Albert Einstein, his life and times: Today’s Myth Trivia event

written by Bob Taylor Feb 7, 2018

HARLOTTE, N.C., February 7, 2018: Remember the old rule from English that we learned in high school “‘i’ before ‘e’ except after ‘c'”? The question then becomes, if Albert Einstein was a genius, how did he get this rule wrong twice in his last name alone?

Born in Ulm, Germany, young Albert lived in Bern, Switzerland from 1902 until 1905. Today, the Swiss capital is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the Einstein House where one of the world’s greatest thinkers lived is a fascinating place to visit.

Because of its historic covered walkways, it is said you can walk through Bern in a rainstorm and never get wet. As such, other than the cars parked on the streets of the city today, when someone looks out the window of Einstein’s apartment at Number 49 Kramgasse street in Bern, it looks just as it did between 1902 and 1905 when the great physicist lived there.

Einstein himself called the year 1905 his “Annus Mirabilis,” or miracle year. That’s because it was during that year that he published five of his most important papers, including one describing his breakthrough Theory of Relativity. Today, that’s familiarly known as E = mc².

Einstein was 26 at the time.

Thanks to his profound intellect, Einstein was one of the most oft-quoted people of his time. He was famous for comments such as, “I never think of the future – it comes soon enough”; or “The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits;” or “If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?”

With all this as background, we now present some interesting trivia involving one of the greatest thinkers of the 20th century.

Einstein was born with an unusually large, somewhat misshapen head. His head was so big that some doctors thought he might turn out to be mentally challenged. That concern plagued Einstein throughout much of his childhood, especially because he spoke slowly until the age of nine.

One urban legend about Einstein is that he failed math. That myth was not true. Einstein did, however, fail his college entrance exam in 1895. In fact, Einstein was only an average student in most subjects other than math and physics. Thanks to those abilities, the great scientist was accepted at the Swiss Federal Polytechnic in Zurich the following year.

Looking at the wild bushy gray hair and mustache in photos from his later life, it is difficult to imagine this soon-to-be world famous scientist as being a “chick magnet” during his youth. But in 1901, Einstein’s mistress at the time, Mileva Maric, became pregnant with his child. Daughter, Lieserl, was born in 1902, two years before the couple formally tied the knot.

In 1903, between Lieserl’s birth and her parents’ marriage, she was either given up for adoption or died. That mystery remains unresolved even today.

Since Einstein was born a German Jew, when Israel’s first president, Chaim Weizmann, died in 1953, that country’s prime minister offered him the job. The noted physicist ultimately turned down the position, expressing regret at his “lack (of) both the natural aptitude and the experience to deal properly with people and to exercise official function.”

Oddly enough, Einstein did not earn his Nobel Prize for the Special Theory of Relativity. Instead, he received the honor in 1921 in Physics “for his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect,” which was a pivotal step in the evolution of quantum theory.

Among the stranger aspects of Einstein’s life or, more accurately his death, is that the autopsy revealed his brain to be larger than most, but also lighter than the average person’s.

More bizarre, however, is that Dr. Thomas Harvey, who performed the autopsy in 1955, actually stole Einstein’s brain to conduct several studies. In the process, the pathologist carved the brain into some 240 pieces to conduct his research.

When the doctor refused to return the brain, he was immediately fired from Princeton University. He did come back in the 1990s and donated the remaining portions of the brain to the University Medical Center of Princeton (formerly Princeton Hospital) at Plainsboro, New Jersey.

In fact, taking Einstein’s brain wasn’t enough to satisfy Dr. Harvey. In a rather “Frankensteinian” move, Harvey also stole Einstein’s eyeballs, sealed them in a jar of formaldehyde and gave them to the physicist’s friend, ophthalmologist, Henry Abrams. Today the whereabouts of Einstein’s eyes are still unknown, but are presumed to remain in Abram’s New Jersey bank vault.

Like many geniuses, Einstein was eccentric. One of his pet peeves was the near universally accepted Western custom of wearing socks. Apparently, Einstein had constant problems with holes in his socks and therefore refused to wear them.

Einstein was an avid sailor, though he could not swim. But he still refused to wear socks regardless of the endeavor, be it on a boat or at a formal gathering.

