Albert Einstein

At 16 he wondered what it would be like to ride on a beam of light.

Who was Albert Einstein?

Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, Germany, in 1879. He became the most famous scientist of the twentieth century. He asked questions about light, time, space, and gravity that nobody had thought to ask, and his answers changed how we understand the whole universe. His ideas help explain how the Sun shines, why GPS maps work, and what happens near a black hole.

The compass

When Albert was about five years old and sick in bed, his father gave him a compass to play with. The needle always swung to point north, no matter how he turned it. Something invisible was pushing it. Albert said later that he never forgot that feeling of wonder. His mother made him take violin lessons, which he hated at first and loved later. All his life, when he was stuck on a problem, he would play Mozart until the answer came.

A beam of light

When Albert was 16, he asked himself a strange question: what would it look like if you could ride alongside a beam of light? He thought about that question for about ten years. After college he could not find a teaching job, so he went to work in a patent office in Bern, Switzerland, checking other people's inventions. In his spare time he worked on his own ideas. In 1905, while still a patent clerk, he published several papers that changed physics forever.

Clocks, time, and E = mc²

One of those 1905 papers said that time does not tick the same for everyone. If something moves very, very fast, its clock runs a tiny bit slower. That sounds impossible, but scientists have tested it by flying atomic clocks on airplanes, and Einstein was right. Another paper contained the most famous equation in the world: E = mc². It means that a tiny amount of matter holds a huge amount of energy. That is why the Sun can shine for billions of years.

Space can bend

In 1915 Einstein shared an even bigger idea. Heavy objects like the Sun bend the space around them, and that bending is what we feel as gravity. He predicted that starlight passing near the Sun would bend too. In 1919, during a solar eclipse, scientists measured it. The starlight bent exactly as he said. Overnight, Einstein became famous around the world. In 1921 he won the Nobel Prize in Physics.

What we kept

Einstein was Jewish, and in 1933 Germany's new leaders began treating Jewish people cruelly. He left Germany for good and moved to Princeton, New Jersey, where he walked to work in a baggy sweater and, often, no socks. He became an American citizen in 1940. He spoke out for peace and for the fair treatment of all people, and he answered letters from children who wrote to him with questions. He died in 1955. He liked to say he had no special talent, only that he was passionately curious.

What's in the book

The 18 coloring scenes follow his life in order: The Compass, The Violin, A Beam of Light, The Patent Office, Clocks and Time, A Famous Idea, The Bicycle, Space Can Bend, Papers and Chalk, Family Time, Leaving Home, Princeton Walk, Letters to Friends, Words for Peace, Stay Curious, What We Kept.

• A pronunciation page
• A map of Einstein's journey from Germany to America
• A "Stay Curious" page that asks kids their own big question
• A "What We Kept" page and certificate