10 Strange Facts About Einstein.
So you think you know Albert Einstein: the absent-minded genius who gave
us
the theory of relativity (two of them, in fact, special theory and general
theory of relativity), but did you know that Einstein was born with such a
large head that his mother thought he was deformed? Or that Einstein had a
secret child before he was married?
Read on for more obscure facts about the life of the world's smartest
genius:
1. Einstein Was a Fat Baby with Large Head
When Albert's mother, Pauline Einstein gave birth to him, she thought that
Einstein's head was so big and misshapen that he was deformed!
As the back of the head seemed much too big, the family initially
considered
a monstrosity. The physician, however, was able to calm them down and some
weeks later the shape of the head was normal. When Albert's grandmother
saw
him for the first time she is re****ted to have muttered continuously "Much
too fat, much too fat!" Contrasting all apprehensions Albert grew and
developed normally except that he seemed a bit slow.
2. Einstein Had Speech Difficulty as a Child
As a child, Einstein seldom spoke. When he did, he spoke very slowly -
indeed, he tried out entire sentences in his head (or muttered them under
his breath) until he got them right before he spoke aloud. According to
accounts, Einstein did this until he was nine years old. Einstein's
parents
were fearful that he was retarded - of course, their fear was completely
unfounded!
One interesting anecdote, told by Otto Neugebauer, a historian of science,
goes like this:
As he was a late talker, his parents were worried. At last, at the supper
table one night, he broke his silence to say, "The soup is too hot."
Greatly relieved, his parents asked why he had never said a word before.
Albert replied, "Because up to now everything was in order."
In his book, Thomas Sowell noted that besides Einstein, many
brilliant people developed speech relatively late in childhood. He called
this condition The Einstein Syndrome.
3. Einstein was Inspired by a Compass
When Einstein was five years old and sick in bed, his father showed him
something that sparked his interest in science: a compass.
When Einstein was five years old and ill in bed one day, his father showed
him a simple pocket compass. What interested young Einstein was whichever
the case was turned, the needle always pointed in the same direction. He
thought there must be some force in what was presumed empty space that
acted
on the compass. This incident, common in many "famous childhoods," was
re****ted persistently in many of the accounts of his life once he gained
fame.
4. Einstein Failed his University Entrance Exam
In 1895, at the age of 17, Albert Einstein applied for early admission
into
the Swiss Federal Polytechnical School (Eidgenssische Technische
Hochschule
or ETH). He passed the math and science sections of the entrance exam, but
failed the rest (history, languages, geography, etc.)! Einstein had to go
to
a trade school before he retook the exam and was finally admitted to ETH a
year later.
5. Einstein had an Illegitimate Child
In the 1980s, Einstein's private letters revealed something new about the
genius: he had an illegitimate daughter with a fellow former student
Mileva
Mari? (whom Einstein later married).
In 1902, a year before their marriage, Mileva gave birth to a daughter
named
Lieserl, whom Einstein never saw and whose fate remained unknown:
Mileva gave birth to a daughter at her parents' home in Novi Sad. This was
at the end of January, 1902 when Einstein was in Berne. It can be assumed
from the content of the letters that birth was difficult. The girl was
probably christianised. Her official first name is unknown. In the letters
received only the name "Lieserl" can be found.
The further life of Lieserl is even today not totally clear. Michele
Zackheim concludes in her book "Einstein's daughter" that Lieserl was
mentally challenged when she was born and lived with Mileva's family.
Furthermore she is convinced that Lieserl died as a result of an infection
with scarlet fever in September 1903. From the letters mentioned above it
can also be assumed that Lieserl was put up for adoption after her birth.
In a letter from Einstein to Mileva from September 19, 1903, Lieserl was
mentioned for the last time. After that nobody knows anything about
Lieserl
Einstein-Maric.
6. Einstein Became Estranged From His First Wife, then Proposed a Strange
"Contract"
After Einstein and Mileva married, they had two sons: Hans Albert and
Eduard. Einstein's academic successes and world travel, however, came at a
price - he became estranged from his wife. For a while, the couple tried
to
work out their problems - Einstein even proposed a strange "contract" for
living together with Mileva:
The relation****p progressed. Einstein became estranged from his wife. The
biography reprints a chilling letter from Einstein to his wife, a proposed
"contract" in which they could continue to live together under certain
conditions. Indeed that was the heading: "Conditions."
