EINSTEIN WAS BORN March 14, 1879 in Germany. When he was five, his father, Hermann, showed him a compass. No matter how Einstein turned the compass, the needle always pointed in the same direction. He knew that "something deeply hidden had to be behind things," and he spent the rest of his life trying to figure out what that something was.

After a lot of studying, he developed a theory about how time, space, mass, motion, light and gravity are related to each other. He explained the relationship in an equation, E=mc2, known as "Einstein's Theory of Relativity." He figured this out in 1905 when he was only 26 and spent the rest of his life working on his theory!

Einstein's theory helps explain how much energy you can produce in scientific reactions. An atom is the basic structure of all life and is made up of electrons, protons, and neutrons. Einstein was the first scientist to figure out atoms could release a lot of energy if they were split apart.

The letters in Einstein's equation actually stand for numbers: E stands for energy, m for mass and c for the speed of light. The number 2 means you "square" the speed of light, multiply 186,282 by itself, or 186,282 times 186,282.

The equation means that the amount of energy (E) you can produce by splitting up atoms is equal to (=) the mass of the atom (m) times the speed of light, squared (c2). The amount of energy changes because different atoms have different weights.

This discovery led to the atomic age, which started with the construction of the atom bomb in the 1940s and nuclear weapons after that. Since then, many other peaceful applications have been created, including nuclear power plants for electricity and systems to run ships and submarines.

Energy (E) is created by splitting atoms apart into their electrons, protons, and neutrons. The process of breaking atoms apart to get energy is called nuclear fission.

Mass (m) is the amount of matter in an atom. It is determined by dividing the weight of the atom by speed because of gravity, the force that keeps us from floating away! All atoms have a different mass.

Light (c) travels at 186,282 miles per second. The number 2 in the equation means you "square" the speed of light - multiply 186,282 by itself or 186,282 x 186,282. If you have a calculator, try the problem. Check your answer at the end of this story to see if you got it right!

Also, light from the sun takes a total of 8 minutes and 20 seconds to get to the Earth! How many miles are between the Earth and the Sun if light travels at 186,282 miles per second?

You may have seen a nuclear power plant before. They have very large cooling towers located next to a body of water, because so much heat is produced during a nuclear reaction that a lot of water is needed to cool everything down - just like a radiator in a car!

Nuclear power produces these huge amounts of energy by breaking apart uranium atoms into their electrons, protons and neutrons. This is atomic energy. Uranium is an element, a group of all of the same kind of atoms stuck together.

To make enough electricity to send into your home, the nuclear power plant takes uranium atoms and splits them apart into their electrons, protons, and neutrons. This process is called nuclear fission. It produces a huge amount of energy (E) that can be sent out from the power plant as electricity to homes and businesses.

When atoms split apart, most of them are changed into new material that cannot be used. This is called nuclear waste. While the electricity is sent into your home, the waste is sealed tightly, carried away from the plant and buried in isolated areas of the country.

Nuclear power is made by using uranium. It is found in small amounts in some rocks. Canada, South Africa and the United States produce the most uranium, and in the United States, uranium is found in Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Utah and Wyoming.

Uranium was discovered in 1789 by German chemist Martin Klaproth. He named uranium after the planet Uranus, which had been discovered just eight years earlier.

In the 1700s, uranium was used to color glass. Later, it was used in processing photographs. For these uses, the atoms were not split apart.

But in the 1930s, uranium was found to be a good choice to use for atomic, or nuclear, energy. It is the heaviest natural element, so when you put the mass of the uranium into E=mc2, because the m is larger, you get more energy! The energy given off from splitting a single uranium atom is 220 trillion electronvolts! Splitting one pound of uranium atoms produces as much energy as burning 1,140 tons of coal! A ton weighs 2,000 pounds. So you would need to burn 2,280,000 pounds of coal to get the same energy from one pound of uranium in a nuclear reaction!

A German scientist used uranium to perform the first nuclear fission test in 1938 in Germany, which was then ruled by Adolf Hitler, who started World War II in 1939.

In 1939, Einstein, then living in the United States, told President Franklin D. Roosevelt in a letter that he thought it was possible to make an atom bomb using the same nuclear fission reaction. An atom bomb would produce huge amounts of heat and is very destructive.

Einstein also warned Roosevelt that Germany might be thinking of making an atom bomb. German scientists did know, in fact, that an atom bomb could be made but they were too afraid to tell Hitler. Once he found out about it, Hitler would demand it within a short period of time and the scientists would be unable to meet his deadline. And if they didn't meet his deadline, they could be killed!

Roosevelt agreed to start atomic bomb research under the code name “The Manhattan Project.” The government put ads in various science journals to recruit scientists to work on components of the bomb but very few people had the whole picture.

The project was a success and on Aug. 6 and Aug. 9, 1945, the United States dropped two atom bombs on Japan putting an end to World War II. Harry Truman, now President of the United States after the death of FDR, made the decision to drop the bombs because he thought it would take another 18 months to win the war and many more Americans would be killed.

In the movies, James Bond had all sorts of adventures stopping bad guys from stealing uranium to make atom bombs to blow up the world! The United States government still keeps a close eye on countries that want to obtain uranium to refine it for nuclear weapons.

Einstein was one of the key founders of the atomic age and a key player in American history. His "Theory of Relativity" explained for the first time that energy and matter were not separate but related. He discovered that atoms could be changed into large amounts of useful energy by splitting them apart. Einstein went on to calculate how much energy could be released from atoms so that useful applications of atomic energy could be created.

After living to see the destruction that the atom bombs caused in two cities in Japan to end WWII, Einstein devoted the rest of his life to peaceful uses of his theory. He lived in Princeton, NJ until his death on April 18, 1955.