A Rare collection of the letters shows a fearful Einstein long before the Nazi’s attack.

Prague, 23 November 1911
Esteemed Mrs. Curie,
Don’t laugh at me for writing to you without having anything sensible to say. But I’m so furious at the vile [niederträchige] way in which the rabble [Pöbel] at present dares to treat you that I absolutely must give vent to this feeling. I am, however, convinced that you despise this rabble, equally when it’s feigning adoration or when it’s using you to slake its thirst for the sensational! I must tell you how much I’ve come to admire your spirit [Geist], your creativity, and your honesty. I consider myself lucky to have
made your personal acquaintance in Brussels. Anyone other than those reptiles is certainly happy, now as before, that we have eminent people like you, and also Langevin, among us—real people [wirkliche Menschen] with whom one feels privileged to be in contact. If the rabble continues to occupy itself with you, then simply don’t read that swill. Rather leave it to the reptile for whom it’s been fabricated.
With most friendly regards to you, Langevin, and [Jean] Perrin,
Yours very truly,

A. Einstein
P.S. I’ve determined the statistical law of [rotational] motion for a diatomic molecule in Planck’s radiation field by means of a merry joke [lustigen Witz], of course on the assumption that the structure’s motion obeys the laws of ordinary mechanics. But I have little hope that this law is valid in reality.

Princeton, 15 September 1950
Dear Born,

… People such as your Bolshevik doctor come by their fantastic attitude as a result of their objection to the harshness, injustice, and absurdity of our own social order (escape from reality). If he happened to be living in Russia, no doubt he would be a rebel there as well, only in that case he would take care not to tell you about it. Nevertheless, it seems to me that our own people here [in the US] make an even worse job of their foreign policy than the Russians. And the idiotic public can be talked into anything. And they really are very shortsighted, for technological superiority is transitory, and if it comes to all-out conflict, the decisive factor is sheer numerical superiority.
There is nothing analogous in relativity to what I call incompleteness of description in the quantum theory. Briefly, it is because the ψ-function is incapable of describing certain qualities of an individual system, whose “reality” none of us doubt (such as a microscopic parameter). Take a (macroscopic) body that can rotate freely about an axis. Its state is fully determined by an angle. Let the initial conditions (angle and angular momentum) be defined as precisely as the quantum theory allows. The Schrödinger equation then gives the ψ-function for any subsequent time interval. If this is sufficiently large, all angles become (in practice) equally probable. But if an observation is made (e.g. by flashing a torch), a definite angle is found (with sufficient accuracy). This does not prove that the angle had a definite value before it was observed—but we believe this to be the case because we are committed to the requirements of reality on the macroscopic scale. Thus, the ψ-function does not express the real state of affairs perfectly in this case. This is what I call “incomplete description.”
So far, you may not object. But you will probably take the position that a complete description would be useless because there is no mathematical relationship for such a case. I do not say that I am able to disprove this view. But my instinct tells me that a complete formulation of the relationships is tied up with a complete description of its factual state. I am convinced of this although, up to now, success is against it. I also believe that the current formulation is true in the same sense as e.g. thermodynamics, i.e. as far as the concepts used are inadequate. I do not expect to convince you, or anybody else. I just want you to understand the way I think.
I see from … your letter that you, too, take the quantum theoretical description as incomplete (referring to an ensemble). But you are, after all, convinced that no (complete) laws exist for a complete description, according to the positivistic maxim: Esse est percipi [to be is to bperceived]. Well, this is a programmatic attitude, not knowledge. This is where our attitudes really differ. For the time being, I am alone in my views—as Leibniz was with respect to the absolute space of Newton’s theory.
… I have not changed my attitude to the Germans, which, by the way, dates not just from the Nazi period. All human beings are more or less the same from birth. The Germans, however, have a far more dangerous tradition than any of the other so-called civilized nations.
Kind regards,
Yours,
A. E.

