sosys | 
07 2nd, 2008| 
World’s Only Thermometer Museum. Image: eurovancation [Flickr]
There are over 5,000 thermometers in the museum! Image: eurovancation [Flickr]
Jul
2
Jun
20
What would happen if you stay awake, say, oh for 11 days straight? Would you suffer brain damage or even die? Here’s the story of a high school stunt that turned into a real scientific research into sleep deprivation from Alex Boese’s Elephants on Acid and Other Bizarre Experiments.
Bruce McAllister (left) and Joe Marciano Jr. (right) help Randy Gardner
stay awake as he gets a checkup at the naval hospital.
On the first day, Randy Gardner woke at six A.M. feeling alert and ready to go. By day two he had begun to drag, experiencing a fuzzy-headed lack of focus. When handed series of objects, he struggled to recognize them by touch alone. The third day he became uncharacteristically moody, snapping at his friends. He had trouble repeating common tongue twisters such as Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. By the fourth day, the sand-clawed demons of sleep were scraping at the back of his eyeballs. He suddenly and inexplicably hallucinated that he was Paul Lowe, a large black football player for the San Diego Chargers. Gardner, in reality, was white, seventeen years old, and 130 pounds soaking wet.
Read the rest of this entry »
May
12
“Eureka!” Archimedes screamed, then he ran outside naked …
Every high school physics student knows about Fourier’s Law of Heat Conduction and Hooke’s Law of Elasticity. But not many know that Joseph Fourier lived inside a wooden box in his old age. Or that Robert Hooke’s arch-nemesis, Isaac Newton, hated him so much that he had Hooke’s portrait removed from the Royal Society and tried to have his papers burned. Imagine how much fun science class would’ve been, had these been taught along side all those equations and formulas.
Well, now you can read about the interesting stuff that your school textbooks didn‘t bother to include. In his latest book, Archimedes to Hawking: Laws of Science and the Great Minds Behind Them, Cliff Pickover takes some 40 eponymous laws of physics and explains the life of the scientists whom these laws are named after. The book is far from a dry listing of scientific formulas - actually, it’s full of quirky trivia and nifty facts about some of the world’
s greatest scientists.
Cliff has graciously allowed us to take samples from the book for this article and generously offer personalized copies of the book to 3 lucky Neatorama readers(see below for details).
So, if you didn’t know that Archimedes sometimes sent his colleagues false theorems in order to trap them when they stole his ideas, or that Daniel Bernoulli‘
s father threw him out for winning a science competition, then this Neatorama post is for you. Behold, the 5 Scientific Laws and the Scientists Behind Them (no complicated math, we promise!)
1. Archimedes’Principle of Buoyancy
The Law: According to Archimedes’
principle, a body wholly or partially submerged in liquid is buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of the displaced liquid. This buoyant force depends on the density of the liquid and the volume of the object, but not its shape.
The law seems simple, but it is actually not intuitive that objects with equal volume experience the same buoyant force when held under water: cubes made of cork and lead would experience the same buoyant force, yet would have completely different behavior. This is because the different ratios of buoyant force to object weights.
Archimedes’
Principle of Buoyancy has many applications, including determining the pressure of a liquid as a function of depth. It helps us understand how floatation works and is one of the founding principles of hydrostatics.
The Famous Legend Behind the Law: One day, King Hieron II of Syracuse, Sicily, wanted to find out whether his wreath-shaped crown was actually made from pure gold. He called upon Archimedes to find out (without damaging the crown, say by melting it down). Roman architect and engineer Marcus Vitruvius wrote:
While Archimedes was turning the problem over, he chanced to come to the place of bathing, and there, as he was sitting down in the tub, he noticed that the amount of water which flowed over the tub was equal to the amount by which his body was immersed. This showed him means of solving the problem … In his joy, he leapt out of the tub and, rushing naked toward his home, he cried out with a loud voice that he had found what he sought.
