The Giants of Science biography series for middle-grade brings Albert Einstein, a man who changed notions of space and time.
Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879 in Ulm, Germany, to Jewish family. He was a temperamental child, throwing things. He started talking much later than most children. He preferred to play alone with toys and puzzles. At school, he didn’t like the rigid system. At young age, he already recognized that “Blind respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.”
He dropped out of German school and found a progressive, freethinking school in Switzerland. His rebel ways persisted at Polytechnic. He hated exams. He exasperated his teachers. After finishing school and alienating teachers, he had a hard time finding a job.
In 1905, at twenty-six, he published four papers in the most important of the science journals, but most of the physics community ignored them.
At age forty, he became the most famous scientist in the world, but with the growing antisemitism came fierce attacks against him. Eventually, because of WWII, he was forced to leave Germany for the US.
The story also delves into his two marriages, his children, and at the end, his anxiety of developing atomic bomb. The bomb was the opposite of the purpose of science. After the war, he advocated for strict controls on nuclear technology.
Despite his theories being quite complicated, his perseverance in working for years on each theory is something to admire. In 1922, he received the Nobel Prize for Physics, but he himself knew that his work was quite complicated and said, “I will be dead for quite some time before my current work is appreciated.”
His advice is precious, “The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.”
Einstein was rebellious in his own way which had merit, but he was also careless and condescending which complicated his early goal of working at University. He learned it hard way. Nevertheless, he inspires to be curious and question everything and anything.
The book goes into explaining his theories which is explained in the most possible simple way. Despite that I’m not sure if it all would be understood by young readers.
Published
by Blackstone Publishing in 2020
TRENDING
INSPIRATION: Be Curious and Keep Asking Questions
Trends:
·
At school, he didn’t like the rigid system.
·
At young age, he already recognized that “Blind
respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.”
·
He dropped out of German school and found a
progressive, freethinking school in Switzerland.
·
At age forty, he became the most famous
scientist in the world. As many geniuses, they’re not always easy to get along
with.
·
He persevered in working for years on each
theory.
·
He was curious and questioned everything and
anything.
“Thinking is hard work. That’s why so few do it.” – Albert Einstein
“The
important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for
existing.” – Albert Einstein
FURTHER INSPIRATION AND RECOMMENDATION:
Albert Einstein already at young age questioned
authority which aligns with the words of Buddha: “Do not believe in authority
or teachers or elders. But after careful observation and analysis, when it
agrees with reason and it will benefit one and all, then accept it and live by
it.”
This subject is further explained by Dr. Wayne Dyer
in his book “Wisdom of the Ages” under chapter two – Knowing.
Siddhartha Gautama left behind the princely life at
twenty-nine and sought religious understanding after seeing the unhappiness,
sickness, and death that even the wealthiest and most powerful were subject to
in life.
“Just because you have heard it, and it is a
long-surviving tradition, and it is recorded over the centuries, and the world’s
greatest teachers have endorsed it, those are still not reasons to accept a
belief.”
“’Knowing about’ is another term for believing. ‘Knowing’
is a term reserved exclusively for direct experience, which means an absence of
doubt.”
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