The Life of Albert Einstein: Short Animated Biography for Kids

Imagine that you are a ray of light. How long would it take you to reach the earth from the sun? Many times these questions seem strange but I used to ask them very often. I am one of the most famous scientists and I managed to change everyone's conception of the universe and the nature of time. My name is Albert Einstein and this is my story. I was born on March 14, 1879 in Ulm, Germany, shortly before Thomas Edison discovered the light bulb. When I was one year old, we moved to Munich where my father, brother and uncle set up a factory to make electrical equipment. Until the age of three, I didn't want to say a word despite my parents' futile attempts and they began to think I had a mental illness. In those years, no one would have thought that I would become a great genius. My mother, Pauline, was not interested in electricity, but she helped me be patient and taught me to play the violin. Music has become an inseparable ally for me, helping me think. At the age of five I got sick and had to stay in bed for a while. My father gave me a gift that fascinated me. I received a compass that charmed me a lot and inspired my curiosity to explore the mysteries of the world around me. At school, I was a very good student, loving math, but the teachers categorized me as weak in this subject. The truth is that I did not understand their way to teach. I liked to ask all kinds of questions, which was forbidden. It was impossible for me to learn anything without asking. I liked mathematics so much that at the age of twelve, I learned Euclidean geometry on my own. In 1894, my father's company went bankrupt and my family was forced to move to Milan, Italy. I stayed in Munich to finish my studies at Leupold Gymnasium and then I joined my parents. In 1896 I enrolled at the Polytechnic School in Zurich, Switzerland but I was not very attracted to their teaching methods so I spent most of my time learning physics on my own and playing my beloved violin. After graduating, I was unable to find a job at the university, although I would have liked to. When they were asked about me, my former teachers did not have a good opinion. Ask all kinds of questions. If he is not convinced after receiving an explanation, he begins to debate it instead of accepting it. The only job I found was at the Barna Patent Office. I was accepted the last, but it was a perfect job for me, because I was doing what I liked, plus I was paid for it. My job was to evaluate patent applications for electromagnetic devices. In my free time I meditated on the transmission of electrical signals and electromechanical synchronization, things that had aroused my interest for several years. On January 6, 1903, I married Mileva Maric. I had three children, a girl, Liesel and two boys, Hans Albert and Edward. The year 1905 is called the miraculous year. This year my calculations started to work. For example, we have noticed that time and space are not always equal. If we travel at a very high speed, time passes harder. I discovered that nothing can exceed the speed of light, which is 300,000 km per second. Thus was born the theory of restricted relativity. I soon became a teacher in Berlin, but my habit of asking questions did not disappear. I was going to understand the force of gravity. Due to these forces, objects fall to earth, the planets revolve around the sun and the moon around the earth. After working on this issue for 8 years, in 1915 I presented the conclusion of my research. To confirm my theory, an experiment was organized in 1919. The purpose of the experiment was to show that when there is a solar eclipse, the light of a star will deflect it. The experiment proved to be a success and it was shown that light did not travel in a straight line. From here was born the formula E equals mc2. This equation expresses the immense amount of energy hidden in a body that can be released both by the fission process and by nuclear fusion, processes that underlie the operation of the atomic bomb. I started to be invited to give lectures at international meetings and so I quickly advanced in the academic world. In 1921, I received the Nobel Prize in Physics, but not for the theory of relativity but for my creation on the photoelectric effect. Because Jews were not tolerated at the time, I was given this prize with great difficulty. A few years later, Adolf Hitler, who hated the Jews, came to the leadership of Germany and decided that they were guilty of all the evils that were happening. That's why I had to flee to the United States, where I became a physics teacher at Princeton. I never returned to Germany, and in 1940 I became an American citizen. Hitler was getting stronger, so I agreed to build an atomic bomb by the US government, but after the terrible explosions in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I was very sorry and I chose as in all the days I had left, to defend peace. In the last period of my life I retired from public life and limited myself to long walks with close friends with whom I discussed deep topics on physics, religion and politics. My life ended at the age of 76, on April 18, 1955. My name is Albert Einstein and this is my story.