You must have heard of the formula E = mc2. This is still the most famous scientific formula ever worked out. It remains an important cornerstone of science, and devising it made the scientist Albert Einstein famous.

Before he published the calculations in 1905 that showed why E = mc2, scientists around the world strongly believed that E = ? mc2. Today, a high school physics student can do the calculations and understand what Albert Einstein did to become famous.

Albert Einstein was born into a Jewish family in Germany on March 14, 1879. He started to speak when he was three years old. Young Einstein did not do well at school because he didn’t work hard in the classes that bored him. As a result, many people thought that he was stupid. Eventually he became interested in science and tried to discover a law of physics that would explain how everything in science works.

In 1922, he received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics. Later, he moved to the United States and became a professor at Princeton University. In 1939, Einstein, together with Leo Szilard, a Hungarian American physicist, wrote a letter to US President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, saying that America should develop an atomic bomb before the Germans did. This letter resulted in the development of the atomic bombs that would be dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.

Einstein died in Princeton, New Jersey, on April 18, 1955. In his life, more than 300 scientific works and over 150 nonscientific works of his were published. Most of his ideas are still used by many scientists today. His name, "Einstein," has become synonymous with genius.

你應該聽過E=mc2 這個方程式，這是科學方程式中最著名的一個，也一直是科學的重要基礎。而科學家亞伯特．愛因斯坦也因為發明了這個方程式而成名。

1904 年，在愛因斯坦發表為何用E=mc2 來演算前，全世界的科學家都堅信E=1/2 mc2。如今，隨便一個高中物理科學生都可以做出這個演算，並了解亞伯特．愛因斯坦到底做了什麼而聞名於世。

亞伯特．愛因斯坦在1879 年的3 月14 日出生於德國的猶太家庭。他一直到三歲時才開始講話。年輕時的愛因斯坦在學校表現並不好，因為他對不感興趣的課並不用心。也因此，很多人認為他笨。最後，他開始對科學感興趣，並且試圖找出一種物理定律，可以用來解釋自然科學中所有事物運行方式。

1922 年時，他榮獲了1921 年的諾貝爾物理學獎。之後他搬到美國，成為普林斯頓大學的教授。1939 年，愛因斯坦和一位匈牙利裔的美國物理學家利奧．西拉德（Leo Szilard），一同寫信給當時的美國總統羅斯福，表示美國應該要搶先德國發展出原子彈。這封信導致美國在1945 年8 月，於日本廣島和長崎投下原子彈。

愛因斯坦在1955 年的4 月18 日逝世於紐澤西的普林斯頓。他一生共發表超過300 篇科學著作，及超過150 篇的非科學作品。他的大多數見解，直至今日仍被許多科學家所運用，而他的名字「愛因斯坦」也成為天才的同義詞。