Happy Birthday, Albert Einstein!

March 13, 2013

March 14, 2013 marks what would be Einstein's 134th birthday, if he was still alive today. We all know him as the scientific genius that created the hallmark of 19th century physics (E=mc2). However, I think it's important to look at the connection between his brilliance and his personality and to look at the man himself.

He was a poor student. Amidst all of the power in his brain, he stood little chance in the super strict classrooms in Germany. He even failed his first exams taken to enter the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, though he was admitted in 1896. And it wasn't until 1905, when he published his writings on his special theory of relativity, that he became famous around the world.
 
He was also a pacifist. He advocated peace in opposition of World War I. However, when World War II threw the world back into global turmoil, he wrote to President Roosevelt urging him to start a program to develop the Manhattan Project to design and create the first atom bomb. This was not hypocrisy. For Einstein, it was an act of choosing the lesser evil.

Einstein leaves a legacy behind him, stretching as far and wide as the universe itself. Happy birthday, Albert Einstein!

~Cody C.
Parkville Branch