Hans Albert Einstein is the second son of one of the greatest physicists of the first half of the twentieth century - Albert Einstein, who radically changed the ideas of science about the universe.
Father
Albert Einstein was born on March 15, 1879 into a Jewish family living at that time in the small German town of Ulm. His father German owned a company that stuffed pillows and mattresses with feathers. Albert's mother was the daughter of a well-known maize seller in the town.
In 1880, the Einstein family moved to Munich. Here Albert’s father, along with his brother Jacob, opened a small enterprise that sells electrical equipment. In Munich, Albert had a sister, Maria. In the same city, the boy first went to school. She was visited by the children of Catholics. According to the memoirs of the scientist, already at the age of 13 he moved away from religious beliefs and became involved in science. Everything that was mentioned in the Bible ceased to seem plausible to him. He began to form as a person who is skeptical of everything, including authorities.
The most vivid childhood impressions that Albert had for his whole life are the compass and the work of Euclid's “Beginnings”.
Mother insisted that the future Nobel laureate be engaged in music. Albert began to play the violin and became interested in it. Craving for music remained with him for life. Already in his mature years, while in the USA, the scientist even gave a concert to immigrants who came from Germany. He played Mozart's composition on the violin.
In 1894, the Einstein family moved to the small town of Pavia near Milan. Own production was also transferred here from Munich.
In 1895, the future scientist came to Switzerland. In this country, he wanted to go to college to become a teacher of physics. However, Albert could not pass the tests in botany. Then the young genius went to study at the school of the town of Aarau. Here he became interested in the study of Maxwell's electromagnetic theory.
The next place to study the future Nobel laureate was the Zurich Polytechnic. Here he met the mathematician Grossman. Here he met his future wife - Mileva Marich.
Albert Einstein received a Polytechnic diploma in 1900, but could not find a permanent job in the specialty. In order to survive and feed the family, the future Nobel laureate had to become an employee of the patent agency. In his free time, he did not cease to deal with scientific problems.
In 1903, Albert's father died. In the same year, he legalized his relationship with Mileva Marich.
Hitler's rise to power forced Albert to leave Germany. He moved to America, where he became a professor at Princeton University. The great natural scientist died in 1955. The cause of his death was an aortic aneurysm.
Mother
Mileva Marich - the first wife of Albert Einstein. She was a Serbian nationality born in Hungary. This is the only girl who studied at the Zurich Polytechnic School.
Mileva Marich was three and a half years older than Albert Einstein. However, this did not prevent their love. Soon after they met, the young began to live in a civil marriage. To the people around them, such an alliance seemed somewhat strange. After all, young Einstein was distinguished by amazing charm, attractiveness and ease of communication. In contrast, Mileva was ugly. Her undersized figure was spoiled by stoop and lameness that occurred after bone marrow tuberculosis. But at the same time, Mileva was a very talented mathematician, had a deep intellect. And the absence in her character of excessive reverence for various authorities finally brought her closer to Albert.
In addition, the young people both loved music and good food. It is also important that Mileva was an excellent hostess. It is possible that Einstein unconsciously sought a woman who could remove the burden of domestic problems from him. After all, according to the recollections of friends, as a student, Albert was unable to concentrate on everyday worries. Mileva, unlike him, was a practical man, which reminded Einstein of his mother.
Hans Parents Wedding
Einstein did not hide his civil marriage. His parents knew about him. But they did not give his son permission for the wedding. Albert’s mother considered Mileva repulsive and ugly, and her father wanted to see a girl of only Jewish nationality as his daughter-in-law.
Everything changed after Herman Einstein was terminally ill. Saying goodbye to his son, he still blessed his marriage. And 6.01.1903, the young became husband and wife, legitimizing their relationship in Bern.
First child
Hans Albert Einstein never saw his sister. She was born in 1902, when her parents were married. An illegitimate child could spoil the scientific career of a young genius. And so, being pregnant, Mileva went to her parents. Here in Hungary, she gave birth to a daughter, Lieserl. In order for no one to know about an illegitimate baby, the girl was immediately sent to foster parents.
Mileva pledged to never look for a daughter and not meet her. According to some reports, the girl did not live long. As a baby, she contracted transient scarlet fever and died. Einstein never saw his daughter and never told anyone about her.
Genius son
05/14/1904 was born Hans Albert Einstein. The biography of the boy began in Bern. On the streets of this city, his happy father raced, who, learning about the birth of his son, ran as fast as possible to kiss his wife and baby.
Einstein's first son was very beloved by his parents. According to the recollections of the friends of the great scientist, they often saw Albert, who in one hand held sheets of work scribbled up and down, and the second shook the pram with the sleeping baby.
The fate of the second son
In 1910, another boy was born in the Einstein family - Edward. He had excellent musical abilities. However, the scientist’s second son was very painful, and at the age of 20, after suffering a nervous breakdown, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. At one time, Eduard Einstein was under the supervision of his mother. But a little later Mileva placed her son in a psychiatric hospital.
Albert Einstein, who had already divorced his wife by this time, was not at all surprised by the illness of his son, who was affectionately called “Tetel” or “Tete”. The fact is that Mileva’s sister suffered from schizophrenia. Eduard Einstein also often behaved in a manner that clearly spoke of the presence of the disease in him too. However, a slightly different opinion was shared by the eldest son of the great scientist. Hans Albert Einstein believed that the final destruction of the psyche of his brother was due to the popular treatment at that time using electric shock.