A. You will make sure
1. that my clothes and laundry are kept in good order;
2. that I will receive my three meals regularly in my room;
3. that my bedroom and study are kept neat, and especially that my desk is
left for my use only.
B. You will renounce all personal relations with me insofar as they are
not
completely necessary for social reasons.
There's more, including "you will stop talking to me if I request it." She
accepted the conditions. He later wrote to her again to make sure she
grasped that this was going to be all-business in the future, and that the
"personal aspects must be reduced to a tiny remnant." And he vowed, "In
return, I assure you of proper com****tment on my part, such as I would
exercise to any woman as a stranger."
7. Einstein Didn't Get Along with His Oldest Son
After the divorce, Einstein's relation****p with his oldest son, Hans
Albert,
turned rocky. Hans blamed his father for leaving Mileva, and after
Einstein
won the Nobel Prize and money, for giving Mileva access only to the
interest
rather than the principal sum of the award - thus making her life that
much
harder financially.
The row between the father and son was amplified when Einstein strongly
objected to Hans Albert marrying Frieda Knecht:
In fact, Einstein opposed Hans's bride in such a brutal way that it far
surpassed the scene that Einstein's own mother had made about Mileva. It
was
1927, and Hans, at age 23, fell in love with an older and - to Einstein -
unattractive woman. He damned the union, swearing that Hans's bride was a
scheming woman preying on his son. When all else failed, Einstein begged
Hans to not have children, as it would only make the inevitable divorce
harder.
Later, Hans Albert immigrated to the United States became a professor of
Hydraulic Engineering at UC Berkeley. Even in the new country, the father
and son were apart. When Einstein died, he left very little inheritance to
Hans Albert.
8. Einstein was a Ladies' Man
Einstein with his second wife and cousin, Elsa)
After Einstein divorced Mileva (his infidelity was listed as one of the
reasons for the split), he soon married his cousin Elsa Lowenthal.
Actually,
Einstein also considered marrying Elsa's daughter (from her first
marriage)
Ilse, but she demurred:
Before marrying Elsa, he had considered marrying her daughter, Ilse,
instead. According to Overbye, "She (Ilse, who was 18 years younger than
Einstein) was not attracted to Albert, she loved him as a father, and she
had the good sense not to get involved. But it was Albert's Woody Allen
moment."
Unlike Mileva, Elsa Einstein's main concern was to take care of her famous
husband. She undoubtedly knew about, and yet tolerated, Einstein's
infidelity and love affairs which were later revealed in his letters:
Previously released letters suggested his marriage in 1903 to his first
wife
Mileva Maric, mother of his two sons, was miserable. They divorced in
1919,
and he soon married his cousin, Elsa. He cheated on her with his
secretary,
Betty Neumann.
In the new volume of letters released on Monday by Hebrew University in
Jerusalem, Einstein described about six women with whom he spent time and
from whom he received gifts while being married to Elsa.
Some of the women identified by Einstein include Estella, Ethel, Toni and
his "Russian spy lover," Margarita. Others are referred to only by
initials,
like M. and L.
"It is true that M. followed me (to England) and her chasing after me is
getting out of control," he wrote in a letter to Margot in 1931. "Out of
all
the dames, I am in fact attached only to Mrs. L., who is absolutely
harmless
and decent."
9. Einstein, the War Pacifist, Urged FDR to Build the Atom Bomb
Re-creation of Einstein and Szilrd signing the famous letter to President
Franklin Roosevelt in 1939.
In 1939, alarmed by the rise of Nazi Germany, physicist Le Szilrd [wiki]
convinced Einstein to write a letter to president Franklin Delano
Roosevelt
warning that Nazi Germany might be conducting research into developing an
atomic bomb and urging the United States to develop its own.
The Einstein and Szilrd's letter was often cited as one of the reasons
Roosevelt started the secret Manhattan Project to develop the atom
bomb, although later it was revealed that the bombing of Pearl Harbor in
1941 probably did much more than the letter to spur the government.
Although Einstein was a brilliant physicist, the army considered Einstein
a
security risk and (to Einstein's relief) did not invite him to help in the
project.
10. The Saga of Einstein's Brain: Pickled in a Jar for 43 Years and Driven
Cross Country in a Trunk of a Buick!
