1905 – Albert Einstein’s mother thought he was a genius; his sister thought he was a genius; his father thought he was a genius, but he was stuck in the patent office in Bern Switzerland and nobody else thought he was a genius at all.

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Watch

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Glossary

• mouth off – talk in an unpleasantly loud and boastful or opinionated way
• slam – shut (a door, window, or lid) forcefully and loudly
• pour out – here produce in large quantities
• drift apart – (of two or more people) gradually become less intimate or friendly
• take offence – feel upset, often unnecessarily, because you think someone is being rude to you
• mob – a large crowd of people, especially one that is disorderly and intent on causing trouble or violence
• out of harm’s way – somewhere safe
• cautious – (of a person) careful to avoid potential problems or dangers

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Think about it

Answer the questions below. For answers, pause at times indicated in brackets.

• What did Einstein’s life look like in 1905? (0:25)
• What happened in the spring of 1905? Did Einstein consider himself a genius? (1:08)
• What did Einstein’s personal and professional life look like? What jobs was he trying to apply for? (2:34)
• Why did Einstein had good reasons to think that people didn’t like him? (3:25)
• Why did Einstein make a decision to work on the atomic bomb? What did the FBI think about his participation in the project? (4:48)

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Practice makes perfect

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Fill in the blank spaces with the correct forms of the words in capital letters.

Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical ________ PHYSICS. He developed the theory of ________RELATIVE, one of the two pillars of modern physics (alongside quantum mechanics). Einstein’s work is also known for its ________ INFLUENTIAL on the philosophy of science. Einstein is best known in popular culture for his mass–energy ________ EQUIVALENT formula E = mc2 (which has been dubbed “the world’s most famous ________ EQUAL”). He received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics “for his services to ________ THEORY physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect”, a ________ PIVOT step in the ________ EVOLVE of quantum theory.

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Fill in the blank spaces with the missing words. Use ONE word per blank space.

Near ________ beginning of his career, Einstein thought that Newtonian mechanics was ________ longer enough to reconcile the laws of classical mechanics ________ the laws of the electromagnetic field. This led him ________ develop his special theory of relativity. He realized, however, that the principle of relativity could also be extended ________ gravitational fields, and with his subsequent theory of gravitation in 1916, he published a paper ________ general relativity. He continued to deal ________ problems of statistical mechanics and quantum theory, which led to his explanations of particle theory and the motion of molecules. He also investigated the thermal properties of light which laid the foundation of the photon theory of light. In 1917, Einstein applied the general theory of relativity ________ model the large-scale structure of the universe.

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Fill in the blank spaces with the verbs in brackets used in appropriate forms and tenses. You can use more than one word in each blank space.

He was visiting the United States when Adolf Hitler ________ (come) to power in 1933 and, being Jewish, ________ (no go) back to Germany, where he ________ (be) a professor at the Berlin Academy of Sciences. He ________ (settle) in the United States, becoming an American citizen in 1940. On the eve of World War II, he endorsed a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt alerting him to the potential development of “extremely powerful bombs of a new type” and recommending that the U.S. begin similar research. This eventually ________ (lead) to what would become the Manhattan Project. Einstein supported defending the Allied forces, but generally denounced the idea of using the newly discovered nuclear fission as a weapon. Later, with the British philosopher Bertrand Russell, Einstein signed the Russell–Einstein Manifesto, which ________ (highlight)  the danger of nuclear weapons. Einstein ________ (be) affiliated with the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, until his death in 1955.

Einstein _________ (publish) more than 300 scientific papers along with over 150 non-scientific works. On 5 December 2014, universities and archives announced the release of Einstein’s papers, comprising more than 30,000 unique documents. Einstein’s intellectual achievements and originality ________ (make) the word “Einstein” synonymous with “genius”.

From Wikipedia | Click here for answers

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