Einstein's brain fool
...d one of his first thought experiments. These involved no lab and no materials only a mind. This specific thought experiment consisted of Albert trying to imagine a light wave in motion to an observer riding along with it. When his family moved to Italy, Einstein dropped out of school. A year later he applied at the famed Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, and was denied admission because of his scores on the entrance examinations. After a year he was excepted in to the University based on further study. Einstein did not enjoy the methods of instruction there. He often cut classes and used the time to study physics on his own or play his beloved violin. The funny thing is that Einstein passed his final examinations. He did so by studying some of the notes of a friend. He wasn’t recommended for a teaching position and became a substitute teacher for a few years. At the age of 23 Albert Einstein settled for a job as examiner with the Swiss Patent Office. His title was technical expert, third class. Though his pay was just $675 he was able to marry a fellow student, Mileva Maric. Mileva Maric shared Einstein’s interest in physics and music. Through later stresses including a child loss, she became unhappy with her life. Einstein and Mileva were divorced on 1919. In this agreement Einstein promised to give her the money from the Nobel Prize he felt sure he would win. Most of their later contact would have to with their two sons. The elder, Hans Albert, would become a distinguished professor of hydraulics at the University of California, Berkeley. The younger, Eduard, gifted in music and literature, would die in a Swiss psychiatric hospital. Mileva, after the divorce, supported herself by tutoring in mathematics and physics. Many people, to this day, believe that Mileva had some unacknowledged contribution to special relativity, though she herself never made any such claims. Einstein, meanwhile, had married divorced cousin, Elsa, who cooked and cared for him during the emotionally draining months when he made intellectual leaps that finally resulted in general relativity. Elsa gave him personal room and a sense of comfort. She became used to the fame of Einstein but took it very sensibly. With the rise of Nazi power in Germany, Einstein had to leave his position. He immediately got an offer for a teaching job at the new Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ. In 1939 Einstein’s fellow refugees Leo Szilard and Eugene Wigner learned that German scientists had managed to split the atom. Together they tried to seek his help. He agreed to write a letter to President Roosevelt alerting him to the possibility that Nazis might try to make the atom bomb. OAAAH! Einstein in his late life tried to bring all of his equations under one master big picture equation. He failed at this goal and died in Princeton on April 18, 1955. Note: Einsteinium was name after Einstein to credit his greatnes...