Archimedes was able to obtain the exact volume of the crown by dunking it in water and measuring the displaced water. He then took the weight of the crown and divided it by its volume to get the density of the crown, which turned out to be between that of gold and silver. Archimedes was thus able to show that the wreath was not made out of pure gold (and the royal goldsmith was executed).
Modern scholars suggest that this story was bogus, as it would be unlikely that Archimedes had measuring equipment with sufficient accuracy to detect the difference (plus, he hated to bathe - see below).
The Man Behind the Law: Archimedes of Syracuse (287-212 B.C.), was a Greek geometer and is often regarded as one of the greatest mathematicians and scientists who ever lived.
Here are a few things about Archimedes you may not know:
- Plutarch wrote that Archimedes was so obsessed with math that his servants had to force him to bathe, and that while they scrubbed him, he continued to draw geometrical figures on his body!
- Archimedes invented a machine called the Archimedean screw to pump water.
- He also invented a “death ray”
weapon using a set of mirrors that focused sunlight on Roman ships, setting them on fire. After many scientists discounted the story as false, David Wallace of MIT actually did the experiment: He had his students build an oak replica of a Roman ship and focused sunlight on it using 127 mirrored tiles from a distance of 30 meters. After ten minutes of exposure, the ship burst into flames!
- When the Romans captured Syracuse in 212 B.C., a Roman soldier came upon the mathematician who was studying a mathematical diagram drawn in the sand. Archimedes was annoyed by the soldier’s interruption, and said “Don’t disturb my circles” before he was killed. Moral of the story: don’
t piss off a Roman soldier!
2. Hooke’s Law of Elasticity
The Law: Hooke’
s Law of Elasticity states that if an object, such a spring, is elongated by some distance x, then the restoring force F exerted by the object is proportional to x:
The k is a constant called the spring constant if the object is a spring.
The Man Behind the Law: Robert Hooke (1635 - 1702) was an English physicist and polymath. As you can see, Hooke was an ugly man (he was severely disfigured by smallpox). (Photo: Molecular Expressions: Science, Optics and You)
Here are a few things about Hooke you may not know:
- Robert Hooke was a sickly child and wasn’t expected to reach adulthood, so his parents didn’
t bother educating him. Left to his own devices, Hooke made mechanical models and clocks.
- He was the first to coin the word “cell” to describe the basic unit of life (he thought that plant cells, when magnified through a microscope, looked like “cellula,”
the living quarters of monks).
- Hooke was a busy man: he was the Surveyor to the City of London, helped rebuild the city after the Great Fire in 1666, and even designed the infamous Bethlem Royal Hospital (“Bedlam”
) and the Royal College of Physicians.
- In 1672, Hooke criticized Isaac Newton who used a prism to split white light into its various components. Furious at Hooke, Newton had his portraits removed from the Royal Society and even attempted to burn his papers. Hooke mentioned to Newton about a possible inverse-square principle of gravitation, but Newton didn’
t credit Hooke when he published Principia Mathematica, saying “Merely because one says something might be so, it does not follow that it has been proved that it is.”
- Hooke was interested in the science of respiration, so he had himself placed in a sealed vessel from which air was gradually pumped out. As you can imagine, the experiment was detrimental to Hooke’
s health: he damaged his ears and experienced deafness in the process.
- In 2006, the Royal Society purchased a manuscript by Hooke for $1.75 million, in which he wrote 500 pages of notes recorded during Royal Society meetings. In the notes, Hooke castigated Newton and Robert Boyle for stealing his ideas. He also wrote that Dutch microscopist Anton van Leeuwenhoek found “a vast number of small animals in his Excrements which were most abounding when he was troubled with a Looseness and very few or none when he was well.”
Apr
26
The Missing Body Parts of 10 Famous People. Remember that goofy uncle of yours who always tried to impress you by “stealing your nose” or pulling the ol’ separating-his-thumb-from-his-hand move? Well, those parlor tricks are nothing compared to the appendage stunts pulled by these 10 famous people.
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3. Dan Sickles’ Leg.
