Albert Einstein, a German physicist whose theory of relativity is considered as one of the most influential scientific contributions of the 20th century, had a variety of reported quirks, including that the famed scientist never wore socks. A letter Einstein wrote to his wife Elsa contained a passage in which he described wearing tall boots to formal occasions to hide the fact that he never wore socks. Einstein was possibly most well-known for another eccentric part of his physical appearance, his uncombed bouffant hairstyle. One of the most common topics in the records of letters from fans to Einstein was questions and opinions about his hair.
More about Albert Einstein :
- Einstein is thought to have had a developmental speech delay, with some reports claiming he did not begin talking until the age of four.
- In 1955, Einstein died at the age of 76 after refusing surgery to repair a burst blood vessel on the grounds of not wanting to prolong his life by artificial means.
- Einstein credits his childhood training in playing the violin for giving his brain a greater ability.
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In relation to the third bullet point, it doesn't surprise me that playing the violin gave Einstein's brain a greater ability. People who have been playing instruments since a young age, have been known to be smarter than the average kid, so to speak.
I think one of the reasons for this, is because there's more to playing an instrument than simply knowing how to work it, you have to understand how musical notes work as well.
Playing music is like a math, a complex puzzle that needs to be solved. Further adding onto this, one of the main traits of music is memorization, definitely one of the most important key aspects.
After reading this article, does anyone else feel that they didn't know as much about Albert Einstein as they originally thought? In fact, before reading some of these tidbits, I barely knew much about him at all, and only associated him as a scientist who came up with a lot of interesting experiments.
However, from reading these bits of information, one can really get the impression that in the realm of science, there's a lot more out there than at first glance, and you might not know as much about a person as you thought.
For example, I didn't know that Einstein had a developmental speech delay, as that's actually pretty interesting. While the article obviously doesn't state why, my guess is that the reason for this speech delay might be due to the fact that his parents didn't talk to him that much.
While this isn't always the case, it has been known that speech delay has often been caused by babies not hearing words that much.
After all, how are babies going to learn to speak unless they hear it from other people first? I would also like to add that I find it pretty interesting how he refused a surgery that could have saved his life.
Whether he would have been prolonging his life by artificial means or not, it really makes me question why he didn't just accept the surgery, which certainly would have been a lot easier than accepting his fate. However, perhaps one of the underlying reasons is because back then, you also couldn't be put asleep during surgery.
Maybe he had a very bad experience with wearing socks. If the socks are a little undersized, it is very difficult to wear them.
Reading some of these tidbits, I wonder what other scientists or famous people had some interesting quirks. When you combine all of these interesting traits, perhaps this is where the "mad scientist" persona came from, which no doubt, is a pretty interesting cliche.
Also, while the article doesn't state why, is there a reason why he didn't wear socks? Though this is just my guess, perhaps there's not exactly a "reason" for it, and it's only meant to show how quirky he was.
After all, whether it's big or small, we all have things or habits about us that can be considered quirky in a sense.
For example, let's say that someone has a bad habit of twitching their eyebrow when they're nervous, or let's say that someone's trait is their bloodshot eye. While this may be a bit too weird for some, it's our strange traits that make us unique.
After all, just imagine how boring the world would be if all of us were the exact same. It would be pretty boring, that's for sure.
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