Albert Einstein was recognized by Time Magazine as the [most influential] Person of the Twentieth Century. He has been popularly characterized as one or the other of two archetypes: the obsessed scientist or the absent-minded professor. There is some truth to both of these caricatures, especially in his middle and later years, but the most creative time of his life was when he was a young man struggling to support himself and his family.

This course will be devoted to understanding the development of his philosophical, religious, political, and scientific ideas. We will discuss the personal interactions with others that affected the development of those ideas, and provide the necessary foundation to allow non-experts to appreciate the most important of his scientific contributions.