Albert Einstein

Light comes in packets, and gravity bends space and time (1905-1915)

• NobelPrize.org lists photodiodes for fiber optics, solar cells and imaging as uses of his photoelectric law, and the 2009 physics prize announcement says the CCD camera sensor relies on it.^[4],[7]
• His 1916 prediction that light passing through matter can stimulate the emission of more light is the principle at the heart of the laser.^[16]
• GPS needs his equations: relativity makes satellite clocks run fast by about 38 microseconds a day, enough to throw positions off by about 10 kilometers a day if left uncorrected.^{[17],[33],[43]}
• Two later Nobel Prizes, in 2001 and 2017, went to scientists who finally observed things he predicted: Bose-Einstein condensates and gravitational waves.^[8],[9]
• At his request, 51 prominent Americans set up a New York branch of his relief association in July 1933 to aid people suffering under Hitler's regime; the International Rescue Committee grew from it.^[30]

Einstein changed how people understand light, matter, space, time and gravity, and much of that value cannot be counted: modern cosmology, black-hole astronomy and gravitational-wave observatories all rest on his equations. We record only narrow, conservative numbers. For GPS, which needs relativity corrections to stay accurate, we credit him 2% of the measured benefit to US industry, because atomic clocks, satellites, computing and system engineering were equally essential. For the quantum-based electronics economy we credit him 1%, shared with the many other founders of quantum theory. For solar power, which the Nobel Prize website lists as an application of his photoelectric law, we credit him 1% of the carbon emissions it has avoided, because the photovoltaic effect was observed long before him and practical solar cells took decades of later invention. On the harm side, we attribute 1% of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki deaths to him for signing the 1939 letter to Roosevelt; he did no weapons work and later regretted the letter. His rescue and refugee work has no credible number.

Fundamental scienceTechnologyEconomyEnvironmentPeaceHuman rights

Each number is the laureate’s credited share of a real-world outcome, cumulative to 2025. The whole outcome, the share of credit, and the reasoning are shown so you can check the arithmetic. Outcomes shared with other laureates are counted once on the impact page.

• Low confidenceRippleModeledTechnology

  Economic benefits of GPS to US private industry, which depends on relativity corrections

  $64–128

  billion in economic value, credited share

  That is 2% of $3.2–6.4 trillion in economic value since 1984.

  How this number was built

  RTI International's 2019 study for NIST puts US private-sector GPS benefits for 1984-2017 at about $1.4 trillion, range $903 billion-$1.8 trillion (2017 dollars). Its Figure ES-1 shows about $300 billion of benefit in 2017 alone; scaling by the study's own range gives $200B-$400B a year. For 2018-2025 we hold that rate flat, with no further growth: 8 x $200B = $1.6T (low) and 8 x $400B = $3.2T (high). Totals $2.50T-$5.00T in 2017 dollars; BLS CPI-U (313.689 / 245.120 = 1.28) gives about $3.2T-$6.4T in 2024 dollars. Other countries excluded. Share 0.02: Ashby shows GPS clocks would drift unacceptably without relativistic corrections, but atomic clocks, satellites, signal design and computing were equally essential.^{[17],[33],[34],[35],[43]}

  Sources: National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST); US Bureau of Labor Statistics; Living Reviews in Relativity, via PubMed Central; American Institute of Physics, Center for History of Physics; Ohio State University, Department of Astronomy

• Low confidenceRippleModeledEconomy

  Cumulative world semiconductor sales, a proxy for the quantum-based electronics economy

  $142–160

  billion in economic value, credited share

  That is 1% of $14.2–16 trillion in economic value since 1955.

  How this number was built

  Same whole-outcome range as the Niels Bohr profile. WSTS worldwide semiconductor billings for 1986-2025 sum to $10.28 trillion nominal, about $14.2 trillion in 2024 dollars using BLS CPI-U annual averages (low). High ($16T): $14.2T + rough, unsourced allowances of ~$0.5T for pre-1986 chip sales and ~$1T for lasers and other quantum devices outside WSTS = ~$15.7T, rounded up. NIST notes that quantum science underpins lasers and transistors. Share 0.01: Einstein supplied founding ideas (light quanta in 1905, quantum heat of solids, stimulated emission in 1916), but quantum theory had many authors, and materials science and engineering were equally essential.^{[3],[16],[35],[36],[37]}

  Sources: World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS); US Bureau of Labor Statistics; National Institute of Standards and Technology (Taking Measure blog); American Institute of Physics, Center for History of Physics; NobelPrize.org

• Low confidenceRippleModeledEnvironment

  CO2 emissions avoided by solar photovoltaic electricity

  44.5–69.9

  million t CO₂e avoided, credited share

  That is 1% of 4.5–7 billion t CO₂e of emissions avoided since 1983.