During the Battle of Gettysburg, Major General Daniel Sickles was sitting on his horse when a cannonball hit his right leg and almost tore the thing off. Though reportedly so unfazed by the event that he smoked a cigar en route to the medical tent, Sickles’ leg had to be amputated. The nonplussed Sickles saved his detached limb and later donated it to the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington, D.C. He even found a convenient use for the extremity: picking up chicks. Apparently, Sickles would bring ladyfriends to the museum when he wanted to impress them with his tales of bravery. The rest of Sickles was buried at Arlington National Cemetery after his passing in 1914. |
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5. Saint Francis Xavier’s Hand.
Francis Xavier was a saint with a few too many fans. In the early 16th century, the Spanish missionary was sent to Asia by the king of Portugal to convert as many souls to Christianity as possible. Turns out, he was pretty good at the job. Francis Xavier became wildly popular, and after his death in 1552, so did his relics. In fact, demand out-fueled supply. Throughout several years and multiple exhumations, his body was whittled away. Today, half his left hand is in Cochin, India, while the other half is in Malacca, Malaysia. One of his arms resides in Rome, and various other cities lay claim to his internal organs. The leftovers? They went to Goa, India. |
| 6. Saint Catherine of Siena’s Finger.
Ever think you’re going to pieces? Saint Catherine feels your pain. After the holy woman died in 1380, her body became an object of veneration. Pilgrims believed touching her miraculously unrotted flesh could heal illnesses and bring them closer to God, so they flocked to visit the body from all over Europe. Eventually, the Catholic Church laid Catherine to rest - part of her, at least. Before she was buried, one of her followers removed a finger (along with a few teeth and other various and sundry body parts). Meanwhile Pope Urban VI got a similar idea and took her head. Today, both finger and head are on display at San Domenico Church in Siena, Italy. The rest of her is beneath the main altar at Santa Maria Sopra Minerva Church in Rome. |
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| 8. Oliver Cromwell’s Head
Oliver Cromwell, the straight-laced Puritan who usurped the English throne, wasn’t exactly a wild man. His head, however, was sometimes the life of the party. Cromwell died in 1658, but two years later, the reinstated English monarchy exhumed, tried, and hanged his body, then dumped it in an unmarked grave. In addition, as a warning to would-be killers, his head was placed on a pike in Westminster Hall, where it remained for 20 years. After a subsequent sting in a small museum, it was sold in 1814 to a man named Josiah Henry Wilkinson (perhaps looking to parade it around as an exceptionally gruesome ice-breaker at parties). Such was the ironic afterlife of the Puritan until 1960, when his head was finally laid to rest in a chapel in Cambridge. |
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10. Thomas Hardy’s Heart.
In his will, English novelist Thomas Hardy specifically requested to be buried with his beloved first wife. His friends, however, didn’t think this was good enough for the author and lobbied to have him buried in Poet’s Corner at Westminster Abbey instead. An ugly fight between Hardy fans and family ensued, until they reached a compromise. The author’s heart was removed and buried with his wife; his ashes were preserved in a bronze urn inside the Abbey. There’s also a long-running (but unsubstantiated) rumor that Hardy’s sister’s cat snatched the heart of a table, and that a pig’s heart had to be substituted for the burial ceremony.
Apr
8
When it comes to parasites, it’s all about perspective. You may call a lifetime of growing and feeding off another organism lazy, but we call it opportunistic. In fact, these life-sucking go-getters have managed to carve out some of the most ingenious survival strategies in the world. By some estimates, parasites outnumber free-living species nearly four to one. So show some respect. After all, mooching isnt’ as easy as it looks.
