Einstein

   , EINSTEINIUM

   Einsteinium is a radioactive element discovered by Albert Ghiorso and others in the 1952 fallout from the first hydrogen explosion. The element, 99, was made in the laboratory and was named to honor Albert Einstein (1879-1955).

   Einstein was born in Ulm, Wunttemburg, Germany. As a young boy, Einstein was regarded as a slow learner. He did not walk until he was three and didn't talk until later. But as a student at the Polytechnic Institute of Zurich, he showed a deep interest in and a remarkable grasp of mathematics. He became a Swiss citizen in 1905 and took employment at the Swiss Patent Office, but continued his work in pure science.

   In 1905 he published four original papers so revolutionary that their importance was not immediately recognized. One of the papers announced his theory of relativity, relating mass to energy.

   In 1909, he became professor of theoretical physics at the University of Zurich. In 1911 and 1912, he occupied the same position at the German University in Prague. When he accepted the professorship of physics at the University of Berlin in 1914, he once more assumed German citizenship. In the same year he became director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Physical Institute in Berlin.

   Einstein in 1916 extended his specific theory of relativity to the general case, and when his prediction was verified in 1919, he became world famous. He received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921. In 1933, while Einstein was visiting England and the United States, the Nazi government of Germany took his property and deprived him of his positions and his citizenship.

   In 1940, Einstein became an American citizen. He accepted a position for life as a member of the staff of the newly created Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jesey, and he lived there until his death.

   At the behest of the American scientific community, Einstein sent a letter to President Roosevelt suggesting the need to build an atomic bomb. The letter led to the development of the bomb, which was eventually exploded over Japan by order of President Truman. Einstein was a pacifist and took no part in the manufacture of the bomb, but without his formula E=mc² (energy equals mass times the square of the speed of light) it could never have been made.