English class 9 Beehive chapter 4 (A Truly Beautiful Mind)

Summary-
Albert Einstein was born on 14 March, 1879 in the Germany city of Ulm. Since childhood he liked to stay
alone and had no friends to play with. His mother thought he was a freak, because his head seemed
unusually large. He didn't speak until the age of two and a half. When he finally started speaking, he
uttered everything twice.
He loved mechanical toys and preferred being by himself. The headmaster at a school Einstein studied in,
told his father, that no matter what career Einstein would choose, he'd never be successful.
His playmates found him boring.
He played the violin and later became a gifted amateur violinist. He went to high school in Munich and left
the school at the age of fifteen because of feeling stifled. He hated the strict rules and demanded more
freedom of expression.
His parents had moved to Milan and left him n Munich with relatives. He got to continue his education in a
city, much more liberal than Munich. He was interested in Physics and was highly gifted in Mathematics.
He studied at a university in Zurich. There he fell in love with a young lady named Meliva whom he felt
was a clever creature.
At the age of twenty one, he was a university graduate but unemployed. He worked as a teaching
assistant and gave private lessons. He secured a job in 1902 as a technical expert in Bern. While assisting
others, he was also busy finding out his own theories and doing various experiments. In 1905, one of the
famous papers was Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, according to which time and distance are not
absolute.
He also derived the world's most famous formulae that describe the relationship between mass and energy.
Einstein wanted to marry Meliva after finishing his studies but his mother did not approve of it as
she thought Meliva was too old for him and was "a book" just like him. They finally got married in January
1903 and had two sons. Unfortunately, they divorsed in the year 1919. Later Einstein married his cousin
Elsa, the same year. In 1921, he received Nobel Prize for Physics for his relativity theory.
Einstein feared that the Nazis could build an atomic bomb for destructive purpose to gain super power. So
he wrote a letter to American President Franklin Roosevelt to warn him about the impact of atomic bomb
but instead the Americans developed the atomic bomb in a secret project and dropped the bomb on
Japanese cities causing large scale destruction.
Einstein was shocked and shaken by this bombing. What he feared came true. His letter to the
President had an undesired effect. So he urged United Nations to make a world government but it had no
impact. He did not lose confidence and over the decades he travelled worldwide to campaign for peace and
democracy. Einstein died at the age of 76, in the year 1955. But till date he is celebrated as a visionary and
world citizen and is accepted by the world as a scientific genius.
Answer the following questions-
Q1. Who had these opinions about Einstein?
i) He was boring.
ii) He was stupid and would never succeed in life.
iii) He was a freak.
Ans- i) His playmates found him boring.
ii) His headmaster said that he was stupid and would never succeed in life.
iii) Einstein's mother thought that he was a freak.
Q2. Explain what the reason for the following are-
i) Einstein leaving the school in Munich for good.
ii) Einstein working to study in Switzerland rather than in Munich.
iii) Einstein seeing in Meliva an ally.
iv) What do these tell you about Einstein?
Ans- i) Einstein left the school in Munich because he did not like the regimentation of his school life. He
always argued with his teachers as he always had a different opinion that was different from theirs. He felt
so stifled and so he managed to convince his parents to take him out of there.
ii) Schools in German speaking Switzerland were more liberal than in Munich, that's why he preferred to
further his studies in Switzerland.
iii) Einstein had a special interest in Meliva as he thought she was intelligent and clever. She showed
interest in fine arts like music and literature unlike people in his family and at the university.
iv) All these indicate that Einstein was a visionary. He was clever and never hesitated to voice his opinion.
Once he was sure of his decision he went into action. He left for Switzerland as they were liberal and
amenable. He liked to mingle with likeminded people.
Q3. What did Einstein call his desk drawer at the patent office? Why?
Ans- Einstein worked as a technical expert in the patent office in Bern. He called his desk draw at the
patent office the, "bureau of theoretical physics!" because while he was assessing other people's invention,
he was developing his own ideas in secret.
Q4. Why did Einstein write a letter to Franklin Roosevelt?
Ans- When the Nazis came to power in Germany, Einstein went to US. They all feared that Nazis could
now build and use atomic bomb. Einstein feared that Americans too might try to make atomic bombs.
Einstein wrote to the American President, Franklin Roosevelt to warm him of the consequences of an
atomic exposure.
Q5. How did Einstein react to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
Ans- Einstein was shocked and shaken by the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the extend of
destruction. What he feared came true. The letter to the president had the undesired effect so he urged the
United Nations to make a world government but it did not have any impact. But over the decade he
travelled worldwide campaigning for peace and democracy and end to the arms race.
Q6. Why does the world remember Einstein as a world citizen?
Ans- Einstein is remembered as a world citizen because of his scientific
contribution. His theories changed the perspective through which scientists saw the
universe earlier. He also worked towards world peace and nuclear disarmament.