After a sumptuous meal of..you don't want to know the details..last night, I had to sit back to allow the mountain be turned to valley in my tummy before turning in for the night with my 'souljas'.
In their usual fashion, anytime the inverter (no thanks to PHCN) is on, the boys would start looking around for the remote control. Next thing I heard was.."mummy, please I want to watch cartoon, change it to cartoon". It was actually one of my lucky days when my three year old was in the right frame of mind to be courteous. Usually it's "mummy, change it to Cartoon Network"
Lucky chaps..in my days, cartoons? That's for another day.
Well, this time, they had their way and we settled down to watch Little Einsteins on Disney Junior.
This got me thinking, what made Einstein so special that he still wields so much influence on kids and adults alike even in death?
This great man that was born decades before my great-great-grandparents were conceived.
Biographical brief:
He was born in Germany on March 14, 1879, an American physicist and Nobel laureate, best known for propounding the theory of Relativity.
His early years was spent in Munich and, wait for this..he did not talk until he was three! (A little respite for those whose kids are a little slow in the speech department, do not panic, s/he might well be the next Einstein)
He was brilliant, always curious about the nature and displayed an uncanny ability to understand difficult mathematics concepts. At 12 years, he mastered the Euclidean geometry (check it up, please)
He was always boycotting classes to study physics on his own and also to play his violin. He eventually managed to pass his examinations and worked for two years as a tutor and assistant teacher.
He went on to study for his doctorate and became internationally renowned. He was the proponent of the popular theory of relativity which initially gained little acceptance, understandably so.
Enough resources are available on his life and accomplishments but what got me thinking was the level he took his creative thinking to.
.
He challenged his "common sense" to come up with uncommon ideas and he was so versed to be able to provide the mapping or the connection between postulates or theories and the 'measurables' giving room for his theories to be tested and accepted.
That is one quality lacking today..in us.
We are all curious for, more often than not for the wrong things; thinking 'beyond the box' is alien to us and we would rather flow with the tide not realizing that to be a step ahead of the pack, we need a little of Einstein in us, everyday.
I leave you with this saying by the great one himself:
"The important thing is not to stop questioning.
Curiosity has its own reasons for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he
contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It
is enough if one tries to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy
curiosity." - Albert Einstein
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