Secret Subject Swap - Einstein

Welcome to September's Secret Subject Swap. 

Again five brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts.

Here are links to all the sites now featuring Secret Subject Swap posts.  

Sit back, grab a cup and check them all out:

Baking In A Tornado
The Diary of an Alzheimer Caregiver
Climaxed
What TF Sarah
Part-Time Working Hockey Mom

My subject is 

Do you have a fact about a historical figure that changes how you see them? For example, Henry David Thoreau didn't actually live in a cabine alone. His mom brought him sandwiches every day and did his laundry.

It was submitted by: Climaxed thank you, Jennyi! 

Hahahaha, I had no idea who this person was, but this made me laugh. The things dedicated Moms will do for their (grown) sons.

Since we (almost) share the same birthday and attended the same college - roughly 100 years apart - I picked Albert Einstein for this blog post.

What is the common perception I - and probably most people - have of him?

• Genius
• Absent-minded Professor

Am I right?

Just like with any other human being though, all that glistens isn't Gold. 

Don't be fooled by his genius achievements in physics and math, for example:

He failed French, didn't take English at all and barely passed Geography. 

He did, however, identify something about people: 

Apparently he didn't even have a good memory for everyday purposes. He could not recall names, dates or phone numbers, and his teachers didn't feel comfortable recommending him for employment. 

Did you know Einstein was offered the opportunity to become President of Israel in 1952? He declined, saying he wasn't equipped to deal with people, let alone assume an official function. 

Way to be humble and realistically assess his abilities and limits! Isn't he the complete opposite of some individuals who share similar weaknesses but want to be in the spotlight all the same?

Einstein wasn't the only graduate of my college who ended up winning a Nobel prize. There were two others, and one fine day, in chemistry class, our teacher mentioned how privileged we were to enjoy the same fine education as the three Nobel prize winners. 

I blurted out 

"Yeah, who were the other two guys anyway, everybody just keeps talking about Einstein?"

You know what that teacher said to me?

"Well, I can tell you who won't be the fourth!!!"

How rude! 

Back then I didn't even realize that the teacher most probably didn't recall the other names and their achievements, and just wanted to cover his butt. 

I did what good students do (because everybody can't become a Nobel prize winner, and that's OK) and did my own research:

• Paul Karrer found out stuff about vitamins. To be exact, he confirmed the structure of ascorbic acid, which is the fancy name for Vitamin C. More importantly he identified lactoflavin = Vitamin B2, it helps the body to convert food (carbohydrates) into fuel (glucose), which is used to produce energy
• Werner Arber worked on enzymes that are a fundamental tool for many different types of biotechnology, including DNA sequencing and gene cloning.

Back to Einstein.

He was a brainiac who didn't bother to function in everyday life, heck, not even in his marriage. 

He didn't lift a finger around the house and cheated on his wife Mileva. 

For the sake of their two children, she still wanted to stick it out. Albert drafted a list of expectations to which she had to adhere. She basically had to serve as his maid and otherwise shut up and leave him alone. 

Ouch. 

Not cool, pal. Not cool at all. 

This is certainly a sad fact about a historical figure that changes how I feel about them.

What's your take on this? Let me know below and please head over to my fellow bloggers to check out their posts.