A Truly Beautiful Mind

 Lesson 4 . A Truly Beautiful Mind 

[ A ] Comprehension

Read the following passage and give the answers to the questions given below.

1. Albert Einstein was born....... much too large.

1. Einstein was born on 14 March 1879 in the German city of Ulm .

2. No . In his infancy he didn't show that he was going to be great. 

3. Her mother thought that he was a freak .

4. Sign =Indication ; Seemed = Appeared .

2. But Albert Einstein..... school for good .

1. No . Albert was not a bad pupil.

2. Einstein’s family had moved to Munich when he was 15 months old. 

3. He scored good marks in almost every subject .

4. Einstein hated the school’s regimentation . As a result he finally left the school for good at the age of fifteen.

3. The previous year, Albert's ...... than Munich.

1.Before moving to Milan, Albert’s parents had   left Albert with relatives.

2. Einstein wished to continue his

education in German-speaking Switzerland, in a city which was more liberal than Munich. After a prolonged discussion , he got it fulfilled.

3. German speaking Switzerland was more liberal than Munich.

4. The opposite of shortened is prolonged. The synonym of carry on is continue.

4. While Einstein was.... wedding off.

1. While Einstein was solving the most difficult problems in physics, his private life was unravelling.

2. Albert wanted to marry Mileva Maric right after finishing his studies.

3. His mother was against the marriage because she thought Mileva, who was three years older than her son, was too old for him. She was also bothered by Mileva’s intelligence. “She is a book like you," said she .

4. Einstein decided to put the wedding off.

5. At the urging........ in August 1945.

1. At the urging of a colleague, Einstein wrote a letter to Roosevelt.

2. Franklin D Roosevelt was the President of the USA .

3. Einstein showed his fear about an atomic bomb .A single bomb of this type exploded in a port, might very well destroy the whole port together with some of the surrounding territory. 

4. The Americans dropped their secretly developed atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 .

[B] Short answer type questions.

1. Einstein was born on 14 March 1879 in the German city of Ulm .

2. Einstein's head seemed too large to her and it made her think that he was a freak.

3. At the age of two-and-a-half, Einstein still wasn’t talking. When he finally did learn to speak, he uttered

everything twice.

4. Einstein did not know what to do with other children so his playmates called him “Brother Boring.” 

5. A headmaster once told his father that what Einstein chose as a profession wouldn’t matter, because he would never make a success at anything.

6. Einstein scored good marks in almost every subject at his school in Munich.

7. Einstein hated the school’s regimentation . He finally left the school for good at the age of fifteen.

8. Einstein wanted to continue his study in German speaking Switzerland because it was more liberal than Munich.

9. Milleva Maric was Einstein's classmate whom he loved and later married. She was a clever Serb young woman who had moved to the University of Zurich to obtain a degree . Einstein got interested in her as she looked opposite to the Philistines of his family.

10. In 1900, at the age of 21, Albert Einstein was a university graduate and unemployed. He worked as a teaching assistant and gave private lessons to earn money.

11. Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity stated that time and distance are not absolute .

12. An eclipse of the sun in 1919 brought proof that his General Theory of Relativity which gave a new interpretation of gravity was accurate .

13. Einstein received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921. 

14. Einstein wrote a letter to the American President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, on 2 August 1939 .

15. But over the next decade, Einstein got ever more involved in politics . He wanted nations to put an end to the arms buildup and maintain peace and democracy.

[ C] Long Answer Type Questions

1. Describe in brief , Einstein's early life .

Answer. Albert Einstein was born on 14 March 1879 in the German city of Ulm. As a child he showed no indication of genius . Instead his mother thought him to be a freak to see his seemingly large head . He started speaking late only after the age of two and a half years. When he started speaking he would repeat a word twice.

He was called ' brother boring ' by his friends as he could not get along. At school one of his teachers remarked that he would never be successful in whatever profession he chose. 

But he was not a bad pupil and he scored good marks in almost all subjects at school .

2. Throw light on the life of Einstein as a student.

Answer. Einstein was a brilliant student but he didn't like the regimentation of his school in Munich. He was often clashing with his teachers. It made them think that he wouldn't be successful in his career. But he proved them wrong. He scored good marks in almost all the subjects in High School . However , feeling stifled there , he left the school for good at the age of 15.

Thereafter he moved to study in German speaking Switzerland . It was more liberal . After finishing his school study he studied at a university in Zurich. He was highly gifted in mathematics and interested in physics . At 21 he became a graduate.

3. Einstein loved Mileva and wanted to marry her . But the marriage was delayed. Why ? Who did he marry after their marriage ended in divorce ?

Answer.  Einstein loved Mileva Maric for her intellectual brightness . She was a fellow student at the university in Zurich . But his mother didn't approve this proposal as she didn't like her being three years older than him . Her intellectual pursuits too filled her with doubt. Therefore Einstein decided to put off the marriage.

The pair finally married in January 1903, and had two sons. But a few years later, the marriage faltered. Mileva, meanwhile, was losing her intellectual ambition and becoming an unhappy housewife. After years of constant fighting, the couple finally divorced in 1919. Einstein married his cousin Elsa the same year.

4. Why did Albert Einstein write letters - first to the American President and later to the United Nations ? What was the content of the two letters ? 

Answer.  The first letter which Einstein wrote to Franklin D Roosevelt , the President of America was caused by the worry of an atomic bomb developed by the Nazis. In his letter he warned that even a single atomic bomb could destroy the whole port with its surrounding territory , if blasted there.

Unfortunately and ironically his letter caused the government to secretly develop such bombs and drop them on the twin cities of Japan , Nagashaki and Hiroshima. It pained Einstein a lot and he wrote another letter but this time a public missive to the United Nations . Therein he appealed to form a World Government . But this appeal went unheeded .