A TRULY BEAUTIFUL MIND

PRESENTED BY
ZINIA MALLICK
TGT ENGLISH
KV IIT KHARAGPUR
 INTRODUCTION
• This story is a biographical sketch of Albert Einstein. He is depicted
not only as a scientist but also as a human being who had his likes and
dislikes, his streaks of rebellion, and his problems. He got the Nobel
Prize for Physics in 1921. Besides being a genius, Einstein was also a
great visionary. He campaigned for peace and democracy. Though he
was a German, he migrated to the United States of America when the
Nazis came to power in 1933. This scientific genius and a great human
being breathed his last breath in 1955 at the age of seventy-six.
 BIOGRAPHY AT A GLANCE
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• Albert Einstein was born on 14th March 1879 in the German city of Ulm.
• On the contrary of his great destiny he was regarded as a freak by his mother as his head seemed
much larger to her.
• He was a late speaker but when he spoke he said everything twice.
• He did not interact with his class fellows and he remained to himself. His playmates called him
“Brother Boring”.
• He loved mechanical toys and when he saw his newborn sister, Maja, he had asked his mother
where her wheels were.
• He started learning to play the violin at the age of six at his mother’s insistence.
• He maintained this skill throughout his life as a gifted amateur violinist.
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• He was a good student though the headmaster of his old school suggested that he would
not be successful at anything.
• He went to high school in Munich and scored good marks in almost every subject.
• He often clashed with his teachers and disliked extreme discipline.
• He left the school completely at the age of fifteen.
• After a prolonged discussion with his parents he wished to continue his education in
German-speaking Switzerland.
• He was highly talented in mathematics and had a keen interest in physics.
• After finishing school, Einstein decided to study further at a university in Zurich.
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• At the university, he developed a special interest in a fellow student, Mileva Maric. They both had a common interest.
• They were against philistines (persons who do not like art, literature or music)
• They expressed their words of affection mixing science with tenderness.
• Einstein became a university graduate in 1900, at the age of 21.
• After that he worked as teaching assistant and gave private lesson as well.
• Finally in 1902 he secured a job as a technical expert in the patent office of Bern.
• Secretly he used to develop his ideas and sometimes he called his desk drawer at work the “bureau of theoretical physics.”
• In 1905 he gave the world Special Theory of Relativity. According to this theory, time and distance are not absolute.
• From this theory followed the world’s most famous formula which describes the relationship between mass and energy:
• E=mc2
• (E=energy, m=mass, c=speed of light in vacuum)
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• When Einstein was busy in solving the most difficult problems in physics, his private life got disturbed.
• He wanted to marry Mileva but his mother was against the marriage as she was 3 years older than him and
also her intelligence bothered her.
• They finally married in January 1903, and had two sons.
• But the marriage was not successful. After many years of constant fight, they finally divorced in 1919.
Einstein married his cousin Elsa in the same year.
• Albert Einstein published his General Theory of Relativity in 1915, which provided him a new
interpretation of gravity.
• By that time he had become world famous. An eclipse of the sun in 1919 proved that the theory was
accurate.
• The newspaper proclaimed his work as “ a scientific revolution.”
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• Einstein received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921. He was bestowed with honours and
invitations from all over the world and also got media attention for his achievement.
• Einstein emigrated to the United States in 1933, when the Nazis came to power in Germany.
• In 1938, the discovery of nuclear fission in Berlin make the American physicists very upset.
They were afraid that Nazis could build and use atomic bomb.
• In a letter to the then American President, Franklin D Roosevelt written on 2 nd August,1939,
Albert Einstein apprised the President of the devastating dangers of this type of bomb.
• Heeding his advice, the Americans developed the atomic bomb in secret project of their own.
• They dropped it on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.
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• Einstein was exceedingly perturbed by the extent of the destruction.
He, therefore, wrote a public missive to the United States.
• His proposition of forming of a world government had no impact .
• But over the next decade, Einstein got more involved in politics.
• By using his popularity, he campaigned for peace and democracy.
• When he died in 1955 at the age of 76, he was celebrated as a
visionary and world citizen as much as a scientific genius.
 SHORT NOTE
• The Theory of Relativity- This theory gives us the basic formula of physics. E=mc2 In this
mathematical equation, E stands for energy, m for mass of the object and c for the speed of the light in
vacuum.(Vacuum means where there is no air and the speed of light in vacuum is almost 300000km/s).
To put it into simple words, Einstein said that when you sit with a nice girl for two hours, it seems like
two minutes. On the other hand, when you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it seems like two hours-
that’s relativity. So a person would feel the timing differently.
• Fascism – Fascism was a dictatorial (a ruler with total power) concept which was started in Europe
from Italy by the rule of Benito Mussolini.
• Nazism -(or National Socialism; German: Nationalsozialismus) is a set of political beliefs associated
with the Nazi Party of Germany. It started in the 1920s. Party gained power in 1933, starting the Third
Reich. They lasted in Germany until 1945, at the end of World War II. The famous Nazi ruler was
Adolf Hitler.
 TITLE
• The title of this bio-sketch “A Truly Beautiful Mind” is very
appropriate. The story encompasses not only his intelligence but also
his humanistic tendencies.
• As a genius scientist, he made an immense contribution to the world
of science by presenting some world famous theories, on the other
hand as a humanitarian, he preached for peace and democracy.
• Thus, his mind was really beautiful and teeming with new ideas and
human concerns.
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