In 1879, Albert Einstein was born in a Jewish family in Ulm, which is an old city in the Southwestern Germany. His father owns an electronic accessories shop. His mother was an eminent pianist. In 1880, Einstein moved to Munich with his family, and his childhood was spent there. It seemed that he grew up rather slowly. He could not speak until three and was regarded as a dull boy. When he was in secondary school, some teachers even thought that he would not achieve much in the future. When he was six, his mother taught him violin. He performed on stage when he was only fourteen. Violin had always been with him throughout his life.

When Einstein was ten, he entered Munich Church Secondary School, though he learned primarily from family and self-study. Although he did well in mathematics, he was below average in other subjects and hence was dismissed from school in 1894. In the same year, he left Germany. In 1895, he applied for admission to Swiss National Polytechnic in Zurich but was rejected. Thus he had to study in another secondary school. In the following year, he was admitted by the Education Department at Swiss National Polytechnic to study physics. In the four years of study, he spent little time on coursework but self-studied books written by prominent figures. Although he rarely attended lectures, he still managed to get a pass by studying his classmates' notes.

Einstein graduated in 1900. Since his academic result was in no way outstanding, he could not find a teaching position. In 1902, he secured a job as an examiner in a Swiss patent office in Bern. He used his spare time to study theoretical physics by himself. Within the year of 1905, Einstein, at the age of twenty-six, altogether published four dissertations that were the most innovative papers in physics. He earned a doctorate from the University of Zurich for the thesis "On a new determination of molecular dimensions" (about Brownian motion). Moreover, he won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921 for his paper, "On a heuristic viewpoint concerning the production and transformation of light" (about photoelectric effect). The remaining two papers established the theory of special relativity, which is regarded as the most important contribution to physics by Einstein.

In 1913, the Prussian Academy of Sciences invited him to return to Germany and offered him a research position. In 1914, he was offered the directorship of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Physics in Berlin and was appointed professor in the University of Berlin. This teaching position gave him financial support and he therefore could spend all his time in research. In 1916, Einstein published "The Foundation of the General Theory of Relativity", which is the first complete article on general relativity and is also a conclusion of the work. In 1933, he was oppressed by the Nazis and therefore moved to the United States. He was appointed professor in the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He became a citizen of the United States in 1940. Einstein died of sickness in Princeton in 1955.