Albert Einstein | Biography, Education, Discoveries, & Facts

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• Introduction & Top Questions
• Childhood and education
• From graduation to the “miracle year” of scientific theories
• General relativity and teaching career
• World renown and Nobel Prize
• Nazi backlash and coming to America
• Personal sorrow, World War II, and the atomic bomb
• Increasing professional isolation and death
• Legacy

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• What is Albert Einstein known for?
• What influence did Albert Einstein have on science?
• What was Albert Einstein’s family like?
• What did Albert Einstein mean when he wrote that God “does not play dice”?
• Why is light important for life on Earth?

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External Websites

• LiveScience - Albert Einstein: Biography, facts and impact on science
• University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign - Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering - Werner Heisenberg and Albert Einstein
• PBS - A Science Odyssey: People and Discoveries: Albert Einstein
• American Museum of Natural History - Albert Einstein
• The MY HERO Project - Albert Einstein
• Indian Academy of Sciences - Einstein and the Special Theory of Relativity
• Wolfram Research - Eric Weisstein's World of Scientific Biography - Biography of Albert Einstein
• Nobel Prize - Biography of Albert Einstein
• Digital Commons at CalPoly - EinsteinÂ’s 1935 Derivation of E�mc2
• Space.com - Albert Einstein: His life, theories and impact on science
• Institute for Advanced Study - Albert Einstein: In Brief
• Famous Scientists - Albert Einstein
• Jewish Virtual Library - Biography of Albert Einstein

Britannica Websites Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students.

• Albert Einstein - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11)
• Albert Einstein - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)

Quick Summary Ask the Chatbot a Question Written by Michio Kaku Dr. Michio Kaku is a theoretical physicist at the City College of New York, a best-selling author, and a well-known popularizer of science. He’s the co-founder of string field theory (a branch of string... Michio Kaku Fact-checked by Britannica Editors Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree.... Britannica Editors Last updated Jan. 15, 2026 •History Table of Contents Table of Contents Quick Summary Ask the Chatbot a Question Top Questions

What did Albert Einstein do?

Albert Einstein was a famous physicist. His research spanned from quantum mechanics to theories about gravity and motion. After publishing some groundbreaking papers, Einstein toured the world and gave speeches about his discoveries. In 1921 he won the Nobel Prize for Physics for his discovery of the photoelectric effect.

What is Albert Einstein known for?

Albert Einstein is best known for his equation E = mc2, which states that energy and mass (matter) are the same thing, just in different forms. He is also known for his discovery of the photoelectric effect, for which he won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921. Einstein developed a theory of special and general relativity, which helped to complicate and expand upon theories that had been put forth by Isaac Newton over 200 years prior.

What influence did Albert Einstein have on science?

Albert Einstein had a massive influence on contemporary physics. His theory of relativity shifted contemporary understanding of space completely. Along with his equation E = mc2, it also foreshadowed the creation of the atomic bomb. Einstein’s understanding of light as something which can function both as a wave and as a stream of particles became the basis for what is known today as quantum mechanics.

What was Albert Einstein’s family like?

Albert Einstein was raised in a secular Jewish family and had one sister, Maja, who was two years younger than him. In 1903 Einstein married Milena Maric, a Serbian physics student whom he had met at school in Zürich. They had three children: a daughter, named Lieserl, and two sons, named Hans and Eduard. After a period of unrest, Einstein and Maric divorced in 1919. Einstein, during his marriage, had begun an affair with his cousin Elsa Löwenthal. They were married in 1919, the same year he divorced Maric.

How did Albert Einstein die?

After suffering an abdominal aortic aneurysm rupture several days before, Albert Einstein died on April 18, 1955, at age 76.

What did Albert Einstein mean when he wrote that God “does not play dice”?

In December 1926 Albert Einstein wrote to Max Born that “[t]he theory produces a good deal but hardly brings us closer to the secret of the Old One. I am at all events convinced that He does not play dice.” Einstein was reacting to Born’s probabilistic interpretation of quantum mechanics and expressing a deterministic view of the world.

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Albert Einstein (born March 14, 1879, Ulm, Württemberg, Germany—died April 18, 1955, Princeton, New Jersey, U.S.) was a German-born physicist who developed the special and general theories of relativity and won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921 for his explanation of the photoelectric effect. Einstein is generally considered the most influential physicist of the 20th century.

(Read Einstein’s 1926 Britannica essay on space-time.)