Berlin, 29 April 1924
Dear Borns,
Your letter, dear Mrs. Born, was really excellent. Indeed, what causes the sense of well-being inspired by Japanese society and art is that the individual is so harmoniously integrated into his wider environment that he derives his experiences not from the self, but mainly from the comm-unity. Each of us longed for this when we were young, but we had to resign ourselves to its impossibility. For, of all the communities available to us there is not one I would want to devote myself to, except for the society of the true searchers, which has very few living members at any time.
… Bohr’s opinion about radiation is of great interest. But I should not want to be forced into abandoning strict causality without defending it more strongly than I have so far. I find the idea quite intolerable that an electron exposed to radiation should choose, of its own free will, not only its mom-ent to jump off, but also its direction. In that case, I would rather be a cob-bler, or even an employee in a gaming house, than a physicist. Certainly, my attempts to give tangible form to the quanta have foundered again and again but I am far from giving up hope. And even if it never works, there is always that consolation that this lack of success is entirely mine.
With best wishes.
Yours
Einstein

Oxford, 30 May 1933
Dear Born,
… I am glad that [you and James Franck] have resigned your positions. Thank God there is no risk involved for either of you. But my heart aches at the thought of the young ones…. I hear that the establishment of a good Institute of Physics in Palestine (Jerusalem) is at present being considered.
There has been a nasty mess there up to now, complete charlatanism. But if I get the impression that this business could be taken seriously, I shall write to you at once with further details. For it would be splendid if something good were to be created there….
Two years ago I tried to appeal to Rockefeller’s conscience about the absurd method of allocating grants, unfortunately without success. Bohr has now gone to see him in an attempt to persuade him to take some action on behalf of the exiled German scientists…. I am firmly convinced that those who have made a name already will be taken care of. But the others, the young ones, will not have the chance to develop.
You know, I think, that I have never had a particularly favorable opinion of the Germans (morally and politically speaking). But I must confess that the degree of their brutality and cowardice came as something of a surprise to me. I originally intended to create a university for exiles. But it soon became apparent that there are insurmountable obstacles, and that any effort in this direction would impede the exertions of individual countries.
Yours,
Einstein

To his daughter
“When I proposed the theory of relativity, very few understood me, and what I will reveal now to transmit to mankind will also collide with the misunderstanding and prejudice in the world. I ask you to guard the letters as long as necessary, years, decades until society is advanced enough to
accept what I will explain below.
There is an extremely powerful force that, so far, science has not found a formal explanation too. It is a force that includes and governs all others, and is even behind any phenomenon operating in the universe and has not yet been identified by us. This universal force is LOVE. When scientists looked for a unified theory of the universe they forgot the most powerful unseen force.
Love is Light, that enlightens those who give and receive it. Love is gravity because it makes some people feel attracted to others. Love is power, beca-use it multiplies the best we have and allows humanity not to be extinguis-hed in their blind selfishness. Love unfolds and reveals. For love, we live and die. Love is God and God is Love.
This force explains everything and gives meaning to life. This is the variable that we have ignored for too long, maybe because we are afraid of love because it is the only energy in the universe that man has not learned to drive at will.
To give visibility to love, I made a simple substitution in my most famous equation. If instead of E = mc2, we accept that the energy to heal the world can be obtained through love multiplied by the speed of light squared, we arrive at the conclusion that love is the most powerful force there is beca-use it has no limits. After the failure of humanity in the use and control of the other forces of the universe that have turned against us, it is urgent that we nourish ourselves with another kind of energy…
If we want our species to survive, if we are to find meaning in life, if we want to save the world and every sentient being that inhabits it, love is the one and only answer. Perhaps we are not yet ready to make a bomb of love, a device powerful enough to entirely destroy the hate, selfishness, and greed that devastated the planet. However, each individual carries within them a small but powerful generator of love whose energy is waiting to be released.
When we learn to give and receive this universal energy, dear Lieserl, we will have affirmed that love conquers all, is able to transcend everything and anything, because love is the quintessence of life. I deeply regret not having been able to express what is in my heart, which has quietly beaten for you all my life. Maybe it’s too late to apologize, but as time is relative, I need to tell you that I love you and thanks to you I have reached the ultimate answer! “.

