Personal life
Albert was the first child of the Jewish couple Hermann and Pauline Einstein. He had a younger sister called Maja.
He struggled with language when he was younger and his family were afraid he would never learn. He would often repeat the same line to himself over and over again.
He became interested in science after his father gave him a compass when he was around 4 years old. He wanted to know why the needle always pointed north.
His family moved to Milan in Italy when he was 15 where he finished his studies. He later earned a degree in physics and maths at the Polytechnic Academy in Switzerland.
He worked at a Patent Office where he saw lots of inventions. While he was there he worked on his own discoveries.
He is most known for his equation E=mc², which shows how a small amount of mass can be turned into a huge amount of energy.
He thought the way people understood gravity was wrong and he came up with a new theory to prove it. He published his ‘Theory of Relativity’ which is one of his most famous works. In it, he says that gravity, as well as motion, influences time and space.
He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921.
He married twice, first to Mileva Maric and later to his cousin Elsa Lowenthal, who nursed him back to health after a serious illness that almost killed him. He had three children.
