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A TRULY BEAUTIFUL MIND

----- Albert Einstein
Introduction:
This is the story of Albert Einstein who is regarded as a visionary and world citizen. The story tries to
show him as a human being, a fairly ordinary person who had his likes and dislikes, his streaks of
rebellion, and his problems. Over time, the name Einstein became synonym for genius. His work changed
our understanding of space, time and the entire cosmos.

About the Author:

Summary:
Albert Einstein is born
Albert Einstein was bom on March 14,1879 in the German City of Ulm. He had no signs of
greatness. His mother thought that he was a freak.

Albert as uncommon
When he learned to speak he spoke everything twice. He was boring for other children. So he
played by himself much of the time. He loved mechanical toys. Looking at his new bom siste,
Maja, he asked where her wheels were.

Albert belies the headmaster

A headmaster told his father that Einstein would never make a success at anything. Einstein
began playing at the age of six. Later he became a gifted violinist.

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Leaves school for good

But Einstein was not a bad pupil. He joined a high school in Munich. He scored good marks in
every subject. He clashed with his teachers. He did not like strict discipline and order in schools.
He left school for good at the age of 15.

Education in Switzerland
A year before, his parents had moved to Milan. They left him with relatives. He was able to
continue his education in Switzerland.

Goes to University
Einstein was highly gifted in mathematics. He was interested in physics also. He decided to study
at a University in Zurich.

Falls in love
He had a special interest in a fellow student. Her name was Mileva Marie. She was a ‘clever
creature’. She was a Serb. The university in Zurich was one of the few universities in Europe
where women could get degrees. Therefore, she had come to Switzerland. The couple fell in love.
However, their love was expressed in science.

Gets a job
At the age of 21, Albert Einstein got his university degree. He also got a job. He became a technical
expert in the patent office in Bern in 1920. He was also actually developing his own ideas in
secret. He called his desk as the ‘bureau of theoretical physics’.

His ‘Special Theory of Relativity’

One of the famous papers of 1905 was Einstein’s ‘Special Theory of Relativity’. According to it
time and distance are not absolute. For example, two perfectly accurate clocks will not show the
same time if they come together after a journey. From this followed the world’s most famous
formula. It describes the relationship between mass and energy, E = mc2 (E stands for energy, m
for mass and c for the speed of light in a vacuum which is about 300,000 km/s.)

Einstein’s mother on Mileva

Einstein was solving the most difficult problems in physics. His private life was starting to fail. He
wanted to marry Mileva. But his mother was against it.. She thought Mileva was too old for him.
She was three years older than him. She was also bothered by Mileva’s intelligence.

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Einstein marries
The pair finally married in January 1903. They had two sons. But a few years later, the marriage
failed. The couple finally divorced in 1919. Einstein married his cousin Elsa the same year.

Receives the Nobel Prize

Einstein’s new chapter brought him world fame. In 1915 he had published his ‘General Theory of
Relativity’. An eclipse of the sun in 1919 proved its accuracy. The newspapers called his work as
a scientific revolution. He received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921. He received honours and
invitations from all over the world after that.

Einstein emigrates to US
The Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933. Einstein emigrated to the United States. Five years
later, nuclear fission was discovered by the Nazis in Berlin. It upset the American physicists. They
were afraid that the Nazis would build and use an atomic bomb.

Einstein’s letter to US President

Einstein wrote a letter to the American President Franklin D. Roosevelt on August 2, 1939. In it
he warned that a single bomb of this type might destroy the whole part. It bore fruit. The
Americans developed the atomic bomb in secret. They dropped it on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in
August 1945.

Einstein work for peace and democracy

Einstein was deeply shaken by the extent of destruction. This time he wrote a public letter to the
United Nations. In it he proposed the formation of a world government. But this did not prove
effective. Einstein in the next decade involved himself in politics. He wanted to bring an end to
the arms buildup. He worked for peace and democracy.

Einstein dies
Einstein died in 1955 at the age of 76. He was celebrated as a visionary and a world citizen.

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Theme:
This brief sketch of the life and achievements of the great genius and visionary, Albert Einstein, reveals
that great men are not necessarily noticed during early years. Einstein comes across as a fairly ordinary
person who has his likes and dislikes, his streaks of rebellion, and his problems. The author focuses on
two aspects of Einstein’s personality – as a scientist and as a human being. Albert Einstein, the scientist,
is best known for his path – breaking discoveries; Albert Einstein, the humanitarian, is known for his
pacifism and political activism as he worked for peace and democracy in the world.