Your father,
Albert Einstein

Princeton, 3. 1. 1954
Dear Mr. Gutkind,
Inspired by Brouwer’s repeated suggestion, I read a great deal in your book, and thank you very much for lending it to me. What struck me was this: with regard to the factual attitude to life and to the human community we have a great deal in common. Your personal ideal with its striving for freedom from ego-oriented desires, for making life beautiful and noble, with an emphasis on the purely human element. This unites us as having an “unAmerican attitude.”

Still, without Brouwer’s suggestion, I would never have gotten myself to engage intensively with your book because it is written in a language inaccessible to me. The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still purely primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation, no matter how subtle, can change this for me. For me, the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstition. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong, and whose thinking I have a deep affinity for, have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are
also no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything “chosen” about them.

In general, I find it painful that you claim a privileged position and try to defend it by two walls of pride, an external one as a man and an internal one as a Jew. As a man you claim, so to speak, a dispensation from causality otherwise accepted, as a Jew the privilege of monotheism. But a limited causality is no longer a causality at all, as our wonderful Spinoza recog-nized with all incision, probably as the first one. And the animistic inter-pretations of the religions of nature are in principle not annulled by
monopolization. With such walls, we can only attain a certain self-deception, but our moral efforts are not furthered by them. On the contrary. Now that I have quite openly stated our differences in intellectual convic-tions it is still clear to me that we are quite close to each other in essential things, i.e; in our evaluations of human behavior. What separates us are only intellectual “props” and “rationalization” in Freud’s language. Therefore I think that we would understand each other quite well if we talked about concrete things.

With friendly thanks and best wishes,
Yours,
A. Einstein

Albert Einstein
Old Grove Rd.
Nassau Point
Peconic, Long Island
August 2nd, 1939
F.D. Roosevelt
President of the United States
White House
Washington, D.C.
Sir:
Some recent work by E.Fermi and L. Szilard, which has been communicated to me in manuscript, leads me to expect that the element uranium may be turned into a new and important source of energy in the immediate future. Certain aspects of the situation which has arisen seem to call for watchfulness and, if necessary, quick action on the part of the Administration. I believe therefore that it is my duty to bring to your att-ention the following facts and recommendations:
In the course of the last four months it has been made probable – through the work of Joliot in France as well as Fermi and Szilard in America – that it may become possible to set up a nuclear chain reaction in a large mass of uranium by which vast amounts of power and large quantities of new radium-like elements would be generated. Now it appears almost certain that this could be achieved in the immediate future. This new phenomenon would also lead to the construction of bombs, and it is conceivable – though much less certain – that extremely powerful bombs of a new type may thus be constructed. A single bomb of this type, carried by boat and exploded in a port, might very well destroy the whole port together with some of the surrounding territory. However, such bombs might very well prove to be too heavy for transportation by air.
The United States has only very poor ores of uranium in moderate quantities. There is some good ore in Canada and former Czechoslovakia, while the most important source of uranium is Belgian Congo.
In view of the situation, you may think it desirable to have more permanent contact maintained between the Administration and the group of physicists working on chain reactions in America. One possible way of achieving this might be for you to entrust with this task a person who has your confidence and who could perhaps serve in an unofficial capacity. His task might comprise the following:
a) to approach Government Departments, keep them informed of the further development, and put forward recommendations for Government action, giving particular attention to the problem of securing a supply of uranium ore for the United States;
b) to speed up the experimental work, which is at present being carried on within the limits of the budgets of University laboratories, by providing funds, if such funds are required, through his contacts with private persons who are willing to make contributions for this cause, and perhaps also by obtaining the co-operation of industrial laboratories which have the necessary equipment.
I understand that Germany has actually stopped the sale of uranium from the Czechoslovakian mines which she has taken over. That she should have taken such early action might perhaps be understood on the ground that the son of the German Under-Secretary of State, von Weizsäcker, is attached to the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut in Berlin where some of the American work on uranium is now being repeated.
Yours very truly,
Albert Einstein

