Einstein was not a poor student and high school dropout. His talent in math was always remarkable and precocious. In other school subjects, those in which he was disinterested or that demanded rote learning, he had middling success. At 16, he attempted to enter college before finishing high school but failed the university entrance exam.

E=MC2, the equation joining matter and energy, is possibly the most famous equation ever conceived, but it did not earn Einstein the Nobel Prize. In 1921 the prize in physics went to On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies, Einsteinıs thoughts concerning the nature of light. That work, as well as E=MC2 and the Special Theory of Relativity were all completed in 1905, often referred to as Einsteinıs Annus Mirabilis or miracle year. And the miracle wasnıt underwritten by a research grant or university stipend, but was the product of moments stolen away from his duties as patent examiner, father and husband.

Einstein did not invent the atom bomb. In 1939, he wrote a letter to President Roosevelt suggesting that the Naziıs planned to build one, and proposed the need for more American nuclear research. Nearly disregarded, the letter eventually inspired the Manhattan Project and the task of building an American atomic bomb. But Einstein played no role in its construction, and was banned from the project as a security risk for his socialist politics and pacifism.

Albert Einstein died in New Jersey in 1955. The doctor who performed the autopsy to determine the cause of death­heart failure­made off with Einsteinıs brain and kept it in a jar for more than forty years. Its fate is described in Michael Paternitiıs enchanting book, Driving Mr. Albert: a trip across America with Einstein's brain.

All contents copyright Don Brown 1999, 2000, 2001,2002, 2003, 2004, 2005