Albert Einstein

Some Lesser Known Facts About Albert Einstein

• Did Albert Einstein smoke?: Yes

• Did Albert Einstein drink alcohol?: Yes

• At the time of Albert Einstein’s birth, it is said that the back of his head was abnormal means his back of the head was very large. It is said that one week later, his head became normal.

• He was born in a middle-class Hebrew family in Germany, he had only one sibling his sister Maja, who was only two years younger to him.

• It is said that until four years of age Einstein had difficulty in speaking. Moreover, he also had reading issues and was expelled from school.

• At the age of 16, he wrote his first scientific paper “The Investigation of the State of Aether in Magnetic Fields.”

• In 1894, Electrical company of his father failed to achieve an important contract and his family moved to Milan, Italy. However, Einstein was left in Munich’ boarding school.

• Einstein was very unhappy to join German Military forces and he left the boarding school of Munich without any notice by using a doctor’s note and he went to Milan.

• In 1895, at the age of 16, Einstein sat in the entrance examinations for the Swiss Federal Polytechnic in Zürich.  He failed to reach the required standard in the general part of the examination, but he was given exceptional grades in physics and mathematics.

• In January 1896, with his father’s approval, Einstein renounced his citizenship in the German Kingdom of Württemberg to avoid military service.

• While lodging with the family of Professor Jost Winteler, he fell in love with his first future wife Winteler’s daughter, Marie. Albert’s sister Maja later married Winteler’s son Paul.

• Einstein, through the studies of theories, he found out that speed of light was constant and this fact was not known to Maxwell. Einstein’s discovery was a direct violation of Newton’s laws of motion. This led Einstein to develop the relativity principle.

• Having been divorced, Einstein got into a relationship with his cousin Elsa Löwenthal and later married her.

• In 1921 Einstein got the Noble Prize for Physics but he did not win it for his Theory of Relativity as it was not completely understood by many. He was actually awarded the prize for his extraordinary explanation of the photoelectric effect.

• In many letters that Einstein wrote to Elsa, he acknowledged the fact that he was involved in several extramarital affairs.

• Einstein hated putting on socks. In a letter he wrote to Elsa, he wrote that “Even on the most solemn occasions I got away without wearing socks and hid that lack of civilization in high boots.”

• In 1940, Einstein immigrated to the USA and was granted citizenship of USA.

• Einstein was asked to become the President of Zionist Israel in 1952, but he turned down the offer.

• Einstein was very much obsessed with smoking. He said once, “I believe that pipe smoking contributes to a somewhat calm and objective judgment in all human affairs”.                                                                                    

• Due to internal bleeding caused by the rupture of an abdominal aortic aneurysm, Einstein passed away on 17 April 1955 in New Jersey USA.