Albert Einstein

My Hero: Albert Einstein

What criteria do you use to identify that a person is a hero? Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879 in the small town of Ulm, Germany. Einstein as a little kid he was a bit unusual. He was quiet, shy, really reserved and was also Jewish. During the years of elementary and middle school, he was not a strong student. Because his school was 'army style', he was told to just listen to the teacher; not to ask questions. Albert Einstein refused to listen, because everything about becoming part of the army scared him. His strong passion for math, started when he began learning outside of school. His uncle gave him a geometry book and he was lucky enough to work with a medical student who went once a week to eat dinner at the Einsteins' house. Albert also played the violin. Later his family moved to Italy for his father's job, and he was left behind in Germany to finish school. Einstein, by the age of fifteen, quit school to join his parents in Italy. At sixteen he applied and was accepted at Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology); a top school! While still in school he chose to earn his Swiss citizenship. It was there that he met his first wife Mileva Maric, she also graduated with a major in physics. After he earned his Ph.D. in physics, chose to move back to Berlin where he worked as a professor. In 1916 he announced his ground braking general theory of relativity which was confirmed to be true. This earned him worldwide fame in 1919. Additionally, Einstein came up with formulas to build the first atomic bomb. When Germany came to know what that kind of bomb could do, they decided to build it. That was when Albert Einstein decided to write a letter to U.S. president Franklin Roosevelt explaining the German intentions were. His wife Mileva decided to stay in Switzerland with their sons, unfortunately resulting in a divorce. In 1921 Einstein won the Nobel Prize for Physics, which was and still is one of the greatest honors in the world of science. After five years of Einsteins' divorce and his wife's, Einstein married his cousin Elsa. They were really happy together, and Einstein was glad that Elsa did not knew physics like his first wife. By 1933, the Nazi persecutions of Jewish scientists caused Einstein flee to the United States were he became a Theoretical Physics professor at the Princeton University. At this time he also became a U.S. citizen. During this time he contributed to the quantum theory. By 1945 Einstein was semi-retired at Princeton and on April 18 he died (All this information is taken from "A Direct Photoelectric Determination of Planck's 'h'", "Albert Einstein", "Einstein-Image and Impact. AIP History Center exhibit", "Letter to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.", and "The H Bomb"). Albert Einstein is worthy of the title hero because he possesses intelligence, was open minded and is an incredibly inspirational person.

Einstein is a hero because he is so intelligent that influenced other people to just think that they are ignorant because they are not good at school. Einstein was so extremely brilliant that was categorized as a genius. He was described as, ". one of the most famous scientists in the world. He was invited everywhere to work and lecture. Einstein truly was a citizen of the world" ("EINSTEIN, Albert"). Einstein became quickly known for his brilliance. He discovered so many theories of physics that the word about him spread quickly around the world. He was so brilliant that people asked for him to teach them, explain, or even be a teacher at their school. University do not typically just call at random people and ask them if they are interested to work for them. Additionally, it was said that, "The University of Zurich awarded him a doctorate degree, the highest degree anyone can earn, in 1905" ("EINSTEIN, Albert"). Einstein one way or another manage to obtain the highest degree that a person can possibly get. If he was not intelligent, he would have not been able to earn a Ph.D. degree. Not to be overlooked is that he earned this degree from one of the hardest Universities that exists in Switzerland. This says a lot by itself. The last fact is from a book about Albert Einstein.  Walter Isaacson writes, "During his four years at the Polytechnic, he got marks of 5 or 6 (on a 6-point scale)."(Isaacson 33). First, what needs to be understood is that in Switzerland the grade 6 is the highest grade you can get; it's an excellent, and 5 is good. So Einstein was so intelligent that through out all his years in college he always got the best grades. He was more than simply intelligent, he was a genius. Someone like Albert Einstein needs to be titled a hero because he inspired people to push themselves to the limit. 

