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l barriers, and as a result, individuals were encouraged, he said, to be more creative, a trait he valued from his own early education.
Einstein joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People NAACP in Princeton, where he campaigned for the civil rights of African Americans. He considered racism America's "worst disease", seeing it as "handed down from one generation to the next". As part of his involvement, he corresponded with civil rights activist W. E. B. Du Bois and was prepared to testify on his behalf during his trial in 1951. When Einstein offered to be a character witness for Du Bois, the judge decided to drop the case.
In 1946, Einstein visited Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, a historically black college, where he was awarded an honorary degree. Lincoln was the first university in the United States to grant college degrees to African Americans; alumni include Langston Hughes and Thurgood Marshall. Einstein gave a speech about racism in America, adding, "I do not intend to
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be quiet about it." A resident of Princeton recalls that Einstein had once paid the college tuition for a black student. Einstein has said "Being a Jew myself, perhaps I can understand and empathize with how black people feel as victims of discrimination".
Personal life
Assisting Zionist causes
Einstein was a figurehead leader in helping establish the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which opened in 1925 and was among its first Board of Governors. Earlier, in 1921, he was asked by the biochemist and president of the World Zionist Organization, Chaim Weizmann, to help raise funds for the planned university. He also submitted various suggestions as to its initial programs.
Among those, he advised first creating an Institute of Agriculture in order to settle the undeveloped land. That should be followed, he suggested, by a Chemical Institute and an Institute of Microbiology, to fight the various ongoing epidemics such as malaria, which he called an "evil" that was undermining a third of the country's develo
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pment. Establishing an Oriental Studies Institute, to include language courses given in both Hebrew and Arabic, for scientific exploration of the country and its historical monuments, was also important.
Einstein was not a nationalist; he was against the creation of an independent Jewish state, which would be established without his help as Israel in 1948. Einstein felt that the waves of arriving Jews of the Aliyah could live alongside existing Arabs in Palestine. His views were not shared by the majority of Jews seeking to form a new country; as a result, Einstein was limited to a marginal role in the Zionist movement.
Chaim Weizmann later became Israel's first president. Upon his death while in office in November 1952 and at the urging of Ezriel Carlebach, Prime Minister David BenGurion offered Einstein the position of President of Israel, a mostly ceremonial post. The offer was presented by Israel's ambassador in Washington, Abba Eban, who explained that the offer "embodies the deepest respect which the
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Jewish people can repose in any of its sons". Einstein declined, and wrote in his response that he was "deeply moved", and "at once saddened and ashamed" that he could not accept it.
Love of music
Einstein developed an appreciation for music at an early age. In his late journals he wrote "If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music... I get most joy in life out of music."
His mother played the piano reasonably well and wanted her son to learn the violin, not only to instill in him a love of music but also to help him assimilate into German culture. According to conductor Leon Botstein, Einstein began playing when he was 5. However, he did not enjoy it at that age.
When he turned 13, he discovered the violin sonatas of Mozart, whereupon he became enamored of Mozart's compositions and studied music more willingly. Einstein taught himself to play without "ever practicing systematically". He said that "love i
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s a better teacher than a sense of duty." At age 17, he was heard by a school examiner in Aarau while playing Beethoven's violin sonatas. The examiner stated afterward that his playing was "remarkable and revealing of 'great insight. What struck the examiner, writes Botstein, was that Einstein "displayed a deep love of the music, a quality that was and remains in short supply. Music possessed an unusual meaning for this student."
Music took on a pivotal and permanent role in Einstein's life from that period on. Although the idea of becoming a professional musician himself was not on his mind at any time, among those with whom Einstein played chamber music were a few professionals, and he performed for private audiences and friends. Chamber music had also become a regular part of his social life while living in Bern, Zrich, and Berlin, where he played with Max Planck and his son, among others. He is sometimes erroneously credited as the editor of the 1937 edition of the Kchel catalog of Mozart's work; that ed
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ition was prepared by Alfred Einstein, who may have been a distant relation.
In 1931, while engaged in research at the California Institute of Technology, he visited the Zoellner family conservatory in Los Angeles, where he played some of Beethoven and Mozart's works with members of the Zoellner Quartet. Near the end of his life, when the young Juilliard Quartet visited him in Princeton, he played his violin with them, and the quartet was "impressed by Einstein's level of coordination and intonation".
Political views
In 1918, Einstein was one of the founding members of the German Democratic Party, a liberal party. Later in his life, Einstein's political view was in favor of socialism and critical of capitalism, which he detailed in his essays such as "Why Socialism?" His opinions on the Bolsheviks also changed with time. In 1925, he criticized them for not having a 'wellregulated system of government' and called their rule a 'regime of terror and a tragedy in human history'. He later adopted a more modera
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ted view, criticizing their methods but praising them, which is shown by his 1929 remark on Vladimir Lenin "In Lenin I honor a man, who in total sacrifice of his own person has committed his entire energy to realizing social justice. I do not find his methods advisable. One thing is certain, however men like him are the guardians and renewers of mankind's conscience." Einstein offered and was called on to give judgments and opinions on matters often unrelated to theoretical physics or mathematics. He strongly advocated the idea of a democratic global government that would check the power of nationstates in the framework of a world federation. He wrote "I advocate world government because I am convinced that there is no other possible way of eliminating the most terrible danger in which man has ever found himself." The FBI created a secret dossier on Einstein in 1932, and by the time of his death his FBI file was 1,427 pages long.
Einstein was deeply impressed by Mahatma Gandhi, with whom he exchanged written
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letters. He described Gandhi as "a role model for the generations to come". The initial connection was established on 27 September 1931, when Wilfrid Israel took his Indian guest V. A. Sundaram to meet his friend Einstein at his summer home in the town of Caputh. Sundaram was Gandhi's disciple and special envoy, whom Wilfrid Israel met while visiting India and visiting the Indian leader's home in 1925. During the visit, Einstein wrote a short letter to Gandhi that was delivered to him through his envoy, and Gandhi responded quickly with his own letter. Although in the end Einstein and Gandhi were unable to meet as they had hoped, the direct connection between them was established through Wilfrid Israel.
Religious and philosophical views
Einstein spoke of his spiritual outlook in a wide array of original writings and interviews. He said he had sympathy for the impersonal pantheistic God of Baruch Spinoza's philosophy. He did not believe in a personal god who concerns himself with fates and actions of human
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beings, a view which he described as nave. He clarified, however, that "I am not an atheist", preferring to call himself an agnostic, or a "deeply religious nonbeliever". When asked if he believed in an afterlife, Einstein replied, "No. And one life is enough for me."
Einstein was primarily affiliated with nonreligious humanist and Ethical Culture groups in both the UK and US. He served on the advisory board of the First Humanist Society of New York, and was an honorary associate of the Rationalist Association, which publishes New Humanist in Britain. For the 75th anniversary of the New York Society for Ethical Culture, he stated that the idea of Ethical Culture embodied his personal conception of what is most valuable and enduring in religious idealism. He observed, "Without 'ethical culture' there is no salvation for humanity."
In a Germanlanguage letter to philosopher Eric Gutkind, dated 3 January 1954, Einstein wroteThe word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses
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, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can for me change this. ... For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. ... I cannot see anything 'chosen' about them.
Death
On 17 April 1955, Einstein experienced internal bleeding caused by the rupture of an abdominal aortic aneurysm, which had previously been reinforced surgically by Rudolph Nissen in 1948. He took the draft of a speech he was preparing for a television appearance commemorating the state of Israel's seventh anniversary with him to the hospital, but he did not live to complete it.
Einstein refused surgery, saying, "I want to go when I want. It is tasteless to prolong life artificially. I have done my share; it is time to go. I will do i
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t elegantly." He died in Penn Medicine Princeton Medical Center early the next morning at the age of 76, having continued to work until near the end.
During the autopsy, the pathologist Thomas Stoltz Harvey removed Einstein's brain for preservation without the permission of his family, in the hope that the neuroscience of the future would be able to discover what made Einstein so intelligent. Einstein's remains were cremated in Trenton, New Jersey, and his ashes were scattered at an undisclosed location.
In a memorial lecture delivered on 13 December 1965 at UNESCO headquarters, nuclear physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer summarized his impression of Einstein as a person "He was almost wholly without sophistication and wholly without worldliness ... There was always with him a wonderful purity at once childlike and profoundly stubborn."
Einstein bequeathed his personal archives, library and intellectual assets to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel.
Scientific career
Throughout his life, Einstein pu
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blished hundreds of books and articles. He published more than 300 scientific papers and 150 nonscientific ones. On 5 December 2014, universities and archives announced the release of Einstein's papers, comprising more than 30,000 unique documents. Einstein's intellectual achievements and originality have made the word "Einstein" synonymous with "genius". In addition to the work he did by himself he also collaborated with other scientists on additional projects including the BoseEinstein statistics, the Einstein refrigerator and others.
1905 Annus Mirabilis papers
The Annus Mirabilis papers are four articles pertaining to the photoelectric effect which gave rise to quantum theory, Brownian motion, the special theory of relativity, and E mc2 that Einstein published in the Annalen der Physik scientific journal in 1905. These four works contributed substantially to the foundation of modern physics and changed views on space, time, and matter. The four papers are
Statistical mechanics
Thermodynamic fluctuat
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ions and statistical physics
Einstein's first paper submitted in 1900 to Annalen der Physik was on capillary attraction. It was published in 1901 with the title "Folgerungen aus den Capillarittserscheinungen", which translates as "Conclusions from the capillarity phenomena". Two papers he published in 19021903 thermodynamics attempted to interpret atomic phenomena from a statistical point of view. These papers were the foundation for the 1905 paper on Brownian motion, which showed that Brownian movement can be construed as firm evidence that molecules exist. His research in 1903 and 1904 was mainly concerned with the effect of finite atomic size on diffusion phenomena.
Theory of critical opalescence
Einstein returned to the problem of thermodynamic fluctuations, giving a treatment of the density variations in a fluid at its critical point. Ordinarily the density fluctuations are controlled by the second derivative of the free energy with respect to the density. At the critical point, this derivative is z
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ero, leading to large fluctuations. The effect of density fluctuations is that light of all wavelengths is scattered, making the fluid look milky white. Einstein relates this to Rayleigh scattering, which is what happens when the fluctuation size is much smaller than the wavelength, and which explains why the sky is blue. Einstein quantitatively derived critical opalescence from a treatment of density fluctuations, and demonstrated how both the effect and Rayleigh scattering originate from the atomistic constitution of matter.
