How much was Albert Einstein worth?
| Net Worth: | $1 Million |
|---|---|
| Profession: | Theoretical Physicist |
| Date of Birth: | March 14, 1879 (aged 76) |
| Country: | German-born Swiss |
| Height: | 1.75 m |
About Albert Einstein
German-born theoretical scientist Albert Einstein (14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) had an estimated net worth of $1 million. Throughout most of his life, Einstein struggled with the idea of quantum mechanics and his theory of relativity. We can read some of Einstein’s letters directly to get a sense of this genius at work in Walter Isaacson’s book Einstein: His Life and Universe. Albert Einstein fully embraced quantum mechanics at the end of his life and made significant contributions to a scientific discipline that, along with general relativity, gave rise to contemporary theories like string theory.
Hermann Einstein, the father of Albert Einstein, began his career selling featherbeds and went on to run an electrochemical company. In Germany’s Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt, he wed Pauline Koch. Albert, their son, was born in Ulm, Württemberg, Germany in 1879. After Albert’s birth, the family relocated to Munich after six weeks.
Later in life, Albert recalled how his father had shown him a pocket compass when he was five years old. Young Einstein understood that the “empty” space had an impact on the needle. He referred to the encounter as one of his most revelatory experiences.
Albert’s education started around a year later. He was taught religion at home in addition to the violin lessons his mother insisted on. He started attending the Luitpold Gymnasium two years after that, where he also received his religious instruction.
He was intelligent and enjoyed making mechanical toys and models, but he was also regarded as a sluggish learner. He might have been dyslexic, or it might have just been timidity. He excelled in math, particularly calculus, and contrary to popular belief, did not perform poorly in these courses.
The Einsteins relocated to Italy in 1894, but Albert remained in Munich. He failed an exam the next year that would have allowed him to enroll in the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH) in Zurich to pursue a diploma in electrical engineering. He gave up his German citizenship in 1896 and didn’t get citizenship in any other nation until 1901. He enrolled in the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich the same year to pursue a degree in teaching physics and mathematics, graduating in 1900.
Finally, he accepted a temporary position as a math instructor at the Technical High School in Winterthur after making fruitless attempts to find employment at Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule and other universities. Then I took up another temporary teaching job in Schaffhausen at a private school.
Finally, a friend’s father assisted him in landing a job at the Bern patent office as a third-class technical expert. From 1902 until 1909, he worked in this position. In 1906, he was promoted to technical expert second class.
Lieserl Maric, a daughter of mathematician Albert and Mileva Maric, was born in January of 1902. (It is unknown what ultimately happened to Lieserl. She might have been given up for adoption or died when she was a baby.) They didn’t get hitched until 1903! The couple’s first child, Hans Albert Einstein, was born on May 14, 1904. (Hans eventually moved on to the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught hydraulic engineering. He didn’t spend much time with his father.)
His prolific publishing of theoretical physics publications started at this time period. In 1905, the University of Zurich awarded him a PhD for his dissertation, which was titled “A new determination of molecular dimensions.”
The first of Albert Einstein’s three 1905 articles examined a phenomenon that Max Planck had identified. According to Planck’s findings, discrete amounts of electromagnetic energy appeared to be emitted by radiating objects. The radiation’s frequency and this energy were directly inversely proportional. In the past, it was thought that electromagnetic energy was made up of waves that might contain any little quantity of energy, according to Maxwell’s equations and the laws of thermodynamics. Planck’s quantum theory was applied in Einstein’s article to describe the electromagnetic radiation of light.
The special theory of relativity, which would eventually become Einstein’s most well-known contribution, was established in his second 1905 publication. In order to satisfy Maxwell’s theory, Einstein claimed that the speed of light must be constant across all frames of reference. He did this by reinterpreting the classical principle of relativity, which said that the laws of physics must have the same form in any frame of reference. Later that year, Einstein demonstrated how energy and mass are comparable in terms of his general theory of relativity. He wasn’t the first to suggest all the elements of the special theory of relativity, but he was the first to combine significant elements of Maxwell’s electrodynamics with classical mechanics.
Statistical mechanics was the subject of his final work for that significant year.
He was named Privatdozent at Berne in 1908, and in Zurich he was named Professor Extraordinary in 1909. Eduard was born to Albert and Mileva on July 28, 1910. (Eduard was eventually hospitalized for schizophrenia and passed away in a sanitarium.)
Professor of Theoretical Physics at Karl-Ferdinand University in Prague followed this in 1911. He was able to predict in advance how a light beam from a far-off star would appear to be bent slightly in the direction of the Sun as it passed close by that year, providing the first experimental support for his hypothesis.
He relocated from Prague to Zurich the next year in order to take up a position at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule in Zurich. With the aid of his friend and mathematician Marcel Grossmann, it also marked the start of a new era in his gravitational studies. In 1915, Einstein was able to publish his new findings, which he had named the general relativity theory.
He was appointed Director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Physical Institute and Professor at the University of Berlin in 1914 after obtaining German citizenship. On February 14, 1919, the Einsteins got divorced. On June 2 of that same year, Albert wed his cousin Elsa Loewenthal.
He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1921 not for his theories of relativity but rather for his 1905 research on the photoelectric phenomenon. He also got the Coley Medal of the Royal Society during this time.
Society in 1925 and the Royal Astronomical Society’s gold medal in 1926.
He stayed in Berlin until 1933, when he left for the United States and gave up his citizenship due to political concerns. He then accepted a position at Princeton as a professor of theoretical physics. He preserved his Swiss citizenship after becoming a citizen of the United States in 1940. He handwrote a copy of his 1905 article on special relativity in 1944 as a donation to the war effort, which he then offered for auction. The manuscript is now kept by the Library of Congress after this raised $6,000,000.
In 1945, Albert Einstein left his position at Princeton. The Israeli government offered Einstein the position of second president in 1952 following the passing of Israel’s first president, but he declined. He published an updated version of the unified field theory on March 30, 1953.
In Princeton, New Jersey, on April 18, 1955, Einstein passed away. Albert Einstein’s net worth at the time of his passing was equal to $1 million in 2023 dollars.
At 4 o’clock that same day, he was cremated in Trenton, New Jersey, and his ashes were strewn in an undisclosed location.
