I know that volumes a mile high have been written about this man, but there are a group of facts that I like to keep in my mind; so I jotted them down so I could go back and do a quick review of the things I most admire about this guy.
First off, in 1905 he wrote a series of papers which appeared in the German physics journal called Annalen der Physik. This in itself is not an earth shaking item, but I wanted to remember where he published his very first papers. He, at that time was a lowly Swiss patent recorder. He was classified as a third class examiner. That’s about as low a position as you could get in that office. In fact, he had just recently filled out an application to be promoted to a second class examiner (a higher position that a third class examiner is), but he application was rejected. What an irony ! But here’s the kicker about that. In the fact that he got his work done as a patent recorder very quickly during each day, this allowed him to think and ponder over what eventually made him a genus.
During that year, Einstein submitted five papers, of which three were among the greatest in the history of physics, one that outlined “a special theory of relativity”. Here’s a really unknown fact (at least to me), is this paper on his “special theory of relativity” was called “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies”. Never heard that before, but it’s true.
When he wrote this paper, he had not written any footnotes or citations. It contained almost no mathematics, and it made no mention of any work that had influenced or preceded it. He did acknowledge the help of just one individual, a colleague at the patent office named Michele Besso. This made it seem that Einstein “had reached the conclusions by pure thought, unaided, with listening to no opinions of any one else”.
His famous equation, E=mc2 did not appear with this paper. It came in a brief supplement that followed a few months later. Something else I didn’t know. The sad fact is that Einstein did not win a Nobel Peace Price for his special theory of relativity.
One of his papers, which examined the photoelectric effect won Einstein the Nobel Piece Prize. This paper outlined the facts that lead to the invention of the television.
Normal babies learn to speak words at the age of 18 months. Einstein did not speak until he was three years old. I don’t know what that means, but I thought it was an interesting fact.
He failed his college entrance exams on the first try. What’s so important about that. I don’t know, just another interesting fact.
Another interest fact is that his very first paper he ever wrote was on the physics of fluids in drinking straws.
WHAT.
And of course there’s the “general theory of relativity” that Einstein came up with. The man was definitely a human genius. Enough said.
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