FBI Director, J. Edgar Hoover, who was a little quirky in his own right, began spying on Einstein in 1932 shortly after he fled Germany to escape the Nazi Party. For whatever reason, Hoover believed Einstein could be a communist. In the process, Hoover created a 1,400 page dossier on the scientist’s activities, continuing his undercover investigation of  Einstein for two decades.

That brings us full circle to another famous quote by the world renowned genius: “Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.”https://www.commdiginews.com/entertainment/albert-einstein-myth-trivia-98802/

とても興味深く読みました：

とても興味深く読みました：ゼロ除算発見4周年超えた

\documentclass[12pt]{article}

\usepackage{latexsym,amsmath,amssymb,amsfonts,amstext,amsthm}

\numberwithin{equation}{section}

\begin{document}

\title{\bf  Announcement 412:  The 4th birthday of the division by zero $z/0=0$ \\

(2018.2.2)}

\author{{\it Institute of Reproducing Kernels}\\

Kawauchi-cho, 5-1648-16,\\

Kiryu 376-0041, Japan\\

 }

\date{\today}

\maketitle

 The Institute of Reproducing Kernels is dealing with the theory of division by zero calculus and declares that the division by zero was discovered as $0/0=1/0=z/0=0$ in a natural sense on 2014.2.2. The result shows a new basic idea on the universe and space since Aristotelēs (BC384 - BC322) and Euclid (BC 3 Century - ), and the division by zero is since Brahmagupta  (598 - 668 ?).

In particular,  Brahmagupta defined as $0/0=0$ in Brāhmasphuṭasiddhānta (628), however, our world history stated that his definition $0/0=0$ is wrong over 1300 years, but, we showed that his definition is suitable.

 For the details, see the references and the site: http://okmr.yamatoblog.net/

We wrote a global book manuscript \cite{s18} with 154 pages

 and stated in the preface and last section of the manuscript as follows:

\bigskip

{\bf Preface}

\medskip

 The division by zero has a long and mysterious story over the world (see, for example, H. G. Romig \cite{romig} and Google site with the division by zero) with its physical viewpoints since the document of zero in India on AD 628. In particular, note that Brahmagupta (598 -668 ?) established the four arithmetic operations by introducing $0$ and at the same time he defined as $0/0=0$ in

Brhmasphuasiddhnta. Our world history, however, stated that his definition $0/0=0$ is wrong over 1300 years, but, we will see that his definition is right and suitable.

 The division by zero $1/0=0/0=z/0$ itself will be quite clear and trivial with several natural extensions of the fractions against the mysterously long history, as we can see from the concepts of the Moore-Penrose generalized inverses or the Tikhonov regularization method to the fundamental equation $az=b$, whose solution leads to the definition $z =b/a$.

  However, the result (definition) will show that

      for the elementary mapping

\begin{equation}

W = \frac{1}{z},

\end{equation}

the image of $z=0$ is $W=0$ ({\bf should be defined from the form}). This fact seems to be a curious one in connection with our well-established popular image for the  point at infinity on the Riemann sphere (\cite{ahlfors}). �As the representation of the point at infinity of the Riemann sphere by the

zero $z =  0$, we will see some delicate relations between $0$ and $\infty$ which show a strong

discontinuity at the point of infinity on the Riemann sphere. We did not consider any value of the elementary function $W =1/ z $ at the origin $z = 0$, because we did not consider the division by zero

$1/ 0$ in a good way. Many and many people consider its value by the limiting like $+\infty $ and  $- \infty$ or the

point at infinity as $\infty$. However, their basic idea comes from {\bf continuity} with the common sense or

based on the basic idea of Aristotle.  --

 For the related Greece philosophy, see \cite{a,b,c}. However, as the division by zero we will consider its value of

the function $W =1 /z$ as zero at $z = 0$. We will see that this new definition is valid widely in

mathematics and mathematical sciences, see  (\cite{mos,osm}) for example. Therefore, the division by zero will give great impacts to calculus, Euclidean geometry, analytic geometry, differential equations,  complex analysis in the undergraduate level and to our basic ideas for the space and universe.

We have to arrange globally our modern mathematics in our undergraduate level. Our common sense on the division by zero will be wrong, with our basic idea on the space and the universe since Aristotle and Euclid. We would like to show clearly these facts in this book. The content is in the undergraduate level.

