1. Surprise
When Albert was four or five years old, he could not speak much. His parents were anxious: “Is little Albert an imbecile, a fool? No, impossible. How bright are his big brown eyes. How clever are his cute little head so crooked that he hides in a corner and plays alone! But why doesn’t his little mouth speak?” They called the doctor. Of course the child is not sick. Not good at talking, not like talking, that is not sick.
But one day, Albert seemed to be really abnormal, and his father brought him a small compass to play with. The child held the compass in his little hand, and saw that the needle in the middle was trembling gently, pointing north. He turned the plate around, and the needle did not listen to him, and still pointed north. He held the compass in front of his chest, twisted it around, and twisted it again, but the needle came back and pointed north. No matter how he turned, the thin red magnetic needle pointed north. Albert was surprised, and he opened his eyes wide and stared at the little red needle under the glass. “What makes it always point north? There is nothing around this needle. What force pushes it to point north?” He wanted to ask his father, but the words reached his mouth and could not be said. He was stunned by this amazing phenomenon.
The little compass, the magnetic needle inside that moves according to a certain pattern, aroused the curiosity of the future scientist – the curiosity to find out what happened. This strange curiosity is the seedling of science. 2. God and Nature
Einstein was still at home 2. He received religious education, which is stipulated by German law. The Einsteins were Jewish, but they did not adhere to their beliefs extremely strictly. For a while, Einstein was deeply devoted to religion – he even composed some music praising God on the way to and from school. This religious interest lasted only a year, and by the age of 12, Einstein no longer believed in the kind of God his teachers had described. However, he never lost his admiration for the sublime transmission of nature, nor did he wish to give up the study of things greater than what he called “merely personal” things. 3. Music and Mathematics The Einstein family created a happy, warm and lovely family atmosphere for their children, and Einstein maintained a very close relationship with them and his sister Maya throughout his life. He inherited something from this family warmth, which became one of the most attractive characteristics of his character. Although he was a loner by nature, as an adult he made many close friends, wrote many letters, and shared his thoughts and beliefs with friends all over the world. In most surviving photos of Einstein, he always smiled cheerfully.
Einstein was an excellent and unusual teacher. Usually, he would pause after writing an equation on the blackboard and remain silent for long periods in front of his students, as if he had fallen into deep thought. This photo shows him lecturing at Princeton University in the United States.
Einstein’s parents were an intelligent couple. Einstein’s mother was an intelligent, lively, hard-working and energetic woman, and an excellent pianist. She placed great emphasis on learning and encouraged Einstein and his sister to study hard at school. Looking back, Einstein remembers that he began to love music by listening to his mother play the piano. Einstein’s father was an engineer. While still in school, he had shown great promise in mathematics, but his family was too poor to send him to university. He partnered with his brother Jacob, and in 1885 the brothers and their family moved to Munich, the capital of Bavaria, Germany, where they opened a factory.
Einstein’s father and uncle were very pleased with Einstein’s interest in science and mathematics. When Einstein was 5 years old, he was lying in bed when his father gave him a compass. This ordinary gift became a turning point in Albert’s life. The pointer inside the compass was completely closed, isolated and inaccessible from the surface, and it seemed to be held by an invisible force that pointed it north. He was so excited that he “trembled and caught a cold”. Although he was only 5 years old, he had realized that “there is something hidden
deep behind these objects”. Since then, he has wanted to find out what this mysterious power is.
A few years later, Einstein realized a similar mystery, this time with numbers. His uncle Jacob kept asking him to solve many mathematical problems. Whenever he found the right answer, he was not happy, proud or satisfied, it was more like he had glimpsed a beautiful and orderly structure hidden beneath the surface of things. This realization elicited “a strong sense of joy” and motivated him to find out everything he could about mathematics. Likewise, he was quite fascinated by science. He also pestered his father and uncle to ask questions such as: How does darkness happen? “What are the components of sunlight?” “What would it look like to travel along a beam of light?” 4. The Great Man in the Small Town Princeton is a college town in the eastern United States. It has a population of only a few thousand. When Washington, the founding president of the United States, retired, he addressed his army here. More than a hundred years have passed. Countless skyscrapers have risen in the city, robbing the city of sunlight. However, the small town of Princeton is still ancient and simple, and the sun is shining brightly. Pedestrians are sparse on the boulevards, and the roads are dotted with small houses of one or two floors. The red roofs and white walls are hidden among the lush trees. Each house is like an island in a sea of green. There seems to be no smell of the copper of the Golden Circle Empire or the clamor of industrial giants. It is as elegant and quiet as the small town of Leiden and the shores of Lake Zurich, with the taste of ancient Europe.
One autumn day in 1933, the leaves on both sides of the street were already golden and rotten. In the cold drink shop that the college students especially like to patronize, only a theological college student was eating ice cream cone. The waitress sat behind the counter, listless, waiting to get off work.
Suddenly, the glass door opened, and an old man with white hair entered. The waitress was stunned. The old man looked familiar! She was in a daze, but the old man glanced at the ice cream cone on the college student’s table and tapped his nose. The waitress suddenly realized: This is Einstein, the greatest scientist in the world, Professor Einstein! The college student also jumped up and ran to the counter, rushing to pay Einstein. Einstein smiled at him and took a coin out of his pocket. The waitress took the money with both hands, held it on her chest, and muttered to herself:
“I want to hide this coin as a lifelong memorial!”
Einstein sat down with the college students and ate ice cream. The great scientist still had a sweet tooth like a child. He started chatting with the college students in his broken German accent. The college students wished they could never finish the ice cream. Einstein was also enjoying the freedom of being an ordinary person. How comfortable it was to come to the New World, free from the shadows of guards, the stalking of reporters, and the surprised glances of curious people!
While Einstein was relishing on ice cream cones in the small shop, there were hundreds of welcoming crowds waiting for him on the New York pier. Over the years, Einstein has learned some escape tricks. Today, before the “West” has arrived in port, a small steamboat has picked him up. A few cars waited on the shore, and Einstein was quietly delivered to a house in Princeton. Half an hour later, Einstein slipped out to stroll down the road and started a new life in Princeton.
From then on, the secluded town of Princeton was associated with a great name and became a mecca for science. People came here to visit Einstein, observe his classes, and pay tribute to his wonders. Einstein brought honor to Princeton, and Princetonians are proud of Einstein. They are proud because the great man lived among them like an ordinary person. You can see him walking down the road with popsicles in his mouth and slippers on his feet. If he is walking in the fields and you want to take a picture of him, he will patiently pose for you to take a picture. When you are done, you can continue his walk… Princeton people respect him and love him.