After his death in 1955, Einstein's brain was removed - without
permission from his family - by Thomas Stoltz Harvey , the Princeton
Hospital pathologist who conducted the autopsy. Harvey took the brain home
and kept it in a jar. He was later fired from his job for refusing to
relinquish the organ.
Many years later, Harvey, who by then had gotten permission from Hans
Albert
to study Einstein's brain, sent slices of Einstein's brain to various
scientists throughout the world. One of these scientists was Marian
Diamond
of UC Berkeley, who discovered that compared to a normal person, Einstein
had significantly more glial cells in the region of the brain that is
responsible for synthesizing information.
In another study, Sandra Witelson of McMaster University found that
Einstein
's brain lacked a particular "wrinkle" in the brain called the Sylvian
fissure. Witelson speculated that this unusual anatomy allowed neurons in
Einstein's brain to communicate better with each other. Other studies had
suggested that Einstein's brain was denser, and that the inferior parietal
lobe, which is often associated with mathematical ability, was larger than
normal brains.
The saga of Einsteins brain can be quite strange at times: in the early
1990s, Harvey went with freelance writer Michael Paterniti on a
cross-country trip to California to meet Einstein's granddaughter. They
drove off from New Jersey in Harvey's Buick Skylark with Einstein's brain
slo****ng inside a jar in the trunk! Paterniti later wrote his experience
in
the book Driving Mr. Albert: A Trip Across America with Einstein's Brain
In 1998, the 85-year-old Harvey delivered Einstein's brain to Dr. Elliot
Krauss, the staff pathologist at Princeton University, the position Harvey
once held:
after safeguarding the brain for decades like it was a holy relic - and,
to many, it was - he simply, quietly, gave it away to the pathology
department at the nearby University Medical Center at Princeton, the
university and town where Einstein spent his last two decades.
"Eventually, you get tired of the responsibility of having it. . I did
about
a year ago," Harvey said, slowly. "I turned the whole thing over last year
[in 1998]."
*.*
A recent survey revealed that the average American walks 900 miles per
year.
Another survey revealed that the average American consumes 20 galons of
beer
per year.
Conclusion: The average American gets 45 miles per gallon.
*.*
Iran has declined to suspend the enrichment of uranium.
Not to be outdone, the Bush administration has declined to suspend
the enrichment of Halliburton.
*.*
A 460 foot asteroid will come close and may hit Earth in 2036. They say
the
U.N. should take action to protect Earth from this possible disaster.
<http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=scienceNews&storyid=2007>
-02-18T174347Z_01_N17363374_RTRUKOC_0_US-ASTEROID-DEFLECTOR.xml&src=rss&rpc=
22
I wonder how many U.N. resolutions it will take before that asteroid
decides to change it's ways?
*.*
Moshke decided, after having lived in Russia for 40 years, to come to the
US. He obtained a student visa and arrived in New York. His family here
asked why he left Russia. "Aren't things good for Jews there? Don't you
have
democracy?"
He replied, "Under Putin, Jews have freedom of speech, but what happens to
you after you speak is why I left."
Issue of the Times;
Death Squad in Delaware: The Case of the Murdered Marine by William Norman
Grigg
He survived Iraq, only to suffer Death By Government in the "Land of the
Free": Sgt. Derek J. Hale, USMC, ret. ~ RIP
Delaware was the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution. It may be
the
first state to be afflicted with a fully operational death squad - unless
a
civil lawsuit filed on Friday against the murders of Derek J. Hale results
in criminal charges and a complete lustration (in the Eastern European
sense
of the term) of Delaware's law enforcement establishment.
Hale, a retired Marine Sergeant who served two tours in Iraq and was
decorated before his combat-related medical discharge in January 2006, was
murdered by a heavily armed 8-12-member undercover police team in
Wilmington, Delaware last November 6. He had come to Wilmington from his
home in Manassas, Virginia to participate in a Toys for Tots event.
Derek was house-sitting for a friend on the day he was murdered. Sandra
Lopez, the ex-wife of Derek's friend, arrived with an 11-year-old son and
a
6-year-old daughter just shortly before the police showed up. After
helping
Sandra and her children remove some of their personal belongings, Derek
was
sitting placidly on the front step, clad in jeans and a hooded sweat****rt,
when an unmarked police car and a blacked-out SUV arrived and disgorged
their murderous cargo.
