17 Oct 1933: Einstein flees Nazi Germany
On this day in 1933, Albert Einstein left Europe for the United States to escape Nazi persecution.
Some facts about Einstein:
- He was born in Germany in 1879
- 1905 was his annus mirabilis (extraordinary year); he published four important papers concerning:
- photoelectric effect
- Brownian motion
- special theory of relativity
- mass-energy equivalence (as in E = mc2)
- When he won the Nobel prize in 1921, he was a resident of Switzerland
- To his later regret, he wrote FDR in 1939 suggesting a nuclear bomb
- He declined an offer to be the president of Israel, remaining at his post at Princeton University
- After his death in 1955, his brain was preserved; his ashes were scattered in the Delaware River
- Atomic number 99 is named after him (Einsteinium)
Image: Ferdinand Schmutzer; Einstein giving a lecture in Vienna in 1921
Albert Einstein offered his personal theory of Relativity. “If my theory proves correct, Germany will say that I am a German and France will say that I am a citizen of the world. If my theory proves incorrect, France will say that I am a Germany and Germany will say that I am a Jew.”