Albert Einstein

From a Swiss patent office, a young clerk with unruly hair revolutionized our understanding of the cosmos. Einstein's 1905 'miracle year' produced special relativity, the photoelectric effect (his Nobel Prize work), and E=mc². A decade later, general relativity revealed gravity as the curvature of spacetime itself. His method was unique: gedankenexperimente, thought experiments, where imagination outpaced any laboratory. He saw himself not as a genius but as 'passionately curious,' believing that 'the important thing is not to stop questioning.' His ideas power GPS satellites, nuclear energy, and the ongoing quest to unify physics.