“Weird” Things that You Didn't Know about Wild Albert Einstein

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[Music] A notable physicist known for his theories while working in a Swiss patent office and as a pacifist, Albert Einstein received 17 honors and awards for his work over the course of his lifetime, ranging from honorary doctorates to the Nobel Prize in Physics. He even could have been president. Welcome back to Nutty History! Today, we’re going to take a look at the interesting aspects related to one of the biggest names in the scientific community, Albert Einstein. Let’s get started!

[Music] Albert Einstein’s distinctive messy hair is easily identifiable. He is also well-known for a picture of him with his tongue sticking out because he was tired of smiling for photographers. However, there is much more to him. Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, Germany, on March 14, 1879, with an abnormally large head, but over the first few weeks after his birth, his head started to reform into a more normal shape. He also didn’t start speaking until he was around three or four. When he did, his first sentence was to complain at dinner that the soup was too hot. When asked why he hadn’t spoken before, he replied, “Because up to now, everything was in order.” Despite that anecdote and being a super genius, he was not a hot-headed person. In fact, people found him amusing because of his down-to-earth sense of humor and his approachable manner. His hair was always uncombed, his clothing always disheveled, and he never wore socks, not even when visiting President Roosevelt at the White House.

[Music] It turns out that Albert Einstein had a passion for sailing, but his sailing skills were sadly lacking. On top of this, he never learned how to swim and refused to wear a life jacket while aboard his boat. There were many times when he’d run aground, nearly collided with other boats, lost his bearings, or dropped his mast. Einstein also refused to put a motor on his boat, as he considered them too complicated. Stories have been told about his boat smashing into a rock and capsizing. Einstein was trapped under the sail and tangled up, but despite not knowing how to swim, he managed to get himself untangled and find his way to the surface before being rescued.

[Music] In the 1930s, the FBI’s J. Edgar Hoover believed that Einstein was an extreme radical element and a communist, so he opened a file on Einstein that ended up being over 1,400 pages long. Within this file, Hoover criticized Einstein for being a dangerous anarchist. It turns out that Hoover may have had issues with Einstein speaking out about social issues of the time and publicly arguing against racism and nationalism. Not a lot of people know that Einstein was a pacifist, and despite being connected in history with the atomic bomb, he wasn’t actually responsible for making it. His involvement with the project was primarily communication with President Franklin D. Roosevelt, urging him to enter the atomic arms race out of fear that the Germans would develop the technology first. Einstein’s intention was for atomic weapons not to be used.

Much like the rest of his life, Einstein’s marriages were anything but ordinary. He was married twice. His first marriage was to Mileva Marić, a fellow student at the time. They married in 1903 and had three children: Hans Albert, Eduard, and a daughter named Lieserl, who disappeared from historical records. There are hints that she may have died of scarlet fever. Apparently, this marriage didn’t appeal to Einstein for long. When Mileva was pregnant with their second son, Einstein wrote a love letter to his first girlfriend, whom he had broken up with in 1897. Things only got worse from there. In 1914, Einstein asked for a divorce from Mileva, who refused. He ended up giving her a list of rules to abide by to stay married to him. According to these rules, Mileva had to clean the house, serve him three meals a day in his room, could not expect physical intimacy, and if he asked her to stop talking or leave his presence, she was to obey without question. This unconventional marriage came to an end five years later when Mileva and Einstein finally divorced in 1919. Part of the divorce arrangements was that if Einstein ever won the Nobel Prize, he would give the money to Mileva. Einstein did eventually win but only ended up giving a quarter of his winnings to her. He invested the rest in American bonds and lost everything in the Wall Street crash of 1929. The total amount of his winnings was $32,000, which amounts to approximately $515,000 in 2022. Einstein never married his first girlfriend, and his second marriage was to his second cousin, Elsa, who looked after him and cared for him. He started an affair with her while still married to Mileva but later contemplated leaving her for her 20-year-old daughter from a previous marriage.

[Music] Einstein’s last words can be taken from two different points. His last spoken words may never be known, as he spoke them in his native German to his attending nurse, who unfortunately didn’t understand the language and was therefore unable to recall what he said. Einstein’s last written words, on the other hand, resulted in an unfinished sentence.

[Music] After his death in 1955, his brain was removed from his body without permission by Thomas Harvey. It turns out that Harvey also took Einstein’s eyeballs, which he gifted to Einstein’s eye doctor, Henry Abrams. These two facts might bring a whole new meaning to “out of sight, out of mind.” For decades, Harvey kept pieces of the preserved brain in mason jars, which he stored in his Philadelphia lab, his basement, and in a cider box under a beer cooler. Harvey eventually returned Einstein’s brain to the Princeton hospital where he performed the autopsy. Today, the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia is the only place where the public can view Einstein’s brain.

[Music] Shortly after World War II, when many Jews moved to the newly formed country of Israel, Einstein received a letter from then-President David Ben-Gurion, asking if he wanted to take on the role of president of Israel, which would require Einstein moving to Israel and acquiring citizenship. Einstein, however, declined. In his response, he wrote, “All my life I have dealt with objective matters; hence I lack both the natural aptitude and the experience to deal properly with people and to exercise official functions.”

As much as Albert Einstein contributed to society and did good for people and science, he was not without his issues and was most definitely unique. His life was anything but dull, and there were moments when one might question his sanity. But you also have to wonder if humanity would have received the same contributions from him if his quirkiness had been suppressed. It’s also clear that Einstein was not exactly the best family man, as evidenced by his transitions from one relationship to the next. Labeled as a radical extremist and an element that needed to be watched, it’s clear that the U.S. saw Einstein as a threat. But then again, anyone with above-average intelligence was considered a threat during a time of espionage, wars, and diplomatic turbulence. Despite all these interesting facts about Einstein, one thing remains certain: he will be remembered as the man responsible for the theory of general relativity and the atomic bomb, even if the atomic bomb wasn’t his intention. His groundbreaking theories have played an important part in the advancement of humanity.

Can you imagine what the world would look like if Einstein had accepted the position? Let us know in the comments how you think the world might be different if this had happened. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Nutty History! Don’t forget to like and subscribe.

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