Einstein: A Life of Genius (The True Story of Albert Einstein) Read online

  Einstein: A Life of Genius

  By Alexander Kennedy

  Copyright 2016 Alexander Kennedy Publishing. All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher.

  The information provided within this book is for general informational purposes only. While we try to keep the information up-to-date and correct, there are no representations or warranties, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability or availability with respect to the information, products, services, or related graphics contained in this book for any purpose.

  Table of Contents

  Overview

  Prologue

  Chapter 1: A Rebel’s Education

  Chapter 2: 1905 – The Year of Miracles

  Chapter 3: Professor Einstein

  Chapter 4: The International Celebrity

  Chapter 5: The Search for the Grail

  Chapter 6: The Scientific Search for God

  Chapter 7: The Pacifist’s Fight

  Epilogue

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  Overview

  Chapter 1: A Rebel Gets an Education

  Discover the events that transformed an average boy into a man who would become synonymous with genius.

  Did you know Einstein failing math as a child is actually a myth?

  Chapter 2: 1905: The Miracle Year

  Learn how Einstein revolutionized the world of physics and our understanding of the universe.

  Did you know Einstein developed the Theory of Relativity while working part-time as a patent clerk?

  Chapter 3: Professor Einstein

  Join Einstein as he shares his fascinating ideas with an audience and strives to earn the recognition he deserves.

  Did you know the Theory of Relativity did not achieve widespread acclaim until years after it was published?

  Chapter 4: The International Celebrity

  See Einstein as a pop-culture icon who captured the hearts and minds of people all around the world.

  Did you know Einstein often pretended to be someone else when asked for an autograph?

  Chapter 5: The Search for the Grail

  Accompany Einstein on his journey for a theory that would unite the world of physics and explain the inner-workings of the universe.

  Did you know Einstein worked on the Unified Field Theory until the day he died?

  Chapter 6: The Scientific Search for God

  Find out how Einstein reconciled his scientific knowledge with his religious beliefs.

  Did you know Einstein believed in God?

  Chapter 7: The Pacifists Fight

  Review Einstein's unique perspective as a humanitarian who lived in a time of war.

  Did you know Einstein encouraged the United States to develop the atomic bomb?

  Prologue

  “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” - Albert Einstein

  His image is iconic. His face appears on posters and tee shirts, coffee mugs and calendars, album covers, web pages, and bobble heads. His appearance — the frazzled hair, rumpled trousers and old sweater, coupled with a heavy German accent — is the quintessential image of mad scientists and absent-minded professors. He was, wrote a journalist for Time magazine, a “cartoonists dream.” So famous was his appearance that, during his lifetime, total strangers would approach him on the street and ask him to explain his famous theory of relativity. “Oh no,” he would declaim in his heavily accented English, “Always I am mistaken for Professor Einstein,” no doubt leaving his questioner more mystified than before.

  His work as a physicist brought him international acclaim and awards. He was consulted by prime ministers and presidents. He traveled all over the world, presenting scientific papers and delivering lectures. His success in the field of theoretical physics brought him much more than the respect of his colleagues and the admiration of the leading scientists of his day; it brought him celebrity and status that has yet to be replicated by any other scientist.

  Einstein was much more than a physics prodigy. He was a widely quoted philosopher, and an often debated theologian. He was called a Christian, a Jew, an atheist, and an agnostic. He was a lifelong pacifist who came to advocate armed resistance against the Germany of his birth. He was an avid amateur musician, and even claimed to think in music. He had simple tastes in food, yet lived lavishly, as his fame brought him wealth.

  And he spent the last three decades of his life in the fruitless pursuit of a dream, one that continues to elude scientists and physicists sixty years after his death.

  Einstein was an intensely private man who paradoxically welcomed and exploited his celebrity to promote his causes. It is through Einstein’s work that the man emerges.

  Chapter 1: A Rebel’s Education

  The world into which Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879 was vastly different from the one in which he would earn his fame. Houses were lighted with gas or oil lamps, and heated by coal or wood. The primary mode of transportation was horseback. Long distance communication was by telegraph or post. Einstein was born on the cusp of an age in which sweeping changes would take place. By the end of the year in which he was born, Thomas Edison would demonstrate his improved incandescent light bulb.

