Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, Württemberg,
Germany on March 14, 1879, and passed away in Princeton, New Jersey, on April
18, 1955. Of all the scientists, Einstein made the greatest contribution to our
understanding of the physical world today.
He is still credited with developing
special and general theories of relativity, which provide the most accurate
large-scale universe model currently available.Perhaps the most important scientist of the 20th century was Albert Einstein. His general theory of relativity, along with quantum mechanics, transformed our perception of space and time and established one of the two cornerstones of contemporary physics.
The most well-known equation by the German-born physicist, E = mc2, says that everything having mass also possesses energy.
It originated with his special theory of relativity, which postulated that light travels at the same speed through space independent of the motion of the observer. It gave rise to a novel perspective on the cosmos, arguing that time and space are not distinct but rather are entwined in a continuum.
It also implied that when one approaches the
speed of light, time and distance measures alter: lengths seem to shorten and
clocks run more slowly.
At the age of 26, he created three more revolutionary theories that same year:
the law of the photoelectric effect, mass-energy equivalency, and Brownian
motion. For these discoveries, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1921.
Einstein's general theory of relativity, which extends his special theory,
asserts that the warping of space and time by two masses produces the apparent
force of gravity between them. For example, although the earth appears to be
drawn toward the sun by its gravity, this force is not actually present;
rather, space-time around the sun determines how the
earth moves.
The theory states that time slows down with
increasing gravity, with clocks ticking more slowly at sea level than at the
summit of a mountain, where the pull of Earth's gravity is less powerful.
The theory also predicted—against the prevailing wisdom at the time—that the
universe is expanding, a prediction that astronomer Edwin Hubble validated in
1929.
The motion of planets, the bending of light from far-off stars and galaxies,
and the presence of gravitational waves and black holes were all described by
Einstein's general theory of relativity. A century after Einstein initially
theorized them, these waves—ripples in space-time—were directly observed for
the first time in 2016.
