Ludo Legends! Spotlight on: Albert Einstein

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Ludo Legends! Spotlight on: Albert Einstein

20 Oct, 2021 / For Kids

One of our Ludo Legends is the celebrated theoretical physicist, Albert Einstein! As well as being a world-renowned physicist, he also struggled with dyslexia. If you suffer from dyslexia, you might struggle sometimes with your reading or writing but did you know there are some incredible strengths that come with dyslexia? Keep reading to find out more!

First of all, check out our brief version of Einstein’s life story below! We’ve included some of his greatest achievements along with some fascinating facts…

Life:

Albert Einstein was born in Germany in 1879. Both of his parents were Jewish and he had a young sister, Maja. Einstein has famously stated that he didn’t like school, he thought his teachers were ‘sergeants’ but he demonstrated a strong ability for mathematics and the three sciences. A STEM student through and through!

When Einstein was 15 years old, he and his family moved to Zurich, where he attended the Swiss Polytechnic Academy. He proceeded to graduate in 1900 with a degree in physics and maths. Einstein began his career working at the Patent Office, investigating and developing other people’s inventions, whilst also pursuing his own work.

In 1914, Einstein was appointed Director of a new research institute in Berlin and in 1915, he completed one of the most groundbreaking equations in the history of science, the theory of relativity or E=mc². This simple but genius equation demonstrated that even the smallest amount of mass can be turned into a huge amount of energy. In this formula E is energy, m is mass, and c is the constant speed of light. What shocked the science community was that his equation proved that energy and mass are related!

Whilst Einstein was busy with his new discovery, the First World War had begun. Albert Einstein identified as a pacifist, stating that he didn’t believe in war and violence – a pacifist wishes for disagreements to be resolved peacefully. After the war had ended, Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921. That’s like winning an Oscar in the science world!

Albert Einstein eventually moved to the USA in 1933. After World War II had ended in 1945, Einstein continued to make further discoveries about heat, gravity and relativity. He published over 300 scientific reports. In 1955 he died aged 79 of heart failure. He remains one of the most revered scientists of all time.

Achievements:

He stated the equivalence of mass and energy, which led to the famous formula E=mc²
In 1910, Einstein answered the simple yet confusing question: ‘Why is the sky blue?’ His paper on the phenomenon called critical opalescence managed to solve this conundrum by examining the effect of the scattering of light by individual molecules in the Earth’s atmosphere.
In 1917, Einstein published a paper which uses general relativity to model the behavior of an entire universe. General relativity has spawned some of the weirdest, and most important results in modern astronomy.
Between 1905 and 1925, Einstein transformed humankind’s understanding of nature on every scale, from the smallest, to that of the cosmos as a whole. Now, nearly a century after he began to make his mark, we are still exploring Einstein’s universe. Using his equation to make new discoveries!
Einstein challenged the ‘wave’ theory of light, suggesting that light could also be regarded as a collection of particles. This helped to open the door to a whole new world–that of quantum physics. For ideas in this paper, he won the Nobel Prize in 1921.

Dyslexia:

There have been many people who have changed the course of history that were dyslexic. These individuals thought outside of the box and could shatter the limitations of their time and change the world for the better! Einstein was one of these people!

From a young age, Einstein’s verbal development was thought to be slow, he didn’t speak until he was three years old. His early speech was later described as “laborious and searching”. Many articles and personal accounts point towards Einstein being dyslexic.

Whilst he loved mathematics and science, he hated grammar and spelling. His teachers suggested that he should join a trade school, one teacher even went on to say that he was borderline intellectually impaired!

Einstein described his thought process as being nonverbal and he excelled when he went on to study at a Swiss school that centred its education around creative, visual methods of instruction. The school actively discouraged memorisation.

Despite these struggles with language, Einstein continued to excel in visual imagination and spatial reasoning. When he presented his complete theory of relativity, he explained that the idea came from a thought experiment, in which he imagined himself driving a streetcar that was traveling at the speed of light. A strength that often comes with dyslexia is the ability to see the bigger picture, those with dyslexia are often able to see things more holistically.

Here are some other strengths of dyslexia:

Finding the odd one out – people with dyslexia excel at global visual processing and the detection of impossible figures.
Improved pattern recognition – people with dyslexia have the ability to see how things connect to form complex systems and to notice similarities among multiple things.
Good spatial knowledge many people with dyslexia demonstrate better skills at manipulating 3D objects in their mind. Like Professor X!
Picture Thinkers – people with dyslexia tend to think in pictures rather than words.
Sharper peripheral vision – people with dyslexia have better peripheral vision than most, meaning they can quickly take in a whole scene.
Business entrepreneurs – did you know that one in three American entrepreneurs have dyslexia?
Highly creative – Many of the world’s most well-known actors have dyslexia, such as Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom.
Thinking outside the box – problem solving – those with dyslexia are well known for having sudden leaps of insight that solve problems with an unorthodox approach.

(source: Nessy)

Did you know that our Founder, Martha, and some of our Tutors have dyslexia?

At Ludo Tutors, we believe there’s no ‘one size fits all’ approach to learning. We have many fantastic Tutors who cover a range of subjects with tailored approaches. Our holistic tuition approach aims to cater to every student, regardless of how they think.

There are many fantastic tools and resources available that can help those struggling with dyslexia. We’ve listed a few below, if you fancy a look.

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Ludo Legends! Spotlight on: Albert Einstein

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