  How this number was built

  Ember data (via Our World in Data) give cumulative world solar generation for 1983-2025 of about 12,713 TWh, including 2,778 TWh in 2025. Ember puts the world's average power-sector intensity at 473 gCO2/kWh in 2024 (peak 555 in 2007). Assuming each solar MWh displaced 0.35-0.55 tCO2, bracketing that average to allow for solar's own life-cycle emissions and uncertainty about what it replaced: 12,713 TWh x 0.35 = 4.45 Gt (low); x 0.55 = 6.99 Gt (high). Share 0.01: the Nobel Foundation lists solar cells as an application of his photoelectric law, but the photovoltaic effect was seen in 1839 and the first practical silicon cell (1954) needed semiconductor physics and decades of engineering.^{[4],[38],[39],[40],[42]}

  Sources: Our World in Data; Ember; Ember; NobelPrize.org; US Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy

• HarmMedium confidenceRippleSourced totalPeace

  Deaths from the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki within two to four months

  1,500–2,460

  deaths caused, credited share

  That is 1% of 150,000–246,000 deaths caused since 1945.

  How this number was built

  The Radiation Effects Research Foundation estimates acute deaths within two to four months at 90,000-166,000 in Hiroshima and 60,000-80,000 in Nagasaki, so 150,000-246,000 in total (the same range as the Niels Bohr profile; later cancer deaths excluded). Share 0.01: Einstein signed the August 1939 letter, drafted with Szilard, that prompted Roosevelt's uranium committee, plus a second letter in 1940, but he did no bomb work and was denied clearance, and other pressures such as the British MAUD report also drove the project. The bomb's builders and the decision to use it carry nearly all the responsibility.^{[20],[31],[32]}

  Sources: Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF); Atomic Heritage Foundation, National Museum of Nuclear Science & History; American Institute of Physics, Center for History of Physics

• Major

  Signed the 1939 letter that helped launch the US atomic bomb project

  In August 1939 Einstein signed a letter, drafted with Leo Szilard, warning President Roosevelt that Germany might build uranium bombs; a second letter followed in 1940. Roosevelt set up a uranium committee, a first step toward the Manhattan Project. Einstein did no weapons work. The bombs used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed an estimated 150,000 to 246,000 people within two to four months. He later said that, had he known Germany would fail to build a bomb, he would not have taken any part.^{[20],[31],[32],[44]}

• Moderate

  Racist remarks in his private travel diaries

  Diaries he kept on a 1922-23 trip to Asia, Palestine and Spain, published by Princeton University Press in 2018, include xenophobic and racist remarks, especially about Chinese people. Their editor, Ze'ev Rosenkranz of the Einstein Papers Project, said they clash with Einstein's public image as a humanitarian. In later life Einstein publicly attacked racial prejudice in the United States.^[21],[41]

• 1920

  Antisemitic attack

  On 24 August 1920 a far-right activist, Paul Weyland, staged a rally against relativity at Berlin's Philharmonic hall, where antisemitic pamphlets and swastika pins were handed out. Einstein responded that the real grievance was that he was Jewish and liberal.^[25],[26]

• —

  Discrimination

  Nobel laureates Philipp Lenard and Johannes Stark attacked relativity on racial grounds and promoted an 'Aryan physics' to replace what they called Jewish physics; Nazi-aligned physicists kept up the campaign against his theory.^[18],[26]

• 1922

  Persecution

  After ultra-nationalists assassinated Walther Rathenau, Germany's Jewish foreign minister and a man Einstein knew well, in June 1922, Einstein declined to speak at a scientific meeting in Leipzig because he feared for his life.^[26]

• 1933

  Persecution

  After Hitler took power, Nazi officials denounced Einstein, the Gestapo searched the family's Berlin apartment several times, and troopers searched and later seized his country house at Caputh. His Berlin bank account and the rest of his German property were confiscated.^[24],[25]

