The Odd Boy Out - Albert Einstein

Ranked #2,170 in Education, #50,677 overall

Creativity and imagination were very important to Albert Einstein.

If I were to have the good fortune to pass my examinations, I would go to Zurich. I would stay there for four years in order to study mathematics and physics. I imagine myself becoming a teacher in those branches of the natural sciences, choosing the theoretical part of them.

Here are the reasons which lead me to this plan. Above all, it is my disposition for abstract and mathematical thought, and my lack of imagination and practical ability.


In 1910, Einstein answered a basic question: 'Why is the sky blue?' His paper on the phenomenon called critical opalescence solved the problem by examining the cumulative effect of the scattering of light by individual molecules in the atmosphere.

He used his imagination

Albert Einstein used the knowledge that he gained from school and from books, and he reorganized them.

He used his imagination to connect things in his head, and to imagine things that human beings couldn't see with the naked eye. Creativity and imagination were very important to Albert Einstein. He thought about mass and energy in a new, creative way, and it allowed him to become probably the most famous scientist of this century.

His imagination helped him to think about things that don't actually exist, but would prove his theory, like the infinitely tall building. Creativity and imagination are excellent tools for solving problems, and Albert Einstein is an excellent example of this.

Walter Isaacson brings Einstein's experience of life, love, and intellectual discovery into brilliant focus.

Einstein: His Life and Universe

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As a scientist, Albert Einstein is undoubtedly the most epic among 20th-century thinkers. Albert Einstein as a man, however, has been a much harder portrait to paint, and what we know of him as a husband, father, and friend is fragmentary at best.

Learn even more about Einstein

Ten Obscure Factoids Concerning Albert Einstein

"When I was young, I found out that the big toe always ends up making a hole in the sock," he once said. "So I stopped wearing socks." Einstein was also a fanatical slob, refusing to "dress properly" for anyone. Either people knew him or they didn't, he reasoned - so it didn't matter either way.

Albert Einstein - Biography

After his retirement he continued to work towards the unification of the basic concepts of physics, taking the opposite approach, geometrisation, to the majority of physicists.

Einstein-Image and Impact. AIP History Center exhibit.

Einstein's life and thought -by leading historians with many illustrations - his theories, political concerns, and impact. From the AIP Center for History of Physics.

An Essay by Einstein -- The World As I See It

"I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves -- this critical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty.

Odd Boy Out: Young Albert Einstein

Age Range: 5-8 years

When he was born in 1879, Albert was a peculiarly fat baby with an unusually big and misshaped head. When he was older, he hit his sister, frustrated his teachers, and had few friends. But Albert's strange childhood also included his brilliant capacity for puzzles and problem solving: the mystery of a compass's swirling needle, the intricacies of Mozart's music, the secrets of geometry-set his mind spinning with ideas. In fact, Albert Einstein's ideas were destined to change the way we know and understand the world and our place in the universe. In spare, precise text filled with graceful detail and accompanied by sometimes humorous, sometimes lonely portraits, Don Brown introduces us to the less than magnificent beginnings of an odd boy out. The result is a tender rendering of the adventures of growing up for one of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century
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Einstein Revealed

Time.com: Person of the Century
Collection of articles from Time Magazine portray Einstein as the greatest mind of the 20th century.
Albert Einstein
Short biography and sketch from PBS.
NOVA Online: Einstein Revealed
In-depth article attempts to answer the question of just how smart Einstein was.
Einstein: His Image and Impact
Online exhibit displays Einstein's scientific contributions, political and cultural concerns, and impact on the world.
Albert Einstein
An overview of his life, from childhood through the final decades.
Albert Einstein for Kids
A short biography written just for kids. Includes introduction geared toward teachers.
Albert Einstein: Physicist
Short biography and portrait along with related links.
Scientists and Thinkers: Albert Einstein
Article provides a glimpse into the life of the physicist who is considered the father of modern science. Includes sound file, photographs, timeline, slide show, and quiz. From Time Magazine.
The Albert Einstein Experience
Jokes, quotes, science facts, pictures, links and relativity describing Einstein's life and work.
Starchild: Albert Einstein
Tells about the life of the renowned physicist.
Science Hero: Albert Einstein
A student-friendly biography of the father of modern science along with related links.
The Energy Planet: Albert Einstein
Provides a short biography along with a look at Einstein's greatest accomplishments.
Encarta: Albert Einstein
Article provides an overview of Einstein's life, along with a detailed look at his theory of relativity.

Albert Einstein

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Einstein Web sites

A Science Odyssey: That's My Theory: Einstein

I graduated from the Federal Polytechnic Academy in 1900, where I studied mathematics and physics for four years. I must admit, I did not excel in my studies -- perhaps I should not have cut so many classes.