Secondly, Einstein could also be considered a hero because he was open-minded. His type of open-mindedness is different than the usual one. He was so stubborn that he did not listen to a person if they told him what to do, because he had is own ideas. He was quoted as saying, "Even a healthy beast with a healthy appetite will lose its taste for food, no matter how good it is, if it is forced to eat when it is not hungry" ("EINSTEIN, Albert"). Einstein was describing how he viewed school. He thought that if a teacher gave a lesson and the students did not want to learn it was a waste of breath for the teacher. Only someone as open minded as Einstein can say something like that, because today school is still like that. Whether a student likes it or not when a teacher is giving information or if the student is not in the mood to listen then it's the student personal choice and they will pay for the consequences in the future. Ironically, he is described, "After so many successes had been built on Newton's ideas, arguing with him would be tough. But Albert realized he would have to disagree with Isaac Newton, who had been dead for 200 years" ("EINSTEIN, Albert"). After Einstein started his research and he obtained different results from what the previews scientist Isaac Newton found, Einstein said that Newton was wrong, but he was actually right. Only an open-minded man like Einstein could possibly take on something like that, but because of having his own ideas, he was willing to argue with a person which was already dead for many years. Walter writes, "Anything that came after Helmholtz was simply ignored,."(Isaacson 34). The person referred to from the quote Helmholtz was a professor of Einstein at the university. Obviously, a professor knows what he is talking about, but Einstein thought the opposite about Helmholtz. As a result of that, Einstein decided that every time that professor was going to open his mouth and say something he decided just not going to listen to what he was going to say. Due to the open minded that Einstein, meaning that he had different beliefs that made him take that decision. Einstein could also earn a hero title because he was too much open minded.

In conclusion Einstein is not just a hero because he was intelligent and open minded but also because he is an inspiration. Here are some quotes from articles and books that are inspiring. Einstein said or thought, "Imagination is more important than knowledge" ("EINSTEIN, Albert"), "When they seem strange, maybe they are just refusing to be ordinary. When they seem too quiet, maybe they are just thinking very hard. Sometimes we have to look harder and deeper, like Albert did." ("EINSTEIN, Albert"), and "Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving"(Isaacson). Einstein is amazingly inspiring, because he propose to people how they should think. That a person should think beyond what it has been taught, because Albert Einstein thought that only if you can not imagine it happening that it will not be possible to a person to achieve it. Furthermore he also thought person that they should not judge a person right away. He thought that because of his past he was quite and strange thinking but not because he had some kind of problem but because he was thinking really hard and so if he talked it would have distracted him or maybe because he just want to show society that he was not like other people but he was different he wanted to show how unique he was. The last quote is one of the best quote ever read. It makes really think about life. It is so true that when riding a bicycle eventually you will fall down but you will it does not mean that you give up but you always retry until you become an expert. In summary Einstein is basically saying that people should do the same thing with their life, when something bad happens do not just give up but get up and retry until they get passed it or find the right answer. Albert Einstein is a hero due to is incredible intelligence, his particular open mind and how immensely inspirational he can be.

Work Cited

"A Direct Photoelectric Determination of Planck's 'h'." American Decades Primary Sources. Ed. Cynthia Rose. Vol. 2: 1910-1919. Detroit: Gale, 2004. 530-534. Biography in Context. Web. 1 May 2014.

"Albert Einstein." Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6Th Edition (2013): 1-2. Literary  Reference Center. Web. 1 May 2014.

"EINSTEIN, Albert." (n.d.): Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia. Web. 1 May 2014."

"Einstein-Image and Impact. AIP History Center exhibit." American Institute of Physics. N.p.,  n.d. Web. 1 May 2014.

Isaacson, Walter. Einstein: His Life and Universe. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007. Print

"Letter to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt." American Decades Primary Sources. Ed. Cynthia Rose. Vol. 4: 1930-1939. Detroit: Gale, 2004. 657-660. Biography in Context. Web. 1 May 2014

"The H Bomb." American Decades Primary Sources. Ed. Cynthia Rose. Vol. 6: 1950-1959. Detroit: Gale, 2004. 547-549. Biography in Context. Web. 1 May 2014.