Einstein

Abstract

Albert Einstein was the greatest scientist of the 20th century but like Darwin his early years were not distinguished. When he was a child he spoke hesitantly and did not like the regimental style of German schooling. After his family moved from Germany he attended a school in Milan, Italy, but his interruption of lessons with questions and arguments led to his being asked to leave. He left without an entrance diploma to a university and subsequently failed the entrance examination to Zurich’s Polytechnic. But he did better at the school in Aarau and was admitted to the Polytechnic where he continued to show his dislike of the formal instruction. It was no surprise that on graduation, the professors refused to recommend him and he had to take a job at the Swiss Patent Office.¹ He was an unassuming genius who paid little attention to the etiquette of society or dressing well. There are many stories about him in this connection. When he was living and working at Princeton he called at a friend’s house and his wife answered the door. She did not recognise Einstein and looking at his shabby clothes, assumed that he was a tramp: ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘we cannot give you anything today’, and closed the door. On another occasion when his wife, Elsa, expecting visitors to arrive, tried to get him to wear a suit, he said: ‘When they arrive you can open the wardrobe and show them my suit’!

The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible … in every true searcher of nature there is a kind of religious reverence … science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

Albert Einstein