DARE TO DREAM BIG!: From Rebellious and Independent Thinker to The Father of Modern Physics

Imagine This: Although Newton's law of universal gravity still provides extremely accurate explanations of physical observations, you have a major issue with his theory because it's not consistent with your own special theory of relativity which predicts that space and time are relative, forming a four-dimensional continuum you call spacetime.

You're born March 14, 1879 in Ulm, Germany, and you're so slow to learn to speak that your parents wonder if you might be mildly retarded. Behind your back, the family maid refers to you as "the dopey one."

 You're no model child. At age five you throw a chair at a tutor who quits on the spot. You also throw things at your little sister Maja. You're not very sociable, preferring to go your own way and do your own thing.

 Although your family is Jewish, you attend a Catholic elementary school where, as the only Jewish student, you're sometimes bullied.

You're a rebellious and independent thinker and resent having to memorize and learn things by rote. You prefer to learn things on your own in your own way, and you often tell people that your thoughts come to you in pictures rather than in words.

By the time you're fifteen, you're focused on science–especially physics with its new ideas about magnetism and electricity and light. You say later that that was the year  you became convinced that nature could be understood as a relatively simple mathematical structure.

You drop out of school at fifteen, three years before your graduation, partly because you hate school but also because of your family's financial problems.

After you leave school, you join your family in Italy and renounce your German citizenship. You then belong to no country until you became a Swiss citizen in 1901.

You fail the entrance exam the first time you take it for admission to the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland because, although you do brilliantly in math and physics, you fail dismally in literature, zoology, botany, and French.

When you're finally accepted by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in 1896, your academic record is never brilliant because you spend most of your time and energy on your own studies rather than on the studies assigned by the Institute. You don't care for such organized education, and you hate having to attend classes regularly and take exams.

 Aside from your grades being just average, you also antagonize some of your professors with your rebellious and independent attitude, and they refuse to write any letters of recommendation for you.

After your graduation in 1900, you have difficulty finding a job, so you take temporary teaching jobs. Then in 1902, with the help of a friend, you get a job with the Swiss patent office where you find time to pursue your own interests in physics and higher mathematics.

 In 1905 you lay the groundwork for the atomic age by developing the formula E=mc2 (energy=mass times the speed of light squared) which becomes probably the most famous formula in science.

You publish four papers in 1905 which revolutionize scientists' understanding of the universe. Space and time are redefined. You believe that energy and matter are basically the same thing and that you can convert one into the other. 1905 is a "miracle year" for you much like Isaac Newton's memorable year of 1666.

What you call your Special Theory of Relativity is considered by other scientists to be one of the most significant pieces of scientific work ever done. You have shown for the first time that there is a relationship between matter and energy and that one can be converted into the other.

You become world famous for your Special Theory of Relativity in 1905 and for your General Theory of Relativity in 1916 which becomes the basis of modern nuclear development.

You have forever changed mankind's view of the universe, and on December 10, 1922, you're awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize for Physics.

By the time you die on April 18, 1955, at age seventy-six of heart failure, you are considered one of the greatest scientists of all time and one of the legendary figures of the twentieth century.

"The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is at all comprehensible."

Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

Excerpted from They Stood Alone!: 25 Men and Women Who Made a Difference by Sandra McLeod Humphrey

For More about

Giving Back: Einstein believed that the scientist had a moral responsibility to humanity and helped transform the image of the scientist from a highly specialized student of nature to a public personality deeply concerned about the fate of humanity.

Did You Know that Einstein's interest in science was triggered by a compass his father gave him when he was five years old?

Something to Think about: Einstein's thoughts came to him in pictures rather than words—how do your thoughts come to you?

 

Willoughby and I hope you enjoyed this week's true story and will be back next week for another story to inspire you to DARE TO DREAM BIG!