Special relativity
Einstein's "Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Krper" "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies" was received on 30 June 1905 and published 26 September of that same year. It reconciled conflicts between Maxwell's equations the laws of electricity and magnetism and the laws of Newtonian mechanics by introducing changes to the laws of mechanics. Observationally, the effects of these changes are most apparent at high speeds where objects are moving at speeds close to the spe
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ed of light. The theory developed in this paper later became known as Einstein's special theory of relativity. There is evidence from Einstein's writings that he collaborated with his first wife, Mileva Mari, on this work. The decision to publish only under his name seems to have been mutual, but the exact reason is unknown.
This paper predicted that, when measured in the frame of a relatively moving observer, a clock carried by a moving body would appear to slow down, and the body itself would contract in its direction of motion. This paper also argued that the idea of a luminiferous aetherone of the leading theoretical entities in physics at the timewas superfluous.
In his paper on massenergy equivalence, Einstein produced E mc2 as a consequence of his special relativity equations. Einstein's 1905 work on relativity remained controversial for many years, but was accepted by leading physicists, starting with Max Planck.
Einstein originally framed special relativity in terms of kinematics the study of mov
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ing bodies. In 1908, Hermann Minkowski reinterpreted special relativity in geometric terms as a theory of spacetime. Einstein adopted Minkowski's formalism in his 1915 general theory of relativity.
General relativity
General relativity and the equivalence principle
General relativity GR is a theory of gravitation that was developed by Einstein between 1907 and 1915. According to general relativity, the observed gravitational attraction between masses results from the warping of space and time by those masses. General relativity has developed into an essential tool in modern astrophysics. It provides the foundation for the current understanding of black holes, regions of space where gravitational attraction is so strong that not even light can escape.
As Einstein later said, the reason for the development of general relativity was that the preference of inertial motions within special relativity was unsatisfactory, while a theory which from the outset prefers no state of motion even accelerated ones shoul
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d appear more satisfactory. Consequently, in 1907 he published an article on acceleration under special relativity. In that article titled "On the Relativity Principle and the Conclusions Drawn from It", he argued that free fall is really inertial motion, and that for a freefalling observer the rules of special relativity must apply. This argument is called the equivalence principle. In the same article, Einstein also predicted the phenomena of gravitational time dilation, gravitational redshift and deflection of light.
In 1911, Einstein published another article "On the Influence of Gravitation on the Propagation of Light" expanding on the 1907 article, in which he estimated the amount of deflection of light by massive bodies. Thus, the theoretical prediction of general relativity could for the first time be tested experimentally.
Gravitational waves
In 1916, Einstein predicted gravitational waves, ripples in the curvature of spacetime which propagate as waves, traveling outward from the source, transporti
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ng energy as gravitational radiation. The existence of gravitational waves is possible under general relativity due to its Lorentz invariance which brings the concept of a finite speed of propagation of the physical interactions of gravity with it. By contrast, gravitational waves cannot exist in the Newtonian theory of gravitation, which postulates that the physical interactions of gravity propagate at infinite speed.
The first, indirect, detection of gravitational waves came in the 1970s through observation of a pair of closely orbiting neutron stars, PSR B191316. The explanation of the decay in their orbital period was that they were emitting gravitational waves. Einstein's prediction was confirmed on 11 February 2016, when researchers at LIGO published the first observation of gravitational waves, detected on Earth on 14 September 2015, nearly one hundred years after the prediction.
Hole argument and Entwurf theory
While developing general relativity, Einstein became confused about the gauge invariance
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in the theory. He formulated an argument that led him to conclude that a general relativistic field theory is impossible. He gave up looking for fully generally covariant tensor equations and searched for equations that would be invariant under general linear transformations only.
In June 1913, the Entwurf 'draft' theory was the result of these investigations. As its name suggests, it was a sketch of a theory, less elegant and more difficult than general relativity, with the equations of motion supplemented by additional gauge fixing conditions. After more than two years of intensive work, Einstein realized that the hole argument was mistaken and abandoned the theory in November 1915.
Physical cosmology
In 1917, Einstein applied the general theory of relativity to the structure of the universe as a whole. He discovered that the general field equations predicted a universe that was dynamic, either contracting or expanding. As observational evidence for a dynamic universe was not known at the time, Einstei
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n introduced a new term, the cosmological constant, to the field equations, in order to allow the theory to predict a static universe. The modified field equations predicted a static universe of closed curvature, in accordance with Einstein's understanding of Mach's principle in these years. This model became known as the Einstein World or Einstein's static universe.
Following the discovery of the recession of the nebulae by Edwin Hubble in 1929, Einstein abandoned his static model of the universe, and proposed two dynamic models of the cosmos, The FriedmannEinstein universe of 1931 and the Einsteinde Sitter universe of 1932. In each of these models, Einstein discarded the cosmological constant, claiming that it was "in any case theoretically unsatisfactory".
In many Einstein biographies, it is claimed that Einstein referred to the cosmological constant in later years as his "biggest blunder". The astrophysicist Mario Livio has recently cast doubt on this claim, suggesting that it may be exaggerated.
In la
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te 2013, a team led by the Irish physicist Cormac O'Raifeartaigh discovered evidence that, shortly after learning of Hubble's observations of the recession of the nebulae, Einstein considered a steadystate model of the universe. In a hitherto overlooked manuscript, apparently written in early 1931, Einstein explored a model of the expanding universe in which the density of matter remains constant due to a continuous creation of matter, a process he associated with the cosmological constant. As he stated in the paper, "In what follows, I would like to draw attention to a solution to equation 1 that can account for Hubbel's sic facts, and in which the density is constant over time" ... "If one considers a physically bounded volume, particles of matter will be continually leaving it. For the density to remain constant, new particles of matter must be continually formed in the volume from space."
It thus appears that Einstein considered a steadystate model of the expanding universe many years before Hoyle, Bondi
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and Gold. However, Einstein's steadystate model contained a fundamental flaw and he quickly abandoned the idea.
Energy momentum pseudotensor
General relativity includes a dynamical spacetime, so it is difficult to see how to identify the conserved energy and momentum. Noether's theorem allows these quantities to be determined from a Lagrangian with translation invariance, but general covariance makes translation invariance into something of a gauge symmetry. The energy and momentum derived within general relativity by Noether's prescriptions do not make a real tensor for this reason.
Einstein argued that this is true for a fundamental reason the gravitational field could be made to vanish by a choice of coordinates. He maintained that the noncovariant energy momentum pseudotensor was, in fact, the best description of the energy momentum distribution in a gravitational field. This approach has been echoed by Lev Landau and Evgeny Lifshitz, and others, and has become standard.
The use of noncovariant obje
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cts like pseudotensors was heavily criticized in 1917 by Erwin Schrdinger and others.
Wormholes
In 1935, Einstein collaborated with Nathan Rosen to produce a model of a wormhole, often called EinsteinRosen bridges. His motivation was to model elementary particles with charge as a solution of gravitational field equations, in line with the program outlined in the paper "Do Gravitational Fields play an Important Role in the Constitution of the Elementary Particles?". These solutions cut and pasted Schwarzschild black holes to make a bridge between two patches.
If one end of a wormhole was positively charged, the other end would be negatively charged. These properties led Einstein to believe that pairs of particles and antiparticles could be described in this way.
EinsteinCartan theory
In order to incorporate spinning point particles into general relativity, the affine connection needed to be generalized to include an antisymmetric part, called the torsion. This modification was made by Einstein and Cartan
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in the 1920s.
Equations of motion
The theory of general relativity has a fundamental lawthe Einstein field equations, which describe how space curves. The geodesic equation, which describes how particles move, may be derived from the Einstein field equations.
Since the equations of general relativity are nonlinear, a lump of energy made out of pure gravitational fields, like a black hole, would move on a trajectory which is determined by the Einstein field equations themselves, not by a new law. So Einstein proposed that the path of a singular solution, like a black hole, would be determined to be a geodesic from general relativity itself.
This was established by Einstein, Infeld, and Hoffmann for pointlike objects without angular momentum, and by Roy Kerr for spinning objects.
Old quantum theory
Photons and energy quanta
In a 1905 paper, Einstein postulated that light itself consists of localized particles quanta. Einstein's light quanta were nearly universally rejected by all physicists, including
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Max Planck and Niels Bohr. This idea only became universally accepted in 1919, with Robert Millikan's detailed experiments on the photoelectric effect, and with the measurement of Compton scattering.
Einstein concluded that each wave of frequency f is associated with a collection of photons with energy hf each, where h is Planck's constant. He does not say much more, because he is not sure how the particles are related to the wave. But he does suggest that this idea would explain certain experimental results, notably the photoelectric effect.
Quantized atomic vibrations
In 1907, Einstein proposed a model of matter where each atom in a lattice structure is an independent harmonic oscillator. In the Einstein model, each atom oscillates independentlya series of equally spaced quantized states for each oscillator. Einstein was aware that getting the frequency of the actual oscillations would be difficult, but he nevertheless proposed this theory because it was a particularly clear demonstration that quantum
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mechanics could solve the specific heat problem in classical mechanics. Peter Debye refined this model.
Adiabatic principle and actionangle variables
Throughout the 1910s, quantum mechanics expanded in scope to cover many different systems. After Ernest Rutherford discovered the nucleus and proposed that electrons orbit like planets, Niels Bohr was able to show that the same quantum mechanical postulates introduced by Planck and developed by Einstein would explain the discrete motion of electrons in atoms, and the periodic table of the elements.
Einstein contributed to these developments by linking them with the 1898 arguments Wilhelm Wien had made. Wien had shown that the hypothesis of adiabatic invariance of a thermal equilibrium state allows all the blackbody curves at different temperature to be derived from one another by a simple shifting process. Einstein noted in 1911 that the same adiabatic principle shows that the quantity which is quantized in any mechanical motion must be an adiabatic invarian
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t. Arnold Sommerfeld identified this adiabatic invariant as the action variable of classical mechanics.
