The Facts of Albert Einstein's Early Life That would Surprise You!
Albert Einstein was born on 14th March 1879 in Germany. His father was in electrochemical business. They were Ashkenazi Jews.
At the time of birth Einstein was grossly obese. His parents feared of this abnormality. But the doctors assured it would be fine with time.
He did not speak up till 2 years of age. This late development of speech made his parents worry that was he mentally retarded!
His parents gave him early training in self reliance. At age of 4 years he was left free to go and explore the streets of his household alone.
Einstein rarely mingled with the children of his age. He was quiet and withdrawn.
As a child he had a wild temper. His had ferocious fights with his sister. His mother was very passionate about music and wanted Albert to learn music. When she arranged a teacher for him, the little Albert threw his tantrums at his teacher and so the teacher never returned! His mother then hired another teacher who was stern enough to make him learn anyway!
When he was five, he encountered an illness. To keep him engaged his father gave him a compass. The movement of its needle fascinated it. He thought how every time the needle points towards north!
He was home tutored till age of . At 7 when he was admitted to school his teacher thought he was mentally retarded owing to his failure to learn the things by heart and his strange behavior. He.He had no interest in sports. While other kids promptly gave answers to questions, Albert was always hesitant and very slow to answer.
At school he ignored all that did not interest him and studied the things that interested him with full devotion. Albert refused school's method of teaching saying, the spirit of learning and creative thought was lost in strict rote learning.
He always showed interest in philosophy science and literature.
At the age of 15 due to financial problems his family had to move to Italy. The law required all fit young German males to complete military service before they could leave the country, so Albert had to stay behind to finish high school and go into military services. He thus had to go to a boarding school.
Albert felt all alone at boarding school. He was going into depression owing to the solitude. His failure to grasp Greek annoyed his teacher so much that he told Albert he would never amount to anything, that he was wasting everyone's time, and that he should leave the school immediately.
Albert too did not want to stay.
At a visit to doctor for some illness, Albert requested him to give a note that he should be recuperated to his family or else he would suffer a mental breakdown. This letter finally set him free from Germany and he could go to his family.
Back to Italy, there was total change in his personality. He was in high spirits. He enjoyed roaming aimlessly in the streets. He considered teaching philosophy as his career. But on strong persuasion of his father he finally agreed to apply to a technical college for electrical engineering.
But when the results were out, he failed in the entrance examination! Despite this traumatic failure, Heinrich Weber, the Polytechnic's professor of physics, was so impressed with Albert's high scores in math and science that he invited him to audit his lectures. And Albin Herzog, the college principal, noted that at sixteen Albert was two years younger than most taking the exam, took that into consideration and promised to admit him the following year. Albert did not even had to take the exam again. He just had to get a high-school diploma from any school of his choice. Failure had turned into near triumph.
After graduating, Einstein spent almost two frustrating years searching for a teaching post. Later with someone's reference Einstein secured a job in Bern at the Federal Office for Intellectual Property, the patent office as an assistant examiner. He evaluated patent applications for a variety of devices.
Much of his work at the patent office related to questions about transmission of electric signals and electrical-mechanical synchronization of time, two technical problems that show up conspicuously in the thought experiments that eventually led Einstein to his radical conclusions about the nature of light and the fundamental connection between space and time.
