Einstein’s Persistence, Not Genius, Is the Reason We Know His Name | David Bodanis | Big Think

Einstein’s Persistence, Not Genius, Is the Reason We Know His Name
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Einstein had three great character traits. "I might not be more skilled than other scientists," he liked to say, "but I have the persistence of a mule." If he built a house of cards and it came crashing down, young Einstein would exhale and start again, says biographer David Bodanis. He languished for many years in a patent office in Switzerland, unable to get a job as a high-school teacher, while in the top drawer of his desk were four recently completed papers – two of which were Special Relativity and E=mc2. He pressed on with his work until people noticed. Secondly, Einstein had a thick skin. One bad whisper can shatter most mere mortals, but in 1920 there was an anti-Einstein rally at the Opera House in Berlin, where people opposed to "Jewish science". Later still, in 1933, highly educated students from Göttingen, one of the greatest university in the world at the time, burned his books. Thirdly, he was inherently noble. He had a great conscience for his fellow humans, and used a huge amount of his income and other raised money to get people out of Germany and safely to America. Despite having thick skin, he was not callous – he had great sensitivity for humanity as a whole. Though the FBI did not let him be part of the team that built the atom bomb, Einstein’s work paved the way for the technology. When he heard the U.S. had dropped the bomb on Japan, he was grief stricken, and said "If I had known I wouldn't have lifted a finger." David Bodanis' most recent book is Einstein’s Greatest Mistake.

David Bodanis' most recent book is Einstein’s Greatest Mistake.
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DAVID BODANIS:

David Bodanis was born in Chicago, lived in France for a decade, and makes his home in London. He studied mathematics, physics and history at the University of Chicago, and for many years taught the "Intellectual Tool-Kit" course at Oxford University. He is fascinated by story-telling, and the power of ideas.
As an author his books include the New York Times bestselling THE SECRET HOUSE (1986); the bestselling and Samuel Johnson Prize longlisted E=MC2 (2001), which has been translated into 28 languages, was turned into a Channel 4/PBS documentary, and a ballet at Sadler's Wells (winning the Southbank Award for Best British Dance of 2010); the Royal Society Science Book of the Year Prize winner ELECTRIC UNIVERSE (2006); and the BBC Book of the Week - also featured on the cover of The Economist - PASSIONATE MINDS (2007). His newest work, EINSTEIN’S GREATEST MISTAKE, will be published in 2016.

As a futurist and business advisor, he has worked for the Royal Dutch Shell Scenario Prediction unit, modelling economic futures, as well as for the future planning unit at the World Economic Forum. He has been a popular speaker at TED conferences and at Davos, and most recently helped run an international study for the UK Treasury on the future of High-Frequency Trading. He has published in the Financial Times, the Guardian, and the New York Times, and appeared on Newsnight, Start the Week, and other programs. When not slumped in front of a laptop, he has been known to attempt kickboxing, with highly variable results.
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Transcript:

David Bodanis: 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. We had mouthed off to his professor at his university. He didn't get any good job. His department of theoretical physics was the top drawer of his desk and he would slam it close. And he had tried all sorts of things. He was about 25/26, we had tried lots of ideas while he was stuck at the patent office. Nothing had really come together. And then suddenly in the spring of 1905 it was like a storm burst in his head. He poured out one of paper after another about four of them were worthy of the Nobel Prize. And the final two were Special Relativity and E=mc2.

Einstein once said he wasn't smarter than other people but he said I have the persistence of a mule. And he was really honest about it. When he was a little kid and he made card castles he'd make layer after layer after layer of card castles and if they blew down well he'd take a deep breath and build it up again.
Read the full transcript on https://bigthink.com/videos/david-bod...