Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

Albert Einstein scientist, philosopher, and humanitarian was famous for his theory of relativity, first advanced in 1905. This theory revolutionized scientific thought with new concepts of time, space, mass, motion, and gravity. Expressed as E-MC Einstein's Theory of Relativity translates as "energy equals mass times the velocity of light squared. This theory equating mass with energy helped science to explode the atom.

Born in Ulm, Germany in 1879. Einstein came to the United States in 1932 and in 1940 became an American citizen. Einstein was a faculty member at the Institute for Advanced Study, one of the world's leading centers for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry, from 1933 until his death in 1955. His life and works are represented at the Smithsonian Institution in the collections of the National Museum of American History, the National Air and Space Museum, and the National Portrait Gallery. These museums hold one of his pipes, some of his manuscripts, many portraits of him, and much scientific apparatus that confirmed his theories altering our concept of the universe.

Text by Smithsonian Institution