The Albert Einstein Professorship in Science is an

endowed A financial endowment is a legal structure for managing, and in many cases indefinitely perpetuating, a pool of financial, real estate, or other investments for a specific purpose according to the will of its founders and donors. Endowments are of ...

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...

ship in physics established at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

in 1974 by a donation from the International Business Machine Corporation (IBM).

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...

was never on the faculty of

, although in the early 1930s he did occupy an office in Princeton University's mathematics building (the old Fine Hall), while he was waiting for the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States, is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent schola ...

to be built. Einstein was given a corner office in the old Fine Hall, which served as the temporary headquarters of the Institute for Advanced Study. Princeton University's Albert Einstein Professorship in Science should not be confused with various other Einstein professorships, such as Stony Brook University's Albert Einstein Professorship of Physics, which was held by C. N. Yang (who is now Professor Emeritus).

History

All three of the holders of the professorship have received numerous awards and honors and have been elected to the

United States National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

( Dicke in 1967,

Peebles Peebles ( gd, Na Pùballan) is a town in the Scottish Borders, Scotland. It was historically a royal burgh and the county town of Peeblesshire. According to the 2011 census, the population was 8,376 and the estimated population in June 2018 wa ...

in 1988, and Steinhardt{{cite web, title=Paul J. Steinhardt, website=Princeton Physics, Princeton University, url=https://phy.princeton.edu/people/paul-j-steinhardt in 1998). Peebles won the

Nobel Prize in Physics ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , alt = A golden medallion with an embossed image of a bearded man facing left in profile. To the left of the man is the text "ALFR•" then "NOBEL", and on the right, the text (smaller) "NAT•" then " ...

in 2019.

Recipients

Holders of the Albert Einstein Professorship have been: * Robert H. Dicke (1975–1984) *

P. J. E. Peebles Phillip James Edwin Peebles (born April 25, 1935) is a Canadians, Canadian-Americans, American astrophysicist, astronomer, and theoretical physical cosmology, cosmologist who is currently the Albert Einstein Professor in Science, Emeritus, at ...

(1984–2000) * Paul J. Steinhardt (2000–present)

References

Professorships in physics Professorships at Princeton University 1974 establishments in New Jersey