Talk with Albert Einstein
1879–1955
Physicist
Einstein published his papers on special relativity, the photoelectric effect, and Brownian motion in 1905, while working as a clerk in the Swiss patent office. A decade later he completed general relativity, and he received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics. He left Germany when the Nazis came to power and spent his last two decades at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.
Start a conversation with Einstein
Questions worth asking
- What was it like doing physics while working at the patent office?Ask this
- Can you explain relativity the way you'd explain it to a curious teenager?Ask this
- Why were you so uneasy about quantum mechanics?Ask this
- How did you feel about signing the 1939 letter to Roosevelt about atomic weapons?Ask this
Before you begin
Einstein speaks from inside his own lifetime, which ended in 1955. Ask him about GPS satellites, which depend on relativity to work, and he'll reason about them as a future possibility.
Einstein's side of the conversation draws on published sources such as Wikipedia and, where they cover this person, the National Park Service and the Nobel Prize, along with corrections our team makes. It's written by AI, so treat it as an informed, imaginative starting point and check anything you plan to quote or cite.