March 14, 2012

Happy Birthday, Einstein. But What Have You Done For Me Lately? Everything.

Albert Einstein, the most famous scientist of all time, was born on this day in 1879 in the village of Ulm, located in the southwestern corner of the German Empire.

Einstein spent 20 years teaching at Princeton University, where his birthday will be celebrated today, along with math teachers’ favorite holiday, Pi Day, since, by coincidence, today is 3/14. At Princeton the day’s festivities will involve pie eating, the recitation of many decimal digits as well as Einstein look-alike contests.

That’s all good fun. Yet here at Big Think we are celebrating Einstein’s birthday in a different way. In the video below, Dr. Michio Kaku describes Einstein’s legacy in less than one minute.

Watch the video here:

a computer generated image of a human brain.

Thinking

The great free will debate featuring Michio Kaku and Steven Pinker

Who — or what — really controls your mind?

Building destroyed by the Halifax Explosion. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

The Past

The largest accidental explosion of all time

More than a century ago, Halifax suffered an accidental blast one-fifth the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

a collage of photos of a man with a hat and a book.

High Culture

6 great books with wildly unreliable narrators

Dive into the twisted truths and concealed realities told by literature’s most unreliable narrators.

a group of five matches on a pink background.

The Well

Signs you’re burned out — and how to bounce back

If you don’t feel better after the weekend, the “burnout paradox” could explain why.

▸

7 min

—

with

Laurie Santos

Starts With A Bang

The trick to instantly identifying JWST images

If you can identify a foreground star, the spike patterns are a dead giveaway as to whether it’s a JWST image or any other observatory.

Up Next

Paradise Lost: What if Manhattan is the Next Maldives?

The latest climate change catastrophe scenario is now out: rising sea levels over the next century could flood 3.7 million people in over 500 U.S. cities, including New York, New Orleans and […]