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Cleopatra Lived Closer to the Computer Age than to the Pyramids, and Other Atypical History Facts

Khalid Elhassan December 30, 2019 33 min

37. Albert Einstein Was at Max Genius In His Mid Twenties

The popular image most of us have of Albert Einstein is of an aging man, with disheveled and wild white hair. So it stands to reason that most people would assume that Einstein’s most important work must have occurred at the tail end of a long life, spent doing complex physics and math stuff.

In reality, Einstein’s greatest contributions to science, such as his theory of relativity, had taken place by the time he was 26. In 1905, after graduating from the University of Zurich, Einstein was working as a patent office examiner, and dabbling into some physics stuff in his free time. During a span of a few brief months, he came up with four theories that revolutionized science.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.