do not uphold that viewpoint, but the publicity about Einstein certainly
brought advanced physics to the minds of many who probably would not otherwise have thought about
such subjects. Albert flunked what we would call high school. The fact that he was the only Jew in a
Catholic school may have contributed to his attitude. He could not enter University without a diploma, so
he tried to pass an exam to enter a technical school. He failed French, English, Zoology, and Botany but
did well in math, so a friend helped him attend a cantonal school in Aarau (Zurich, Switzerland). He stayed
with the headmaster of the school who had a son and daughter about Albert’s age. Albert’s sister later
married the headmaster’s son. The school had a good physics teacher, and Albert finally passed his exams
to enter the technical school.
Albert never attended lectures at the technical school and had a hard time getting along with some of his
professors. Also in Zurich at the time were many socialist revolutionaries who had been kicked out of
Russia and Germany, including Trotsky, Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg, and Friedrich Adler. Friedrich was the
son of Victor Adler, the leader of the Austrian Social Democrats. Einstein became a close friend and
student of Friedrich, who taught communism to Einstein. In 1918, Friedrich murdered the Austrian Prime
Minister and Einstein testified in his behalf at the trial.
Einstein attended the Eidgenossiche Technische Hochschule (ETH) from 1895 to 1900, where he studied
Newton, Maxwell, Faraday, Hertz, Ampere, etc. When he graduated, the teachers at ETH would not give
him a recommendation, so he did odd teaching jobs for a year. In 1901 he obtained a job at the Swiss
Patent Office in Bern (with help and string-pulling from his friend Marcel Grossmann) where he worked
until 1905. He received a PhD from the University of Zurich in 1905.
In Bern, Albert met Maurice Solovine and Conrad Habicht. They, along with Mileva Mari, Marcel
Grossmann and Mike Besso, would get together with Albert and discuss questions of physics.
In 1905, Einstein published papers on the special theory of relativity; the establishment of mass-energy
equivalence; the creation of the theory of Brownian motion; and the foundation of the photon theory of
light. In 1909 he became a professor at the University of Zurich and in 1913 became a professor at the
University of Berlin. In 1916 he published his famous paper on the general theory of relativity. In 1921 he
visited the United States “...for the purpose of supporting the Zionist movement” (Ency. Britannica). In
1922 he received the Nobel Prize for his work on the photoelectric law (written in the 1905 paper). In
1933 he fled Germany to Princeton, New Jersey, where he joined the Institute for Advanced Study.
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