July 27, 2018 ▸ History, People, Science, Technology

Episode 318: Albert Einstein: The Ultimate Genius

On this very nerdy episode of The Sofa King Podcast, we talk about discoveries, math, and quantum shift in the world that was Albert Einstein. Virtually every discovery about Quantum Physicist is based in part on papers written by a very young Albert Einstein. By the age of 26, he proved that atoms and molecules existed; he showed that light was in fact particles called photons, and he of course came up with the famous Theory of Relativity. He won a Nobel Prize for his discoveries, and not even for his good ones!

Einstein was a Jewish German, born in 1897 in Württemberg. He moved with his family to Italy and then back to Germany again. Eventually, as Hitler came to power, however, he (and great many German Jewish physicists) fled the country. Eventually, he ended up in the United States at Princeton University, where he spent the rest of his life.

He was married, divorced, and gave his Nobel Prize money away as a divorce settlement. He was married again to his cousin, and he even has a “missing daughter” that nobody knew about until the 1980s.

Albert Einstein’s genius was so great that every other genius of the era bowed down to him. As Quantum Physics took off (thanks to him), he backed away from it and remained the brilliant loner he always was. He was the reason the US actively pursued the development of the Atomic Bomb, after he co-wrote a letter to the president showing what a dire threat it was. Afterwards, he became friends with J. Robert Oppenhiemer for the rest of his life and lobbied for peace and the end of nuclear bombs.

He was a socialist, a rebel, an early supporter of the NAACP, and he was so mistrusted by J. Edgar Hoover that he had an 1800 page FBI file gathered over the course of 22 years. So, what was he like as a person? Why were his discoveries such a big deal? Why did NASA write an article trying to prove he wasn’t a space alien? Why did the coroner steal his brain, and where is it now? Listen, laugh, learn.

Openheimer Speech on Einstein: https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1966/03/17/on-albert-einstein/

NASA article on Einstein Being a Space Alien: https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2005/23mar_spacealien

Einstein Socialism Article: https://monthlyreview.org/2009/05/01/why-socialism/