Childhood and education

Einstein’s parents were secular, middle-class Jews. His father, Hermann Einstein, was originally a featherbed salesman and later ran an electrochemical factory with moderate success. His mother, the former Pauline Koch, ran the family household. He had one sister, Maria (who went by the name Maja), born two years after Albert.

Einstein would write that two “wonders” deeply affected his early years. The first was his encounter with a compass at age five. He was mystified that invisible forces could deflect the needle. This would lead to a lifelong fascination with invisible forces. The second wonder came at age 12 when he discovered a book of geometry, which he devoured, calling it his “sacred little geometry book.”

Einstein became deeply religious at age 12, even composing several songs in praise of God and chanting religious songs on the way to school. This began to change, however, after he read science books that contradicted his religious beliefs. This challenge to established authority left a deep and lasting impression. At the Luitpold Gymnasium, Einstein often felt out of place and victimized by a Prussian-style educational system that seemed to stifle originality and creativity. One teacher even told him that he would never amount to anything.

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Yet another important influence on Einstein was a young medical student, Max Talmud (later Max Talmey), who often had dinner at the Einstein home. Talmud became an informal tutor, introducing Einstein to higher mathematics and philosophy. A pivotal turning point occurred when Einstein was 16 years old. Talmud had earlier introduced him to a children’s science series by Aaron Bernstein, Naturwissenschaftliche Volksbucher (1867–68; Popular Books on Physical Science), in which the author imagined riding alongside electricity that was traveling inside a telegraph wire. Einstein then asked himself the question that would dominate his thinking for the next 10 years: What would a light beam look like if you could run alongside it? If light were a wave, then the light beam should appear stationary, like a frozen wave. Even as a child, though, he knew that stationary light waves had never been seen, so there was a paradox. Einstein also wrote his first “scientific paper” at that time (“The Investigation of the State of Aether in Magnetic Fields”).

Einstein’s education was disrupted by his father’s repeated failures at business. In 1894, after his company failed to get an important contract to electrify the city of Munich, Hermann Einstein moved to Milan to work with a relative. Einstein was left at a boardinghouse in Munich and expected to finish his education. Alone, miserable, and repelled by the looming prospect of military duty when he turned 16, Einstein ran away six months later and landed on the doorstep of his surprised parents. His parents realized the enormous problems that he faced as a school dropout and draft dodger with no employable skills. His prospects did not look promising.

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Fortunately, Einstein could apply directly to the Eidgenössische Polytechnische Schule (“Swiss Federal Polytechnic School”; in 1911, following expansion in 1909 to full university status, it was renamed the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, or “Swiss Federal Institute of Technology”) in Zürich without the equivalent of a high school diploma if he passed its stiff entrance examinations. His marks showed that he excelled in mathematics and physics, but he failed at French, chemistry, and biology. Because of his exceptional math scores, he was allowed into the polytechnic on the condition that he first finish his formal schooling. He went to a special high school run by Jost Winteler in Aarau, Switzerland, and graduated in 1896. He also renounced his German citizenship at that time. (He was stateless until 1901, when he was granted Swiss citizenship.) He became lifelong friends with the Winteler family, with whom he had been boarding. (Winteler’s daughter, Marie, was Einstein’s first love; Einstein’s sister, Maja, would eventually marry Winteler’s son Paul; and his close friend Michele Besso would marry their eldest daughter, Anna.)

Quick Facts Born: March 14, 1879, Ulm, Württemberg, Germany (Show more) Died: April 18, 1955, Princeton, New Jersey, U.S. (aged 76) (Show more) Awards And Honors: Copley Medal (1925) Nobel Prize (1921) (Show more) Notable Family Members: spouse Mileva Marić-Einstein (Show more) Subjects Of Study: Brownian motion E=mc2 Einstein’s mass-energy relation gravitation gravitational wave light mass-energy equivalence photoelectric effect photon relativity space-time special relativity unified field theory (Show more) On the Web: Digital Commons at CalPoly - EinsteinÂ’s 1935 Derivation of E�mc2 (Dec. 28, 2025) (Show more) See all related content Show More

Einstein would recall that his years in Zürich were some of the happiest years of his life. He met many students who would become loyal friends, such as Marcel Grossmann, a mathematician, and Besso, with whom he enjoyed lengthy conversations about space and time. He also met his future wife, Mileva Marić, a fellow physics student from Serbia.