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Guinea Worms: Exposing Parts Nobody Wants to See. Where there are guinea worms, there is Guinea Worm Disease - and that’s usually in Africa. When a human consumes water contaminated with guinea worms, the little buggers infiltrate their host’s intestinal walls and commence mating. After conception, the males die off, and the females hang around for about a year, growing and eating. Eventually, these slender ladies get bored and decide they need to lay some eggs. To do so, they make their way down the body to the lower extremities, where they bore a small hole through the skin. The resulting lesion begins to fester and burn, which usually leads the host to plunge his or her foot into a soothing bucket of water (Of course, in areas where an entire village shares a single water source, this helps spread the infection.) Unfortunately for the sufferer, the water doesn’t solve the problem of having a three-foot female worm dangling its genitalia out of your foot. And to complicate matters, if you yank on that sucker, it’ll break apart and could cause a fatal infection. So how do you rid yourself of the not-so-little hitchhiker? You go see a doctor, who - over the course of three or four weeks - will kindly wind the worm around a stick, inch by agonizing inch. Not the most pleasant method, but certainly a proven one. This cure for a guinea worm infection has been around so long, so believe it’s where we get the snakes-around-a-staff symbol for medicine. |
Source: Insane Snail Parasite
Leucochloridium paradoxum: Parasite for Sore Eyes.
Prepare to be dazzled. This parasite’s got a life cycle more mind-bending and chilling than an M. Night Shyamalan film. Leucochloridium paradoxum are a type of fluke (a.k.a., parasitic flatworm) that prey on birds - a fascinating turn of events considering they begin their lives as eggs in bird droppings. Thus, the problem facing baby Leucochloridum paradoxum is, “How do I get myself back into one of those feathery things?” Taking a page from Greek history, the infant flatworms rely on Trojan trickery. First, they hang out in the droppings until a snail happens along and eats the bird dung. Then they initiate their devious plan of action by taking up residence in the snail’s eyestalks. (Sure, it sounds slimy and gross to us, but after a childhood spent living in bird feces, it’s a step up.) As they mature, the flukes become visible through the snail’s translucent skin. And that’s when things get interesting. To a bird, this fluke-filled eyestalk looks like a caterpillar. So the bird devours the stalk and ends up with a bellyful of Leucochloridium paradoxum that will, of course, lay eggs and begin the cycle again. Meanwhile, the snail shakes its head, shops for an eye patch, and vows never to eat feces again.
When it comes to parasites, it’s all about perspective. You may call a lifetime of growing and feeding off another organism lazy, but we call it opportunistic. In fact, these life-sucking go-getters have managed to carve out some of the most ingenious survival strategies in the world. By some estimates, parasites outnumber free-living species nearly four to one. So show some respect. After all, mooching isnt’ as easy as it looks.
Cymothoa exigua: Biting Your Tongue, So You Don’t Have To.
When fish mommies want to strike fear in the hearts of their misbehaving fish babies, we suspect they draw on the chilling animal savagery of the Cymothoa exigua. As a youngster, this nasty little parasitic crustacean begins a life of terror by fighting its way through the gills of its fish host of choice, the snapper. Once there, it attaches itself to the fish’s tongue and begins feeding on the rich blood pumping through the artery underneath. As the parasite grows, it drinks more blood and eventually causes the tongue to atrophy and disintegrate. But does the Cymothoa mouth-squatter leave its fishy friend tongueless? Of course not. It does any craft parasite would do and replaces the old tongue with its own body. The fish is actually able to use the parasite just like a normal tongue, only it has to share all the food with its new friend. Yes, the whole foster-tongue thing seems like a pretty nice gesture on the part of ol’ Cymothoa - until you remember there was nothing wrong with the fish’s old tongue in the first place.
Previously on Neatorama: When Exigua Got Your Tongue, It’s For Real
Screwworms: Causing Problems Right out of the Hatch.