BoseEinstein statistics
In 1924, Einstein received a description of a statistical model from Indian physicist Satyendra Nath Bose, based on a counting method that assumed that light could be understood as a gas of indistinguishable particles. Einstein noted that Bose's statistics applied to some atoms as well as to the proposed light particles, and submitted his translation of Bose's paper to the Zeitschrift fr Physik. Einstein also published his own articles describing the model and its implications, among them the BoseEinstein condensate phenomenon that some particulates should appear at very low temperatures. It was not until 1995 that the first such condensate was produced experimentally by Eric Allin Cornell and Carl Wieman using ultracooling equipment built at the NISTJILA laboratory at the University of Colorado at Boulder. BoseEinstein statistics are now used to describe the behaviors of any asse
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mbly of bosons. Einstein's sketches for this project may be seen in the Einstein Archive in the library of the Leiden University.
Waveparticle duality
Although the patent office promoted Einstein to Technical Examiner Second Class in 1906, he had not given up on academia. In 1908, he became a Privatdozent at the University of Bern. In "ber die Entwicklung unserer Anschauungen ber das Wesen und die Konstitution der Strahlung" "The Development of our Views on the Composition and Essence of Radiation", on the quantization of light, and in an earlier 1909 paper, Einstein showed that Max Planck's energy quanta must have welldefined momenta and act in some respects as independent, pointlike particles. This paper introduced the photon concept although the name photon was introduced later by Gilbert N. Lewis in 1926 and inspired the notion of waveparticle duality in quantum mechanics. Einstein saw this waveparticle duality in radiation as concrete evidence for his conviction that physics needed a new, unified foun
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dation.
Zeropoint energy
In a series of works completed from 1911 to 1913, Planck reformulated his 1900 quantum theory and introduced the idea of zeropoint energy in his "second quantum theory". Soon, this idea attracted the attention of Einstein and his assistant Otto Stern. Assuming the energy of rotating diatomic molecules contains zeropoint energy, they then compared the theoretical specific heat of hydrogen gas with the experimental data. The numbers matched nicely. However, after publishing the findings, they promptly withdrew their support, because they no longer had confidence in the correctness of the idea of zeropoint energy.
Stimulated emission
In 1917, at the height of his work on relativity, Einstein published an article in Physikalische Zeitschrift that proposed the possibility of stimulated emission, the physical process that makes possible the maser and the laser.
This article showed that the statistics of absorption and emission of light would only be consistent with Planck's distribution
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law if the emission of light into a mode with n photons would be enhanced statistically compared to the emission of light into an empty mode. This paper was enormously influential in the later development of quantum mechanics, because it was the first paper to show that the statistics of atomic transitions had simple laws.
Matter waves
Einstein discovered Louis de Broglie's work and supported his ideas, which were received skeptically at first. In another major paper from this era, Einstein gave a wave equation for de Broglie waves, which Einstein suggested was the HamiltonJacobi equation of mechanics. This paper would inspire Schrdinger's work of 1926.
Quantum mechanics
Einstein's objections to quantum mechanics
Einstein played a major role in developing quantum theory, beginning with his 1905 paper on the photoelectric effect. However, he became displeased with modern quantum mechanics as it had evolved after 1925, despite its acceptance by other physicists. He was skeptical that the randomness of qu
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antum mechanics was fundamental rather than the result of determinism, stating that God "is not playing at dice". Until the end of his life, he continued to maintain that quantum mechanics was incomplete.
Bohr versus Einstein
The BohrEinstein debates were a series of public disputes about quantum mechanics between Einstein and Niels Bohr, who were two of its founders. Their debates are remembered because of their importance to the philosophy of science. Their debates would influence later interpretations of quantum mechanics.
EinsteinPodolskyRosen paradox
In 1935, Einstein returned to quantum mechanics, in particular to the question of its completeness, in the "EPR paper". In a thought experiment, he considered two particles, which had interacted such that their properties were strongly correlated. No matter how far the two particles were separated, a precise position measurement on one particle would result in equally precise knowledge of the position of the other particle; likewise, a precise momentu
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m measurement of one particle would result in equally precise knowledge of the momentum of the other particle, without needing to disturb the other particle in any way.
Given Einstein's concept of local realism, there were two possibilities 1 either the other particle had these properties already determined, or 2 the process of measuring the first particle instantaneously affected the reality of the position and momentum of the second particle. Einstein rejected this second possibility popularly called "spooky action at a distance".
Einstein's belief in local realism led him to assert that, while the correctness of quantum mechanics was not in question, it must be incomplete. But as a physical principle, local realism was shown to be incorrect when the Aspect experiment of 1982 confirmed Bell's theorem, which J. S. Bell had delineated in 1964. The results of these and subsequent experiments demonstrate that quantum physics cannot be represented by any version of the picture of physics in which "particles ar
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e regarded as unconnected independent classicallike entities, each one being unable to communicate with the other after they have separated."
Although Einstein was wrong about local realism, his clear prediction of the unusual properties of its opposite, entangled quantum states, has resulted in the EPR paper becoming among the top ten papers published in Physical Review. It is considered a centerpiece of the development of quantum information theory.
Unified field theory
Following his research on general relativity, Einstein attempted to generalize his theory of gravitation to include electromagnetism as aspects of a single entity. In 1950, he described his "unified field theory" in a Scientific American article titled "On the Generalized Theory of Gravitation". Although he was lauded for this work, his efforts were ultimately unsuccessful.
Notably, Einstein's unification project did not accommodate the strong and weak nuclear forces, neither of which were well understood until many years after his death
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. Although mainstream physics long ignored Einstein's approaches to unification, Einstein's work has motivated modern quests for a theory of everything, in particular string theory, where geometrical fields emerge in a unified quantummechanical setting.
Other investigations
Einstein conducted other investigations that were unsuccessful and abandoned. These pertain to force, superconductivity, and other research.
Collaboration with other scientists
In addition to longtime collaborators Leopold Infeld, Nathan Rosen, Peter Bergmann and others, Einstein also had some oneshot collaborations with various scientists.
Einsteinde Haas experiment
Einstein and De Haas demonstrated that magnetization is due to the motion of electrons, nowadays known to be the spin. In order to show this, they reversed the magnetization in an iron bar suspended on a torsion pendulum. They confirmed that this leads the bar to rotate, because the electron's angular momentum changes as the magnetization changes. This experiment need
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ed to be sensitive because the angular momentum associated with electrons is small, but it definitively established that electron motion of some kind is responsible for magnetization.
Schrdinger gas model
Einstein suggested to Erwin Schrdinger that he might be able to reproduce the statistics of a BoseEinstein gas by considering a box. Then to each possible quantum motion of a particle in a box associate an independent harmonic oscillator. Quantizing these oscillators, each level will have an integer occupation number, which will be the number of particles in it.
This formulation is a form of second quantization, but it predates modern quantum mechanics. Erwin Schrdinger applied this to derive the thermodynamic properties of a semiclassical ideal gas. Schrdinger urged Einstein to add his name as coauthor, although Einstein declined the invitation.
Einstein refrigerator
In 1926, Einstein and his former student Le Szilrd coinvented and in 1930, patented the Einstein refrigerator. This absorption refrigerat
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or was then revolutionary for having no moving parts and using only heat as an input. On 11 November 1930, was awarded to Einstein and Le Szilrd for the refrigerator. Their invention was not immediately put into commercial production, and the most promising of their patents were acquired by the Swedish company Electrolux.
Nonscientific legacy
While traveling, Einstein wrote daily to his wife Elsa and adopted stepdaughters Margot and Ilse. The letters were included in the papers bequeathed to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Margot Einstein permitted the personal letters to be made available to the public, but requested that it not be done until twenty years after her death she died in 1986. Barbara Wolff, of the Hebrew University's Albert Einstein Archives, told the BBC that there are about 3,500 pages of private correspondence written between 1912 and 1955.
Einstein's right of publicity was litigated in 2015 in a federal district court in California. Although the court initially held that the right h
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ad expired, that ruling was immediately appealed, and the decision was later vacated in its entirety. The underlying claims between the parties in that lawsuit were ultimately settled. The right is enforceable, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem is the exclusive representative of that right. Corbis, successor to The Roger Richman Agency, licenses the use of his name and associated imagery, as agent for the university.
In popular culture
Einstein became one of the most famous scientific celebrities, beginning with the confirmation of his theory of general relativity in 1919. Despite the general public having little understanding of his work, he was widely recognized and received adulation and publicity. In the period before World War II, The New Yorker published a vignette in their "The Talk of the Town" feature saying that Einstein was so well known in America that he would be stopped on the street by people wanting him to explain "that theory". He finally figured out a way to handle the incessant inqu
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iries. He told his inquirers "Pardon me, sorry! Always I am mistaken for Professor Einstein."
Einstein has been the subject of or inspiration for many novels, films, plays, and works of music. He is a favorite model for depictions of absentminded professors; his expressive face and distinctive hairstyle have been widely copied and exaggerated. Time magazine's Frederic Golden wrote that Einstein was "a cartoonist's dream come true".
Many popular quotations are often misattributed to him.
Awards and honors
Einstein received numerous awards and honors, and in 1922, he was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect". None of the nominations in 1921 met the criteria set by Alfred Nobel, so the 1921 prize was carried forward and awarded to Einstein in 1922.
Publications
Scientific
First of a series of papers on this topic.
A reprint of this book was pub
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lished by Edition Erbrich in 1982, .
. Further information about the volumes published so far can be found on the webpages of the Einstein Papers Project and on the Princeton University Press Einstein Page
Others
. The chasing a light beam thought experiment is described on pages 4851.
See also
Albert Einstein House in Princeton
Einstein's thought experiments
Einstein notation
The Einstein Theory of Relativity, an educational film
Frist Campus Center at Princeton University room 302 is associated with Einstein. The center was once the Palmer Physical Laboratory.