Unknown to Derek, he had been under police surveillance as part of a
ginned-up investigation into the Pagan Motorcycle Club, which he had
joined
several months before; the Pagans sponsored the "Toys for Tots Run" that
had
brought Derek to Delaware. As with any biker club, the Pagans probably
included some disreputable people in their ranks. Derek was emphatically
not
one of them.
In addition to his honorable military service (albeit in a consummately
dishonorable war), Derek's personal background was antiseptically clean.
He
had a concealed carry permit in Virginia, which would not have been issued
to him if he'd been convicted of a felony, a narcotics or domestic
violence
charge, or had any record of substance abuse or mental illness.
On the day he was killed, Derek had been under both physical and
electronic
(and, according to the civil complaint, illegal) surveillance. Police
personnel who observed him knew that his behavior was completely
innocuous.
And despite the fact that he had done nothing to warrant such treatment,
he
was considered an "un-indicted co-conspirator" in a pur****ted narcotics
ring
run by the Pagans.
The police vehicles screeched to a halt in front of the house shortly
after
4:00 p.m. They ordered Lopez and her children away from Derek - who,
predictably, had risen to his feet by this time - and then ordered him to
remove his hands from his the pockets of his sweat****rt.
Less than a second later - according to several eyewitnesses at the scene
-
Derek was hit with a taser blast that knocked him sideways and sent him
into
convulsions. His right hand involuntarily shot out of its pocket,
clenching
spasmodically.
"Not in front of the kids," Derek gasped, as he tried to force his body to
cooperate. "Get the kids out of here."
The officers continued to order Derek to put up his hands; he was
physically
unable to comply.
So they tased him again. This time he was driven to his side and vomited
into a nearby flower bed.
Howard Mixon, a contractor who had been working nearby, couldn't abide the
spectacle.
"That's not necessary!" he bellowed at the assailants. "That's overkill!
That's overkill!"
At this point, one of the heroes in blue (or, in this case, black)
swaggered
over to Mixon and snarled, "I'll f*****g show you overkill!" Having
heroically shut up an unarmed civilian, the officer turned his attention
back to Derek - who was being tased yet again.
"I'm trying to get my hands out," Derek exclaimed, desperately trying to
make his tortured and traumatized body obey his will. Horrified, his
friend
Sandra screamed at the officers: "He is trying to get his hands out, he
cannot get his hands out!"
Having established that Derek - an innocent man who had survived two tours
of duty in Iraq - was defenseless, one of Wilmington's Finest closed in
for
the kill.
Lt. William Brown of the Wilmington Police Department, who was close
enough
to seize and handcuff the helpless victim, instead shot him in the chest
at
point-blank range, tearing apart his vitals with three .40-caliber rounds.
He did this after Derek had said, repeatedly and explicitly, that he was
trying to cooperate. He did this despite the fact that witnesses on the
scene had confirmed that Derek was trying to cooperate. He did this in
front
of a traumatized mother and two horrified children.
Why was this done?
According to Sgt. Steven Elliot of the WPD, Brown slaughtered Derek Hale
because he "feared for the safety of his fellow officers and believed that
the suspect was in a position to pose an imminent threat." That subjective
belief was sufficient justification to use "deadly force," according to
Sgt.
Elliot.
The "position" Derek was in, remember, was that of wallowing helplessly in
his own vomit, trying to overcome the ***ulative effects of three
completely
unjustified Taser attacks.
When asked by the Wilmington News Journal last week if Hale had ever
threatened the officers - remember, there were at least 8 and as many as
12
of them - Elliot replied: "In a sense, [he threatened the officers] when
he
did not comply with their commands."
He wasn't given a chance to comply: He was hit with the first Taser strike
less than a second after he was commanded to remove his hands from his
pockets, and then two more in rapid succession. The killing took roughly
three minutes.
As is always the case when agents of the State murder an innocent person,
the WPD immediately went into cover-up mode. The initial account of the
police murder claimed that Derek had "struggled with undercover Wilmington
vice officers"; that "struggle," of course, referred to Derek's
involuntary
reaction to multiple, unjustified Taser strikes.