The screwworm isn’t really a worm at all; it’s a type of fly. But if living under a false name were the worst of the screwworm’s misdeeds, you can be sure it wouldn’t appear in this story. No, this parasite’s rap sheet is about to get much, much more disturbing. To find its host, an adult female screwworm seeks out exposed flesh on an animal (usually some sort of livestock, but an injured soldier or a human baby isn’t out of the question) in search of a place to lay her eggs. She prefers wounds, but may also settle on using the eyes, nostrils, or anus of her victim to construct a nursery. Next, the 200-or-so eggs hatch, and the larvae start burrowing into their host’s flesh. Once they’re situated in their cozy little meat tunnels, the infant flies continue to feed and grow. The bigger they get, the more they have to eat. Eventually, this creates a whole lot of festering and oozing on the host, which attracts more flies, which lay more eggs, which do more feeding and burrowing. It’s a brutal onslaught, and a swift one. Screwworm larvae are reportedly capable of consuming an entire sheep or dog from the inside out in five to seven days.
Sacculina carcini: Reasons You Shouldn’t Pick up a Hitchhiker.
If you ever have a choice between being possessed by the devil and being possessed by a Sacculina carcini, opt for the devil - no contest. A female sacculina begins life as a tiny free-floating slug in the sea, drifting around until she encounters a crab. When that fateful day arrives, she finds a chink in the crab’s armor (usually an elbow or leg joint) and thrusts a kind of hollow dagger into its body. After that, she (how to put this?) “injects” herself into the crab, sluicing through the dagger and leaving behind a husk. Once inside, the jellylike sacculina starts to take over. She grows “roots” that extend to every part of the crab’s body - wrapping around its eyestalks and deep into its legs and arms. The female feeds and grows until eventually she pops out of the top of the crab, and from this knobby protrusion, she will steer the Good Ship Unlucky Crab for the rest of their co-mingled life. Packed full of parasite, the crab will forgo its own needs to serve those of its master. It won’t molt, grow reproductive organs, or attempt to reproduce. It won’t even regrow appendages, as healthy crabs can. Rather than waste the nutrients on itself, a host crab will hobble along and continue to look for food with which to feed its parasite master.
Filarial Worm
Filarial Worms: Proof You Need Thicker Skin.
Filarial worms are the nasty little suckers you can thank for lymphatic filariasis, which, according to the Pacific Program to Eliminate Lymphatic Filariasis, is the second-leading cause of permanent and long-term disability in the world. (Mental illness is No. 1.) Filarial worms are round, threadlike parasites that travel from human to human via that harbinger of disease transmission, the mosquito. How do they make the leap of host? In an interesting (if scary) example of parasite ingenuity, filarial worm embryos living underneath the skin can sense the onset of night, which is their cue to head upward to the skin’s surface in order to increase their chances of being picked up by a passing ’skeeter. Should they get sucked up, they grow into larvae within the mosquito’s muscle fibers and then get themselves injected into new hosts. Once they’ve returned into a human home, they open up a franchise in the family business - Wreaking Havoc. Filaria often lodge in the body’s lymphatic system, where they can inflict any number of torturous symptoms, not the least which involves carting your genitals off to the elephantiasis clinic in a wheelbarrow.
Read more: The Global Alliance to Eliminate Lymphatic Filariasis | Lifecycle of Filariasis
Souce: Dose of Tenacity Wears Down an Ancient Honor
Guinea Worms: Exposing Parts Nobody Wants to See.
Where there are guinea worms, there is Guinea Worm Disease - and that’s usually in Africa. When a human consumes water contaminated with guinea worms, the little buggers infiltrate their host’s intestinal walls and commence mating. After conception, the males die off, and the females hang around for about a year, growing and eating. Eventually, these slender ladies get bored and decide they need to lay some eggs. To do so, they make their way down the body to the lower extremities, where they bore a small hole through the skin. The resulting lesion begins to fester and burn, which usually leads the host to plunge his or her foot into a soothing bucket of water (Of course, in areas where an entire village shares a single water source, this helps spread the infection.) Unfortunately for the sufferer, the water doesn’t solve the problem of having a three-foot female worm dangling its genitalia out of your foot. And to complicate matters, if you yank on that sucker, it’ll break apart and could cause a fatal infection. So how do you rid yourself of the not-so-little hitchhiker? You go see a doctor, who - over the course of three or four weeks - will kindly wind the worm around a stick, inch by agonizing inch. Not the most pleasant method, but certainly a proven one. This cure for a guinea worm infection has been around so long, so believe it’s where we get the snakes-around-a-staff symbol for medicine.
