Albert Einstein Biography
We all have a mental image of Albert Einstein – more a caricature than a man. We regard him as a genius with wild white hair and mathematical formulas floating around his headspace, a pacifist who helped inspire nuclear weaponry, an eccentric who didn’t like to wear socks. But who was the real man behind the brainy persona?
A Man of Many Countries
Einstein was, at different points in his life, a citizen of Germany, Switzerland, and the United States. “Nationalism is an infantile sickness,” he once said. “It is the measles of the human race.”
In 1952 he was invited to serve as the second president of Israel. A Jew by heritage but never a citizen of Israel, Einstein graciously declined. But we are getting ahead of ourselves.
Early Days
Einstein was born in 1879, in Ulm, Wurttemberg, Germany, to non-observant Ashkenazi Jews. The young boy was slow to speak, perhaps because his brain developed concepts before words. As an adult, he explained, “I very rarely think in words at all. A thought comes, and I may try to express it in words afterwards.”
When his parents moved to Italy for business reasons, they enrolled Einstein in a German boarding school. At some point Einstein realized he did not want to perform mandatory military service for his country. Claiming nervous exhaustion, he fled Germany and joined his parents in Italy, then applied to a prestigious school in Switzerland.
