Einstein with his first wife Mileva Maric c. After his marriage to Mileva Maric hit the rocks in the early s, Einstein left his family, moved to Berlin and started a new relationship with his cousin, Elsa. He and Maric finally divorced several years later in As part of their separation agreement, Einstein promised her an annual stipend plus whatever money he might receive from the Nobel Prize—which he was supremely confident he would eventually win.
Maric agreed, and Einstein later handed over a small fortune upon receiving the award in for his work on the photoelectric effect. By then, he had already remarried to Elsa, who remained his wife until her death in In , Einstein published his theory of general relativity, which stated that gravitational fields cause distortions in the fabric of space and time. Because it was such a bold rewriting of the laws of physics, the theory remained controversial until May , when a total solar eclipse provided the proper conditions to test its claim that a supermassive object—in this case the sun—would cause a measurable curve in the starlight passing by it.
The news made Einstein an overnight celebrity. Newspapers hailed him as the heir to Sir Isaac Newton, and he went on to travel the world lecturing on his theories about the cosmos. According to Einstein biographer Walter Isaacson, in the six years after the eclipse, more than books and articles were written about the theory of relativity. His support for pacifist, civil rights and left-wing causes had already drawn suspicion from J. They even investigated tips that he was building a death ray.
The project came up empty handed, but by the time Einstein died in , his FBI file totaled a whopping 1, pages. Despite encouraging US president Franklin D. Roosevelt to build an atomic bomb in , he was horrified by its use in in Japan. He spoke out against racial and ethnic discrimination in the United States. In the s, he trenchantly criticized the hydrogen bomb and McCarthyism, and, right up to his death in , he was targeted for deportation as a Soviet agent by FBI director J.
Edgar Hoover. Article 10 NOV Research Highlight 05 NOV Article 03 NOV News 12 NOV News 10 NOV News Feature 10 NOV World View 02 NOV Career Feature 25 OCT University of Washington UW. Francis Crick Institute. Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily. Advanced search. However, other researchers have pointed out a few problems with that study, according to Eric H. Chudler , a neuroscientist at the University of Washington.
First, for example, the other brains used in the study were all younger than Einstein's brain. Second, the "experimental group" had only one subject — Einstein.
Additional studies are needed to see if these anatomical differences are found in other people. And third, only a small part of Einstein's brain was studied. Another study, published in in the journal Neuroscience Letters , found that Einstein's brain weighed only 1, grams, which is less than the average adult male brain about 1, g. Also, the scientist's cerebral cortex was thinner than that of five control brains, but the density of neurons was higher.
A study published in in the journal Brain revealed that Einstein's brain had extra folding in the gray matter , the site of conscious thinking. In particular, the frontal lobes, regions tied to abstract thought and planning, had unusually elaborate folding.
Einstein's legacy in physics is significant. Here are some of the key scientific principles that he pioneered:. Theory of special relativity : Einstein showed that physical laws are identical for all observers, as long as they are not under acceleration.
However, the speed of light in a vacuum is always the same, no matter at what speed the observer is travelling. This work led to his realization that space and time are linked into what we now call space-time. So, an event seen by one observer may also be seen at a different time by another observer.
Theory of general relativity : This was a reformulation of the law of gravity. In the s, Newton formulated three laws of motion, among them outlining how gravity works between two bodies. The force between them depends on how massive each object is, and how far apart the objects are.
Einstein determined that when thinking about space-time, a massive object causes a distortion in space-time like putting a heavy ball on a trampoline. Gravity is exerted when other objects fall into the "well" created by the distortion in space-time, like a marble rolling towards the large ball. General relativity passed a recent major test in in an experiment involving a supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way.
Photoelectric effect : Einstein's work in proposed that light should be thought of as a stream of particles photons instead of just a single wave, as was commonly thought at the time. His work helped decipher curious results scientists were previously unable to explain. Unified field theory : Einstein spent much of his later years trying to merge the fields of electromagnetism and gravity. He was unsuccessful, but may have been ahead of his time.
Other physicists are still working on this problem. There are many applications of Einstein's work, but here are some of the most notable ones in astronomy:. Gravitational waves : In , the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory LIGO detected space-time ripples — otherwise known as gravitational waves — that occurred after black holes collided about 1.
LIGO also made an initial detection of gravitational waves in , a century after Einstein predicted these ripples existed. The waves are a facet of Einstein's theory of general relativity. Mercury's orbit : Mercury is a small planet orbiting close to a very massive object relative to its size — the sun.
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