On his love affairs:
Despite declaring in one letter that ”I must seek in the stars what was denied to me on earth,”
A letter to his wife Elsa reads: ”Mrs. M. definitely acted according to the best Christian-Jewish ethics: 1)one should do what one enjoys and what won’t harm anyone else; and 2) one should refrain from doing things one does not take delight in and which annoy another person. Because of 1) she came with me,
and because of 2) she didn’t tell you a word. Isn’t that irreproachable?”
In a letter to his stepdaughter, Margot, in 1931, Einstein confides in her, ”It is true that Mrs. M. followed me [to England] and her chasing after me is getting out of control…”
On his step-daughter: In a letter to Elsa in 1924, Einstein tells her, ”I love her [Margot] as much as if she were my own daughter, perhaps even more so, since who knows what kind of brat she would have become [had I
fathered her].” On relativity:
In a letter to Elsa in 1921, he admits, ”Soon I’ll be fed up with the relativity. Even such a thing fades away when one is too involved with it…”

Born 14 March 1874 – Death 18 April 1955

With a gleaming pair of eyes, razor-sharp IQ, electrified hairs, a mere by-product of his goals. Yeah, that’s Einstein who had a fancy for this mind-bogglingly vast universe.

Einstein was a noble laureate based in Germany who revolutionized the field of modern physics and is deemed one of the greatest minds of all time specifically for his work on Relativity, mass-energy equivalence, and photo-electric effect. He kicked off his career as a patent clerk and gradually prog-ressed as one of the best physicists of the 19th century, with his extraor-dinary skills and determination he demonstrated that nothing is impossible if one has capabilities.

Einstein grew up in a Jewish family, his father Hermann Einstein was an engineer and sale man by profession and run a Munich-based company who dealt with electronics pieces of equipment. While her mother is a housewife love to cook, bake and knit. Einstein had been a problem child for his family, initially, he took too long to speak properly and finally when he started uttering, words came to his mouth too slowly and he used to repeat them over and over. He had a strange habit of talking with himself all through his life and people who were unable to recognize his except-ional skills thought him a weirdo. In school, he was too slow to answer his teachers and they assumed him as a lower than average student. Due to his teacher’s negligence and harsh attitude he rarely went to school. Einstein marveled at his first scientific experience, like how is fathers com-pass always pointed north. He struggled with the harsh rules and author-itarian discipline of German schools. He hated the way he was taught to cram without getting through the concepts and a creative or independent way of learning was neglected at all.

Instead, he used to question his teachers as an attempt to go into the depths of scientific details and since his mathematics teacher was unable to carry off his yearning desire, at the age of twelve he started stretching his head in pure geometrical problems and wrote his first scientific paper when he was only of sixteen. The ordeal was so bad that he lost interest in science for a whole year.

Einstein was willing to start a career in physics but he ended up in an office clerk job in Switzerland which had nothing to do with science. However, that job happened to be the right opportunity to ring about his financial needs and keep on his work on physics on the sidelines. He spent the next three years on nonstop research and finally in 1905, he published his four articles that revolutionized the science of physics forever. His papers entit-led as ‘electrodynamics of moving bodies’ and ‘mass-energy equival-ence’ dropped the modern physics in a more electrifying direction. This equation proposed that small particles of matter could be converted into a huge amount of energy that later heralded atomic bomb.

By November 1905, Einstein had done with his general theory of relativity that provided a more accurate prediction of celestial objects. He modified Newton’s laws but kept Maxwell’s equations in the pure form and explained how gravitation force worked. Later in 1919, Sir Arther Eddington and British astronomer Sir Frank Dyson had affirmed Einstein’s assertion dur-ing a solar eclipse. Einstein won the noble prize for physics in 1925 for his great work on the photoelectric effect.

Moreover, Einstein modified Newton’s laws to deal with the properties of light. Einstein recognition and judgment was far much sharper than other physicists of his time and he found that not only Newton’s laws of motion inconsistent with Maxwell’s theory of light but Newton’s laws of gravity were also inconsistent with special relativity, so actually they were Newton’s laws those needed to change permanently.

The geometry that was involved was much more sophisticated than usual mathematics that physicists had to deal with before, so he would have to develop the theory of curved space-time. The basic concept behind was that when a planet goes around the sun it’s not because it is attracted to the sun as Newton’s laws would have said rather the Sun has curvature in space-time and the planet is trying to find a straight line in curved space-time.