Source: Insane Snail Parasite
Leucochloridium paradoxum: Parasite for Sore Eyes.
Prepare to be dazzled. This parasite’s got a life cycle more mind-bending and chilling than an M. Night Shyamalan film. Leucochloridium paradoxum are a type of fluke (a.k.a., parasitic flatworm) that prey on birds - a fascinating turn of events considering they begin their lives as eggs in bird droppings. Thus, the problem facing baby Leucochloridum paradoxum is, “How do I get myself back into one of those feathery things?” Taking a page from Greek history, the infant flatworms rely on Trojan trickery. First, they hang out in the droppings until a snail happens along and eats the bird dung. Then they initiate their devious plan of action by taking up residence in the snail’s eyestalks. (Sure, it sounds slimy and gross to us, but after a childhood spent living in bird feces, it’s a step up.) As they mature, the flukes become visible through the snail’s translucent skin. And that’s when things get interesting. To a bird, this fluke-filled eyestalk looks like a caterpillar. So the bird devours the stalk and ends up with a bellyful of Leucochloridium paradoxum that will, of course, lay eggs and begin the cycle again. Meanwhile, the snail shakes its head, shops for an eye patch, and vows never to eat feces again.
Apr
6
Albert Einstein in a famous 1951 photo by Arthur Sasse.
So you think you know Albert Einstein: the absent-minded genius who gave us the theory of relativity (two of them, in fact, special theory and general theory of relativity), but did you know that Einstein was born with such a large head that his mother thought he was deformed? Or that Einstein had a secret child before he was married?
Read on for more obscure facts about the life of the world’s smartest genius:
1. Einstein Was a Fat Baby with Large Head
When Albert’s mother, Pauline Einstein gave birth to him, she thought that Einstein’s head was so big and misshapen that he was deformed!
As the back of the head seemed much too big, the family initially considered a monstrosity. The physician, however, was able to calm them down and some weeks later the shape of the head was normal. When Albert’s grandmother saw him for the first time she is reported to have muttered continuously “Much too fat, much too fat!” Contrasting all apprehensions Albert grew and developed normally except that he seemed a bit slow. (Source)
2. Einstein Had Speech Difficulty as a Child
Earliest Known Photo of Albert Einstein (Image credit: Albert Einstein Archives,
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel)
As a child, Einstein seldom spoke. When he did, he spoke very slowly - indeed, he tried out entire sentences in his head (or muttered them under his breath) until he got them right before he spoke aloud. According to accounts, Einstein did this until he was nine years old. Einstein’s parents were fearful that he was retarded - of course, their fear was completely unfounded!
One interesting anecdote, told by Otto Neugebauer, a historian of science, goes like this:
As he was a late talker, his parents were worried. At last, at the supper table one night, he broke his silence to say, “The soup is too hot.”
Greatly relieved, his parents asked why he had never said a word before.
Albert replied, “Because up to now everything was in order.” (Source)
In his book, Thomas Sowell noted that besides Einstein, many brilliant people developed speech relatively late in childhood. He called this condition The Einstein Syndrome.
3. Einstein was Inspired by a Compass
When Einstein was five years old and sick in bed, his father showed him something that sparked his interest in science: a compass.
When Einstein was five years old and ill in bed one day, his father showed him a simple pocket compass. What interested young Einstein was whichever the case was turned, the needle always pointed in the same direction. He thought there must be some force in what was presumed empty space that acted on the compass. This incident, common in many “famous childhoods,” was reported persistently in many of the accounts of his life once he gained fame. (Source)
4. Einstein Failed his University Entrance Exam
In 1895, at the age of 17, Albert Einstein applied for early admission into the Swiss Federal Polytechnical School (Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule or ETH). He passed the math and science sections of the entrance exam, but failed the rest (history, languages, geography, etc.)! Einstein had to go to a trade school before he retook the exam and was finally admitted to ETH a year later. (Source)
5. Einstein had an Illegitimate Child
In the 1980s, Einstein’s private letters revealed something new about the genius: he had an illegitimate daughter with a fellow former student Mileva Mari? (whom Einstein later married).
