The Curious Mind of Einstein

The museum was unusually quiet.

The lights glowed softly across the polished floor.

I made my rounds through the gallery of scientists.

There stood Isaac Newton.

There stood Marie Curie.

And there, at the far end of the room, stood a familiar figure with wild white hair and kind eyes.

Albert Einstein.

As midnight approached, I noticed something.

His eyes seemed to twinkle.

A moment later, he stepped down from his pedestal

Good evening.  VAT are you doing?

Professor Einstein!

Transcript

CELEBRATE CREATIVITY
This podcast blends history and imagination. Real historical figures appear alongside fictional situations and imagined conversations. While based on historical research, portions of the program are dramatized for storytelling purposes.

Opening Music

Welcome to the Hall of Imagination, and episode. 627 - the boy who asked why

Well, friends, if you've spent any time wandering through the Hall of Imagination after midnight, you've probably noticed something.
The people who come to life in this museum aren't always the people you expect.
Sometimes they are kings.
Sometimes they are inventors.
Sometimes they are writers, reformers, artists, and dreamers.
But every now and then...
they are people whose names have become so famous that we often forget they were ever human beings at all.
Tonight's visitor belongs in that category.
His name has become a synonym for genius.
If someone is especially smart, people say,
"Well, he's an Einstein."
But whenever I hear that expression, I wonder whether the real Albert Einstein would have laughed at it.
You see, the more I have learned about him, the less he resembles the legend.
The legend is a genius who sprang into the world fully formed.
The real Einstein was a little boy.
A curious little boy.
A shy little boy.
And a little boy who worried his parents because he hardly spoke.

Now, if you've ever been told that you were behind everyone else...
or that you weren't learning quickly enough...
or that you didn't quite fit in...
then perhaps tonight's story is for you.

(Music Transition) Professor Einstein you're one of the most famous people in history 

The museum was unusually quiet.
The lights glowed softly across the polished floor.
I made my rounds through the gallery of scientists.
There stood Isaac Newton.
There stood Marie Curie.
And there, at the far end of the room, stood a familiar figure with wild white hair and kind eyes.
Albert Einstein.
As midnight approached, I noticed something.
His eyes seemed to twinkle.
A moment later, he stepped down from his pedestal.

Good evening.  VAT are you doing?

Professor Einstein!

I see my reputation still arrives before I do.

Well, you are one of the most famous people in history.

That is a strange thing.
People know my face.
They know my hair.
Some even know my equations.
Yet very few know the boy I once Vas.

I was hoping we could talk about him tonight.

Ah.
The boy.
Yes.
He is often forgotten.

Is it true that you were slow to begin speaking?

There is some truth in that story.

Other children spoke more easily than I did.
I preferred listening.
Observing.
Thinking.

That must have concerned them.

Of course.
Parents often imagine every possible disaster.
But I was not empty-headed.
Quite the opposite.
My head was full of questions.

What kind of questions?

Why does the world work the way it does?
Why does light behave as it does?
Why does a compass needle point north?
Why do things happen at all?

Most children ask questions.

JA.
But many people stop asking them.
That is the difference.

I've heard that a compass changed your life.

Indeed.
When I was a small boy, my father showed me a magnetic compass.
The needle moved.
No matter how I turned the instrument, the needle insisted on pointing in a certain direction.
I could not see what was moving it.
Yet something invisible was clearly there.
That fascinated me.

Because there had to be forces you couldn't see.

Exactly.
The universe was speaking in a language I did not yet understand.
And I wanted very badly to learn that language.

Herr Einstein, Most children might play with the compass for five minutes and move on.

I was not most children.
I could spend hours wondering about a single mystery.

Were you a good student?

That depends on Z person you ask.

I've heard stories that your teachers thought you were lazy.

Some teachers appreciated me.
Others did not.
I disliked memorizing facts simply because someone told me to memorize them.
I wished to understand.

That sounds familiar.

I often annoyed people by asking "Why?"

You kept asking questions.

Relentlessly.
I fear there was no cure.

You know, Many people imagine geniuses never struggle.
Did you?

Certainly.
When I finished school, I had difficulty finding work.
I applied for positions.
I was rejected.
Again and again.

Really?

Oh ya
History remembers success.
It often forgets disappointment.

So what happened?

Eventually I obtained a job in a patent office in Switzerland.

A patent office?

JA.

Hardly the glamorous career one imagines for a future celebrity.

But it gave me something precious.
Time to think.

And that's where some of your greatest ideas began?

JA
I would examine inventions during the day.
Then my imagination would wander.
I would ask myself strange questions.

Like what?

Suppose I could ride alongside a beam of light.
What would I see?

Herr einstein, That's a very unusual question.

The best questions often are.

Did you always know your ideas would change the world?

Certainly not.
When one is exploring, one rarely knows where the path leads.
One simply follows curiosity.

That sounds encouraging.

Many people wait for certainty before beginning.
Curiosity is often enough.

Something else surprises me about you.
People talk about your intelligence.
But your friends also describe your kindness and humor.

I enjoyed laughter.
Life is difficult enough without it.

There is a story about a young boy who became your friend and enjoyed coming to visit you every afternoon.

Ya, a young boy would visit me, and eventually his parents asked why I was wasting my time with the boy.  I simply replied that I like his jellybeans, and he likes the way I do his homework.

Children were often easier to speak with than important people.
Children ask honest questions.
Adults sometimes ask questions only to appear clever.

That's true.

Children are refreshingly direct.

You became one of the most famous people on Earth.
Did you enjoy fame?

People wanted your autograph everywhere you went.

Ya.
Though I often wondered why.
My hair seemed almost as popular as my physics.

To be fair, it was memorable.

I gave up arguing with it.

What would you want people today to remember?

I would hope they remember that curiosity is one of humanity's greatest gifts.
Never lose it.
Never stop asking questions.
Never assume that because everyone believes something, it must be true.

And if someone feels different from everyone else?

Then they should remember that being different is not a defect.
Sometimes it is merely the beginning of a new way of seeing the world.

Professor Einstein, before you return to your pedestal, may I ask one final question?

Of course.

When your parents worried because you spoke so little...
when teachers were frustrated by your questions...

when employers rejected you...

did you ever imagine people would one day call someone who is very smart an "Einstein"?

Not for a moment.
And that is precisely why one should be cautious about judging a child's future. The story is never finished while the child is still growing.

And with that, Albert Einstein smiled, adjusted his rumpled sweater, and stepped back onto his pedestal.

The scientist became a stationary wax figure once more.
But as I continued my rounds through the Hall of Imagination, I found myself thinking about what he had said.
Perhaps genius is not simply intelligence.
Perhaps it begins with curiosity.
Perhaps it begins with wonder.
Perhaps it begins with asking “Why?”

And suddenly, the wax figure of Albert Einstein proceeded to speak again.I

Unfortunately, my native country of Germany developed a policy of hatred towards Jewish people like me. And I was forced to move to the United States where I worked at Princeton University for the rest of my life. And I will be glad to talk about that in more detail and a future episode.

There are certainly hundreds of people are figures in this wax museum that would like to tell you their story, and I know they are eager in telling you how they helped to change the world.

But tonight, let me end with a thought that perhaps somewhere tonight there is a quiet little boy or girl asking questions that nobody else has thought to ask.

If so, the world may be hearing from them someday.

And let me end, by saying that I am sure we will come back to you, Mr. Einstein for a future episode where we talk about the development of the theory of relativity, and some of the other aspects of your life in the United States as a college professor.

Join me next time in the Hall of Imagination, where another figure from history may have a story waiting to be told.