Brief Biography of Albert Einstein, Facts about Life and Scientific Achievements

The personality of Albert Einstein and his incredible scientific contributions have been sparking interest of both the scientists and general public for over a hundred years already.

In brief, Albert Einstein is a scientist, physicist and Nobel Prize winner, who is also known as the one of the most prominent founders of theoretical physics. In his lifetime he managed to propose a great variety of scientific theories and made discoveries, which were way ahead of his time.

Although, some facts regarding his scientific works remain controversial even today, Albert Einstein did enough to make his name synonymous to "genius" and there are many interesting facts about Einstein's life that many people don’t know.



Albert Einstein: 7 Interesting Facts to Know about Genius Scientist

#1. Early childhood

Despite his achievements in many fields of science, in his childhood Albert wasn’t even close to being called a wunderkind. Albert was born with an unusually big head and his mother even worried that there might be something medically wrong with her child.

Baby Einstein didn’t say his first words until he was three years old, which was worrying his parents even more, as they thought that he was falling behind in his development.

However, as soon as the boy starting talking, the emotions of his parents changed from despair to true amazement – a child, who couldn’t start speaking for years, had an excellent memory for new words and a three-year Einstein had a vocabulary, like that of an adult.

#2. Was Einstein really a bad student?

There are some sources, which claim that in this early years Albert failed most of his mathematics classes and was a terrible student overall. But these statements, being partially true, could not be treated seriously and are sometimes used to encourage poor academic achievers in our times.

The majority of modern historians support the statement that Einstein never flunked math in school even at an early age and, moreover, was skillful in topics beyond the school curriculum. It was the time, when he felt that his #breakthrough achievement is just around the corner.

It is true though that he couldn’t enter the Swiss Federal Polytechnic in Zürich from the first try, as, while showing the scores results in physics and mathematics, he failed to get a required number in other disciplines. It took him another year to improve his flaws and finally enter this institution.

But attention a higher education establishment proved to be too hard for Albert, as he was known to regularly skipping lectures, in order to spend time reading magazines in a cafe or thinking his scientific theories over.

#3. First job at the patent office

After finishing his studies Albert had hard time putting his knowledge to use and found his first job only with the help of a friend, who offered a job as an expert at the patent office.

Although the job brought in some money for Einstein, it was too easy for him on one hand, the evaluation of technical data in the patent office was too easy for a task for him, but on the other hand, he had more time on his hands, which enabled the genius to develop his theories and work on new discoveries.

#4. Einstein’s achievements in physics

Despite being credited with incredibly valuable scientific discoveries and achievements for physics, Albert Einstein didn’t use many instruments or laboratories for developing and proving his theories. One of the best minds in the world came up with his theories by only using a pen, some paper, ink to write with and, last but not least, a pipe.

#5. Annus Mirabilis or the miracle year

1905 is probably the most important and eventful year in the life of Albert Einstein or at least in his career. This was the year, when we managed to come up with his best works: on the basis a theory formed by a quantum physicist Max Planck, Einstein proposed the photoelectric effect theory, which later became the foundation for a breakthrough (and brought his a Nobel Prize).

But the photoelectric effect theory was not the most important achievement according to Albert, as he considered the theory of relativity to be his greatest achievement.

His #German-born theoretical physicist has greatly contributed to the development of nuclear energy, his famous formula, which is known by nearly every student in the world, E = mc2 helped to produce fundamental shifts in the development of this and similar nuclear technologies.

#6. Believing in success

Having struggled financially on numerous occasions in his life, Einstein always kept his confidence and even the smallest victory only strengthened his belief in success. This brilliant physicist induced optimism and always kept a shining image of the upcoming victory in his mind.

Albert implicitly believed that we would win the Nobel Prize, even in the moments in financial struggles. He was so sure about it, that he even promised to give his money as a divorce settlement to his first wife.

#7. Story of Einstein’s tongue-out photo

 

The photograph of Albert Einstein with his tongue out has become widely known over the years. The success of the photo may be due to the fact that seeing a celebrated scientist with his tongue-out is at least unusual.

Such comic photo was taken, when Albert couldn’t take the requests of the journalists and photographers anyone and we decided to make such a gesture, when we was asked to "smile at the camera" once again.

Other quick facts and interesting memories:

- The theory of relativity, which made Einstein an internationally celebrated scientist, has served as a basis for many science fiction stories and speculations. But Albert himself was not especially delighted by such literary genre and even despised it.

- When Einstein was asked about the location of his laboratory, he would smile and only show his pen.

- One of the greatest minds in the world liked writing poetry, which helped him train his mind, and tried to speak in aphorisms. The process of developing the scientific theories was similar to writing poems, as Einstein was speaking the out loud, until they were perfect. A theory could be considered successful, if he could explain it in simple words, for example, to the secretary.

Image credits:

1) www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUla2so_DdQ / www.thedrawinghands.com
2) www.media.guim.co.uk/eae7ca21a806da18a90663b9d3487b48f5ddbfd1/0_750_4816_2891/4816.jpg