Albert Einstein
Monument
Zine
biography
A l b e r t E i n s t e i n w a s a we l l - k n o w n f i g u r e i n t h e s c i e n c e w o r l d . H e w a s b o r n i n G e r m a ny o n M a r c h 1 4 , 1 8 7 9 a n d w a s a ve r y r e l i g i o u s a n d c u r i o u s s t u d e n t . H e h a d a l r e a d y c o m e u p w i t h m a ny s o n g s p r a i s i n g g o d f r o m w h e n h e w a s y o u n g , h o we ve r t h a t w a s u n t i l h e r e a d s c i e n c e b o o k s c o n t r a d i c t i n g h i s o r i g i n a l b e l i e f . F r o m w h e n h e w a s e ve n y o u n g e r , h e w a s a l r e a d y f a s c i n a t e d b y g e o m e t r y , a n d t h e i n n e r w o r k i n g s o f c o m p a s s e s , s o i t i s t o n o s u r p r i s e t h a t h e w a s a s t o u n d e d r e a d i n g a b o u t s c i e n c e .
A s h e p r o g r e s s e d t h r o u g h l i f e a n d f a c e d m a n y h a r d s h i p s o n h i s p a t h t o s c i e n t i f i c s u c c e s s , m o s t o f w h i c h i n v o l v i n g u n e m p l o y m e n t a n d f a m i l y m e m b e r s p a s s i n g , h e s e t t l e d d o w n a n d m a r r i e d M i l e v a M a r i c , a n d h a d t w o k i d s . T h i s w a s a r o u n d t h e t i m e h i s l i f e s t a r t e d t u r n i n g a r o u n d . H e w a s a b l e t o g e t a s t e a d y j o b a s a c l e r k i n a p a t e n t c l i n i c , w h i c h w a s a c t u a l l y o n e o f t h e r e a s o n s w h y h e w a s a b l e t o m a k e s u c h g r e a t c o n t r i b u t i o n s i n
t h e
f u t u r e .
Contributions
He began to daydream about the question that he had been obsessed with since he was 16, what would happen if you raced alongside a light beam? W h e n h e w a s a t Po l y t e c h n i c school, he had studied Maxwell’s equations which described the nature of light, and from these equations inferred something that Maxwell was never able to figure out himself, and that is the speed of light remains the same no matter how fast a person moves. However, even he knew that this violated Issac Newton’s first law, which sparked his principle of relat iv it y, “t he sp e e d of l i g ht is constant in any inertial f r a m e ”.
This was only one of many contributions Albert Einstein has made. Despite already perfecting the theory of relativity, Albert Einstein is also known for his development of the quantum theory which basically says that light is made like it is composed of photons. However, those weren’t even the reason he won the Nobel Prize, he won that, “for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect.”
Deserving
I believe he deserves a monument because of the many contributions he made to science as a whole. Without him, we wouldn’t know the true nature of light, and just knowing that has advanced our understanding of physics in the universe by many years. He also faced many hardships in his life and still persevered through and became someone important, which is a great feat on its own.
Reasoning
If I could place it anywhere in the world, I would place it in the center of his hometown of Ulm, Germany. I would want his monument to be remembered in his hometown, but I would also want to put it there because of the hardships he faced. At a bad time in his life when his father died, he gave his blessing for him to marry Maric right before he died, however he spent the remaining months he had left thinking Albert was a failure because he was jobless and hadn’t amounted to anything yet, which left Albert distraught for years to come. So I would like to place it in his hometown to make a statement saying he really did become someone that furthered the human race as a who le.
By Hayden Postin