Albert Einstein Part 2

Scientists Take Notice of Einstein

Recognition from the academic and scientific community did not come quickly. Perhaps it was difficult to take seriously a 26-year-old patent clerk who, until this time, had only earned disdain from his former teachers. Or perhaps Einstein's ideas were so profound and radical that no one was yet prepared to consider them truths.

In 1909, four years after his theories were first published, Einstein was finally offered a teaching position. Einstein enjoyed being a teacher at the University of Zurich. He had found traditional schooling as he grew up extremely limiting and thus he wanted to be a different kind of teacher. Arriving at school unkempt, with hair uncombed and his clothes too baggy, Einstein taught from the heart.

As Einstein's fame within the scientific community grew, offers for new, better positions began to pour in. Within only a few years, Einstein worked at the University of Zurich (Switzerland), then the German University in Prague (Czech Republic), and then back to Zurich for the Polytechnic Institute.

The frequent moves, the numerous conferences that Einstein attended, and preoccupation of Einstein with science, left Mileva (Einstein's wife) feeling both neglected and lonely. When Einstein was offered a professorship at the University of Berlin in 1913, she didn't want to go. Einstein accepted the position anyway. Not long after arriving in Berlin, Mileva and Albert separated. Realizing the marriage could not be salvaged, Mileva took the kids back to Zurich. They officially divorced in 1919.

Einstein Becomes World Famous

During World War I, Einstein stayed in Berlin and worked diligently on new theories. He worked like a man obsessed. With Mileva gone, he often forgot to eat and forgot to go to sleep. In 1917, the stress eventually took its toll and he collapsed. Diagnosed with gallstones, Einstein was told to rest. During his recuperation, Einstein's cousin Elsa helped nurse him back to health. The two became very close and when Albert's divorce was finalized, Albert and Elsa married.

It was during this time that Einstein revealed his General Theory of Relativity, which considered the effects of acceleration and gravity on time and space. If Einstein's theory was correct, then the gravity of the sun would bend light from stars.

In 1919, Einstein's General Theory of Relativity could be tested during a solar eclipse. In May 1919, two British astronomers (Arthur Eddington and Sir Frances Dyson) were able to put together an expedition which observed the solar eclipse and documented the bent light. In November 1919, their findings were announced publicly.

The world was ready for some good news. After having suffered monumental bloodshed during World War I, people around the world were craving news that went beyond their country's borders. Einstein became a worldwide celebrity overnight.

It wasn't just his revolutionary theories (which many people couldn't really understand); it was Einstein's general persona that appealed to the masses. Einstein's disheveled hair, poorly fitting clothes, doe-like eyes, and witty charm endeared him to the average person. Yes he was a genius, but he was an approachable one.

Instantly famous, Einstein was hounded by reporters and photographers wherever he went. He was given honorary degrees and asked to visit countries around the world. Albert and Elsa took trips to the United States, Japan, Palestine (now Israel), South America, and throughout Europe. They were in Japan when they heard the news that Einstein had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. (He gave all the prize money to Mileva to support the kids.)

Einstein Becomes an Enemy of the State

Being an international celebrity had its perks as well as its disadvantages. Although Einstein spent the 1920s traveling and making special appearances, these took away from the time he could work on his scientific theories. By the early 1930s, finding time for science wasn't his only problem.

The political climate in Germany was changing drastically. When Adolf Hitler took power in 1933, Einstein was luckily visiting the United States (he never returned to Germany). The Nazis promptly declared Einstein an enemy of the state, ransacked his house, and burned his books. As death threats began, Einstein finalized his plans to take a position at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, New Jersey. He arrived at Princeton on October 17, 1933.

As bleak news reached him from across the Atlantic, Einstein suffered a personal loss when Elsa died on December 20, 1936. Three years later, Einstein's sister, Maja, fled from Mussolini's Italy and came to live with Albert in Princeton. She stayed until her death in 1951.

Until the Nazis took power in Germany, Einstein had been a devoted pacifist for his entire life. However, with the harrowing tales coming out of Nazi-occupied Europe, Einstein reevaluated his pacifist ideals. In the case of the Nazis, Einstein realized they needed to be stopped, even if that meant using military might to do so.