Facts of Albert Einstein

Considered as 20^th 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.