Heinrich Burkhardt
Bern Historical Museum Einstein Museum
History of gravitational theory
List of coupled cousins
List of German inventors and discoverers
Jewish Nobel laureates
List of peace activists
Relativity priority dispute
Sticky bead argument
Notes
References
Works cited
Further reading
, or
External links
Einstein's Personal Correspondence Religion, Politics, The Holocaust, and Philosophy Sha
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pell Manuscript Foundation
Federal Bureau of Investigation file on Albert Einstein
Einstein and his love of music, Physics World
including the Nobel Lecture 11 July 1923 Fundamental ideas and problems of the theory of relativity
Albert Einstein Archives Online 80,000 Documents MSNBC, 19 March 2012
Einstein's declaration of intention for American citizenship on the World Digital Library
Albert Einstein Collection at Brandeis University
The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein "Digital Einstein" at Princeton University
Home page of Albert Einstein at The Institute for Advanced Study
Albert The Digital Repository of the IAS, which contains many digitized original documents and photographs
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The Igreja Presbiteriana Conservadora do Brasil IPCB is a Presbyterian Reformed denomination, founded in 1940, by the churches and members that separated from the Independent Presbyterian Church of Brazil IPIB. The main reason for the split was the decision of the IPIB General Assembly, in 1938, to appoint a commission to draw up a new confession of faith. This confession would replace the Westminster Confession of Faith and be tolerant of annihilationism. The members who opposed this split and formed the IPCB. It is currently the third largest reformed denomination in Brazil, right after the Presbyterian Church of Brazil IPB and a IPIB, preserving traditional positions of Presbyterianism.
History
The Conservative Presbyterian Church of Brazil IPCB emerged on February 11 of 1940, when, after two years of debates and internal discussions on doctrinal issues, the 2nd Independent Presbyterian Church of So Paulo shut down Independent Presbyterian Church of Brazil IPIB to become Conservative Presbyterian Church
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of So Paulo.
The conflict began when the IPIB Synod, in 1938, recognized the existence of different positions within the denomination regarding Annihilationism and eternal punishment and appointed a commission to draft a new confession, which would replace the Westminster Confession of Faith hitherto adopted by the denomination. The 2nd Independent Presbyterian Church of So Paulo did not accept this modification and left the denomination.
The first presbytery of the denomination consisted of 11 churches and 5 pastors or ministers. A seminary was organised in 1954. A Missionary Department was formed and as the church began to develop, some churches are among indigenous people.
Theology
The denomination subscribe
Apostles Creed
Westminster Confession of Faith
Westminster Shorter Catechism
Westminster Larger Catechism
The IPCB does not admit ordination of woman and therefore only men can be pastors, elders and deacons. Since its foundation it has been an antiMasonic church, cessationist, governs worship b
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y the Regulative principle of worship and does not practice exclusive psalmody. The denomination also opposes the practice of clapping during the liturgy.
Demographics
According to denomination statistics, it had 3,578 members in 2006. In 2018, it published new statistics, which reported 4,371 members 3,716 communicants and 655 noncommunicants, with a growth of 22.16 between 2006 and 2018. In the same period, the Brazilian population grew 11.31.
The IPCB consisted, in 2018, of 92 ecclesiastical work fronts with church or congregation status 56 local churches, 19 local congregations, 4 presbyteral congregations, 13 congregations, congregations of the Missionary Department. In addition, it had 12 preaching points. The denomination is, therefore, present in 11 states of the federation CentralWest Region Gois, Mato Grosso do Sul; Northern Brazil Acre, Amazonas, Rondnia; Northeast Region Alagoas, Bahia, Pernambuco; Southeast Region Minas Gerais, So Paulo; Region Southern Paran.
On July 19, 2009, the IPCB organ
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ized its General Meeting. Due to the growth of churches, in 2017, the denomination already consisted of 8 Presbyteries Bandeirante, BrasilCentral, CentroSul, Guarulhos, Oeste Paulista, Paran, Paulistano and Piratininga and two Synods Southeast and Midwest.
Journal and seminary
The church publishes its own newspaper the Conservative Presbyterian. It owns a seminary in San Bernando de Campo founded in 1953. In 1983 the denomination founded the Missionary Department and new church plans in various Brazilian cities are underway.
References
Presbyterian denominations in Brazil
Protestant denominations
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Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia it is bordered by Pakistan to the east and south, Iran to the west, Turkmenistan to the northwest, Uzbekistan to the north, Tajikistan to the northeast, and China to the northeast and east. Occupying of land, the country is predominately mountainous with plains in the north and the southwest, which are separated by the Hindu Kush mountain range. , its population is 40.2 million, composed mostly of ethnic Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hazaras, and Uzbeks. Kabul is the country's largest city and also serves as its capital.
Human habitation in Afghanistan dates back to the Middle Paleolithic era, and the country's strategic location along the historic Silk Road connected it to the cultures of other parts of Asia as well as Europe, leaving behind a mosaic of ethnolinguistic and religious groups that has influenced the modern Afghan nation. Known as the Gr
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aveyard of Empires the land has historically been home to various peoples and has witnessed numerous military campaigns, including those by Alexander the Great, the Maurya Empire, Arab Muslims, the Mongols, the British, the Soviet Union, and most recently by an Americanled coalition. Afghanistan also served as the source from which the GrecoBactrians and the Mughals, among others, rose to form major empires. The various conquests and periods in both the Iranian and Indian cultural spheres made the area a center for Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and later Islam throughout history.
The modern state of Afghanistan began with the Durrani dynasty in the 18th century, with the Durrani Afghan Empire at its peak having spanned from eastern Iran to northern India. Following its decline and the death of Timur Shah, it was divided into the smaller independent kingdoms of Herat, Kandahar and Kabul, before being reunited in the 19th century after wars of unification led by Dost Mohammad Khan. During this time, Afgh
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anistan became a buffer state in the Great Game between the British Empire in Britishruled India and the Russian Empire; from India, the British attempted to subjugate Afghanistan but were repelled in the First AngloAfghan War; however, the Second AngloAfghan War saw a British victory and the successful establishment of British political influence over Afghanistan. Following the Third AngloAfghan War in 1919, Afghanistan became free of foreign dominance, and eventually emerged as the independent Kingdom of Afghanistan in June 1926 under Amanullah Khan. This monarchy lasted almost 50 years, until Zahir Shah was overthrown in 1973, following which the Republic of Afghanistan was established. Since the late 1970s, Afghanistan's history has been dominated by extensive warfare, including coups, revolutions, invasions, insurgencies, and civil wars. The country is currently under the control of the Taliban, an Islamist political movement which returned to power in 2021 after a 20yearlong war with the United States a
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nd its allies.
The country has high levels of terrorism, poverty, and child malnutrition. Afghanistan's economy is the world's 96thlargest, with a gross domestic product GDP of 72.9 billion by purchasing power parity; the country fares much worse in terms of percapita GDP PPP, ranking 169th out of 186 countries .
Etymology
The root name "Afghn" is, according to some scholars, derived from the Sanskrit name of the Avakan or Assakan, ancient inhabitants of the Hindu Kush region. Avakan literally means "horsemen", "horse breeders", or "cavalrymen" from ava or aspa, the Sanskrit and Avestan words for "horse". Historically, the ethnonym Afghn was used to refer to ethnic Pashtuns. The Arabic and Persian form of the name, Afn, was first attested in the 10thcentury geography book Hudud al'Alam. The last part of the name, "stan" is a Persian suffix for "place of". Therefore, "Afghanistan" translates to "land of the Afghans", or "land of the Pashtuns" in a historical sense. According to the third edition of the Enc
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yclopedia of Islam
History
Many empires and kingdoms have also risen to power in Afghanistan, such as the GrecoBactrians, IndoScythians, Kushans, Kidarites, Hephthalites, Alkhons, Nezaks, Zunbils, Turk Shahis, Hindu Shahis, Lawiks, Saffarids, Samanids, Ghaznavids, Ghurids, Khaljis, Kartids, Lodis, Surs, Mughals, and finally, the Hotak and Durrani dynasties, which marked the political origins of the modern state. Throughout millennia several cities within the modern day Afghanistan served as capitals of various empires, namely, Bactra Balkh, Alexandria on the Oxus AiKhanoum, Kapisi, Sigal, Kabul, Kunduz, Zaranj, Firozkoh, Herat, Ghazna Ghazni, Binban Bamyan, and Kandahar.
The country has been home to various peoples through the ages, among them the ancient Iranian peoples who established the dominant role of IndoIranian languages in the region. At multiple points, the land has been incorporated within vast regional empires; among them the Achaemenid Empire, the Macedonian Empire, the Maurya Empire, and the
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Islamic Empire. For its success in resisting foreign occupation during the 19th and 20th centuries, Afghanistan has been called the "graveyard of empires", though it is unknown who coined the phrase.
Prehistory and antiquity
Excavations of prehistoric sites suggest that humans were living in what is now Afghanistan at least 50,000 years ago, and that farming communities in the area were among the earliest in the world. An important site of early historical activities, many believe that Afghanistan compares to Egypt in terms of the historical value of its archaeological sites.
Ancient era
Archaeological exploration done in the 20th century suggests that the geographical area of Afghanistan has been closely connected by culture and trade with its neighbors to the east, west, and north. Artifacts typical of the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze, and Iron Ages have been found in Afghanistan. Urban civilization is believed to have begun as early as 3000 BCE, and the early city of Mundigak near Kandah
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ar in the south of the country was a center of the Helmand culture. More recent findings established that the Indus Valley Civilization stretched up towards modernday Afghanistan, making the ancient civilization today part of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and India. In more detail, it extended from what today is northwest Pakistan to northwest India and northeast Afghanistan. An Indus Valley site has been found on the Oxus River at Shortugai in northern Afghanistan. There are several smaller IVC colonies to be found in Afghanistan as well. An Indus Valley site has been found on the Oxus River at Shortugai in northern Afghanistan, shows Afghanistan to have been a part of Indus Valley Civilization.
After 2000 BCE, successive waves of seminomadic people from Central Asia began moving south into Afghanistan; among them were many IndoEuropeanspeaking IndoIranians. These tribes later migrated further into South Asia, Western Asia, and toward Europe via the area north of the Caspian Sea. The region at the time was referre
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d to as Ariana.
By the middle of the 6th century BCE, the Achaemenids overthrew the Medes and incorporated Arachosia, Aria, and Bactria within its eastern boundaries. An inscription on the tombstone of Darius I of Persia mentions the Kabul Valley in a list of the 29 countries that he had conquered. The region of Arachosia, around Kandahar in modernday southern Afghanistan, used to be primarily Zoroastrian and played a key role in the transfer of the Avesta to Persia and is thus considered by some to be the "second homeland of Zoroastrianism".