\bigskip

\bigskip

{\bf Conclusion}

\medskip

 Apparently, the common sense on the division by zero with a long and mysterious history is wrong and our basic idea on the space around the point at infinity is also wrong since Euclid. On the gradient or on derivatives we have a great missing since $\tan (\pi/2) = 0$. Our mathematics is also wrong in elementary mathematics on the division by zero.

This book is an elementary mathematics  on our division by zero as the first publication of  books for the topics. The contents  have wide connections to various fields beyond mathematics. The author expects the readers write some philosophy, papers and essays on the division by zero from this simple source book.

The division by zero theory may be developed and expanded greatly as in the author's conjecture whose break theory was recently given surprisingly and deeply by  Professor Qi'an Guan \cite{guan} since 30 years proposed  in \cite{s88} (the original is in \cite {s79}).

We have to arrange globally our modern mathematics with our division by zero  in our undergraduate level.

We have to change our basic ideas for our space and world.

We have to change globally our textbooks and scientific books on the division by zero.

\bibliographystyle{plain}

\begin{thebibliography}{10}

\bibitem{ahlfors}

L. V. Ahlfors, Complex Analysis, McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1966.

\bibitem{cs}

L. P.  Castro and S. Saitoh,  Fractional functions and their representations,  Complex Anal. Oper. Theory {\bf7} (2013), no. 4, 1049-1063.

\bibitem{guan}

Q.  Guan,  A proof of Saitoh's conjecture for conjugate Hardy H2 kernels, arXiv:1712.04207.

\bibitem{kmsy}

M. Kuroda, H. Michiwaki, S. Saitoh, and M. Yamane,

New meanings of the division by zero and interpretations on $100/0=0$ and on $0/0=0$,

Int. J. Appl. Math.  {\bf 27} (2014), no 2, pp. 191-198,  DOI: 10.12732/ijam.v27i2.9.

\bibitem{ms16}

T. Matsuura and S. Saitoh,

Matrices and division by zero　z/0=0,

Advances in Linear Algebra \& Matrix Theory, {\bf 6}(2016), 51-58

Published Online June 2016 in SciRes.   http://www.scirp.org/journal/alamt

\\ http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/alamt.2016.62007.

\bibitem{ms18}

T. Matsuura and S. Saitoh,

Division by zero calculus and singular integrals. (Submitted for publication)

\bibitem{mms18}

T. Matsuura, H. Michiwaki and S. Saitoh,

$\log 0= \log \infty =0$ and applications. Differential and Difference Equations with Applications. Springer Proceedings in Mathematics \& Statistics.

\bibitem{msy}

H. Michiwaki, S. Saitoh and  M.Yamada,

Reality of the division by zero $z/0=0$.  IJAPM  International J. of Applied Physics and Math. {\bf 6}(2015), 1--8. http://www.ijapm.org/show-63-504-1.html

\bibitem{mos}

H. Michiwaki, H. Okumura and S. Saitoh,

 Division by Zero $z/0 = 0$ in Euclidean Spaces,

 International Journal of Mathematics and Computation, {\bf 2}8(2017); Issue  1, 2017), 1-16.

\bibitem{osm}

H. Okumura, S. Saitoh and T. Matsuura, Relations of   $0$ and  $\infty$,

Journal of Technology and Social Science (JTSS), {\bf 1}(2017),  70-77.

\bibitem{os}

H. Okumura and S. Saitoh, The Descartes circles theorem and division by zero calculus. https://arxiv.org/abs/1711.04961 (2017.11.14).

\bibitem{o}

H. Okumura, Wasan geometry with the division by 0. https://arxiv.org/abs/1711.06947 International  Journal of Geometry.

\bibitem{os18}

H. Okumura and S. Saitoh,

Applications of the division by zero calculus to Wasan geometry.

(Submitted for publication).

\bibitem{ps18}

S. Pinelas and S. Saitoh,

Division by zero calculus and differential equations. Differential and Difference Equations with Applications. Springer Proceedings in Mathematics \& Statistics.

\bibitem{romig}

H. G. Romig, Discussions: Early History of Division by Zero,

American Mathematical Monthly, Vol. {\bf 3}1, No. 8. (Oct., 1924), pp. 387-389.

\bibitem{s79}

S. Saitoh, The Bergman norm and the Szeg$\ddot{o}$ norm, Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. {\bf 249} (1979), no. 2, 261--279.

