March 14

Albert Einstein (1879)

It was on this date, March 14, 1879, that Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, Württemberg, Germany. He studied mathematics and calculus, beginning around 1891, but failed an examination that would have allowed him to study electrical engineering in Zurich. Einstein renounced German citizenship in 1896 and became a citizen of Switzerland in 1901. After studying in Switzerland, he became a teacher of mathematics and physics.

Einstein took a job at the patent office as a technical expert third class. He finally earned a doctorate from the University of Zurich in 1905 and it was in a paper published that year that Einstein proposed what is today called the special theory of relativity. Later in 1905 Einstein showed how mass and energy were equivalent. One week before his death, in Trenton, New Jersey, on 18 April 1955, Einstein signed a letter to Bertrand Russell in which he agreed that his name should go on a manifesto urging all nations to give up nuclear weapons.

Although accused of being an atheist by none other than William Henry Cardinal O'Connell, archbishop of Boston, Einstein avoided the word, saying instead, in a letter to an admirer, on 24 March 1954, "I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."

On science and prayer, in 1936 Einstein wrote, "Scientific research is based on the idea that everything that takes place is determined by laws of nature, and therefore this holds for the actions of people. For this reason, a research scientist will hardly be inclined to believe that events could be influenced by a prayer, i.e. by a wish addressed to a supernatural Being."

He went on, "...every one who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe — a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble. In this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort, which is indeed quite different from the religiosity of someone more naive."

In answer to Cardinal O'Connell's charge, Dr. Einstein said, "I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings."*

* An interesting quote, purportedly from Einstein, has circulated among religious partisans in a desperate attempt to claim him. The quote is devastatingly debunked by William C. Waterhouse in an eSkeptic article entitled “Did Einstein Praise the Church?” You can read it here or search it at the eSkeptic website.