Ulm Germany

Death 1955 April 18

Princeton USA

Albert Einstein? 6? 0,1March, 87914-1April, 955 18), a famous theoretical physicist and founder of the theory of relativity.

Einstein's life

Einstein is the greatest physicist of our time. He loved physics and devoted his life to the theoretical research of physics. People call him Copernicus in the 20th century and Newton in the 20th century.

Einstein grew up in an era of rapid changes in physics. With the efforts of a generation of physicists represented by him, the development of physics has entered a new historical period. The theoretical system of classical physics established by Galileo and Newton has experienced nearly 200 years of development. By the middle of19th century, brilliant achievements have been made due to the discovery of the law of conservation and transformation of energy, the establishment of thermodynamics and statistical physics, especially the discovery of electromagnetism by Faraday and Maxwell. These achievements convinced many physicists at that time that the theoretical problems in the field of physics had been solved in principle, leaving only details for future generations to supplement and develop. However, the course of history is just the opposite, followed by a series of new phenomena that can not be explained by classical physics: ether drift experiment, radioactivity of elements, electron movement, blackbody radiation, photoelectric effect and so on. Faced with this new situation, physicists generally try to solve the contradiction by mending the old theoretical framework. However, young Einstein was not bound by the old tradition. On the basis of the research work of Lorenz and others, he made essential changes to some basic concepts such as space and time. This great breakthrough in theory ushered in a new era of physics.

Einstein's most important contribution in his life is the theory of relativity. 1905 published a paper entitled "on electrodynamics of moving objects", put forward the principle of relativity in a special sense and the principle of invariance of light speed, and established the special theory of relativity. This theory includes Newtonian mechanics as a special case of low-speed motion theory. It reveals the essential unity of time and space as the existing form of matter, profoundly reveals the unity of mechanical motion and electromagnetic motion in kinematics, further reveals the unity of matter and motion (equivalence of mass and energy), develops the principle that matter and motion cannot be separated, and lays a theoretical foundation for the utilization of atomic energy. Then, after years of efforts, he established the general theory of relativity in 19 15, further revealing the unified relationship between four-dimensional space-time and matter, pointing out that space-time cannot exist independently without matter, and the structure and nature of space depend on the distribution of matter. It is not a flat Euclidean space, but a curved Riemannian space. According to the gravitational theory of general relativity, he concluded that light travels along a curve rather than a straight line in the gravitational field. This theoretical prediction was confirmed by British astronomers in the solar eclipse observation in 19 19, when the whole world was shocked. 1938, he made great progress in the motion of general relativity, that is, he deduced the motion equation of an object from the field equation, further revealing the unity among time and space, matter, motion and gravity. Since the 1960s, due to the great development of experimental technology and astronomy, the research on general relativity and gravity theory has been paid attention to. In addition, Einstein's research on cosmology, the unified field theory of gravity and electromagnetism, and quantum theory all contributed to the development of physics.

Einstein is not only a great scientist, an outstanding thinker with the spirit of philosophical exploration, but also an upright person with a high sense of social responsibility. He lived in Germany and the United States, the center of western political vortex, and experienced two world wars. He deeply realized how the fruits of a scientist's labor will affect the society and what responsibility an intellectual should bear to the society.