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- NEW
YORK (Reuters) - Albert
Einstein, whose
theories on space, time and matter helped unravel the secrets
of the
atom and of the universe, was chosen as ``Person of the Century''
by
Time magazine on Sunday.
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- A man whose very name is synonymous with scientific
genius,
Einstein has come to represent more than any other person the
flowering
of 20th century scientific thought that set the stage for the
age of technology.
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- ``The world has changed far more in the past hundred
years than
in any other century in history. The reason is not political
or
economic, but technological -- technologies that flowed directly from
advances in basic science,'' wrote theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking
in a Time essay explaining Einstein's significance. ``Clearly, no
scientist
better represents those advances that Albert
Einstein.''
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- Time also chose as runners-up President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt, to represent the triumph of freedom and democracy over fascism
and communism, and Mahatma Gandhi, as an icon for a century when civil
and human rights became a crucial factor in global politics.
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- ``What we saw was
Franklin Roosevelt embodying the great
(20th century) theme of
freedom's fight against totalitarianism, Gandhi
personifying the great
theme of individuals struggling for their rights,
and Einstein being
both a great genius and a great symbol of a scientific
revolution that
brought with it amazing technological advances that helped
expand the
growth of freedom,'' said Time managing editor Walter Isaacson.
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- Einstein was born in
Ulm, Germany in 1879.
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- ``My life is a simple thing that would interest no one.
It is a known fact that I was born and that is all that is necessary,''
Einstein once modestly said.
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- In his early years, Einstein did not show the promise
of what he was to become. He was slow to learn to speak and did not do
well in elementary school. He could not stomach organized learning and
loathed taking exams.
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- After he graduated from the Swiss Federal Institute of
Technology in 1900 with a teaching degree in mathematics and physics he
was unable to find work until landing a job in 1902 at the Swiss patent
office in Bern.
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- Intricate Example Of Human
Imagination
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- Three years later, however, he was to publish a theory
which stands as one of the most intricate examples of human imagination
in history.
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- In his ``special theory of relativity'', Einstein described
how
the only constant in the universe is the speed of light. Everything
else -- mass, weight, space, even time itself -- is compressed as it
approaches
the speed of light, because energy equals mass times the
speed of light
squared.
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- The idea stood the ancient Newtonian and Galilean
concept
of the universe on its head and it had a profound and startling
influence
on society and culture.
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- ``Indirectly, relativity paved
the way for a new relativism
in morality, arts and politics,'' Isaacson
wrote in an essay explaining
Time's choices. ``There was less faith in
absolutes, not only of time and
space but also of truth and
morality.''
-
- Einstein's famous theorem was also the seed that led
to the
development of atomic energy and weapons.
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- Theory Of
Relativity
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- To solve some of the problems with his special theory
of relativity, Einstein in 1916 published his other great work, the
``general
theory of relativity,'' which states that to account for
gravity, time
and space must be curved around massive objects like
stars, planets or
black holes.
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- Einstein earned the Nobel Prize
in Physics in 1921 for
his work.
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- In 1939, six years after he
fled European fascism and
settled at Princeton University, Einstein, an
avowed pacifist, signed a
letter to President Roosevelt urging the
United States to develop an atomic
bomb before Nazi Germany.
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- Roosevelt heeded the
advice and formed the ``Manhattan
Project'' which secretly developed
the first atomic weapon.
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- Einstein did not work on the project.
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- ``Since I do not
foresee that atomic energy is to be
a great boon for a long time, I
have to say that for the present it is
a menace. Perhaps it is well
that it should be. It may intimidate the human
race into bringing order
into its international affairs, which without
the pressure of fear, it
would not do,'' he once said.
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- Einstein died in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1955.
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- The Time issue, which
also includes a piece by President
Clinton on living with Roosevelt's
legacy and an article by Nelson Mandela
on how he was influenced by
Gandhi's philosophy, is due on newsstands on
Monday.
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- Last week, Time chose
Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos as
its Man of the Year.
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