Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955) was a theoretical physicist most famous for proposing the special theory of relativity and the general theory of relatively: theories were largely considered counter-intuitive and which contradicted ideas that had been strongly held and considered well founded for almost two centuries. The special theory suggested that light was always observed to have the same speed (invariance) in a vacuum or in a particular medium, regardless of the speed of the observer (effectively suggesting the principle of relativity of Galileo was only an approximation that work well below light speeds. The general theory suggested that what we experience as gravity can be understood as the effect of mass on the very geometry of space-time.
Einstein was awarded the Novel prize for his work in the photoelectric effect which assumed that for some purposes light had to be understood as if a series of packets (quanta) rather than seen as a wave. Again, this was contrary to common scientific thinking that light was best understood as a wave.
Einstein was famous for having been poor at school and not being good at maths (both vast exaggerations), for having made major contributions to science whilst working as a patent examiner having not been able to obtain a suitable academic position; for having a major role in persuading the U.S. government to develop an atomic bomb during World War 2 (fearing Germany would build its own atomic weapons) , and later working for peace. He was seen as an eccentric (not wearing socks, and having untidy hair). Although originally a German, as a Jew Einstein was subject to the anti-Semitic Nazi policies of the Third Reich and escaped to Norfolk, England, then the U.S.
Einstein was not an orthodox Jew in terms of observance, and is sometimes said to be an atheist, but he seems to have held to a notion of God as an abstract guiding power behind the cosmos and did not reject all religion ("science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind"). He famously questioned the common interpretations of quantum mechanics as suggesting fundamentally the world follows statistical laws, being quoted as arguing"God does not play dice with the Universe".
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