Message:
The life and achievements of the famous scientist Einstein gives us the message that a truly beautiful
mind possesses not only vision but also makes sincere efforts to use this vision for the well-being of
mankind. Science should be solely devoted to the promotion of world peace and prosperity. If used for
destructive purposes, the scientific inventions and discoveries can wreak havoc on humanity.

Characters:
Albert Einstein was a scientific genius of all time. He brought about a paradigm shift in science especially
in physics. He had keen interest in physics and mathematics. In Zurich, he worked on relativity. His theory
of relativity showed that time and distance are not absolute. Time for a person in space with speed
comparable to that of light is much slower than that for a man on earth. He gave a famous formula
E=mc2. This formula formed the basis of nuclear reactor and atom bomb. His General Theory of Relativity
gave a new meaning to Gravity. The world showered on him honors and invitations. He was honoured
with Noble Prize in 1921.

Word Meanings:
• destined: fate, a predetermined set of events that has to happen in the future
• freak: a word used disapprovingly to talk about a person who is unusual and doesn’t
behave, look or think like others
• Uttered: spoke
• amateur: doing something for personal enjoyment rather than as a profession, something
which is your hobby and you do it as a past time.
• pupil: student
• regimentation: order or discipline taken to an extreme
• Stifled: unable to breathe; suffocated
• Left the school for good: left school forever.

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• liberal: willing to understand and respect other’s opinions

• ally: a friend or an associate
• Philistines: a word used disapprovingly to talk about people who do not like art, literature
or music
• To be at odds: to be in the opposition of someone, to be against someone.
• patent: a document which gives the rights of an invention to an inventor
• absolute: measured in itself, not in relation to anything else
• unravelling: starting to fail
• faltered: became weak
• deflected: changed direction because it hit something
• Emigrated: leave one’s own country in order to settle permanently in another
• in an uproar: very upset
• missive: letter, especially long and official
• visionary: a person who can think about the future in an original and intelligent way

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Question - Answers:
Question 1.
What did Einstein’s mother think him to be? Why?
• Einstein’s mother thought him to be a ‘freak’ or someone with an unusual physical abnormality
or behavioural problem. She thought of him as a freak because his head seemed too large to her.
This made him look different from the other children of his age.

Question 2.
Einstein showed no early signs of his genius one day. Comment.
• As a child, Einstein had a large head and did not start to speak till he was two-and-a-hal£ years
old. Even when he did start speaking he uttered everything twice. He did not interact well with
other children, and always played alone. All this showed the absence of genius.

Question 3.
What did Einstein’s playmates call hm? Why?
• Einstein’s playmates called him ‘Brother Boring’ as he could not mix up with other children.
Neither did he find their games interesting nor did he know how to interact with other children.
Also, he did not talk till he was two-and-a-half years old, and even then he repeated each word
twice. This made his company boring to his playmates.

Question 4.
What kind of toys attracted the attention of Einstein when he was a child? Why?
• As a child Einstein was attracted only by mechanical toys. It showed his scientific temperament
since mechanical toys work on some kind of scientific principles.

Question 5.
What did Einstein say about his newly born sister? Why?
• Einstein always played alone with his mechanical toys. He did not have any playmates as the
other children found him boring. When his sister, Maja, was bom, he looked at his newborn sister
and asked “Fine, but where are her wheels?”

Question 6.
What did the headmaster think about Einstein?
• The headmaster did not think much of Einstein. He once told his father that whatever profession
he chose for Einstein, he would never make a success in his life. He thought that Einstein was
incapable of achieving anything in life.

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Question 7.
Which musical instrument did Einstein begin to learn? Why?
• Einstein began to learn playing the violin at the young age of six because his mother wanted him
to. He kept this interest alive throughout his life and became a gifted amateur violinist.

Question 8.
How did Einstein fare in high school?
• Although as a young child Einstein was very slow, still while studying in Munich, he showed great
progress in almost all the subjects and scored very good marks in almost all the subjects. He had
special interest in Maths and Physics. Later on, he became a great scientist.

Question 9.
Why did Albert Einstein leave school in Munich?
• Albert Einstein left his school in Munich because he was not happy with the education system
and he felt stifled by the strict regimentation of the school. He felt the environment suppressed
his inquisitive scientific mind and had frequent clashes with his teachers. He felt suffocated and
had to leave school.

Question 10.
Why did Einstein hate school?
• He hated school and the strict regimentation because of its extreme sense of discipline. He felt
suffocated in this atmosphere. He often clashed with his teachers.

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