What makes einstein

For many years, hardly any physicist could understand it. But, since the s, following decades of controversy, most cosmologists have regarded general relativity as the best available explanation, if not the complete description, of the observed structure of the universe, including black holes. When he gave lectures about general relativity at Oxford University in , the academic audience packed the hall, only to ebb away, baffled by his mathematics and his German, leaving only a small core of experts.

The entire movie theater rose in their honor. A somewhat baffled Einstein asked his host what it all meant. Like Newton but unlike Charles Darwin , he did not have anyone of distinction in his family.

He was not notably excellent at school and college unlike Marie Curie ; in fact, he failed to obtain a university position after graduation. He was not part of the scientific establishment, and worked mostly alone. In , he was struggling as a mere patent clerk, with a newborn child. Regardless of whether we grasp relativity, his apparently sudden burst of genius inevitably intrigues everyone.

He is best known in this regard for his open opposition to Nazi Germany from , his private support for building the atomic bomb in , and his public criticism of the hydrogen bomb and McCarthyism in the s J. In , he was offered the presidency of Israel. Environment Planet Possible India bets its energy future on solar—in ways both small and big Grassroots efforts are bringing solar panels to rural villages without electricity, while massive solar arrays are being built across the country. Epic floods leave South Sudanese to face disease and starvation.

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Why are people so dang obsessed with Mars? How viruses shape our world. The era of greyhound racing in the U. See how people have imagined life on Mars through history. It's hard to get lost these days because of GPS - it's what allows our satnavs satellite navigation systems and smartphone map apps to tell us the quickest route to the restaurant or the beach.

But if it weren't for Einstein's general theory of relativity, we wouldn't know to take relativity's effects into account when synchronizing the network of Global Positioning System GPS satellites orbiting the Earth. And with each GPS satellite containing several atomic clocks, the clocks on your computer and mobile phone are ultra-accurate. Einstein's discovery of the physical principle was responsible for the light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation the long-winded way of saying laser that made these devices possible.

These are just three examples - there's virtually no corner of science and technology that hasn't experienced the Einstein effect, from supercomputers and supernovas to nuclear weapons and the Big Bang. What Made Albert Einstein a Genius?

Some of Albert Einstein's inspiring quotes. What is relativity? NBC News.