Albert Einstein created his most famous theory amid personal strife, political tension and a scientific rivalry that almost cost him the glory of his discovery

By Walter Isaacson

The general theory of relativity began with a sudden thought. It was late 1907, two years after the “miracle year” in which Albert Einstein had produced his special theory of relativity and his theory of light quanta, but he was still an examiner in the Swiss patent office. The physics world had not yet caught up with his genius. While sitting in his office in Bern, a thought “startled” him, he recalled: “If a person falls freely, he will not feel his own weight.” He would later call it “the happiest thought in my life.”

The tale of the falling man has become an iconic one, and in some accounts it actually involves a painter who fell from the roof of an apartment building near the patent office. Like other great tales of gravitational discovery—Galileo dropping objects from the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the apple falling on Isaac Newton's head—it was embellished in popular lore. Despite Einstein's propensity to focus on science rather than the “merely personal,” even he was not likely to watch a real human plunging off a roof and think of gravitational theory, much less call it the happiest thought in his life.

Disponível em: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-einstein-discovered-general-relativity-amid-war-divorce-and-rivalry/. Acessoem 29/07/15.INGLÊS

Match dates and facts.

A.1905

B. Late 1907

(   ) Theory of light quanta.

(   ) Einstein as an examiner in the Swiss patent office.

(   ) General theory of relativity.

(    ) Miracle year.

(    ) Special theory of relativity.