Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who worked in Switzerland and Berlin before settling in Princeton in 1933. His special and general theories of relativity transformed the understanding of space, time and gravity. Though he helped found quantum theory, he resisted the view that it was complete: with Podolsky and Rosen he argued in 1935 that quantum mechanics leaves out elements of physical reality, a realist objection that shaped later debates about entanglement and locality.

Key ideas

• Simultaneity is relative to a frame of reference; space and time form a single structure.
• Gravity is the curvature of spacetime by mass and energy.
• A complete physical theory should describe an observer-independent reality.
• The EPR argument contends that quantum mechanics, as standardly interpreted, is incomplete.

Major works

• "Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper" (On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies, 1905)
• Über die spezielle und die allgemeine Relativitätstheorie (Relativity: The Special and the General Theory, 1917)
• "Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be Considered Complete?" (with Podolsky and Rosen, 1935)

In the conversation

• Question What did Bell’s theorem actually prove? I keep hearing three different answers Ethan Mercer · 4 replies
• Debate Special relativity has refuted presentism, whatever presentists say Lars Eriksen · 5 replies