Jack Steinberg - Albert Einstein: The Life of a genius

Albert Einstein: The Life of a Genius

Jack Steinberg

Copyright 2015 WE CANT BE BEAT LLC

Table of Contents

Clearly we need to begin by going all the way back to his early life to start to get a grip of this amazing human being.

Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879 in Ulm, Germany into a secular Jewish family and was the elder brother to Maja who was born in 1881. However, even though he was born in Ulm, his family was forced to move to Munich some six weeks after he was born.

According to various reports from the time, the young Einstein was hardly marked out as being a potential genius. Indeed, some historians believe that he was rather slow at learning how to speak much to the disdain of his mother and father who were believed to have been concerned at how their child was apparently not developing in the normal manner. Little did they realize that their child would evolve into one of the sharpest brains that the world has ever seen.

When it comes to his physicality at this age, then there are suggestions that his head was larger than normal for a boy of his age. This physical difference, along with the way in which he rarely spoke, led to a housekeeper believing that he was perhaps 'retarded' in some manner whereas we now know that the complete opposite is true. However, this point is interesting as it does help to show that he was certainly never viewed as being anything special from an early age.

While his mother, Pauline Koch, remained at home in order to bring up the children and run the household, his father, Hermann Einstein initially worked as a bed salesman until he decided to go into business alongside his brother due to the fact that he was also an engineer by trade. Between the two of them, they had created a business by the name of Elektrotechnische Fabrik J.Einstein & Cie. This company was based in Munich, Germany and its main type of business was focused on the manufacturing of electrical equipment. Indeed, the business itself was rather successful at the beginning with them being responsible for adding electricity to the streets of Munich and it is reasonable to assume that being surrounded by this type of technology may have also had a bearing on the life of Einstein.

The family would nowadays be seen as a comfortable middle class family as the business itself was doing quite well and there were not the same everyday stresses on the family that existed for so many other people at this time. His father's business was relatively successful although the earliest years of the life of Albert Einstein do appear to have involved him moving around with evidence of this coming from the various locations where he was at school, which is a topic that we will cover shortly.

Einstein himself wrote about his early years and he draws particular attention to a moment when he was five years old as being an important turning point that may have then gone on to have had an impact on the rest of his life. That moment involved him seeing a compass for the first time and he describes how he felt completely mystified about the way in which the needle of the compass was able to move without anything touching it. He would go on to state how this puzzlement regarding some kind of invisible force would go on to become a lifelong fascination which would ultimately lead to him dedicating so much of his adult life creating the theories for which he is most famous.

If we jump forward slightly in his life to the age of 12, then we see that he appeared to find God and became very religious, which is not a surprise considering his upbringing and being part of a Jewish family. He is believed to have chanted religious sayings on his way to school as well as composing religious songs, so it does appear that religion was playing an important part in his development at least at this stage in his life.

However, it was a period of his life that was quite short after he was introduced to various science books that appealed to him more even though they completely contradicted his religious beliefs. Indeed, it is known that these science books had such a profound effect on him that it led him to do a complete u-turn with his religious beliefs.

There is no doubt that his time in education did play a role in how Einstein developed and that is why we need to spend some time looking at these formative years to get a better grip of his entire life.

His Early Schooling.

His first school days appear to have been at a Catholic school in Munich, his parents were Jewish although they did not practice their faith, and even at the earliest times he was known for having a real interest in a number of subjects. From the little evidence that we have from this time, it is believed that he had a penchant for mathematics and this was something that would be further developed as he moved through his school career.

When it comes to his early schooling, then we know that he was then enrolled at the Luitpold Gymnasium although this was not the best of times for the young Einstein. It appears to be the case, with Einstein himself confirming this, that he was none best pleased with the way in which the school was run. He was seen as being a loner and was troubled by a speech issue that was not being addressed and even though he is known to have developed a love for things such as classical music he was largely alienated with this school in particular being a rather troubled period in his life.

It is worth mentioning that his love of classical music stemmed from the fact that he was taught how to play the violin from six years of age. This was something that was forced on him by his mother although he was initially not too keen, he did eventually admit that it helped him in later life. For some, this pursuit has been interpreted as playing a role in the development of key areas of his brain that then helped him to formulate ideas and theories later on in life, but that is one area that we will focus on in another chapter.

It also appears that he had an issue with the Prussian style of education that was preferred at this school as there was also little opportunity for him to be able to express himself in a creative manner. To Einstein, it was too strict and focused on the wrong things as he was already developing ideas connected to science, which was something that the school itself appeared to have no desire in pursuing. Indeed, such was his frustration that it appears to have been the case that he then showed this anger at various times leading to one teacher remarking to him that he would never amount to anything in his life due mainly to the way in which he was unable to follow the type of education on offer at the school. This would not be the first time that this allegation would be thrown at him during his education.

His penchant for criticizing the authority of the school, and willingness to describe how he was unhappy, even led to him being given the nickname of 'Beidermeier' by his fellow students. This translates roughly as 'Honest John' and it was purely because of the way in which he had a tendency to just voice his true feelings no matter if it would then get him into trouble. There is no doubt that he was certainly different to the other students and not always in a good way.

The problem for Einstein was the way in which he would simply get into trouble due to his views. Indeed, Einstein himself has described one such incident at school that gives us a glimpse into what was going on in his world at this time.

When I was in the seventh grade at the Lutpold Gymnasium, I was summoned by my home-room teacher, who expressed the wish that I leave the school. To my remark that I had done nothing wrong, he replied only 'Your mere presence spoils the respect of the class for me'.