Alexander the Great and his Macedonian forces arrived in Afghanistan in 330 BCE after defeating Darius III of Persia a year earlier in the Battle of Gaugamela. Following Alexander's brief occupation, the successor state of the Seleucid Empire controlled the region until 305 BCE when they gave much of it to the Maurya Empire as part of an alliance treaty. The Mauryans controlled the area south of the Hindu Kush until they were overthrown in about 185 BCE. Their decline
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began 60 years after Ashoka's rule ended, leading to the Hellenistic reconquest by the GrecoBactrians. Much of it soon broke away from them and became part of the IndoGreek Kingdom. They were defeated and expelled by the IndoScythians in the late 2nd century BCE.
The Silk Road appeared during the first century BCE, and Afghanistan flourished with trade, with routes to China, India, Persia and north to the cities of Bukhara, Samarkand and Khiva in presentday Uzbekistan. Goods and ideas were exchanged at this center point, such as Chinese silk, Persian silver and Roman gold, while the region of present Afghanistan was mining and trading lapis lazuli stones mainly from the Badakhshan region.
During the first century BCE, the Parthian Empire subjugated the region but lost it to their IndoParthian vassals. In the midtolate first century CE the vast Kushan Empire, centered in Afghanistan, became great patrons of Buddhist culture, making Buddhism flourish throughout the region. The Kushans were overthrown by the S
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assanids in the 3rd century CE, though the IndoSassanids continued to rule at least parts of the region. They were followed by the Kidarites who, in turn, was replaced by the Hephthalites. They were replaced by the Turk Shahi in the 7th century. The Buddhist Turk Shahi of Kabul was replaced by a Hindu dynasty before the Saffarids conquered the area in 870, this Hindu dynasty was called Hindu Shahi. Much of the northeastern and southern areas of the country remained dominated by Buddhist culture.
Medieval history
Islamic conquest
Arab Muslims brought Islam to Herat and Zaranj in 642 CE and began spreading eastward; some of the native inhabitants they encountered accepted it while others revolted. Before the arrival of Islam, the region used to be home to various beliefs and cults, often resulting in Syncretism between the dominant religions such as Zoroastrianism, Buddhism or GrecoBuddhism, Ancient Iranian religions, Hinduism, Christianity and Judaism. An exemplification of the syncretism in the region woul
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d be that people were patrons of Buddhism but still worshipped local Iranian gods such as Ahura Mazda, Lady Nana, Anahita or MihrMithra and portrayed Greek Gods like Heracles or Tyche as protectors of Buddha. The Zunbils and Kabul Shahi were first conquered in 870 CE by the Saffarid Muslims of Zaranj. Later, the Samanids extended their Islamic influence south of the Hindu Kush. It is reported that Muslims and nonMuslims still lived side by side in Kabul before the Ghaznavids rose to power in the 10th century.
By the 11th century, Mahmud of Ghazni defeated the remaining Hindu rulers and effectively Islamized the wider region, with the exception of Kafiristan. Mahmud made Ghazni into an important city and patronized intellectuals such as the historian AlBiruni and the poet Ferdowsi. The Ghaznavid dynasty was overthrown by the Ghurids, whose architectural achievements included the remote Minaret of Jam. The Ghurids controlled Afghanistan for less than a century before being conquered by the Khwarazmian dynasty
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in 1215.
Mongols and Babur with the Lodi Dynasty
In 1219 CE, Genghis Khan and his Mongol army overran the region. His troops are said to have annihilated the Khwarazmian cities of Herat and Balkh as well as Bamyan. The destruction caused by the Mongols forced many locals to return to an agrarian rural society. Mongol rule continued with the Ilkhanate in the northwest while the Khalji dynasty administered the Afghan tribal areas south of the Hindu Kush until the invasion of Timur aka Tamerlane, who established the Timurid Empire in 1370. Under the rule of Shah Rukh the city served as the focal point of the Timurid Renaissance, whose glory matched Florence of the Italian Renaissance as the center of a cultural rebirth.
In the early 16th century, Babur arrived from Ferghana and captured Kabul from the Arghun dynasty. Babur would go on to conquer the Afghan Lodi dynasty who had ruled the Delhi Sultanate in the First Battle of Panipat. Between the 16th and 18th century, the Uzbek Khanate of Bukhara, Iranian Saf
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avids, and Indian Mughals ruled parts of the territory. During the Medieval Period, the northwestern area of Afghanistan was referred to by the regional name Khorasan. Two of the four capitals of Khorasan Herat and Balkh are now located in Afghanistan, while the regions of Kandahar, Zabulistan, Ghazni, Kabulistan, and Afghanistan formed the frontier between Khorasan and Hindustan. However, up to the 19th century the term Khorasan was commonly used among natives to describe their country; Sir George Elphinstone wrote with amazement that the country known to outsiders as "Afghanistan" was referred to by its own inhabitants as "Khorasan" and that the first Afghan official whom he met at the border welcomed him to Khorasan.
Modern history
Hotak Dynasty
In 1709, Mirwais Hotak, a local Ghilzai tribal leader, successfully rebelled against the Safavids. He defeated Gurgin Khan and established his own kingdom. Mirwais died of natural causes in 1715 and was succeeded by his brother Abdul Aziz, who was soon killed b
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y Mirwais' son Mahmud for possibly planning to concede territories back to the Safavids. Mahmud led the Afghan army in 1722 to the Persian capital of Isfahan, captured the city after the Battle of Gulnabad and proclaimed himself King of Persia. The Afghan dynasty was ousted from Persia by Nader Shah after the 1729 Battle of Damghan.
Fall of the Hotak Dynasty
In 1738, Nader Shah and his forces captured Kandahar in the Siege of Kandahar, the last Hotak stronghold, from Shah Hussain Hotak. Soon after, the Persian and Afghan forces invaded India, Nader Shah had plundered Delhi, alongside his 16 year old commander, Ahmad Shah Durrani who had assisted him on these campaigns. Nader Shah was assassinated in 1747.
Rise of the Durrani Empire
After the death of Nader Shah in 1747, Ahmad Shah Durrani had returned to Kandahar with a contingent of 4,000 Pashtuns. The Abdalis had "unanimously accepted" Ahmad Shah as their new leader. With his acension in 1747, Ahmad Shah had led multiple campaigns against the Mughal E
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mpire, Maratha Empire, and then receding, Afsharid Empire. Ahmad Shah had captured Kabul and Peshawar from the Mughal appointed governor, Nasir Khan. Ahmad Shah had then conquered Herat in 1750, and had also captured Kashmir in 1752. Ahmad Shah had launched two campaigns into Khorasan, 17501751 and 17541755. His first campaign had seen the siege of Mashhad, however he was forced to retreat after 4 months. In November 1750, he moved to siege Nishapur, however he was unable to capture the city and was forced to retreat in early 1751. Ahmad Shah returned in 1754, he captured Tun, and on 23 July, he sieged Mashhad once again. Mashhad had fallen on 2 December, however Shah rokh was reappointed in 1755. He was forced to give up Torshiz, Bakharz, Jam, Khaf, and Turbate Haidari to the Afghans. Following this, Ahmad Shah had sieged Nishapur once again, and captured it.
Objectives and Invasions of India
Ahmad Shah invaded India 8 times during his reign. With the capture of Peshawar, Ahmad Shah had used this as a con
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venient striking point to lead his military campaigns into Punjab and India.
Ahmad Shah had sought out multiple reasons for his invasions, Ahmad Shah saw Afghanistan in a dire state, and one that needed to expand and exploit a weak but rich neighboring country, which Ahmad Shah had capitalized on in multiple opportunities during his Invasions of India, he sought the reasons needed to fill his treasury in a warplunder conquest based economy. Ahmad Shah had launched his first invasion in 1748, crossing the indus river, his armies sacked and absorbed Lahore into the Durrani Realm. Ahmad Shah had met Mughal armies at the Battle of Manupur 1748, where he was defeated and forced to retreat to back to Afghanistan. Ahmad Shah had returned the next year in 1749, where he had captured the area around Lahore and Punjab, presenting it as an Afghan victory for this campaign. From 1749 to 1767, Ahmad Shah would lead 6 more invasions, the most important being his sixth invasion, with the Third Battle of Panipat, which crea
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ted a power vacumn in northern India, halting Maratha expansion.
Death of Ahmad Shah and his Successors
Ahmad Shah Durrani had died in October 1772, what followed would be a civil war in succession, with his named successor, Timur Shah Durrani succeeding him after the defeat of his brother, Suleiman Mirza.
Timur Shah Durrani ascended to the throne in November 1772, having defeated a coalition under Shah Wali Khan, the influential prime minister of the Durrani Empire, and Humayun Mirza. Timur Shah began his reign by consolidating power toward himself and people loyal to him, purging Durrani Sardars and influential tribal leaders in Kabul and Kandahar to bring support toward himself. Timur Shah's reforms also saw the capital of the Durrani Empire being shifted from Kandahar to Kabul, being able to cover the empire better as a base of ordination since it was essentially the heartland of the empire. This reform saw Kabul as the modern capital of Afghanistan today. Having consolidated power to himself, Timur Sh
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ah would fight multiple series of rebellions to consolidate and hold the empire apart, Timur Shah would also lead campaigns into Punjab against the Sikhs like his father did, however being more successful. Most prominent example of his battles during this campaign would be where Timur Shah led his forces under Zangi Khan Durrani, with over 18,000 men total of Afghan, Qizilbash, and Mongol cavalrymen. Against over 60,000 Sikh men. The Sikhs would lose over 30,000 in this battle and would stage a Durrani resurgence in Punjab. The Durranis lost Multan in 1772 after Ahmad Shah's death, following this victory by Timur Shah, Timur Shah was able to lay siege to Multan and recapture it, incorporating it into the Durrani empire once again, reintegrating it as a province until the Siege of Multan 1818. Timur Shah would be succeeded by his son, Zaman Shah Durrani after his death on 18 or 20 May 1793. Timur Shah's reign oversaw the attempted stabilization and consolidation of the empire. However, Timur Shah had over 24 s
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ons, a mistake that would plunge the empire in civil war over succession crises.
