Who was Albert Einstein?

Welcome to History's Not Boring! Prepare for wild hair and HUGE ideas! Did you know that when Albert Einstein was a kid, some teachers thought he was super slow? Wait, WHAT?! But this kid who loved to daydream about racing a beam of light grew up to change science FOREVER! Join Mira and Finn as they zoom through the incredible life of Einstein! Discover his famous equation, E=mc², which explains the universe, and why he stuck his tongue out in the most famous photo ever! We’re also celebrating Pi Day (3.14!) because Einstein was born on March 14th! Get ready to explore massive theories and funny secrets about one of history’s biggest thinkers!

Transcript

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Welcome to History's Not Boring by Kidopoly.com. I'm Mira! And I'm Finn! Today, Finn, we are diving into the story of a man whose ideas were so massive, they actually changed how we see everything.

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Changed everything? Like like bigger than when cars were invented.

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Even bigger!

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Plus, it's a perfect day to talk about him, because today is March 14th. March 14th? That's my favourite number day! Exactly! It's Pi Day, 3.14! And we're celebrating the birth of Albert Einstein, the genius with the wild hair, who gave us the most famous equation ever.

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Whoa! So what's the craziest fact about him? Did he have three brains?

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Nope, just one superpowered brain. But here's the hook. When he was a kid, his teachers actually thought he was slow.

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Teachers thought Albert Einstein was slow. No way! How slow?

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Well, he was born on March 14th, 1879, in Ulm, Germany. He didn't start talking until he was almost three years old. Imagine waiting three whole years for your first word.

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Three years? That's like waiting since kindergarten until right now. Where exactly was he living when he was little?

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His family moved to Munich soon after he was born. When he was about five, his father, Hermann, showed him a simple magnetic compass. Seeing that invisible force making the needle point north blew his young mind.

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A compass? So he loved magic forces early on. Did he get in trouble for daydreaming instead of listening to the teacher?

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He sure did. He hated the strict rules of his German schools. He was much happier exploring ideas on his own. By age 16, he was already daydreaming about riding alongside a beam of light. That's travelling at nearly 300,000 kilometres per second. Riding a light beam?

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Whoa! So he didn't get into a top university right away, right? I heard he failed an entrance exam.

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That's a great detail. He failed the entrance exam for the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich in 1896, even though he aced the math and physics sections. He was too young at 16, and his non-science scores were too low. He had to go to a regular high school in Arau, Switzerland, for a year before finally getting in at age 17.

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Okay, so he finally gets to the Swiss school. Was he a superstudent then, or still daydreaming?

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A little of both. He focused on physics and math, but he still often skipped boring lectures to read original physics papers, like those by the famous scientist James Clark Maxwell. After graduating in 1900, he couldn't get a university job, so he ended up working at the Swiss Patent Office in Bern, starting in 1902.

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A patent office? That sounds like checking homework. Did he have to approve inventions for bicycles or something?

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Sort of. He reviewed patent applications, often for devices using electricity, which was still pretty new. He'd examine designs from 9 in the morning until 5 in the evening. But that job was amazing because it gave him the time and mental quiet to think about the universe.

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So he was solving the universe while looking at patent drawings. When did the big ideas happen?

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The year 1905 was his Anus Mirabilis, his miracle year. He published four groundbreaking papers. One explained how light behaves like tiny energy packets called photons. That helped create quantum physics.

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Four papers in one year? That's like writing four whole books. What else did he do that year?

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The most famous one explained special relativity, proving that time and space change depending on how fast you're moving. And from that, he derived the most famous equation, E equals Mc squared. Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared. E equals Mc squared.

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What does that mean? Is it about how fast things go?

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It means that a tiny bit of mass, like a speck of dust, can turn into a huge amount of energy because C, the speed of light, is multiplied by itself. That speed is 299,792,458 meters per second. Square that number, and you see why even a tiny bit of mass creates massive energy.

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Whoa! That's like finding a secret superpower hidden inside everyday stuff. Did the other scientists immediately say, you are a genius, Albert?

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Not right away. The ideas were so revolutionary, they took years for people to accept. He kept working and publishing. Then came the next huge leap in 1915, general relativity. This one described gravity not as a force, but as a curve in space-time caused by mass.

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Gravity isn't a pull. It's like a big bowling ball sitting on a trampoline, making everything roll towards it. Did anyone prove that?

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Yes. The proof came during a total solar eclipse on May 29, 1919. A team led by Sir Arthur Eddington travelled to the island of Principe off the coast of West Africa to photograph the stars near the Sun. Why the Sun? What were they looking for? They needed the Sun's massive gravity to bend the light from those distant stars, just like Einstein predicted. The eclipse blocked the Sun's glare so they could take the pictures. When the measurements matched Einstein's predictions within a tiny error margin, he became an instant global superstar.

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An instant superstar. So he went from a patent office worker to the most famous scientist in the world. That's amazing.

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He did! He even won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921. Though it was actually for his earlier work on the photoelectric effect, not relativity. As the Nazis rose to power in Germany, Einstein, who was Jewish, knew he had to leave. He moved to the United States in 1933, taking a job at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. He had to run away?

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That's so sad. Did he keep working there until he passed away in 1955?

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Yes, he did. His legacy is huge. His work helped launch the nuclear age and is essential for GPS technology. Now for the fun facts. Did you know that in 1952 he was actually offered the presidency of Israel, but he politely declined? President? Wow!

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He chose equations over leading a country. And what about that famous photo? The one with his tongue sticking out.

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That photo was taken on his 72nd birthday, March 14, 1951. He was tired of smiling for cameras, so when photographer Arthur Sass asked for one last picture, Einstein stuck his tongue out. It became the most iconic photo of him, showing his playful side. He was almost 72, weighing about 70 kilograms, and he just wanted a break.

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I love that. A super genius being silly. So, his brain was amazing, and he had great hair.

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Alright, Finn, time for the quiz to see what you remember about the man who made Space Bend. Are you ready to test your Einstein knowledge?

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Okay, I'm ready. I hope I remember the speed of light number.

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First question. Back in 1879? Next one. What was the incredible miracle year when he published four major papers? Question three. What famous equation did Einstein discover that connects energy and mass? Here's number four. Which scientific observation during a total solar eclipse in 1919 helped prove his theory of general relativity? Last question. What funny action did Einstein make for the famous photo taken on his 72nd birthday? Great job thinking through those. Let's see how you did when we look at the answers. The first answer is Germany. He was born in Ulm, Germany. For question two, his miracle year was 1905. Number three, the answer everyone knows is E equals M C. Question four. They proved Einstein right by measuring the bending of starlight around the sun. And the final answer: he stuck his tongue out at the photographer.

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Wow, he really was a giant. I can't believe he started off slow and then changed how we see light in gravity.

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It just shows that even when things seem hard, like not talking early or failing one test, your big ideas can still change the world. His biggest impact is proving that imagination is more important than knowledge.

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If you love learning about the wild-haired genius today, please ask your grown-up to give us five stars wherever you listen. It helps other kids find the show. That's right.

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Just scroll down and tap the stars. And hey, if you want tons of fun learning games and activities about scientists like Albert, head over to our site kidopoly.com. We put loads of extra cool stuff there.

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And if you want us to give you a shout out next time, or just want to tell us what you thought of E equals M C squared, email us at hello at kidopoly.com.

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Thanks for travelling through time with us to meet Albert Einstein. Bye everyone. See you next time on History's Not Boring.