Probably the most outstanding scientist to have lived, Albert Einstein, born on March 14, 1879, in Ulm, Germany, reached the pinnacle of human success with his exceptional scientific equations of humanity. He is among the few who don’t need any introduction, yet the journey was no bed of roses for him. Albert had to fight against the odds to earn the title of greatness.
“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science.”
He was considered a complete failure in his childhood. He didn’t learn to speak until he was 4. At the age of 16, Albert failed to pass the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School entrance exam in Zurich (later the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule ETH). Contrary to popular belief, Albert was good in math and physics; in his entrance exam, although he performed well in both subjects, his performance in other subjects was unsatisfactory, and the overall result was considered academically poor.
His academic brilliance was far from what he is considered. He struggled to maintain even average scores during his graduation. Einstein’s reputation as a student was inferior in the teachers’ eyes, and they never took him seriously.
“Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere.”
In his final days, Einstein’s father considered Albert an utter failure. This disheartened Albert.
After somehow graduating from the Swiss Polytechnic Institute at 21, where he once nearly dropped out but pulled through, he started selling insurance door-to-door for two years. After two years, he switched jobs and joined the Patent Office as an examiner. There, he evaluated patent applications for various things.
Read about Abraham Lincoln’s failures. His story to the highest office in the US continues to inspire millions.
This changed Albert’s life forever. While in the patent office, he reviewed every patent application seriously. He would sit down to analyze the mathematical equations, as patents usually include much math.
“Imagination is the highest form of research.”
Neither his father nor his teachers knew that one day, the person they considered a failure would rewrite the future of humanity and give science some of the most influential theories and equations that would lay the foundation of modern science.
His work on gravity and space significantly influenced science, and when he claimed that light could bend, the physicists of his time considered him mad.
Because of his madness toward his work, his personal life was disturbed. He had to go through a divorce and lost his children. No one was there to support and believe in him, yet he was assured of his success. Deep inside his heart, he knew he was right about his physics theories.
“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”
In the process, Einstein became physically and mentally sick. The huge workload took its toll on his health; he would remain unhappy with his life and always exhausted.
This was not the end of his miseries. During this period, World War II broke and being a Jew, his life was at stake, and all his years and years of work were put to a halt.
Note – Those who didn’t know about his Jewish thing. Adolf Hitler killed all the Jews he found in Europe. He with his teams murdered 6 million Jews. It was called The Holocaust/The Shoah.
Einstein had a sheer iron will and believed in his work. Later, he proved the science community wrong. His works on space, time, gravity, and light were recognized and gave us a deeper understanding of the cosmos.
Albert Einstein had undying patience and the will to stand for his beliefs like all greats. It took him many decades to keep researching, defend his work, and prove the science community wrong.
In 1921, Albert won the most notable prize for any Physicist, the Nobel Prize, and from there, the dawn of Quantum Theory began.
Notable Theories of Albert –
- General relativity
- Special relativity
- Photoelectric effect
- E=mc2 (Mass–energy equivalence)
- E=hf (Planck–Einstein relation)
- Theory of Brownian motion
- Einstein field equations
- Bose-Einstein statistics
- Bose-Einstein condensate
- Gravitational-wave
- Cosmological constant
- Unified field theory
- EPR paradox
- Ensemble interpretation
“If you can’t explain it to a six year old, you don’t understand it yourself.”
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