La Fabbrica della Scienza | Albert Einstein: the “mad” scientist!

Perhaps not everyone knows that Albert Einstein, besides having travelled a lot, also lived in Italy: in 1894, he moved to Pavia with his family and wrote his first scientific article here. Moreover, the German scientist was dyslexic (i.e. he couldn’t read fluently) and had many problems at school. He was listless and spoke slowly. Yet, he is still considered one of the most genial scientists in the world. Do you think that’s all? Not at all! We have selected some curiosities that you probably wouldn’t even imagine. In 1921, he won the Nobel Prize in Physics, but not for the Theory of Relativity that made him popular all over the world, but rather “for his contributions to theoretical physics, in particular for the discovery of the photoelectric effect.” Just think that he didn’t immediately pass the university entrance test and had to repeat it twice. He had a bad memory. He couldn’t memorise names, dates and phone numbers. He was even offered the presidency of the state of Israel, but he politely refused.  Einstein, Darwin, Allan Poe and Saddam Hussein all share the same married life: they were all married to their first cousins. As an undisputed genius, he has always been used for advertising purposes as the typical “scientist”, or rather “mad scientist.” Therefore, the “Albert Einstein trademark” was eventually registered. The genius born in Ulm stated that he preferred visually “testing” his theories with long reflections in his mind rather than inside a laboratory. Thomas Stoltz Harvey, the doctor who performed the autopsy on his body, stole his brain and kept it in a jar for 43 years! We look forward to seeing you at the Science Factory where you’ll be able to admire some inventions of Einstein. Where impossible becomes possible by magic!