• 1933

  Exile

  On 28 March 1933 he surrendered his German passport in Belgium and resigned from the Prussian Academy of Sciences. The Nazi government put him on its first list of people whose citizenship was revoked, and he never returned to Germany.^{[18],[19],[24]}

• 1933

  Censorship

  On 10 May 1933 his book on relativity was among works by more than 350 authors banned or burned by Nazi students in the Action against the Un-German Spirit.^[26],[27]

• 1933

  Discrimination

  The Nazis' April 1933 civil-service law began removing Jews and political opponents from government posts, including university jobs. It at first exempted World War I veterans, officials serving since 1914, and those whose father or son died in the war; the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 ended the veterans' exemption.^{[24],[26],[28]}

Einstein was born to Hermann Einstein and Pauline Koch, a middle-class German Jewish family he later called entirely irreligious. At nine he became intensely observant, keeping the Sabbath and kosher laws, but by 12 he had lost interest in religion and refused a bar mitzvah. By his own account, only after arriving in Berlin in 1914, at 35, did he grasp that Jews shared a common destiny. From 1919 he supported Zionism, and he helped found the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He felt Jewish while staying apart from religious practice. He backed a Jewish homeland in Palestine that would protect Arab rights, declined Israel's presidency in 1952, and left his papers to the Hebrew University.^{[4],[10],[11],[18],[21],[22],[23]}

1. March 14, 1879

   Born in Ulm, Germany, to Hermann Einstein and Pauline Koch, a middle-class Jewish family; the family soon moves to Munich.^{[1],[2],[4],[11]}

2. 1896

   After failing the entrance exam in 1895 and finishing school in Aarau, enters the Swiss Federal Polytechnic in Zurich to train as a physics and mathematics teacher.^[2],[4],[12]

3. June 1902

   After two years of odd jobs, wins a post as a technical expert, third class, at the Swiss patent office in Bern.^[10],[29]

4. 1905

   Publishes four landmark papers, on light quanta, Brownian motion, special relativity and E=mc², and earns his doctorate.^{[2],[4],[10],[13]}

5. 1914

   Moves to Berlin for a research post and a professorship at the University of Berlin; in 1917 he becomes the first director of the new Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics.^{[2],[10],[45]}

6. 1915

   Completes the general theory of relativity, which describes gravity as matter warping space and time.^[4],[14]

7. 1919

   British eclipse expeditions confirm that the sun's gravity bends starlight as he predicted, making him world famous.^[10],[15]

8. April 2, 1921

   Arrives in New York with Chaim Weizmann on a fundraising tour for the planned Hebrew University of Jerusalem.^{[10],[22],[23]}

9. November 9, 1922

   Named winner of the reserved 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics while on a voyage to Japan, 12 years after his first nomination; his Nobel lecture follows in July 1923.^{[1],[3],[4],[5],[6],[41]}

10. March 28, 1933

    With the Nazis in power, surrenders his German passport in Belgium and resigns from the Prussian Academy; the regime seizes his property.^[24],[25]

11. October 17, 1933

    Arrives in the United States to join the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton; he never returns to Germany.^[18],[25]

12. August 2, 1939

    Signs the letter, drafted with Leo Szilard, warning President Roosevelt that Nazi Germany might build atomic bombs.^{[20],[31],[44]}

13. 1952

    Declines an offer to become the second president of Israel.^{[2],[10],[21]}

14. April 18, 1955

    Dies in Princeton, New Jersey, leaving an unfinished draft of a speech for the anniversary of Israel's independence.^[1],[21]