Zaman Shah Durrani would succeed to the Durrani Throne following the death of his father, Timur Shah Durrani. This instigated civil war with his brothers, Mahmud Shah Durrani, and Humayun Mirza revolting against him. With Humayun centered in Kandahar, and Mahmud Shah centered in Herat. Zaman Shah would defeat Humayun and also force the loyalty of Mahmud Shah Durrani. Securing his position on the throne, Zaman Shah had led 3 campaigns into Punjab, with the first two campaigns capturing Lahore, but being forced to retreat due to issues from a possible Qajar invasion, or his brother, Mahmud Shah Durrani revolting. Zaman Shah embarked on his third campaign for Punjab in 1800 to deal with a rebellious Ranjit Singh. However, he was forced to withdraw, with his brother, Mahmud Shah Durrani revolting, Zaman Shah would be toppled from his reign, replaced by his brother, Mahmud Shah Durrani. However, just under 2 years in his reign, Mahmu
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d Shah Durrani would be deposed by his brother, Shah Shuja Durrani, on 13 July 1803. Shah Shuja would attempt to consolidate the Durrani Realm, which had been long striven by civil war. Shah Shuja would later be deposed by his brother at the Battle of Nimla 1809, where Mahmud Shah Durrani would defeat and force Shah Shuja to flee, with Shah Mahmud usurping the throne again for his second reign beginning on 3 May 1809.
Barakzai dynasty and British wars
By the early 19th century, the Afghan empire was under threat from the Persians in the west and the Sikh Empire in the east. Afghanistan was divided, including the Emirate of Herat centered in the east. Fateh Khan, leader of the Barakzai tribe, installed many of his brothers in positions of power throughout the empire, mostly ruling as governors of major cities and provinces. After his murder for apparent treason against the Durrani king. Fateh Khan would be sentenced by Mahmud Shah Durrani, having him executed. His brothers, notably including Dost Mohammad K
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han, rebelled and divided up the provinces of the empire between themselves. During this turbulent period, Afghanistan had many temporary rulers until Dost Mohammad Khan declared himself emir in 1826. Punjab and Kashmir were lost to Ranjit Singh, who invaded Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in March 1823 and captured the city of Peshawar at the Battle of Nowshera. In 1837, during the Battle of Jamrud near the Khyber Pass, Akbar Khan and the Afghan army failed to capture the Jamrud Fort from the Sikh Khalsa Army, but killed Sikh Commander Hari Singh Nalwa, thus ending the AfghanSikh Wars. By this time the British were advancing from the east and the first major conflict during "the Great Game" was initiated.
In 1838, a British expeditionary force marched into Afghanistan and arrested Dost Mohammad, sent him into exile in India and replaced him with Shah Shuja, the former Durrani king as a puppet on the throne. Following an uprising that saw the assassination of Shah Shuja, the 1842 retreat from Kabul of BritishIndian force
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s and the annihilation of Elphinstone's army, and the Battle of Kabul that led to its recapture, the British gave up on their attempts to try and subjugate Afghanistan, and allowed Dost Mohammad Khan as ruler and withdrew their military forces from Afghanistan. Dost Mohammad Khan would spend most of his reign consolidating the parts of Afghanistan that were lost in the Durrani civil wars. Dost Mohammad Khan would launch numerous campaigns, and also be able to reunite the Afghan realm in his reign, securing Herat 17931863 in the Herat Campaign of 186263. Dost Mohammad died on 9 June 1863, a few months after his campaign to capture Herat. Dost Mohammad's successors would fight for the throne of Afghanistan, between Sher Ali Khan, Mohammad Afzal Khan, and Mohammad Azam Khan in the Afghan Civil War 18631869. Sher Ali would win this civil war and would go on to rule the realm until In 1878, the British had returned in the Second AngloAfghan War which was fought over perceived Russian influence in the region, Abdur
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Rahman Khan replaced Ayub Khan who had succeeded Sher Ali Khan after his death in 1879. Britain would gain control of Afghanistan's foreign relations as part of the Treaty of Gandamak of 1879, making it an official British Protected State. In 1893, Amir Abdur Rahman signed an agreement in which the ethnic Pashtun and Baloch territories were divided by the Durand Line, which forms the modernday border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Shiadominated Hazarajat and pagan Kafiristan remained politically independent until being conquered by Abdur Rahman Khan in 18911896. He was known as the "Iron Amir" for his features and his ruthless methods against tribes. The Iron Amir viewed railway and telegraph lines coming from the Russian and British as "trojan horses" and therefore prevented railway development in Afghanistan. He died in 1901, succeeded by his son, Habibullah Khan.
During the First World War, when Afghanistan was neutral, Habibullah Khan was met by officials of the Central Powers in the NiedermayerHenti
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g Expedition, to declare full independence from the United Kingdom, join them and attack British India, as part of the HinduGerman Conspiracy. Their efforts to bring Afghanistan into the Central Powers failed, but it caused discontent among the population for keeping neutrality against the British. Habibullah was assassinated during a hunting trip in February 1919, and Amanullah Khan eventually assumed power. A staunch supporter of the 19151916 expeditions, Amanullah Khan provoked the Third AngloAfghan War, entering British India via the Khyber Pass.
After the end of the Third AngloAfghan War and the signing of the Treaty of Rawalpindi on 19 August 1919, Emir Amanullah Khan declared the Emirate of Afghanistan a sovereign and fully independent state. He moved to end his country's traditional isolation by establishing diplomatic relations with the international community, particularly with the Soviet Union and the Weimar Republic of Germany. He proclaimed himself King of Afghanistan on 9 June 1926, when the Em
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irate of Afghanistan became the Kingdom of Afghanistan. Following a 192728 tour of Europe and Turkey, he introduced several reforms intended to modernize his nation. A key force behind these reforms was Mahmud Tarzi, an ardent supporter of the education of women. He fought for Article 68 of Afghanistan's 1923 constitution, which made elementary education compulsory. The institution of slavery was abolished in the Emirate of Afghanistan in 1923. King Amanullah's wife, Queen Soraya, was an important figure during this period in the fight for woman's education and against their oppression.
Some of the reforms that were put in place, such as the abolition of the traditional burqa for women and the opening of several coeducational schools, quickly alienated many tribal and religious leaders, and this led to the Afghan Civil War 19281929. Faced with the overwhelming armed opposition, King Amanullah abdicated in January 1929, and soon after Kabul fell to Saqqawist forces led by Habibullah Kalakani. Prince Mohammed
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Nadir Shah, Amanullah's cousin, in turn defeated and killed Kalakani in October 1929, and was declared King Nadir Shah. He abandoned the reforms of King Amanullah in favor of a more gradual approach to modernization, but was assassinated in 1933 by Abdul Khaliq, a fifteenyearold Hazara student who was an Amanullah loyalist.
Mohammed Zahir Shah, Nadir Shah's 19yearold son, succeeded to the throne and reigned as King from 1933 to 1973. The tribal revolts of 19441947 saw King Zahir's reign challenged by Zadran, Safi, Mangal, and Wazir tribesmen led by Mazrak Zadran, Salemai, and Mirzali Khan, among others, many of whom were Amanullah loyalists. Close relations with the Muslim states Turkey, the Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq and IranPersia were also pursued, while further international relations were sought by joining the League of Nations in 1934. The 1930s saw the development of roads, infrastructure, the founding of a national bank, and increased education. Road links in the north played a large part in a growin
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g cotton and textile industry. The country built close relationships with the Axis powers, with Nazi Germany having the largest share in Afghan development at the time, along with the Kingdom of Italy and the Empire of Japan.
Contemporary history
Until 1946, King Zahir ruled with the assistance of his uncle, who held the post of Prime Minister and continued the policies of Nadir Shah. Another of Zahir Shah's uncles, Shah Mahmud Khan, became Prime Minister in 1946 and began an experiment allowing greater political freedom, but reversed the policy when it went further than he expected. He was replaced in 1953 by Mohammed Daoud Khan, the king's cousin and brotherinlaw, and a Pashtun nationalist who sought the creation of a Pashtunistan, leading to highly tense relations with Pakistan. During his ten years at the post until 1963, Daoud Khan pressed for social modernization reforms and sought a closer relationship with the Soviet Union. Afterward, the 1964 constitution was formed, and the first nonroyal Prime Mi
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nister was sworn in.
King Zahir Shah, like his father Nadir Shah, had a policy of maintaining national independence while pursuing gradual modernization, creating nationalist feeling, and improving relations with the United Kingdom. However, Afghanistan remained neutral and was neither a participant in World War II nor aligned with either power bloc in the Cold War thereafter. However, it was a beneficiary of the latter rivalry as both the Soviet Union and the United States vied for influence by building Afghanistan's main highways, airports, and other vital infrastructure in the postwar period. On a per capita basis, Afghanistan received more Soviet development aid than any other country. Afghanistan had, therefore, good relations with both Cold War enemies. In 1973, while the King was in Italy, Daoud Khan launched a bloodless coup and became the first President of Afghanistan, abolishing the monarchy.
Democratic Republic and Soviet war
In April 1978, the communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan
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PDPA seized power in a bloody coup d'tat against thenPresident Mohammed Daoud Khan, in what is called the Saur Revolution. The PDPA declared the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, with its first leader named as People's Democratic Party general secretary Nur Muhammad Taraki. This would trigger a series of events that would dramatically turn Afghanistan from a poor and secluded albeit peaceful country to a hotbed of international terrorism. The PDPA initiated various social, symbolic and land distribution reforms that provoked strong opposition, while also brutally oppressing political dissidents. This caused unrest and quickly expanded into a state of civil war by 1979, waged by guerrilla mujahideen and smaller Maoist guerrillas against regime forces countrywide. It quickly turned into a proxy war as the Pakistani government provided these rebels with covert training centers, the United States supported them through Pakistan's InterServices Intelligence ISI, and the Soviet Union sent th
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ousands of military advisers to support the PDPA regime. Meanwhile, there was increasingly hostile friction between the competing factions of the PDPA the dominant Khalq and the more moderate Parcham.
