Albert Einstein, the Original Brainiac
When you think of Albert Einstein you think immediately of a clever guy. Ask a challenging question, and you might well get the reply ‘Who do you think I am, Einstein?’
Einstein belongs in this list because he is the poster child of groundbreaking intelligence, and although his theory of relativity is not quite so infallible now as it was a few decades ago, it is still the last word in what sheer mental computation can achieve if you have enough of it.
In a nutshell Einstein, born in 1879, was a German-born theoretical physicist who devised the most famous equation of all time. He emigrated from Germany to the United States, ostensibly to escape the difficulties created by his Jewish heritage. By then he was a Nobel laureate, and already highly respected in his field. As a physicist, Einstein was responsible for many important discoveries, but it was the theory of relativity, and the E+MC2 equation that cemented his reputation.
Relativity is described by dictionary.com as ‘…the modern theory of gravitation, proposed in 1915, also by Albert Einstein. The central point of the theory is the principle of general relativity, which states that all observers, regardless of their state of motion, will see the same laws of physics operating in the universe.
This would seem an obscure point to base a career, but when in possession of an intellect of such scope as his, then the world, and the universe that contains it is a more accessible place.
Einstein was also a cult figure, and a personality of popular culture. He had a touch of the celebrity about him, and his odd hair-do and his Chaplinesque persona somewhat offset the deep intellectual world within which he lived. When asked once to explain his theory of relativity, he replied, ‘put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty women for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That is relativity!’