The account likewise mentioned that police recovered "two items that were
considered weapons" from Derek's body. Neither was a firearm. One was a
container of pepper spray. The other was a switchblade knife. Both were
most
likely planted on the murder victim: The police on the scene had pepper
spray, and Derek's stepbrother, Missouri resident Jason Singleton, insists
that Derek never carried a switchblade.
"The last time I saw Derek," Jason told the News Journal, "he had a small
Swiss Army knife. I've never seen Derek with anything like a switchblade."
Within hours, the WPD began to fabricate a back-story to justify Derek's
murder. Several Delware State Police officers - identified in the suit
as "Lt. [Patrick] Ogden, Sgt. Randall Hunt, and other individual DSP
[personnel]" contacted the police in Masassas, Virginia and informed him
that Derek had been charged with drug trafficking two days before he was
murdered. This was untrue. But because it was said by someone invested
with
the majestic power of the State, it was accepted as true, and cited in a
sworn affidavit to secure a warrant to search Derek's home.
Conducting this spurious search - which was, remember, play-acting in the
service of a cover story - meant shoving aside Derek's grieving widow,
Elaine, and her two shattered children, who had just lost their
stepfather.
Nothing of material consequence was found, but a useful bit of embroidery
was added to the cover story.
Less than two weeks earlier, Derek and Elaine had celebrated their first
anniversary.
The Delaware State Police officer is guilty of misprision of perjury, as
are
the officials who collaborated in this deception. And it's entirely likely
that the Virginia State Police had guilty knowledge as well.
Last November 21, in an attempt to pre-empt public outrage, the highest
officials of the Delaware State Police issued a press release in
conjunction
with their counterparts from Virginia. The statement is a work of
unalloyed
mendacity.
"Hale resisted arrest and was shot and killed by Wilmington Police on
November 6, 2006," lied the signatories with reference to the claim that
he
"resisted." "Hale was at the center of a long term narcotics trafficking
investigation which is still ongoing."
As we've seen, Hale did not resist arrest, as everyone on the scene knew.
And he was not at the "center" of any investigation; before his posthumous
promotion to "un-indicted co-conspirator," he was merely a "person of
interest" because of his affiliation with a motorcycle club.
Most critically, the statement - which bears the august imprimatur of both
the Delaware and Virginia State Police departments, remember - asserts:
"Both [State Police] Superintendents have confirmed that there was never
any
false information exchanged by either agency in the investigation of Derek
J. Hale, or transmitted between the agencies in order to obtain the search
warrant."
This was another lie.
"Delaware State Police spokesperson Sgt. Melissa Zebley conceded last week
that no arrest warrant for Hale was ever issued," re****ted the News
Journal
on March 22. Three days after Hale was murdered, police arrested 12
members
of the Pagans Motorcycle Club on various drug and weapons charges, but
identified Hale at that point only as a "person of interest."
Last Friday (May 23), the Rutherford Institute - one of the precious few
nominally conservative activist groups that gives half a damn about
individual liberty - and a private law firm in Virginia filed a civil
rights
lawsuit against several Delaware law enforcement and political officials
on
behalf of Derek's widow and parents. They really should consider including
key officials from the Virginia State Police in the suit, as well.
Those who persist in feti****zing local police - who are, at this point,
merely local franchises of a unitary, militarized, Homeland Security
apparatus - should ponder this atrocity long and hard.
They should contemplate not only the inexplicable eagerness of Lt. William
Brown to kill a helpless, paralyzed pseudo-suspect, but also the practiced
ease with which the police establishments of two states collaborated in
confecting a fiction to cover up that crime.
According to the lawsuit, Lt. Brown, Derek's murderer, "has violated the
constitutional rights of others in the past through the improper use of
deadly force and has coached other WPD officers on how to lie about and/or
justify the improper use of deadly force." Rather than being ca****ered,
Brown was promoted - just as one would expect of any other dishonest,
cowardly thug in the service of any other Third World death squad.
Derek J. Hale survived two tours of duty in Iraq, a country teeming with
Pentagon-trained death squads, only to be murdered by their home-grown
equivalent.
Copyright 2007 William Norman Grigg
Quote of the Times;
"When a government fails to protect justice it is the responsibility
of the people to rise up and change the guard, change the regime.
Those who fail to answer that call should be charged with patriotic
treason." - Belafonte
Link of the Times;
http://www.counterpunch.org/pringle03072007.html
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