Albert Einstein was the most famous scientist of the 20th century. His scientific breakthroughs were so breathtaking that his gentle, bemused expression and riot of white hair have come to symbolize genius in the popular imagination. Albert Einstein did not seek fame, but when thrust into the spotlight he chose to use his renown to further the causes of freedom and human rights around the world. A heartfelt humanist, he mistrusted authority.

His independent, nonconformist thinking enabled him to shrug off centuries of scientific tradition to come up with astoundingly original theories about the nature of the universe. Albert Einstein was born in 1879 in Ulm, Germany, into a non-religious Jewish family. His father ran an electrical equipment business, while his mother imbued him with a love of music that would stay with him his whole life.

Albert Einstein was a quiet child, very observant and self-reliant. When he was five years old, he received a compass. Young Albert Einstein was fascinated by the fact that no matter which way he turned the compass, the needle always pointed the same direction. This was his introduction to scientific inquiry. "That experience made a deep and lasting impression on me," he wrote years later. "Something deeper had to be hidden behind things."

Albert Einstein was fortunate to have people around him who encouraged his interest in math and science. His uncle Jakob Albert Einstein, an electrical engineer, and Max Talmey, a medical student who was a regular guest at family dinners, often loaned him science books.

When Albert Einstein was 12, he taught himself geometry from one of these books. Legend has it that Albert Einstein was a poor student who flunked out of school, but this was not the case. He excelled at math and science, though he often got only mediocre grades in other classes.

When Albert Einstein was 15, his family moved to Milan, Italy. Albert Einstein had only one year left in high school, so he stayed behind. But by this time, he had already developed a profound distrust of authority and a hatred of conformity.

He loathed Germany's rigid education system, which was based upon rote learning. "It's a true miracle," he commented years later, "that modern education hasn't yet completely smothered the curiosity necessary for scientific study." If Albert Einstein had remained in Germany until he was 16, he would have been obliged to perform military service.

The sight of soldiers marching through the streets had always frightened and appalled him, and he was not willing to join them. So Albert Einstein left high school and Germany, and joined his family in Milan. Albert Einstein's family thought he should pursue a career as an electrical engineer, so after finishing high school in Switzerland, Albert Einstein enrolled in the highly regarded Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.

But Albert Einstein already knew that his future was not as an engineer. His true passion was theoretical physics, a field in which he could delve into the most fundamental questions and in which imagination reigned supreme. "Imagination is more important than knowledge," he once said. "Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world."

Albert Einstein had little patience for the classroom setting, and when he graduated from the institute in 1900, he was the only member of his class not offered an assistant professorship at the school. After two years of taking whatever teaching and tutoring jobs he could find, Albert Einstein accepted a position in the Swiss patent office in Bern. The job was neither prestigious nor demanding of his skills, but Albert Einstein was delighted to have a steady income, and it gave him plenty of time to think.

Working as a patent clerk, Albert Einstein embarked on his extraordinary scientific career using nothing but pen, paper, and his mind. While at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Albert Einstein had fallen in love with Mileva Maric, the only female student in his class.

In 1902, before they were married, the two had a daughter. Their daughter's fate, however, remains a mystery. It is thought that she might have died of scarlet fever while living with her maternal grandparents. Albert Einstein and Mileva married the following year and eventually had two sons. Marriage was never a priority for Albert Einstein, however, and he had frequent affairs during both this and his subsequent marriage.

Source: http://www.amnh.org/