1. 1.Albert Einstein - Facts · NobelPrize.org (Nobel Prize Outreach)
2. 2.Albert Einstein - Biographical · NobelPrize.org (from Nobel Lectures, Physics 1901-1921, Elsevier, 1967), 1967
3. 3.The Nobel Prize in Physics 1921 - Presentation Speech by S. Arrhenius · NobelPrize.org, 1922
4. 4.Albert Einstein - Questions and answers · NobelPrize.org, 2008
5. 5.Albert Einstein - Nominations · NobelPrize.org
6. 6.Albert Einstein - Nobel Lecture: Fundamental ideas and problems of the theory of relativity (Gothenburg, 11 July 1923) · NobelPrize.org, 1923
7. 7.The Nobel Prize in Physics 2009 - Press release · NobelPrize.org (Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences), 2009
8. 8.The Nobel Prize in Physics 2001 - Press release · NobelPrize.org (Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences), 2001
9. 9.The Nobel Prize in Physics 2017 - Press release · NobelPrize.org (Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences), 2017
10. 10.Albert Einstein in Brief (Einstein: Image and Impact exhibit) · American Institute of Physics, Center for History of Physics
11. 11.Formative Years I (Einstein: Image and Impact exhibit) · American Institute of Physics, Center for History of Physics
12. 12.Formative Years II (Einstein: Image and Impact exhibit) · American Institute of Physics, Center for History of Physics
13. 13.Great Works (Einstein: Image and Impact exhibit) · American Institute of Physics, Center for History of Physics
14. 14.Great Works II (Einstein: Image and Impact exhibit) · American Institute of Physics, Center for History of Physics
15. 15.World Fame I (Einstein: Image and Impact exhibit) · American Institute of Physics, Center for History of Physics
16. 16.The Quantum and the Cosmos I (Einstein: Image and Impact exhibit) · American Institute of Physics, Center for History of Physics
17. 17.The Quantum and the Cosmos II (Einstein: Image and Impact exhibit) · American Institute of Physics, Center for History of Physics
18. 18.Public Concerns II (Einstein: Image and Impact exhibit) · American Institute of Physics, Center for History of Physics
19. 19.Public Concerns III (Einstein: Image and Impact exhibit) · American Institute of Physics, Center for History of Physics
20. 20.The Nuclear Age I (Einstein: Image and Impact exhibit) · American Institute of Physics, Center for History of Physics
21. 21.The Nuclear Age II (Einstein: Image and Impact exhibit) · American Institute of Physics, Center for History of Physics
22. 22.Einstein's Complicated Relationship to Judaism, by Samuel Graydon · TIME, 2023
23. 23.Prof. Albert Einstein · The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
24. 24.Albert Einstein Quits Germany, Renounces Citizenship (History Unfolded: US Newspapers and the Holocaust) · United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
25. 25.Anti-Semitism Drives Einstein From Berlin to America (Einstein and Yeshiva University) · Yeshiva University Libraries
26. 26.How 2 Pro-Nazi Nobelists Attacked Einstein's "Jewish Science" (excerpt from Serving the Reich by Philip Ball) · Scientific American (University of Chicago Press excerpt), 2015
27. 27.Bambi and the Theory of Relativity: Books on the Nazi Pyre · Jewish Museum Berlin
28. 28.Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service · United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
29. 29.Einstein at the patent office · Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property
30. 30.Albert Einstein and the birth of the International Rescue Committee · International Rescue Committee
31. 31.The Einstein-Szilard Letter - 1939 · Atomic Heritage Foundation, National Museum of Nuclear Science & History
32. 32.Frequently Asked Questions: How many people died as a result of the atomic bombings? · Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF)
33. 33.Relativity in the Global Positioning System, by Neil Ashby (Living Reviews in Relativity 6, 1) · Living Reviews in Relativity, via PubMed Central, 2003
34. 34.Economic Benefits of the Global Positioning System (GPS), final report by RTI International · National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), 2019
35. 35.Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U), series CUUR0000SA0 · US Bureau of Labor Statistics
36. 36.Historical Billings Report (WSTS Blue Book monthly data, 1986 to date) · World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS), 2026
37. 37.A Quantum Leap Forward: How Tiny Particles Can Bring Us Exciting New Tech, by Corey Stambaugh · National Institute of Standards and Technology (Taking Measure blog), 2025
38. 38.Electricity generation from solar power (Ember and Energy Institute data) · Our World in Data, 2026
39. 39.Global Electricity Review 2025 · Ember, 2025
40. 40.Global Electricity Review 2026 · Ember, 2026
41. 41.Albert Einstein's travel diaries from 1920s reveal racist views, "unpleasant" comments · CBS News, 2018
42. 42.The History of Solar · US Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
43. 43.Real-World Relativity: The GPS Navigation System, by Richard W. Pogge · Ohio State University, Department of Astronomy
44. 44.Einstein-Szilard Letter (transcript of the letter to President Roosevelt, 2 August 1939) · Atomic Heritage Foundation, National Museum of Nuclear Science & History, 1939
45. 45.Albert Einstein and the MPI for Physics (Our history) · Max Planck Institute for Physics