In 1902, a year before their marriage, Mileva gave birth to a daughter named Lieserl, whom Einstein never saw and whose fate remained unknown:
Mileva gave birth to a daughter at her parents’ home in Novi Sad. This was at the end of January, 1902 when Einstein was in Berne. It can be assumed from the content of the letters that birth was difficult. The girl was probably christianised. Her official first name is unknown. In the letters received only the name “Lieserl” can be found.
The further life of Lieserl is even today not totally clear. Michele Zackheim concludes in her book “Einstein’s daughter” that Lieserl was mentally challenged when she was born and lived with Mileva’s family. Furthermore she is convinced that Lieserl died as a result of an infection with scarlet fever in September 1903. From the letters mentioned above it can also be assumed that Lieserl was put up for adoption after her birth.
In a letter from Einstein to Mileva from September 19, 1903, Lieserl was mentioned for the last time. After that nobody knows anything about Lieserl Einstein-Maric. (Source)
6. Einstein Became Estranged From His First Wife, then Proposed a Strange “Contract”
After Einstein and Mileva married, they had two sons: Hans Albert and Eduard. Einstein’s academic successes and world travel, however, came at a price - he became estranged from his wife. For a while, the couple tried to work out their problems - Einstein even proposed a strange “contract” for living together with Mileva:
The relationship progressed. Einstein became estranged from his wife. The biography reprints a chilling letter from Einstein to his wife, a proposed “contract” in which they could continue to live together under certain conditions. Indeed that was the heading: “Conditions.”
A. You will make sure
1. that my clothes and laundry are kept in good order;
2. that I will receive my three meals regularly in my room;
3. that my bedroom and study are kept neat, and especially that my desk is left for my use only.
B. You will renounce all personal relations with me insofar as they are not completely necessary for social reasons…There’s more, including “you will stop talking to me if I request it.” She accepted the conditions. He later wrote to her again to make sure she grasped that this was going to be all-business in the future, and that the “personal aspects must be reduced to a tiny remnant.” And he vowed, “In return, I assure you of proper comportment on my part, such as I would exercise to any woman as a stranger.” (Source)
7. Einstein Didn’t Get Along with His Oldest Son
After the divorce, Einstein’s relationship with his oldest son, Hans Albert, turned rocky. Hans blamed his father for leaving Mileva, and after Einstein won the Nobel Prize and money, for giving Mileva access only to the interest rather than the principal sum of the award - thus making her life that much harder financially.
The row between the father and son was amplified when Einstein strongly objected to Hans Albert marrying Frieda Knecht:
In fact, Einstein opposed Hans’s bride in such a brutal way that it far surpassed the scene that Einstein’s own mother had made about Mileva. It was 1927, and Hans, at age 23, fell in love with an older and - to Einstein - unattractive woman. He damned the union, swearing that Hans’s bride was a scheming woman preying on his son. When all else failed, Einstein begged Hans to not have children, as it would only make the inevitable divorce harder. … (Source: Einstein A to Z by Karen C. Fox and Aries Keck, 2004)
Later, Hans Albert immigrated to the United States became a professor of Hydraulic Engineering at UC Berkeley. Even in the new country, the father and son were apart. When Einstein died, he left very little inheritance to Hans Albert.