\bibitem{s88}

 S. Saitoh, Theory of reproducing kernels and its applications. Pitman Research Notes in Mathematics Series, {\bf 189}. Longman Scientific \& Technical, Harlow; copublished in the United States with John Wiley \& Sons, Inc., New York, 1988. x+157 pp. ISBN: 0-582-03564-3

\bibitem{s14}

S. Saitoh, Generalized inversions of Hadamard and tensor products for matrices,  Advances in Linear Algebra \& Matrix Theory.  {\bf 4}  (2014), no. 2,  87--95. http://www.scirp.org/journal/ALAMT/

\bibitem{s16}

S. Saitoh, A reproducing kernel theory with some general applications,

Qian,T./Rodino,L.(eds.): Mathematical Analysis, Probability and Applications - Plenary Lectures: Isaac 2015, Macau, China, Springer Proceedings in Mathematics and Statistics,  {\bf 177}(2016),     151-182. (Springer) .

\bibitem{s17}

S. Saitoh, Mysterious Properties of the Point at Infinity、

arXiv:1712.09467 [math.GM](2017.12.17).

\bibitem{s18}

S. Saitoh, Division by zero calculus (154 pages: draft): （http://okmr.yamatoblog.net/）

\bibitem{ttk}

S.-E. Takahasi, M. Tsukada and Y. Kobayashi,  Classification of continuous fractional binary operations on the real and complex fields,  Tokyo Journal of Mathematics,   {\bf 38}(2015), no. 2, 369-380.

\bibitem{a}

https://philosophy.kent.edu/OPA2/sites/default/files/012001.pdf

\bibitem{b}

http://publish.uwo.ca/~jbell/The 20Continuous.pdf

\bibitem{c}

http://www.mathpages.com/home/kmath526/kmath526.htm

\bibitem{ann179}

Announcement 179 (2014.8.30): Division by zero is clear as z/0=0 and it is fundamental in mathematics.

\bibitem{ann185}

Announcement 185 (2014.10.22): The importance of the division by zero $z/0=0$.

\bibitem{ann237}

Announcement 237 (2015.6.18):  A reality of the division by zero $z/0=0$ by  geometrical optics.

\bibitem{ann246}

Announcement 246 (2015.9.17): An interpretation of the division by zero $1/0=0$ by the gradients of lines.

\bibitem{ann247}

Announcement 247 (2015.9.22): The gradient of y-axis is zero and $\tan (\pi/2) =0$ by the division by zero $1/0=0$.

\bibitem{ann250}

Announcement 250 (2015.10.20): What are numbers? -  the Yamada field containing the division by zero $z/0=0$.

\bibitem{ann252}

Announcement 252 (2015.11.1): Circles and

curvature - an interpretation by Mr.

Hiroshi Michiwaki of the division by

zero $r/0 = 0$.

\bibitem{ann281}

Announcement 281 (2016.2.1): The importance of the division by zero $z/0=0$.

\bibitem{ann282}

Announcement 282 (2016.2.2): The Division by Zero $z/0=0$ on the Second Birthday.

\bibitem{ann293}

Announcement 293 (2016.3.27):  Parallel lines on the Euclidean plane from the viewpoint of division by zero 1/0=0.

\bibitem{ann300}

Announcement 300 (2016.05.22): New challenges on the division by zero z/0=0.

\bibitem{ann326}

 Announcement 326 (2016.10.17): The division by zero z/0=0 - its impact to human beings through education and research.

 \bibitem{ann352}

Announcement 352(2017.2.2):   On the third birthday of the division by zero z/0=0.

\bibitem{ann354}

Announcement 354(2017.2.8):　What are $n = 2,1,0$ regular polygons inscribed in a disc? -- relations of $0$ and infinity.

\bibitem{362}

Announcement 362(2017.5.5): Discovery of the division by zero as  $0/0=1/0=z/0=0$

 \bibitem{380}

Announcement 380 (2017.8.21):  What is the zero?

\bibitem{388}

Announcement 388(2017.10.29):   Information and ideas on zero and division by zero (a project).

 \bibitem{409}

Announcement 409 (2018.1.29.): 　Various Publication Projects on the Division by Zero.

\bibitem{410}

Announcement 410 (2018.1 30.):  What is mathematics? -- beyond logic; for great challengers on the division by zero.

\end{thebibliography}

\end{document}