Albert Einstein moved to live in the United States a year after his Tete was admitted to a psychiatric hospital. And since then, communication with sons was limited only to letters. Father sent rare, but very emotional messages to Edward. In one of them, for example, a scientist compared people to the sea, saying that they can be both friendly and welcoming, and complex and stormy.
After the death of his mother in 1948, Eduard Einstein was in a village near Zurich, where he was taken care of by Dr. Heinrich Miley. Tete lived with a local pastor and gradually began to make contacts with people. Eduard even began to earn money by writing addresses on envelopes on the instructions of one of the local companies.
However, after some time, the guardian relocated his ward to the widow of a lawyer who lived on the outskirts of Zurich. This worsened the mental state of Edward. In 1954, the great scientist refused all contact with his youngest son. He explained his action by the belief that correspondence was painful for both.
In 1965, Edward died. According to one of the researchers, he was ruined by love for his neighbors, which turned out to be an overwhelming burden for him.
Parents divorce
Since 1912, relations between Albert and Mileva have become more than tense. The reason for this was the scientist's passion for his cousin Elsa Leventhal. In 1914, Marich left with her children in Zurich, having received from her husband a notarized obligation to annually support the family in the amount of 5600 Reichsmarks. The official divorce of the couple was issued on February 14, 1919.
An agreement was concluded between Einstein and Marich. It provided for the transfer to the former spouse of the monetary part of the expected Nobel Prize. The funds that Albert Einstein would receive were required to be taken into trust. Marich was left to receive interest.
Life after the divorce of parents
In June 1919, the scientist arrived in Zurich, where he spent time with his children. Albert Einstein’s son, Hans, went with his father on a sailing trip along Lake Constance, and with Edward the great natural scientist visited Arosa, where the boy was sanatorium treated.
Mileva and her sons lived in extremely cramped circumstances. However, in 1922, after the former spouse received the Nobel Prize, she acquired three houses in Zurich. Marich moved to one of them to live with her sons, and the other two served as long-term investments. However, everything changed after Edward was given a terrible diagnosis. Mileva had to sell two houses. All funds went to pay for the treatment of his son at the University Hospital of Zurich. In order not to lose the main house, the woman transferred the ownership rights to her ex-husband, who was fulfilling his obligations to transfer funds to support the former family.
Career of the eldest son of the great scientist
Hans Albert Einstein decided to follow in the footsteps of his parents. To do this, he received a diploma from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, where he graduated in 1926. For four years, he then worked as a designer on a project for a bridge under construction in Dortmund. Already in 1936, Hans Albert defended his doctoral dissertation, receiving a degree for it.
Emigration
After Albert Einstein, fleeing Germany from the anti-Semitic threat, he advised his eldest son to do the same. In 1938, Hans Albert Einstein left Switzerland and moved to South Carolina, to the city of Greenville. Here he worked as a hydraulic engineer at the US Department of Agriculture. His responsibilities included the study of sediment. Work in the Department lasted from 1938 to 1943.
Since 1947, Hans Albert Einstein is an associate professor at the University of California Hydraulics at Berkeley. But this was not the end of his career. A little later, he became an honorary professor at the same university.
Being a highly qualified specialist in his field, Hans Albert traveled a lot around the world. He constantly participated in hydraulic conferences of various levels even after 1971, when he had already retired. At one of these symposia in Woodshall, Massachusetts, Hans Albert Einstein was in 1973, where he died of a heart attack on July 26.
Awards
For his work in the field of hydraulics and the study of bottom sediments, Hans Albert was awarded:
- Guggenheim scholarships (in 1953);
- scientific awards of the American Society of Civil Engineers (in 1959 and in 1960);
- Certificate of Merit from the US Department of Agriculture (in 1971);
- Award from the University of California (in 1971);
- a certificate of recognition for more than 20 years of impeccable and dedicated service from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (in 1972).
Personal life
After the parents divorced, Hans Albert’s relationship with his father became more than strained. The son accused the great scientist of putting Milev in an extremely difficult financial situation, providing her with the use of only percent of the Nobel Prize.
The disagreements between son and father became even deeper after the great scientist opposed the marriage of Hans to Fred Knecht. The girl was three years older than the guy. In addition, according to Einstein Sr., there was nothing attractive about her. The scientist cursed such a union, accusing Frida of cunning and persecuting his son. After unsuccessful attempts to quarrel the young, Albert Einstein began to beg them not to have children, so as not to complicate, in his opinion, the inevitable divorce.
Reconciliation between father and son did not occur even during their life in the United States. They were always apart. After the death of the great learned son, almost nothing was left in the inheritance.
Despite a quarrel with his father, in 1927, Hans Albert Einstein still married Fried Knecht. His personal life was successful. With this woman he was together until her death in 1958. Ovdovev, he married again. His wife was Elizabeth Roboz.
Hans and Frida had three children of their own. However, only one of them survived to adulthood. Bernhard Caesar Einstein (07/10/1930 - 09/30/2008) was a physical engineer. The couple also had an adopted daughter Evelyn. She died in 2011 in extreme poverty.
Hans Albert was an avid sailor. Often with colleagues and his family, he went on excursions to San Francisco. The son of the great scientist was fond of photography. He also gave his scientific lectures using his own slide show. Like his father, Hans loved music and knew how to play the flute and piano. This is mentioned on his tombstone.