Einstein, Albert (1879-1955) -- from Eric Weisstein's World of Scientific Biography

A recent study of Einstein's preserved brain (for details, see Regis 1991) has discovered that the inferior parietal region--the part thought to be related to mathematical reasoning--was 15% wider than normal (Witelson et al. 1999). In additional, the groove normally running from the front to the back did not extend all the way in Einstein's brain. However, it is unclear what the true significance of these anatomical anomalies are in connection with Einstein's scientific creativity.

Short Words to Explain Relativity

Say you woke up one day and your bed was gone. Your room, too. Gone. It's all gone. You wake up in an inky void. Not even a star. Okay, yes, it's a dumb idea, but just go with it. Now say you want to know if you move or not. Are you held fast in one spot? Or do you, say, list off to the left some? What I want to ask you is: Can you find out? Hell no. You can see that, sure. You don't need me to tell you. To move, you have to move to or away from ... well, from what? You'd have to say that you don't even get to use a word like "move" when you are the only body in that void. Sure. Okay.

A Superb Scientific Story

NOVA: Einstein's Big Idea

Amazon Price: $7.53 (as of 02/15/2012)Buy Now

Einstein's Big Idea is about the many contributions of earlier scientists leading Einstein to come up with E=mc2. It's also about the later usefulness of E=mc2 in nuclear physics. Unlike Einstein Revealed, which is a story almost entirely about the life of Einstein (private and public), Einstein's Big Idea is a story about science with its ups and downs.

Einstein was Inspired by a Compass

When Einstein was five years old and sick in bed, his father showed him something that sparked his interest in science: a compass.


When Einstein was five years old and ill in bed one day, his father showed him a simple pocket compass. What interested young Einstein was whichever the case was turned, the needle always pointed in the same direction. He thought there must be some force in what was presumed empty space that acted on the compass. This incident, common in many "famous childhoods," was reported persistently in many of the accounts of his life once he gained fame. (Source)

Einstein published more than 300 scientific papers

Near the beginning of his career, Einstein thought that Newtonian mechanics was no longer enough to reconcile the laws of classical mechanics with the laws of the electromagnetic field. This led to the development of his special theory of relativity. He realized, however, that the principle of relativity could also be extended to gravitational fields, and with his subsequent theory of gravitation in 1916, he published a paper on the general theory of relativity. He continued to deal with problems of statistical mechanics and quantum theory, which led to his explanations of particle theory and the motion of molecules. He also investigated the thermal properties of light which laid the foundation of the photon theory of light. In 1917, Einstein applied the general theory of relativity to model the structure of the universe as a whole."Einstein Biography" Nobelprize.org.

He was visiting the United States when Hitler came to power in 1933, and did not go back to Germany, where he had been a professor at the Berlin Academy of Sciences. He settled in the U.S., becoming a citizen in 1940. On the eve of World War II, he helped alert President Franklin D. Roosevelt that Germany might be developing an atomic weapon, and recommended that the U.S. begin similar research. Later, together with Bertrand Russell, Einstein signed the Russell?Einstein Manifesto, which highlighted the danger of nuclear weapons. Einstein taught physics at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, New Jersey, until his death in 1955.

Einstein published more than 300 scientific papers along with over 150 non-scientific works.His non-scientific works include: About Zionism: Speeches and Lectures by Professor Albert Einstein (1930), "Why War?" (1933, co-authored by Sigmund Freud), The World As I See It (1934), Out of My Later Years (1950), and a book on science for the general reader, The Evolution of Physics (1938, co-authored by Leopold Infeld). His great intelligence and originality have made the word "Einstein" synonymous with genius.WordNet for Einstein.


read the rest of the Wikipedia article

Albert Einstein and the Atomic Bomb

Albert Einstein and the Atomic Bomb

In November 1954, five months before his death, Einstein summarized his feelings about his role in the creation of the atomic bomb: "I made one great mistake in my life... when I signed the letter to President Roosevelt recommending that atom bombs be made; but there was some justification - the danger that the Germans would make them."

Einstein the Nobody

I shall start by telling you that my son Albert is 22 years old, that ... he feels profoundly unhappy with his present lack of position, and his idea that he has gone off the tracks with his career & is now out of touch gets more and more entrenched each day. In addition, he is oppressed by the thought that he is a burden on us, people of modest means....

Moonwalking with Einstein

Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything

Amazon Price: $10.99 (as of 02/15/2012)Buy Now

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Ideas And Opinions

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Einstein: The Real Story of the Man Behind the Theory

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