  Cities began to clamor for electrification, and grew to support industries, mass transit, and soon lighting. In the year following his birth, Einstein’s family relocated to Munich, where his father, Hermann, partnered with his brother to open a company to manufacture and sell electrical equipment using direct current. At first this company prospered, and by 1885 the Einstein’s owned a large house and garden in Munich. When Albert was 2 ½ years old, his sister Marie was born. Marie would be Albert’s closest friend in his childhood.

  Albert did not begin to speak until relatively late, around the age of three. Concerned about the possibility of developmental issues, his parents had him examined by a doctor, an event which Albert would remember and comment on many years later. Einstein later explained that he would form whole sentences in his mind, and would sometimes silently mouth the words before uttering them aloud. The cause of this developmental issue was never determined.

  The Jewish Boy Attends Catholic School

  Einstein’s parents were non-practicing Ashkenazi Jews. When Albert was five, despite the fact that a Jewish school was available, his parents enrolled him in the Petersschule, a Catholic elementary school. According to Marie, that school was chosen because of its superior academic standards. Albert remained at the school for three years.

  It was d
uring this attendance that Albert first exhibited the aversion to discipline he maintained for the rest of his life.

  The curriculum required Albert, the only Jewish student in the school, to attend classes in Catholic religion, which he enjoyed. This led him to develop, possibly in rebellion to his parent’s indifference to religion, a passion for Judaism. “He was so fervent in his feelings that, on his own, he observed Jewish religious strictures in every detail,” his sister Marie later wrote.

  This passion was short-lived. As he was exposed to science and mathematics, Albert began to question religion. At twelve, he turned his back on Judaism. Many years later, Einstein wrote, “Through the reading of popular scientific books, I soon reached the conviction that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true. The consequence was a positively fanatic orgy of freethinking coupled with the impression that youth is intentionally being deceived by the state through lies; it was a crushing impression.”

  Einstein’s Dislike for School Begins

  Years later, Einstein said, “Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.” He also retained his disdain for established teaching methods for the rest of his life, explaining that, “It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.”

  In his later life, Einstein addressed the myth of his depiction as a poor student by laughing it off, claiming to have always been at the top of his class in all subjects. His rebuttal to the myth was as untrue as the claim that he failed math. When a subject interested him, he excelled, and when it did not, he was indifferent. He always achieved passing grades, but not always top marks.

  Regardless, Einstein was near the top of his class, thanks to his grades in math and science, in a school with demanding academic standards. It is true that he did not enjoy school, but it is untrue that he did poorly there. He felt stifled by the education system of the time, and bored with the curriculum, but his grades, at least in the subjects that interested him, were good.

  Fairy Tales and Music

  “If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairytales,” Einstein later said. “If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairytales.” Many of Einstein’s difficulties in school he attributed not to lack of intelligence, but to the rigid curriculum that limited his imagination. Einstein later discovered the value of a disciplined regimen, but in his youth he despised it in all its forms, and was thus labeled by many teachers as “slow.” He would remain stubbornly silent in the face of discipline, another factor contributing to the perception that he was slow.

  At about the same time Albert entered elementary school, his mother enrolled him in violin lessons, and Marie in piano lessons. Einstein studied the violin until he was fourteen, despite an evident distaste for the lessons. The discipline required and the requisite memorization caused him to resent his instructors. It was not until his early teens that Albert began to develop what became a lifelong love of the music of Mozart and Beethoven. This love eventually motivated Einstein to demand more of himself when reproducing their music on the violin, and later inspired him to teach himself to play the piano.

  The music allowed his imagination to wander, even as he concentrated on the technique. Much later, he claimed to sometimes think in music.

  The Rebellious Student Enters High School

  Albert was nine years old in the autumn of 1888 when he enrolled in what would be the equivalent high school today. He entered the Luitpold Gymnasium, an institution at which the standards of discipline were more strictly enforced than in elementary school. Among the required subjects were Greek and Latin. Although Einstein did well in Latin, he hated Greek and was often at odds with its teacher. Years later Albert told his son, Hans, that this teacher described him as “…mentally slow, unsociable, and adrift forever in his foolish dreams.”

