Albert Einstein: the lesser known stories..

Albert Einstein was a Jewish Physicist who founded the special theory of relativity and the matter-energy equation. His father was an engineer in Munich. He couldn’t handle the strict discipline and authority and that was one of the reasons he dropped out of school. He also dodged military duty with a doctor’s note stating nervous exhaustion. He was a free spirit, he always believed that “imagination was more important than knowledge”. He was also a peace lover and even though he was one of the pioneers in realising atomic and nuclear power, he was completely against its use for destruction of life and property. He was a war pacifist.

He had speech defects as a kid, but loved music and wanted to pursue classical music later in life. He also played the violin beautifully and hung on to this passion till his last breath. He loved to travel and his ultimate reason for settling in America was the freedom given to thinkers like him, the freedom given to people to be who they are, a freedom that he did not enjoy in his early years.

Even though he dropped out of school, his maths and physics abilities were irrefutable. His IQ was a whopping 160, the same as Stephen Hawking’s. After dropping out of school, when Einstein appeared for the Federal University of Zurich’s entrance test, he passed the maths and science sections, but failed all the rest, which is why he had to go to trade school and finish his schooling before joining the university where he ultimately followed his passion for the sciences. It was this brilliant physics ability that won him the Nobel Prize. Even though it was his special theory of relativity, that he considered the ultimate prize of his life, which was supposed to have gotten him the Nobel prize, due to controversies surrounding it and the bureaucratic over-rulings, he received the same for his work on photoelectric effect. However, in his acceptance speech, Einstein chose to talk about the special theory of relativity only.

Einstein also supported the coloured races during the later stages of his life as he paralleled the prejudice he faced as a Jew from the Germans to the bias African Americans were facing from the white Americans.

During his final years, Einstein gave up the spotlight completely and liked to stay in seclusion. When he had an aortic aneurysm, he refused surgery as he believed that he had lived his life ad there was nothing more left for him to accomplish or enjoy. He believed that it was tasteless to prolong life artificially He felt that it was his time to go, and the very next day, on 18^th April 1955, he passed away.

During his autopsy, Thomas Stoltz Harvey removed Einstein’s brain without his or his family’s permission to preserve it for future generations to study. Einstein’s remains were cremated in an undisclosed location as per his wish. After decades of studies, Einstein’s brain is now located at the Princeton University Medical Centre.