Biographies & Memoirs

Appendix B

Einstein Timeline

1879 March 14. Albert Einstein is born in Ulm, Germany, to Hermann Einstein and Pauline Koch.

1880 June 21. The Einstein family moves to Munich.

1881 November 18. Einstein’s sister, Maria (Maja), is born.

1884 Einstein is fascinated by a compass. He remembers the event all his life.

1885 Einstein starts violin lessons.

1885 October 1. Einstein starts public school in Germany. He starts in the second grade. He has religion instruction at the Catholic school and Jewish religious instruction at home.

1888 October 1. Einstein passes the admission tests and enters secondary school at the Luitpold Gymnasium.

1889 Max Talmud, a poor Jewish medical student, starts his regular visits with the Einsteins.

1890 Einstein reads his “holy geometry book.”

1894 June. The Einstein family moves to northern Italy.

1894 December 29. Einstein drops out of high school and joins his parents in Italy.

1895 Einstein is allowed to take the admission tests at the Federal Polytechnic Institute in Zurich, even though he is two years under age. He has an excellent performance in math and physics but fails the test because of his poor performance in other subjects.

1895 October 26. Einstein enters the Cantonal School in Aarau, Switzerland. He lives with the family of Jost Winteler.

1896 January 28. Einstein obtains a document releasing him from German citizenship. He remains stateless for five years.

1896 September. Einstein graduates from high school.

1896 October 29. Einstein starts college as a physics major at the Federal Polytechnic Institute in Zurich.

1900 July 28. Einstein graduates from college.

1900 December 13. Einstein submits his first scientific paper to the journal Annalen der Physik.

1901 February 21. Einstein becomes a Swiss citizen.

1901 May 19–July 15. Einstein accepts a temporary teaching position in mathematics at the technical high school in Winterhur, Switzerland.

1901 October 20–January 1902. Einstein teaches at a private school in Schaffhausen, Switzerland.

1902 January. Lieserl, Einstein’s daughter with Mileva Maric, is born in Novi Sad, Hungary.

1902 June 23. Einstein starts working at the Swiss patent office in Bern as a technical expert third class with a salary of 3,500 Swiss francs.

1902 October 10. Einstein’s father dies in Milan.

1903 January 6. Einstein marries Mileva Maric in Bern. Lieserl remains in Novi Sad.

1904 May 14. Einstein and Mileva’s first son, Hans Albert, is born.

1905 March 17. Einstein completes his paper on the light quanta.

1905 April 30. Einstein completes his PhD thesis, “A new determination of molecular dimensions.”

1905 May 11. The Annalen der Physik receives his paper on Brownian motion.

1905 June 10. The Annalen der Physik receives his paper “On the electrodynamics of moving bodies,” the special theory of relativity. It was published on September 28.

1905 September 27. The Annalen der Physik receives his paper with the E = mc2 equation.

1906 January 15. Einstein’s PhD is officially granted by the University of Zurich.

1906 November 9. The Annalen der Physik receives his paper on the quantum theory of solids.

1907 Einstein discovers the principle of equivalence.

1908 Einstein starts work as a Privatdozent, an instructor at the University of Bern — the first step in his academic career. He publishes two papers with a collaborator.

1908 December 21. Einstein’s sister, Maja, receives her PhD in Romance languages magna cum laude from the University of Bern.

1909 March and October. Einstein completes two papers on black body radiation.

1909 Einstein receives his first honorary degree from the University of Geneva.

1909 October 15. Einstein becomes a professor of theoretical physics at the University of Zurich.

1910 March. Maja marries Paul Winteler.

1910 July 28. Einstein and Mileva’s second son, Eduard, is born in Zurich.

1910 October. Einstein completes his first paper on statistical physics.

1911 April 1. Einstein becomes a full professor of physics at the University of Prague.

1911 June. Einstein predicts the bending of light.

1912 August. Einstein takes a position as professor of theoretical physics at the Zurich Polytechnic.

1914 April 6. Einstein becomes a professor at the University of Berlin; he has no teaching duties and serves as director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics.

1915 November 25. Einstein completes his masterpiece, the general theory of relativity, and presents it before the Prussian Academy of Sciences.

1916 March 20. Einstein’s first book, The Foundation of the General Theory of Relativity, is published by the Annalen der Physik.

1916 Einstein publishes a paper on gravitational waves and three papers on quantum theory.

1916 December. Einstein publishes his best-known book, Relativity: The Special and General Theory, which is eventually translated into every major language.

1917 Einstein publishes a paper on cosmology, introducing the cosmological constant.

1919 February 14. Einstein and Mileva divorce.

1919 June 2. Einstein marries his cousin Elsa in Berlin.

1919 Einstein receives a telegram with results of the British eclipse expeditions confirming his prediction of the bending of light.

1919 Einstein is awarded an honorary doctor of medicine degree from the University of Rostock, Germany.

1920 March. Einstein’s mother, Pauline, dies in his home.

1921 April 2–May 30. Einstein first visits the United States. He is received by President Warren G. Harding at the White House. He also visits Chicago, Boston, and Princeton, New Jersey.

1922 Einstein completes his first paper on the unified field theory.

1922 November 9. Einstein is awarded the Nobel Prize for physics “for his services to theoretical physics and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect.”

1924 Einstein publishes a paper on the association of waves with matter, his last major discovery.

1932 October. Einstein is appointed a professor at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, New Jersey. Einstein is to divide his time between Princeton and Berlin.

1932 December 10. With his wife, Elsa, Einstein leaves Germany for the United States to start his first term in Princeton. They travel back to Europe but never return to Germany.

1933 The Nazis take power in Germany.

1933 October 17. Einstein, his wife Elsa, and Einstein’s secretary Helen Dukas arrive in the United States with visitor visas and go straight to Princeton.

1935 Einstein leaves the United States temporarily and goes to Bermuda to make an application for permanent residency in the United States.

1936 December 20. Einstein’s wife, Elsa, dies.

1936 December. Einstein’s son, Hans Albert, receives a PhD in technical sciences from Einstein’s alma mater, the Zurich Polytechnic. (The next year, he and his family move to the United States, where Hans later becomes a professor at the University of California at Berkeley.)

1939 Einstein’s sister, Maja, joins him in Princeton, where she lives the rest of her life.

1939 Einstein signs a letter to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt mentioning the possibility of building an atomic bomb and alerting him of its military implications.

1940 October 1. Einstein becomes a U.S. citizen.

1943 May 31. Einstein becomes a consultant on high explosives to the U.S. Navy.

1944 February 3. A copy of his 1905 paper on special relativity, handwritten by Einstein for this occasion, is auctioned for $6 million as a contribution to the war effort.

1948 August 4. Mileva dies in Zurich.

1951 June. Einstein’s sister, Maja, dies in Princeton.

1952 November. Einstein is offered the presidency of Israel. He declines.

1955 In Einstein’s last signed letter, to Bertrand Russell, he agrees to sign a manifesto urging all nations to renounce nuclear weapons.

1955 April 18, 1:15 a.m. Einstein dies in Princeton. His body is cremated the same day, and his ashes are scattered at an undisclosed location.

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