8. Einstein was a Ladies’ Man
Einstein with his second wife and cousin, Elsa (Image credit)
After Einstein divorced Mileva (his infidelity was listed as one of the reasons for the split), he soon married his cousin Elsa Lowenthal. Actually, Einstein also considered marrying Elsa’s daughter (from her first marriage) Ilse, but she demurred:
Before marrying Elsa, he had considered marrying her daughter, Ilse, instead. According to Overbye, “She (Ilse, who was 18 years younger than Einstein) was not attracted to Albert, she loved him as a father, and she had the good sense not to get involved. But it was Albert’s Woody Allen moment.” (Source)
Unlike Mileva, Elsa Einstein’s main concern was to take care of her famous husband. She undoubtedly knew about, and yet tolerated, Einstein’s infidelity and love affairs which were later revealed in his letters:
Previously released letters suggested his marriage in 1903 to his first wife Mileva Maric, mother of his two sons, was miserable. They divorced in 1919, and he soon married his cousin, Elsa. He cheated on her with his secretary, Betty Neumann.
In the new volume of letters released on Monday by Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Einstein described about six women with whom he spent time and from whom he received gifts while being married to Elsa.
Some of the women identified by Einstein include Estella, Ethel, Toni and his “Russian spy lover,” Margarita. Others are referred to only by initials, like M. and L.
“It is true that M. followed me (to England) and her chasing after me is getting out of control,” he wrote in a letter to Margot in 1931. “Out of all the dames, I am in fact attached only to Mrs. L., who is absolutely harmless and decent.” (Source)
9. Einstein, the War Pacifist, Urged FDR to Build the Atom Bomb
Re-creation of Einstein and Szilárd signing the famous letter to President Franklin Roosevelt in 1939. (Image credit: Wikipedia)
In 1939, alarmed by the rise of Nazi Germany,physicist Szilard convinced Einstein to write a letter to president Franklin Delano Roosevelt warning that Nazi Germany might be conducting research into developing an atomic bomb and urging the United States to develop its own.
The Einstein and Szilárd’s letter was often cited as one of the reasons Roosevelt started the secret Manhattan Project to develop the atom bomb, although later it was revealed that the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 probably did much more than the letter to spur the government.
Although Einstein was a brilliant physicist, the army considered Einstein a security risk and (to Einstein’s relief) did not invite him to help in the project.
10. The Saga of Einstein’s Brain: Pickled in a Jar for 43 Years and Driven Cross Country in a Trunk of a Buick!
After his death in 1955, Einstein brain was removed - without permission from his family - by Thomas Stov Halley, the Princeton Hospital pathologist who conducted the autopsy. Harvey took the brain home and kept it in a jar. He was later fired from his job for refusing to relinquish the organ.
Many years later, Harvey, who by then had gotten permission from Hans Albert to study Einstein’s brain, sent slices of Einstein’s brain to various scientists throughout the world. One of these scientists was Marian Diamond of UC Berkeley, who discovered that compared to a normal person, Einstein had significantly more glial cells in the region of the brain that is responsible for synthesizing information.
In another study, Sandra Witelson of McMaster University found that Einstein’s brain lacked a particular “wrinkle” in the brain called the Sylvian fissure. Witelson speculated that this unusual anatomy allowed neurons in Einstein’s brain to communicate better with each other. Other studies had suggested that Einstein’s brain was denser, and that the inferior parietal lobe, which is often associated with mathematical ability, was larger than normal brains.
The saga of Einsteins brain can be quite strange at times: in the early 1990s, Harvey went with freelance writer Michael Paterniti on a cross-country trip to California to meet Einstein’s granddaughter. They drove off from New Jersey in Harvey’s Buick Skylark with Einstein’s brain sloshing inside a jar in the trunk!
In 1998, the 85-year-old Harvey delivered Einstein’s brain to Dr. Elliot Krauss, the staff pathologist at Princeton University, the position Harvey once held:
… after safeguarding the brain for decades like it was a holy relic — and, to many, it was — he simply, quietly, gave it away to the pathology department at the nearby University Medical Center at Princeton, the university and town where Einstein spent his last two decades.
“Eventually, you get tired of the responsibility of having it. … I did about a year ago,” Harvey said, slowly. “I turned the whole thing over last year [in 1998].” (Source)
sosys on 
Dolphinz on 
Spring on 
kricia on 