Ultimately, his intellectual achievements and discoveries made the word Einstein synonymous with ‘Genius’ and a symbol of inspiration and motiv-ation for millions of scientists, has been discussing and celebrating around the globe for more than a century. After his death, Einstein’s brain had cremated and now located at the Princeton University medical center. In 1999 a team of researchers found that Einstein’s inferior parietal lobe was fifteen percent wider than the people with normal intelligence. This area of brain processes 3D visualization, mathematical concepts, and spatial relationships and its wider size showed that’s why Einstein’s IQ was greater.

Einstein’s work builds one of the two basic pillars of modern physics. Though He is best known for his work on the general theory of relativity But Einstein made other important contributions in the field of Quantum physics and philosophy of science. He published hundreds of books and articles, wrote more than 300 scientific and 150 non-scientific papers on the topics such as Einstein’s lesser-known-work, Einstein’s refrigeration, gravit-ational lensing, Tachometer, Bose-Einstein condensate, grand unified theory and photo-electric effect, which was a pivotal step in the development of Quantum theory.

Now after more than a hundred years of his birth one can observe the evidence of Einstein’s legacy everywhere. From nuclear power to commun-ication satellites his theories have been ruling out the world of science and technology. In the meanwhile, the researchers worked on his light theories and develop lasers those are widely in use in medical, industries, and even in the construction of bridges and tunnels. His law of photoelectric effect helped engineers and they were able to power up communication and weather satellites in orbits with solar cells, merely a by-product of Einstein’s photoelectrons. And now in the 21^st century, with the help of ultrasensitive Einstein’s masors, scientists are exploring the new frontier of space and a couple of years ago detected Einstein’s gravitational waves.

Though he died on April 18^th, 1955 and his ashes were scattered on an unknown place but the byproducts of his brain are alive and our compan-ions in everyday life. Those insights are the very tool sufficient to quench our thirst of search and to explore the new bounds of the future.

Walter Isaacson, the author of “His Life and Universe”, reveal a juicy bit of information from the early life of never forgotten physicist, the one and only “Einstein”.

In 1895, the sixteen-year-old bright student stood second in his class (according to the records of exclusive college preparatory school in Aargau Switzerland, which survived in those days).
Isaacson wrote it in his book in these words, “Alas, the name of the boy who bested Einstein is lost to history.”
So it might be a surprising fact for some that, the man who is a synonym of genius and who told us about the untold tales of the universe, put out the theories which were unimaginable at that time, was at one point not the most intelligent student in his class.

It makes one think why and how a child from a middle-class family became interested in physics? What were the forces which compelled him to pursue these uncharted territories of physics and laws governing the whole of the universe?

Childhood and Education

Albert Einstein, one of the greatest minds of the 20th century, was born on March 14, 1879, in Ulm, Württemberg, Germany. Albert’s father, Hermann Einstein, was primarily a featherbed salesman and later ran a small electrochemical factory. His mother, Pauline Koch, was a housewife. Both of his parents were from a long line of Jewish heritage and their ancestors had been living in Southern Germany for many centuries. His mother came from a fairly wealthy family and was known for her wits. She also liked music and that’s probably the reason Albert got developed an interest in music from a young age. Albert had only one younger sister Maria (who went by the name Maja). Like most siblings, they had their differences but Maja would grow up to become one of the best and closest friends of Albert.

Learning Difficulties

From early childhood, Einstein faced problems in learning. He was especially slow in learning how to speak. He used to whisper to himself before saying the words out loud. Due to this tendency of repetition and whispering, his maid nicknamed him “der depperte” — the dopey one
Even at the age of nine, he was unable to speak fluently. Many of his teachers thought Albert was mentally weak. As a child, Albert preferred to play by himself rather than with other boys his age.