In September 1979, PDPA General Secretary Taraki was assassinated in an internal coup orchestrated by fellow Khalq member, thenprime minister Hafizullah Amin, who assumed the new general secretary of the People's Democratic Party. The situation in the country deteriorated under Amin and thousands of people went missing. Displeased with Amin's government, the Soviet Army invaded the country in December 1979, heading for Kabul and killing Amin just three days later. A Sovietorganized regime, led by Parcham's Babrak Karmal but inclusive of both factions Parcham and Khalq, filled the vacuum. Soviet troops in more substantial numbers were deployed to stabilize Afghanistan under Karmal, marking the beginning of the SovietAfghan War. The United States and Pakistan, along with smaller actors like Saudi Arabia and Chin
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a, continued supporting the rebels, delivering billions of dollars in cash and weapons including two thousand FIM92 Stinger surfacetoair missiles. Lasting nine years, the war caused the deaths of between 562,000 and 2 million Afghans, and displaced about 6 million people who subsequently fled Afghanistan, mainly to Pakistan and Iran. Heavy air bombardment destroyed many countryside villages, millions of landmines were planted, and some cities such as Herat and Kandahar were also damaged from bombardment. Pakistan's NorthWest Frontier Province functioned as an organizational and networking base for the antiSoviet Afghan resistance, with the province's influential Deobandi ulama playing a major supporting role in promoting the 'jihad'. After the Soviet withdrawal, the civil war ensued until the communist regime under People's Democratic Party leader Mohammad Najibullah collapsed in 1992.
The SovietAfghan War had drastic social effects on Afghanistan. The militarization of society led to heavily armed police, p
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rivate bodyguards, openly armed civil defense groups and other such things becoming the norm in Afghanistan for decades thereafter. The traditional power structure had shifted from clergy, community elders, intelligentsia and military in favor of powerful warlords.
PostCold War conflict
Another civil war broke out after the creation of a dysfunctional coalition government between leaders of various mujahideen factions. Amid a state of anarchy and factional infighting, various mujahideen factions committed widespread rape, murder and extortion, while Kabul was heavily bombarded and partially destroyed by the fighting. Several failed reconciliations and alliances occurred between different leaders. The Taliban emerged in September 1994 as a movement and militia of students talib from Islamic madrassas schools in Pakistan, who soon had military support from Pakistan. Taking control of Kandahar city that year, they conquered more territories until finally driving out the government of Rabbani from Kabul in 1996
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, where they established an emirate that gained international recognition from 3 countries Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The Taliban were condemned internationally for the harsh enforcement of their interpretation of Islamic sharia law, which resulted in the brutal treatment of many Afghans, especially women. During their rule, the Taliban and their allies committed massacres against Afghan civilians, denied UN food supplies to starving civilians and conducted a policy of scorched earth, burning vast areas of fertile land and destroying tens of thousands of homes.
After the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, Ahmad Shah Massoud and Abdul Rashid Dostum formed the Northern Alliance, later joined by others, to resist the Taliban. Dostum's forces were defeated by the Taliban during the Battles of MazariSharif in 1997 and 1998; Pakistan's Chief of Army Staff, Pervez Musharraf, began sending thousands of Pakistanis to help the Taliban defeat the Northern Alliance. By 2000 the Northern Alliance on
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ly controlled 10 of territory, cornered in the northeast. On 9 September 2001, Massoud was assassinated by two Arab suicide attackers in Panjshir Valley. Around 400,000 Afghans died in internal conflicts between 1990 and 2001.
21st century
In October 2001, the United States invaded Afghanistan to remove the Taliban from power after they refused to hand over Osama Bin Laden, the prime suspect of the September 11 attacks, who was a "guest" of the Taliban and was operating his alQaeda network in Afghanistan. The majority of Afghans supported the American invasion of their country. During the initial invasion, US and UK forces bombed alQaeda training camps, and later working with the Northern Alliance, the Taliban regime came to an end.
In December 2001, after the Taliban government was overthrown, the Afghan Interim Administration under Hamid Karzai was formed. The International Security Assistance Force ISAF was established by the UN Security Council to help assist the Karzai administration and provide basi
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c security. By this time, after two decades of war as well as an acute famine at the time, Afghanistan had one of the highest infant and child mortality rates in the world, the lowest life expectancy, much of the population were hungry, and infrastructure was in ruins. Many foreign donors started providing aid and assistance to rebuild the wartorn country.
Taliban forces meanwhile began regrouping inside Pakistan, while more coalition troops entered Afghanistan to help the rebuilding process. The Taliban began an insurgency to regain control of Afghanistan. Over the next decade, ISAF and Afghan troops led many offensives against the Taliban, but failed to fully defeat them. Afghanistan remained one of the poorest countries in the world because of a lack of foreign investment, government corruption, and the Taliban insurgency. Meanwhile, Karzai attempted to unite the peoples of the country, and the Afghan government was able to build some democratic structures, adopting a constitution in 2004 with the name Is
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lamic Republic of Afghanistan. Attempts were made, often with the support of foreign donor countries, to improve the country's economy, healthcare, education, transport, and agriculture. ISAF forces also began to train the Afghan National Security Forces. Following 2002, nearly five million Afghans were repatriated. The number of NATO troops present in Afghanistan peaked at 140,000 in 2011, dropping to about 16,000 in 2018.
In September 2014 Ashraf Ghani became president after the 2014 presidential election where for the first time in Afghanistan's history power was democratically transferred. On 28 December 2014, NATO formally ended ISAF combat operations in Afghanistan and transferred full security responsibility to the Afghan government. The NATOled Operation Resolute Support was formed the same day as a successor to ISAF. Thousands of NATO troops remained in the country to train and advise Afghan government forces and continue their fight against the Taliban. It was estimated in 2015 that "about 147,000
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people have been killed in the Afghanistan war since 2001. More than 38,000 of those killed have been civilians". A report titled Body Count concluded that 106,000170,000 civilians had been killed as a result of the fighting in Afghanistan at the hands of all parties to the conflict.
On 14 April 2021, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance had agreed to start withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan by 1 May. Soon after the withdrawal of NATO troops started, the Taliban launched an offensive against the Afghan government, quickly advancing in front of collapsing Afghan government forces. On 15 August 2021, as the Taliban once again controlled a vast majority of Afghan territory, they recaptured the capital city of Kabul, and many civilians, government officials and foreign diplomats were evacuated. President Ghani fled Afghanistan that day. As of 16 August 2021, an unofficial Coordination Council led by senior statesmen was in the process of coordinating the transfer of the state institutio
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ns of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to the Taliban. On 17 August, the First Vice President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, Amrullah Saleh, proclaimed himself the caretaker President of Afghanistan and announced the formation of an antiTaliban front with a reported 6,000 troops in the Panjshir Valley, along with Ahmad Massoud. However, on 6 September, the Taliban took control of most of the Panjshir province, with resistance fighters retreating to the mountains to continue fighting within the province. Fights in the valley ceased midSeptember, while resistances leaders Amrullah Saleh and Ahmad Massoud fled to neighboring Tajikistan.
The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan was swiftly restored as its opponents were defeated or left the country. It is apparently led by supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada and acting Prime Minister Hasan Akhund, who took office on 7 September 2021. Akhund is one of the four founders of the Taliban and was a deputy Prime Minister in their previous Emirate; his appointmen
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t was seen as a compromise between moderates and hardliners. A new, allmale cabinet was formed including Abdul Hakim Ishaqzai as Minister of Justice. On 20 September 2021, United Nations SecretaryGeneral Antnio Guterres received a letter from acting minister of Foreign Affairs Amir Khan Muttaqi to formally claim Afghanistan's seat as a member state for their official spokesman in Doha, Suhail Shaheen, and asked to address the General Assembly. During the previous Taliban rule from 1996 to 2001, the United Nations never recognized their representatives and chose to work with the thengovernment in exile instead.
Western nations have suspended most humanitarian aid to Afghanistan following the Taliban's takeover of the country in August 2021 and the World Bank and International Monetary Fund also halted payments. In October 2021, more than half of Afghanistan's 39 million people faced an acute food shortage. On 11 November 2021, the Human Rights Watch reported that Afghanistan was facing widespread famine due t
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o an economic and banking crisis.
Geography
Afghanistan is located in SouthernCentral Asia. The region centered at Afghanistan is considered the "crossroads of Asia", and the country has had the nickname Heart of Asia. The renowned Urdu poet Allama Iqbal once wrote about the country
At over , Afghanistan is the world's 41st largest country, slightly bigger than France and smaller than Myanmar, and about the size of Texas in the United States. There is no coastline, as Afghanistan is landlocked. Afghanistan shares its longest land border the Durand Line with Pakistan to the east and south, followed by borders with Tajikistan to the northeast, Iran to the west, Turkmenistan to the northwest, Uzbekistan to the north and China to the northeast; India recognizes a border with Afghanistan through Pakistaniadministered Kashmir. Clockwise from southwest, Afghanistan shares borders with the Sistan and Baluchestan Province, South Khorasan Province and Razavi Khorasan Province of Iran; Ahal Region, Mary Region and L
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ebap Region of Turkmenistan; Surxondaryo Region of Uzbekistan; Khatlon Region and GornoBadakhshan Autonomous Region of Tajikistan; Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China; and the GilgitBaltistan territory, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and Balochistan province of Pakistan.
The geography in Afghanistan is varied, but is mostly mountainous and rugged, with some unusual mountain ridges accompanied by plateaus and river basins. It is dominated by the Hindu Kush range, the western extension of the Himalayas that stretches to eastern Tibet via the Pamir Mountains and Karakoram Mountains in Afghanistan's far northeast. Most of the highest points are in the east consisting of fertile mountain valleys, often considered part of the "Roof of the World". The Hindu Kush ends at the westcentral highlands, creating plains in the north and southwest, namely the Turkestan Plains and the Sistan Basin; these two regions consist of rolling grasslands and semideserts, and hot windy deserts, respectively. Forests exist in the c
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orridor between Nuristan and Paktika provinces see East Afghan montane conifer forests, and tundra in the northeast. The country's highest point is Noshaq, at above sea level. The lowest point lies in Jowzjan Province along the Amu River bank, at above sea level.
Despite having numerous rivers and reservoirs, large parts of the country are dry. The endorheic Sistan Basin is one of the driest regions in the world. The Amu Darya rises at the north of the Hindu Kush, while the nearby Hari Rud flows west towards Herat, and the Arghandab River from the central region southwards. To the south and west of the Hindu Kush flow a number of streams that are tributaries of the Indus River, such as the Helmand River. One exception is the Kabul River which flows in an easternly direction to the Indus ending at the Indian Ocean. Afghanistan receives heavy snow during the winter in the Hindu Kush and Pamir Mountains, and the melting snow in the spring season enters the rivers, lakes, and streams. However, twothirds of the
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country's water flows into the neighboring countries of Iran, Pakistan, and Turkmenistan. As reported in 2010, the state needs more than US2 billion to rehabilitate its irrigation systems so that the water is properly managed.
