History Time Line Hall of Fame		History : Hall of Fame : Albert Einstein Albert Einstein   (1879 - 1955) Einstein studied math and physics at the Polytechnic Institute in Zurich, Switzerland.  He graduated in 1900.  From 1902 to 1909, Albert worked as an examiner at the Swiss Patent Office in Bern.  This job as patent examiner allowed him much free time, which he spent in scientific investigations.  Einstein became a Swiss citizen in 1905. The year 1905 was an epoch-making one in the history of physics, because Einstein contributed three papers to Annalen der Physik (Annals of Physics), a German scientific periodical.  Each of them became the basis of a new branch of physics. In one of the papers, Einstein suggested that light could be thought of as a stream of tiny particles.  This idea forms an important part of the quantum theory.  In 1900, the German physicist Max K. E. L. Planck had proposed that the radiation of light occurred in packets of energy, called quanta.  Einstein extended this idea by arguing that light itself consisted of quanta, which were later called photons.  Scientists before Einstein had discovered that a bright beam of light striking a metal caused the metal to release electrons, which could form an electric current.  They called this phenomenon the photoelectric effect.  But scientists could not explain the phenomenon as long as they assumed that light traveled only in waves.  Using his theory of quanta, Einstein explained the photoelectric effect.  He showed that when quanta of light energy strike atoms in a metal, the quanta force the atoms to release electrons.  Einstein's paper established the theoretical basis for the photoelectric cell, or "electric eye."  This device made possible sound motion pictures, television, and many other inventions.  Einstein received the 1921 Nobel Prize in physics for this paper on quanta. In a second paper, titled "The Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies," Einstein presented the special theory of relativity.  In this paper, he showed how the theory demonstrated the relativity of time, a previously unimaginable idea.  Einstein's name is most widely known for this theory.  In a study published in 1905, Einstein showed the equivalence of mass and energy, expressed in the famous equation E=mc2. The third major paper of 1905 concerned Brownian motion, an irregular motion of microscopic particles suspended in a liquid or gas.  It confirmed the atomic theory of matter. In 1933, while Einstein was visiting England and the United States, Nazi Germany took his property and deprived him of his positions and his citizenship.  Even before this misfortune occurred, however, Einstein had been invited to become a member of the staff of the newly created Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J. Einstein accepted this position for life, and settled down in Princeton.  He lived there until his death. In 1939, Einstein writes a famous letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt warning of the possibility of Germany's building an atomic bomb and urging nuclear research. In 1940, Einstein became an American citizen (but retained his Swiss citizenship).  He died on April 18, 1955.