Fascination with Music

Einstein had a variety of hobbies as well. He enjoyed constructing towers with playing cards and building complex structures with blocks. He also liked to work on puzzles or read books about mathematics. It was Albert’s mother who introduced him to one of his favorite pastimes; music.
At first, Albert wasn’t sure he wanted to learn to play the violin. It seemed too regimented. But then Albert heard Mozart and his world changed. Einstein once said that “Mozart’s music is so pure and beautiful that I see it as a reflection of the inner beauty of the universe itself”. Later in life, Albert would turn to music when stuck on a particularly difficult scientific concept.

Sometimes, he would be playing his violin in the middle of the night and then suddenly stop as a solution to a problem jumped into his mind. As an older man, Einstein explained how important music was to his life and his work saying, “If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my day-dreams in music. I see my life in terms of
music Influences.
When Albert was around the age of five or six, he fell ill. To try and make him feel better, his father bought him a compass to play with. Einstein became fascinated with the compass. How did it work? What was the mysterious force that caused the compass to point north? Einstein claimed as an adult that he could remember how he felt examining the compass. He said it made a profound and lasting impression on him even as a child and sparked his curiosity to want to explain the unknown. The second wonder in young Albert’s life was his discovery of a geometry book at the age of 12. He called it his “little sacred geometry book”.

Yet another important influence on Einstein was a young medical student, Max Talmud. Talmud became an informal tutor, introducing Einstein higher mathematics and philosophy. A pivotal turning point occurred when Einstein was introduced to a children’s science series “Popular Books on Physical Science”, in which the author imagined riding along electricity inside a telegraph wire.

This imaginative question dominated Einstein for the next 10 years: what would a light beam look like if you could run alongside it? If light were a wave, then light beam should appear stationary, like a frozen wave. Even as a child, though, he knew that stationary light waves had never been seen, so there was a paradox.
After three years attending the local Catholic school, eight-year-old Albert changed schools to the Liutpold Gymnasium where he would spend the next seven years. Einstein felt that the teaching style at Liutpold was too regimented and constraining. He did not enjoy the military discipline of the teachers and often rebelled against their authority. He compared his teachers to drill sergeants. While there are many stories telling about how Einstein struggled in school and even failed in math, these are not true. He may have not been the ideal student, but he scored high in most subjects, especially math and physics. As an adult, Einstein was asked about his failure in math and he replied; I never failed in mathematics. Before I was fifteen I had mastered differential and integral calculus.

Adolescence:

Originally, Einstein was destined to take over his family business, but when it failed in 1894, Einstein’s family moved to Italy. There he wrote his first scientific paper, in his teen years, which investigated the nature of either – a hypothetical consequence of how light travels through space that Einstein later disproved. After that, he continued his education at various univer-sities in Europe and one after the others, published and researched on ground-breaking work.

On 14th September 2015, Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) detected the distortions in space-time caused by passing gravitational waves generated by the collision of two black holes nearly 1.3 billion light-years away. The cataclysmic event is extremely violent but by the time the disruptions in space-time reach earth, due to such an
infinitesimally vast distance, its intensity is vastly reduced. In fact, by the time gravitational waves from LIGO first detection reached earth, the amount of space-time wobbling they generated was thousands of times smaller than the nucleus of an atom! Interestingly such kind of phenom-enon producing gravitational waves had been predicted by Albert Einstein’s theory of General Relativity 99 years ago.  Although born to middle-class Jewish parents he challenged the Newtonian laws of physics which had been prevalent for more than two hundred years and changed the human viewpoint of the universe through his famous “Theory of General Relativity”.

Before his death, Einstein published a total of more than 300 scientific papers. From being a dull student who could not even speak properly, Albert Einstein became one of the most famous scientists of the 20th century. His genius and intellect were accepted worldwide and the theo-retical predictions he made long ago have been proven correct- the latest one in 2015.

The message to take here is that, yes, it is mandatory to have good grades in school, but it does not define what your gifted skills are. There is no fundamental law which defines that every genius should always top the class. Genius is one who comes up with new ideas, sometimes weird as well.
The quote I love most of this great scientist is “imagination is more important than knowledge” hence it is your imagination which makes you mastermind.
So next time, whenever you look at the moon, at the stars, the world around you, the cars, the animals, try to imagine, whatever you can, the stupidity levels does not matter. As Einstein says, “the difference between stupid and genius is that genius has its limits”.