Einstein how many patents

Many historians speculate that the numerous patents Einstein analysed, relating to the electro-mechanical synchronisation of time, triggered his famously powerful thought experiments in special relativity. The subject of one of the Annus Mirabilis papers, special relativity is based on the notion of time being relative to the motion of an observer, assuming constant speed of light.

One particularly important thought experiment for this paper was about a moving magnet and a conductor. For this, it was vital to understand electromagnetic induction—a phenomenon that frequently appeared in his patents.

Armed with a detailed knowledge of the patent process see figure , Einstein spent his fragments of spare time inventing, and filed over 50 patents during his life. Several interesting titles and illustrations come up, from Light-intensity self-adjusting camera to Refrigeration.

There is even a Design for a blouse, which has two methods of buttoning—who knew fashion and physics could intersect? Yet as well as the joy of inventing, Einstein had some more practical motivations: by selling the rights for the patents to companies such as Electrolux, he made extra money to fund his research. This patent had its origins in tragedy, when a failed refrigerator seal led to a Berlin family being killed by toxic fumes.

The job at the Federal Office for Intellectual Property — Einstein referred to it tongue-in-cheek as his "cobbler's trade" — turned out to be stroke of good fortune because it was excellently paid CHF per year and was undemanding for his nimble intelligence. He spoke of the Federal Office for Intellectual Property as "that worldly cloister where I hatched my most beautiful ideas".

With his courteousness and modesty and his humorous approach to life, Einstein was very well liked. On 1 April , he was promoted to technical expert — class II. He managed his time exactly: eight hours of work, eight hours of «allotria» miscellaneous and scientific work, and eight hours of sleep which he often used instead for writing his manuscripts. Much to the Federal Office for Intellectual Property's regret, he left in the autumn of to take over the chair in theoretical physics at the University of Zurich.

We are interested in your opinion! In he invented a new airplane gyrocompass. To understand Einstein -- to follow his clean radical thinking in so many areas -- we have to go back to that Swiss patent office. We have to remember his family's factory. Einstein knew what other physicists don't like to admit. It is that science is only great when it is invention. Einstein once wrote about the philosopher Ernst Mach: "Mach's weakness [was that he thought] theories So we go back to read Einstein's paper on special relativity.

It dances with references to the same electric machine elements he looked at so critically in his patent office. His mental armory was well stocked with engineering tools -- with spatial concepts and machine elements. Einstein was born into the new industrial world of the late 19th century. It was a world shaped by a creative vision that was visual, machine-based, and inventive.

He invented a new physics that finally left that world behind. But Einstein himself never forgot his debt to that world or to that vision.