A physics blog would be incomplete without a profile on the most popular scientist of all time!

Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, Germany in 1879.  He took lessons in violin and piano as a child and often expressed his passion for music.

In 1905, the “miracle year”, Einstein was working as a patent clerk in Switzerland when he obtained his PhD.  This was the year that he published four of his most influential papers, including the Special Theory of Relativity containing the famous equation , and a paper explaining the photoelectric effect, which sparked the quantum revolution.  In 1915 he completed the General Theory of Relativity.

He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921 for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect.  This work was based largely on work published by Max Planck.  In 1999 People Magazine named him Person of the Century.

“Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.”
—Albert Einstein quoted in the New York Times, June 20, 1932