The northeastern Hindu Kush mountain range, in and around the Badakhshan Province of Afghanistan, is in a geologically active area where earthquakes may occur almost every year. They can be deadly and destructive, causing landslides in some parts or avalanches during the winter. The last strong earthquakes were in 1998, which killed about 6,000 people in Badakhshan near Tajikistan. This was followed by the 2002 Hindu Kush earthquakes in which over 150 people were killed and over 1,000 injured. A 2010 earthquake left 11 Afghans dead, over 70 injured, and more than 2,000 houses destroyed.
Climate
Afghanistan has a continental climate with harsh winters in the central highlands, the glaciated northeast around Nuristan, and the Wakhan Corridor, where the average temperature in January i
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s below and can reach , and hot summers in the lowlying areas of the Sistan Basin of the southwest, the Jalalabad basin in the east, and the Turkestan plains along the Amu River in the north, where temperatures average over in July and can go over . The country is generally arid in the summers, with most rainfall falling between December and April. The lower areas of northern and western Afghanistan are the driest, with precipitation more common in the east. Although proximate to India, Afghanistan is mostly outside the monsoon zone, except the Nuristan Province which occasionally receives summer monsoon rain.
Biodiversity
Several types of mammals exist throughout Afghanistan. Snow leopards, Siberian tigers and brown bears live in the high elevation alpine tundra regions. The Marco Polo sheep exclusively live in the Wakhan Corridor region of northeast Afghanistan. Foxes, wolves, otters, deer, wild sheep, lynx and other big cats populate the mountain forest region of the east. In the semidesert northern pl
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ains, wildlife include a variety of birds, hedgehogs, gophers, and large carnivores such as jackals and hyenas.
Gazelles, wild pigs and jackals populate the steppe plains of the south and west, while mongoose and cheetahs exist in the semidesert south. Marmots and ibex also live in the high mountains of Afghanistan, and pheasants exist in some parts of the country. The Afghan hound is a native breed of dog known for its fast speed and its long hair; it is relatively known in the west.
Endemic fauna of Afghanistan includes the Afghan flying squirrel, Afghan snowfinch, Afghanodon or the "Paghman mountain salamander", Stigmella kasyi, Vulcaniella kabulensis, Afghan leopard gecko, Wheeleria parviflorellus, amongst others. Endemic flora include Iris afghanica. Afghanistan has a wide variety of birds despite its relatively arid climate an estimated 460 species of which 235 breed within.
The forest region of Afghanistan has vegetation such as pine trees, spruce trees, fir trees and larches, whereas the steppe gr
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assland regions consist of broadleaf trees, short grass, perennial plants and shrublands. The colder high elevation regions are composed of hardy grasses and small flowering plants. Several regions are designated protected areas; there are three national parks Bande Amir, Wakhan and Nuristan. Afghanistan had a 2018 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 8.8510, ranking it 15th globally out of 172 countries.
Demographics
The population of Afghanistan was estimated at 32.9 million as of 2019 by the Afghanistan Statistics and Information Authority, whereas the UN estimates over 38.0 million. In 1979 the total population was reported to be about 15.5 million. About 23.9 of them are urbanite, 71.4 live in rural areas, and the remaining 4.7 are nomadic. An additional 3 million or so Afghans are temporarily housed in neighboring Pakistan and Iran, most of whom were born and raised in those two countries. As of 2013, Afghanistan was the largest refugeeproducing country in the world, a title held for 32 yea
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rs.
The current population growth rate is 2.37, one of the highest in the world outside of Africa. This population is expected to reach 82 million by 2050 if current population trends continue. The population of Afghanistan increased steadily until the 1980s, when civil war caused millions to flee to other countries such as Pakistan. Millions have since returned and the war conditions contribute to the country having the highest fertility rate outside Africa. Afghanistan's healthcare has recovered since the turn of the century, causing falls in infant mortality and increases in life expectancy, although it has the lowest life expectance of any country outside Africa. This along with other factors such as returning refugees caused rapid population growth in the 2000s that has only recently started to slow down. The Gini coefficient in 2008 was 27.8.
Ethnicity and languages
Afghans are divided into several ethnolinguistic groups. The Pashtuns are the largest ethnic group, comprising 39 2019 sociological res
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earch data by The Asia Foundation, followed by Tajiks or Farsiwans, comprising 37. of the country's population. Generally the other three major ethnic groups are the Tajiks, Hazaras and Uzbeks. A further 10 other ethnic groups are recognized and each are represented in the Afghan National Anthem.
Dari and Pashto are the official languages of Afghanistan; bilingualism is very common. Dari, which is a variety of and mutually intelligible with Persian and very often called 'Farsi' by some Afghans like in Iran functions as the lingua franca in Kabul as well as in much of the northern and northwestern parts of the country. Native speakers of Dari, of any ethnicity, are sometimes called Farsiwans. Pashto is the native tongue of the Pashtuns, although many of them are also fluent in Dari while some nonPashtuns are fluent in Pashto. Despite the Pashtuns having been dominant in Afghan politics for centuries, Dari remained the preferred language for government and bureaucracy.
According to CIA World Factbook, Dari Pe
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rsian is spoken by 78 L1 L2 and functions as the lingua franca, while Pashto is spoken by 50, Uzbek 10, English 5, Turkmen 2, Urdu 2, Pashayi 1, Nuristani 1, Arabic 1, and Balochi 1 2021 est. Data represent the most widely spoken languages; shares sum to more than 100 because there is much bilingualism in the country and because respondents were allowed to select more than one language.There are a number of smaller regional languages, including Uzbek, Turkmen, Balochi, Pashayi, and Nuristani.
When it comes to foreign languages among the populace, many are able to speak or understand Hindustani UrduHindi, partly due to returning Afghan refugees from Pakistan and the popularity of Bollywood films respectively. English is also understood by some of the population, and has been gaining popularity as of the 2000s. Some Afghans retain some ability in Russian, which was taught in public schools during the 1980s.
Religion
An estimated 99.7 of the Afghan population is Muslim and most are thought to adhere to the
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Sunni Hanafi school. According to Pew Research Center, as much as 90 are of the Sunni denomination, 7 Shia and 3 nondenominational. The CIA Factbook variously estimates up to 89.7 Sunni or up to 15 Shia. Michael Izady estimated 70 of the population to be followers of Sunni Islam, 25 Imami Shia Islam, 4.5 Ismaili Shia Islam, and 0.5 other religions.
Afghan Sikhs and Hindus are also found in certain major cities namely Kabul, Jalalabad, Ghazni, Kandahar accompanied by gurdwaras and mandirs. According to Deutsche Welle in September 2021, 250 remain in the country after 67 were evacuated to India.
There was a small Jewish community in Afghanistan, living mainly in Herat and Kabul. Over the years, this small community was forced leave due to decades of warfare and religious persecution. By the end of the twentieth century, the entire community had emigrated to Israel and the United States, with the exception of one person, Heratborn Zablon Simintov. He remained for years, being the caretaker of the only remainin
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g Afghan synagogue. After the second Taliban takeover, he left Afghanistan for the United States.
Afghan Christians, who number 5008,000, practice their faith secretly due to intense societal opposition, and there are no public churches.
Urbanization
As estimated by the CIA World Factbook, 26 of the population was urbanized as of 2020. This is one of the lowest figures in the world; in Asia it is only higher than Cambodia, Nepal and Sri Lanka. Urbanization has increased rapidly, particularly in the capital Kabul, due to returning refugees from Pakistan and Iran after 2001, internally displaced people, and rural migrants. Urbanization in Afghanistan is different from typical urbanization in that it is centered on just a few cities.
The only city with over a million residents is its capital, Kabul, located in the east of the country. The other large cities are located generally in the "ring" around the Central Highlands, namely Kandahar in the south, Herat in the west, MazariSharif and Kunduz in the north, a
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nd Jalalabad in the east.
Governance
Following the effective collapse of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan during the 2021 Taliban offensive, the Taliban declared the country an Islamic Emirate. A new caretaker government was announced on 7 September. As of 8 September 2021, no other country had formally recognized the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan as the de jure government of Afghanistan.
A traditional instrument of governance in Afghanistan is the loya jirga grand assembly, a Pashtun consultative meeting that was mainly organized for choosing a new head of state, adopting a new constitution, or to settle national or regional issue such as war. Loya jirgas have been held since at least 1747, with the most recent one occurring in August 2020.
Development of Taliban government
On 17 August 2021, the leader of the Talibanaffiliated HezbeIslami Gulbuddin party, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, met with both Hamid Karzai, the former President of Afghanistan, and Abdullah Abdullah, the chairman of the High Council f
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or National Reconciliation and former Chief Executive, in Doha, Qatar, with the aim of forming a government though it is unclear whether either Karzai or Abdullah will be directly involved in any such government. President Ashraf Ghani, having fled the country during the Taliban advance to either Tajikistan or Uzbekistan, emerged in the United Arab Emirates and said that he supported such negotiations and was in talks to return to Afghanistan.
, the Islamic Emirate is undergoing a transitional political period with an unofficial Coordination Council led by senior statesmen in the process of coordinating the transfer of the state institutions of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to the Taliban. Taliban forces, meanwhile, exercise effective police authority in the country. The Kabul meetings on government formation are menonly meetings according to Fawzia Koofi, former member of the Afghan National Assembly, who stated that a menonly government would "not be complete". Many figures within the Taliban general
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ly agree that continuation of the Constitution of Afghanistan may, potentially, be workable as the basis for the new state as their objections to the former government were religious, and not political, in nature. On 20 August, Abdul Ghani Baradar arrived in Kabul from Kandahar to begin formal negotiations with the Coordination Council on the composition and structure of the new government.
Hours after the final flight of American troops left Kabul on 30 August, a Taliban official interviewed said that a new government would likely be announced as early as Friday 3 September after Jumu'ah. It was added that Hibatullah Akhundzada would be officially named Emir, with cabinet ministers being revealed at the Arg in an official ceremony. Abdul Ghani Baradar would be named head of government as Prime Minister, while other important positions would go to Sirajuddin Haqqani and Mohammad Yaqoob. Beneath the supreme leader, daytoday governance will be entrusted to the cabinet.
According to CNN, the new government is
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