• 1(1879–1955), German-born American theoretical physicist, founder of the special and general theories of relativity.

  1. 1.1as noun an Einstein A genius.
     you won't have to be an Einstein to use it

     Example sentencesExamples

     • Dachshunds are not known as the Einsteins of the dog world.
     • This is the nurture we want for our seedling Einsteins.
     • They are nobodies who make that snobby clique from high school look like Einsteins.
     • What is going to happen to the Einsteins of today?
     • Now these same Einsteins are writing convert letters to the papers.
     • An academy to discover the Einsteins of tomorrow has opened its doors in Bolton.
     • The obsession with boosting students' employability - often at the expense of their intellectual development - clearly doesn't bode well for the creation of future academics, poets, historians or Einsteins.
     • As Simon was fond of saying, there are potential new Einsteins, Mozarts, and Michelangelos being born every day in every country.
     • The politically correct explanation for the dearth of female Newtons and Einsteins is that female geniuses have been ‘oppressed’ by the usual conspiracy of white males, and by the very institution of civilization itself.
     • And while your family may not emerge as would-be Einsteins, you should come away knowing a thing or two more about basic principles of science.
     • The resource centre also has a careers guidance section which provides information to aspiring Einsteins.
     • Can't he write to the 90 percent, instead of the 10 percent Einsteins?
     • ‘Peer’ review is very unlikely to be peer-review for the Einsteins of the world.
     • ‘Millionaires,’ Brooks writes of his favorite kind of people, ‘are not exactly Einsteins.’
     • A highly learned and well-read man, he was one of those eccentric geniuses, the cracked Einsteins, who come across as being totally and utterly insane.
     • But people often ask the question: do I have to be an Einstein to become a physicist?
     • And, over the years, culinary Einsteins have come up with a whole range of off-the-wall food substitutes and techniques to tart up dishes so nobody's any the wiser.
     • We don't need a lot of Einsteins to do this; we need a lot of engineers working diligently to make little improvements and then test them out in the marketplace.

     Synonyms

     intelligent person, learned person, highbrow, academic, bookworm, bookish person, man of letters, woman of letters, bluestocking, thinker, brain, scholar, sage

Einstein is often regarded as the greatest scientist of the 20th century. In 1905 he published his special theory of relativity and in 1915 he succeeded in incorporating gravitation in his general theory of relativity, which was vindicated when one of its predictions was observed during the solar eclipse of 1919. However, Einstein searched without success for a unified field theory embracing electromagnetism, gravitation, relativity, and quantum mechanics. He influenced the decision to build an atom bomb but after the war he spoke out passionately against nuclear weapons