It is that cultural icon Albert Einstein’s birthday today, March 14.

He is/would have been 133. He was born in 1879.

He died on April 17^th,   1955.  Seems he experienced internal bleeding

caused by the rupture of an abdominal aortic aneurysm.

 He took  the draft of a speech he was preparing for a television appearance

commemorating the State of Israel's seventh anniversary with him to the hospital,

 but he did not live long enough to complete it. ^] Einstein refused surgery, saying:  

"I want to go when I want. It is tasteless to prolong life artificially. I have done my share, it is time to go. I will do it elegantly."

 He died in Princeton Hospital early the next morning at the age of 76, having continued to work until near the end.

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During the autopsy, the pathologist of Princeton Hospital, Thomas Stoltz Harvey,

removed Einstein's brain for preservation

without the permission of his family, in the hope that the neuroscience of the future

would be able to discover what made Einstein so intelligent.

Harvey photographed the brain from many angles.

He then dissected it  …Harvey also removed Einstein's eyes, and gave them to Henry Abrams.^[2] He was fired from his position at Princeton Hospital

shortly thereafter for refusing to relinquish the organs

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 Einstein's abbreviated, non -useful remains were cremated and his ashes were scattered at an undisclosed location.

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Here is what they found, for you brain afficianados:

his parietal operculum region in the inferior frontal gyrus in the frontal lobe of the brain was vacant.

Also absent was part of a bordering region called the lateral sulcus (Sylvian fissure).

the vacancy may have enabled neurons in this part of his brain to communicate better.

 "This unusual brain anatomy...(missing part of the Sylvian fissure)...

may explain why Einstein thought the way he did,"

 said Professor Sandra Witelson who led the research published in The Lancet. This study was based on photographs of Einstein's brain made in 1955 by Dr. Harvey,

 and not direct examination of the brain.

Einstein himself claimed that he thought visually rather than verbally^{………………………………………………………………………………………………….}

nuclear physicist Robert Oppenheimer summarized his impression of him as a person: "He was almost wholly without sophistication and wholly without worldliness . . . There was always with him a wonderful purity at once childlike and profoundly stubborn..’’

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Einstein is notorious for his wild hair and his rather poor school performance.

He said:

“School failed me, and I failed the school. It bored me.

I wanted to learn what I wanted to know, but they wanted me to learn for the exam.

What I hated most was the competitive system there,

and especially sports.

 Because of this, I wasn't worth anything, and several times they suggested I leave.

I felt that my thirst for knowledge was being strangled by my teachers;

. from the age of twelve I began to suspect authority and distrust teachers.

 I learned mostly at home,

. The more I read, the more puzzled I was by the order of the universe

 and the disorder of the human mind,

 by the scientists who didn't agree on the how, the when, or the why of creation. Then one day this student brought me Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Reading Kant, I began to suspect everything I was taught. I no longer believed in the known God of the Bible, but rather in the mysterious God expressed in nature.”

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Shit. He got hold of Kant.

Well then, he deserved what he got, his brain being taken , and examined, I  say.

I have a beef with Kant.

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“Human reason is by nature architectonic.”

Kant said.

Like architecture.

Blah. I humbly disagree.

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I think human knowledge is more like a seed thrown into a fertile soil.  The soil is the collective wisdom of the race, which Einstein accessed freely & discriminately, as we all do. Our roots dictate what nutrients to accept in our growth.

The decision needs to be made at an early age what manner of growth is appropriate, and alas, there are toxic ingredients in the dirt from which we flourish.  We have to be choosy.

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“I want to know how God created this world.

I'm not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element.

 I want to know His thoughts, the rest are details.

§  E. Salaman, "A Talk with Einstein," 

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Common sense is nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down by the mind before you reach eighteen.

§  As quoted in Mathematics, Queen and Servant of the Sciences (1952)

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§  The really valuable thing is intuition.

§   .

§  Two things are infinite: the universe and the human stupidity.

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In 1978, Einstein's brain was rediscovered in the possession of Dr. Harvey

 by journalist Steven Levy.

^] The brain sections had been preserved in alcohol in two large

 mason jars within a cider box for over 20 years.

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Now that neuroscience has reached its glorious apex, I wonder:  where the hell is Einstein’s brain?

And his eyes!

We potentially have alot to learn from them, if they haven't all dried out.