  Years later, Albert took responsibility for his difficulties with his teachers, attributing it to his own “…disdain for compulsion, a tendency to do things his own way, and an unwillingness to do the work required by his teachers.”

  Einstein’s Home Schooling

  By the time he was ten years old, Albert had assumed much of the responsibility for his education on his own, with help from his uncle Jakob. Jakob presented the young Albert with the text books for future math and science classes before the term began, and Albert completed them before entering the class. This allowed him to ignore the lessons presented during class hours and concentrate on his own thoughts and imagination, yet still achieve top grades in tests, which greatly exasperated his teachers.

  By the age of twelve, he had taught himself Euclidean geometry, and by fifteen he had mastered differential and integral calculus. When he wasn’t studying complex mathematics, he played with model construction sets and took long walks in the woods, allowing his imagination free rein.

  His Family Departs and Albert Drops out of School

  In 1894, when Albert was fifteen, his father and uncle closed their company in Munich. Although it had previously been successful, the company’s focus on the sale of direct current electrical dynamos made it unable to compete in a market dominated by alternating current. Competition from conglomerates had intensified, and there appeared to be better markets in Italy. The family moved to Italy, and after spending some time in Milan, settled in Pavia. Albert remained behind to complete his studies at the Gymnasium, where he had three more years to complete.

  Six months later, in December 1894, he simply quit going to the Luitpold Gymnasium — in essence dropping out of high school— and never completed the course of studies there. He wisely acquired a letter of recommendation from one of his math teachers before taking this step. Joining his family in Italy, Einstein informed them that he intended to enter the Federal Polytechnic Institute in Zürich, Switzerland. The prestigious Federal Polytechnic Institute did not require a secondary school diploma for admission, but did require students pass an entrance examination. Einstein told his upset father that he intended to study electrical engineering there, in compliance with his father’s wishes, thus gaining his father’s support.

  Einstein Renounces His German Citizenship

  Around this time, Einstein also decided to renounce his German citizenship and apply for Swiss citizenship. He never clearly stated his reasons for this decision, but the German requirement that he register for the military draft at the age of sixteen may have been a factor. Einstein’s obligations and privileges as a German citizen were removed in late January 1896. Despite his intent to apply for Swiss citizenship, he did not become officially Swiss for another five years, remaining a stateless individual until 1901.

  For the next ten months, Einstein remained in Italy, preparing for the entrance exam, and developing an affinity for hiking in the Italian Alps. This was the first time in his youth that Albert displayed an affection for any strenuous physical activity, and his love of long walks remained with him for the rest of his life.

  Einstein Fails his College Entrance Examination

  The Polytechnic had a minimum age requirement of eighteen, although there was room for exceptions. To obtain such an exception, he produced letters from his mathematics teacher from the Gymnasium and from his mother, both of which outlined his exceptional gifts. Einstein, after he toyed with the idea of studying philosophy, applied to study electrical engineering. The admissions test included German and French, history, mathematics, geometry, chemistry, biology, botany and physics, among other subjects, as well as the composition of an original essay.

  Einstein failed the admissions test, but he did exceptionally well in mathematics and physics — well enough to have physics professor Heinrich Weber offer to allow Albert to audit his classes, should the young man remain in Zürich. The school’s rectors recommended to Albert that he obtain a diploma from a secondary school in Switzerland before reapplying to the Polytechnic.

  Back to Secondary School

  Einstein enrolled in the Swiss Cantonal in
Aarau, about 20 miles to the west of Zürich. Run by Jost Winteler, the Swiss school approached academics by encouraging students to think for themselves. Einstein boarded with Jost Winteler and his wife Pauline, and came to enjoy his time at the school.

  The Wintelers had a daughter, Marie, who, though two years older than Albert, shared a mutual attraction with him. Both the Wintelers and Albert’s parents approved of their growing relationship.

  Freed from the rigidity of Teutonic discipline, Albert found the environment at the Swiss Cantonal more to his taste, and his grades reflected his less rebellious attitude. The fact that he resided with the school’s headmaster probably helped him remain focused on his studies as well.