♦.1) Einstein was a fat and stubborn child. When he was born, seeing the shape of the back of his head, his mother and family believed that it was a malformation.
♦.2) Little Einstein had difficulty speaking. He spoke very slowly and very quietly. It was hard to build whole sentences. His parents feared that he would suffer some type of mental retardation until, at the age of 9, he began to speak normally.
♦.3)A compass sparked his interest in science. It happened when Einstein was 5 years old and was sick in bed. His father gave him a compass and the little one was fascinated because the needle always pointed to the same place, which made him understand that there were forces that drove things where apparently there was nothing.
♦.4) Einstein did not pass his entrance exam at the university. He passed the science and math tests but failed other subjects such as history, languages and geography. He had to attend private classes and take a new test to access the university.
♦.5) His memory was not so good. Of course he knew whole books full of formulas and laws by heart. But when it came to remembering common things, his memory fell short. It was really bad to remember birthdays and the excuse he used was "birthdays are for children".
♦.6) Einstein distanced himself from his first wife. Her fame and continuous trips had as a consequence this emotional distancing from Mileva Marić. To solve it, the couple agreed to a kind of "cohabitation contract".
♦.7) He was confronted with his eldest son since his mother died. Hans Albert, Einstein's eldest son, blamed him for breaking up with his mother (Mileva Marić) and he opposed Hans' marriage to Frieda Knecht for a while.
♦.8) I hated science fiction. Einstein repudiated science fiction because he felt that he changed people's understanding of science, giving them a false illusion of things that could not happen. In his words, "I never think about the future, it comes quickly enough." That is why he said that if someone saw a flying object or things like that, they should save the experiences for themselves.
♦.9) He urged the US to build an atomic bomb. Despite being a pacifist, Einstein, alarmed by the Nazi power, warned in a letter to US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt of the intentions of the Germans to create an atomic bomb and offered to collaborate to build it. Roosevelt considered Einstein's help a risk to project security and dismissed their collaboration.
♦.10) He did not like to wear socks. Einstein "discovered" at a young age that the big toe always ends up making a hole in the sock, so he decided to stop using them. This habit continued until his death. In addition, he never dressed according to the taste of the people, he said that "people know you or do not know you" therefore it does not matter how you look.
♦.11) A legend that is attributed to Einstein: driver for a day. One day Einstein was on his way to give a speech to his university students and his faithful driver, who not only drove his car, but who always appeared among the audience during his presentations, heard him say that he felt tired of giving that speech in particular (and that the driver had heard so many times that he knew it by heart), so he suggested that they change roles and, while he gave the speech, Einstein would take him back home. Their identities were not a problem since Einstein at that time was just another university professor and nobody would recognize him in that university, so he agreed. The speech continued without problems, but Einstein's fear became a reality when a student raised his hand and asked a question, to which the driver answered without hesitation "Well, that's a simple answer that even my driver could answer" and so Einstein stood before the audience and answered the question to the amazement of those present.
