The character arc of Albert Einstein
Born 14 March 1879 in Ulm. Died 18 April 1955 in Princeton. Between the two sit a failed entrance exam at sixteen, two years when no university would have him, a patent desk in Bern, and the papers that rewrote physics. The line below draws that whole life in order, every milestone, setback and crossroads.
Tap the line to pluck it. Hover or tap any mark for its card. Drawn from the public record of his life; the sources are at the foot of the page.
Who was Albert Einstein?
The patent clerk who rewrote the sky.
Nothing about the beginning promised the rest. He failed the Zurich Polytechnic's entrance exam at sixteen, and when he finally graduated, every university he wrote to said no. The job he took instead, reading patent applications in Bern, looked like the end of the academic road. It turned out to be the quietest desk in Europe, and he used it.
In one year at that desk he published four papers that changed what physics is. The decade after that he spent on a single idea, general relativity, finished in 1915 and proved in 1919 when an eclipse bent starlight exactly as he said it would. The setbacks did not stop arriving because the milestones had: he left Germany for good in 1933 and began again in another country, in another language, at fifty four.
His line is worth reading for one reason. The lowest stretch on it, the years nobody would hire him, sits directly before the highest point on it. He lived through the dip without knowing the peak was coming. Nobody ever knows. That is what an arc is for.
The moments
Albert Einstein's timeline.
The 1890s
Failed the entrance exam
Setback. Sixteen, and the Polytechnic said not yet.
Enrolled at the Polytechnic
Milestone. A year of catching up, then the door opened.
The 1900s
Every university said no
Setback, and it changed his direction. Two years of applications went unanswered.
Started at the patent office
Milestone. A steady desk in Bern, and evenings free to think.
Married Mileva Maric
Everyday. They had met as the only two physics students in their year.
Four papers rewrote physics
Milestone, and it changed everything. The miracle year, written at the patent desk.
Made professor in Zurich
Milestone. The academy that said no came back.
The 1910s
Finished general relativity
Milestone, and it changed his direction. Ten years on one idea.
The eclipse proved it
Milestone, and it changed his direction. Starlight bent exactly as the theory said, and the world learned his name.
The 1920s
Awarded the Nobel Prize
Milestone. For the photoelectric effect, one of the four papers from the desk.
The 1930s
Left Germany for good
Setback, and it changed his direction. He gave up his citizenship rather than return.
Began again in Princeton
Everyday. A new country, a new language, at fifty four.
Sign the warning to Roosevelt
Crossroads, decided.
The paths laid out: warn the president, taken, or stay out of it. He called it his one great regret, looked back on.
The 1950s
Take the presidency of Israel
Crossroads, decided.
The paths laid out: stay with physics, taken, or take the presidency. He said he lacked the aptitude for people.
The line ends 18 Apr 1955, in Princeton. What it set moving has not ended: the papers from that quiet desk still steer physics, and every line that keeps going through a stretch of not yet climbs a little easier because his did.
Your turn
Every story draws a unique line.
His took seventy six years and one quiet desk. Yours is already further along than you think, and drawing it takes about three minutes.
Sources
- The Nobel Prize archive, nobelprize.org: the 1921 Physics prize and its citation.
- The Albert Einstein Archives, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
- The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, Princeton University Press.
- Walter Isaacson, Einstein: His Life and Universe, 2007.
- Abraham Pais, Subtle is the Lord: The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein, 1982.