Considered
as 20th Century’s most influential physicist,
Albert Einstein is one of the most popular scientists of modern science.
He was the greatest genius of our times whose contributions to physics
have been matched only by a handful of others in history. Even so, nowadays
Einstein is associated just with one formula: E = mc2. It has been called the
most famous formula in the world, and even people who have no idea what
mass-energy equivalence is still know it. However, there was a lot more to the
man than that.
1. Einstein was born in Germany on March 14, 1879. The place of birth was Ulm, Württemberg. He died on April 18, 1955 at the age of 76 in Princeton, New Jersey, United States.
2. At birth his head had a weird shape. It is being said that the back of his head was very large but within the first few weeks, the shape gradually changed to normal.
3. He was born in a middle-class Jew family and had a sister named Maja who was two years younger to him.
4. Sources say that Einstein was plagued by speech difficulty and could not speak until he turned 4 years old.
5. Albert Einstein completed his elementary education from Munich’s Luitpold Gymnasium.
6. The first scientific paper he wrote was at the age of 16. The paper was titled “The Investigation of the State of Aether in Magnetic Fields.”
7. He never failed math. This is a popular “fact” promoted
on the internet, maybe in an attempt to relate to genius. However, it is simply
not true. Overall, Einstein was an average student, but math was one area where
he excelled, unsurprisingly.
8. Einstein encouraged the development of the
nuclear bomb. His involvement is often misinterpreted, with some claiming that
he helped create the atom bomb. In reality, what he did was write a letter to
President FDR encouraging him to begin work on such a weapon, which led to the
Manhattan Project. Although a dedicated pacifist and, later, an anti-nuke
spokesman, Einstein was convinced that America needed the atomic bomb before
the Nazis.
9. He was a great musician. If the whole “genius” thing didn’t work
out, Einstein could have become a violinist. His mother played piano so he had
the love of music instilled in him—via violin lessons—at the young age of five.
10. He could have been the President of Israel. When Israel’s first president,
Chaim Weizmann, died, Einstein was offered the position, but he declined.
11. He
married his cousin. After Einstein divorced his first wife, Mileva Maric, he
married his cousin, Elsa Lowenthal. He was, actually, quite a bad husband to
his first wife in their later years. He had affairs he never tried to hide, he
moved the entire family to Berlin without discussion, and treated her more as a
servant than a wife.
12. He won the 1921 Nobel Prize for Physics. This alone
isn’t particularly surprising. What is surprising is the fact that he didn’t
receive it for the general or special theory of relativity, but rather for the
photoelectric effect.
13. He loved to sail. Ever since university, Einstein
sailed as a hobby. But by his own admission, he never made a particularly good
sailor. In fact, he didn’t even know how to swim.
14. He really didn’t like
socks, and usually didn’t wear them. In fact, in a letter to Elsa, he bragged
about getting away “without wearing socks” while at Oxford.
15. He had an
illegitimate daughter. This wasn’t known until the 1980s, but according to
correspondence between Albert and Mileva it was determined that the two had a
daughter in 1902 called Lieserl. At one point, all mention of her in letters
stopped so her fate is unknown.
16. His brain
was stolen. After Einstein died, the pathologist who did his autopsy took his
brain without permission. He eventually got the permission necessary from
Einstein’s son, but he was fired from Princeton when he refused to turn the
brain over. He kept it for over forty years before finally returning it in 1998.
17. In 1894, his
father’s electrical company failed to get an important contract and the family
was forced to move to Italy’s Milan. Einstein was however, left at Munich’s
boarding house to complete his studies. Einstein was very unhappy about the
idea of joining compulsory military duty when he reached the appropriate age
and hence, he decided to join his parents in Milan. He left school without
notice by using a doctor’s note and went to Italy.
18. Einstein
then joined Eidgenössische Polytechnische Schule (Swiss Federal Polytechnic
School) based in Zürich, Switzerland. His exceptional talent in mathematics and
physics grabbed attention but he actually failed in other subjects of the
entrance exam. School authorities decided to accept him provided he completed
his formal schooling. So, he joined Jost Winteler’s special high school and
graduated at the age of 17.
19. At the age
of 17 Einstein also renounced his German citizenship to avoid military service.
During his schooling with Jost Winteler, he became very close to the family and
fell in love with Marie – Winteler’s daughter. He also enrolled in Zürich’s
school after renouncing his German citizenship.
20. In 1902, Einstein’s financial conditions were
awful. He did not have a job and his father’s company went bankrupt. That is
when Einstein started tutoring children.
21. Einstein eventually grabbed a Swiss clerical
job after a recommendation from Marcel Grossman’s father. Marcel Grossman was
Einstein’s lifelong friend.
22. Einstein’s father died shortly after that
because of illness but before death, approved of Einstein’s and Maric’s
wedding. The couple got married in 1903. The next year they had a son named
Hans Albert and in 1910 they had a second son named Eduard.
23. During his
study at the polytechnic school, Einstein went through the electromagnetic
theories that were developed by James Maxwell – a Scottish Physicist.
24. Einstein,
through the studies of those theories, had found out that speed of light was
constant and this fact was not known to Maxwell. Einstein’s discovery was a
direct violation of Newton’s laws of
motion. This led Einstein to develop the relativity principle.
25. The year
1905 is known as the ‘Miracle Year’ of Einstein. That year he submitted his
doctorate paper and 4 of his papers were published in one of the best know
physic journals – the Annalen der Physik. The 4 papers that were published were
Equivalence of Matter and Energy, Special Relativity, Brownian Motion and
Photoelectric Effect. These papers eventually altered the very fabric of modern
physics.
26. It was in his paper on ‘Equivalence of Matter and Energy’ where Einstein gave
his famous formula E=mc2.
27. After gaining popularity, Einstein had to
frequently travel and this started causing troubles in his family because of
poor finances.
28. Eventually, Einstein concluded that the marriage was over and got into a
relation with his cousin named Elsa Löwenthal and later married her.
29. Mileva
Maric and Albert Einstein eventually divorced in 1919 on an agreement that if
ever Einstein wins a noble prize, Maric will receive the entire money that he
wins.
30. Einstein had actually set some weird rules for
his first wife Maric. The rules included – ‘she had to stop talking when
Einstein asked her to’, ‘she had to serve him three meals a day’ and ‘she could
not expect any physical intimacy from him’.
31. In many letters that Einstein wrote to Elsa, he
actually acknowledged the fact that he was involved in several extramarital
affairs.
32. His first wife
Maric actually received the money he won as a part of Noble Prize.
33. Einstein’s
eyeballs are preserved in a safe box in New York City.
