Einstein-Rare Collection

House of Einstein

Einstein's father

*Was Einstein's Brain Different?*

Of course it was-people's brains are as different as their faces. In his
lifetime many wondered if there was anything especially different in
Einstein's. He insisted that on his death his brain be made available for
research. When Einstein died in 1955, pathologist Thomas Harvey quickly
preserved the brain and made samples and sections. He reported that he could
see nothing unusual. The variations were within the range of normal human
variations. There the matter rested until 1999. Inspecting samples that Harvey
had carefully preserved, Sandra F. Witelson and colleagues discovered that
Einstein's brain lacked a particular small wrinkle (the parietal operculum)
that most people have. Perhaps in compensation, other regions on each side
were a bit enlarged-the inferior parietal lobes. These regions are known to
have something to do with visual imagery and mathematical thinking. Thus
Einstein was apparently better equipped than most people for a certain type
of thinking. Yet others of his day were probably at least as well
equipped-Henri Poincaré and David Hilbert, for example, were formidable
visual and mathematical thinkers, both were on the trail of relativity, yet
Einstein got far ahead of them. What he did with his brain depended on the
nurturing of family and friends, a solid German and Swiss education, and his
own bold personality.

Einstein's mother

Einstein in Berlin with political figures

E = MC^2

School class photograph in Munich , 1889. Einstein is in the front row,
second from right. He did well only in mathematics and in Latin (whose logic

he admired).

A late bloomer:

Even at the age of nine Einstein spoke hesitantly, and his
parents feared that he was below average intelligence. Did he have a
learning or personality disability (such as "Asperger's syndrome," a mild
form of autism)? There is not enough historical evidence to say. Probably
Albert was simply a thoughtful and somewhat shy child. If he had some
difficulties in school, the problem was probably resistance to the
authoritarian German teachers, perhaps compounded by the awkward situation
of a Jewish boy in a Catholic school.

Einstein in a Berlin synagogue in 1930, playing his violin for a charity

concert.