How well do you know Albert Einstein?

Estimated Completion Time
2 min
How well do you know Albert Einstein?
Image: refer to hsw

About This Quiz

Albert Einstein was a pretty smart guy. When you look up the word "genius" in the dictionary, so the saying goes, it's a pretty safe bet you'll see Einstein's mug. Think you’re smart enough to take on a quiz about the famed thinker?
When Einstein was 5 years old, his father showed him something that inspired him to be interested in science. What was it?
a compass
a calculator
a telescope
Correct Answer
Wrong Answer

Einstein claimed that seeing his father's compass left a "deep and lasting impression" on him.

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What are Einstein's "Annus Mirabilis Papers"?
a set of Einstein's documents, thought to be lost in a fire, that were rediscovered in the 1960s
four papers that Einstein published in 1905, which are thought to be among his greatest works
papers that Einstein published when he was only 16 that ended up being the basis for the theory of relativity
Correct Answer
Wrong Answer

In 1905, the "Annalen der Physik" published four papers by Einstein -- they introduced, in part, the special theory of relativity and his ideas on the photoelectric effect and Brownian motion.

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What do the letters in "e=mc2" stand for?
E: energy, M: matter, C: calories
E: energy, M: mass, C: speed of light
E: electricity, M: mass, C: time
Correct Answer
Wrong Answer

In Einstein's famous mass-energy equivalence, it's energy, mass and speed of light.

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In what year did Einstein win the Nobel Prize for Physics?
1918
1919
1921
Correct Answer
Wrong Answer

It was 1921.

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In the 1930s, a German man was convicted of plotting to kill Einstein. What was his punishment?
electrocution
life in prison
a $6 fine
Correct Answer
Wrong Answer

Nazi Germany was very hostile toward Einstein and his works, so they apparently didn't mind that someone tried to off him.

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When Einstein finally fled Germany for the United States in 1940, where did he move?
Princeton, N.J.
Cambridge, Mass.
Pasadena, Calif.
Correct Answer
Wrong Answer

Einstein and his wife moved to Princeton, which remained his base of operations until his death in 1955.

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In 1939, Einstein and Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard wrote an urgent letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. What did they ask him to do?
not go to war with Germany
develop an atomic bomb
invade Germany
Correct Answer
Wrong Answer

Einstein was known as a pacifist, but he didn't want Germany to have the bomb first. The letter led to the creation of the Manhattan Project.

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Einstein had a big falling-out with his oldest son, Hans. What was the problem?
Hans published a theory about electromagnetic fields that Einstein strongly disagreed with.
Einstein thought Hans had tried to steal some of his papers.
Einstein didn't like Hans' wife.
Correct Answer
Wrong Answer

Einstein had some major issues with Hans' wife -- for starters, he thought she was too old … and too ugly.

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According to the book "Einstein in Love," what was Einstein's "Woody Allen moment"?
One night at a jazz bar in Berlin, a drunken Einstein played a clarinet solo for the crowd.
Before marrying his second wife, he actually considered wedding her daughter instead.
He made a short film about his failed love affairs.
Correct Answer
Wrong Answer

In 1919, shortly after divorcing his first wife, Einstein married Elsa Lowenthal, who was his cousin. But apparently he had wanted to marry her daughter, Ilse, first.

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When Einstein died in 1955, a doctor removed his brain and then did what with it?
Put it in a jar, took it home and then refused to give it back
Sliced it up and gave it to a bunch of scientists
Both -- and then stuck it in his car trunk almost 40 years later and drove to California
Correct Answer
Wrong Answer

Yep, Princeton Hospital doctor Thomas Stolz Harvey did all of the above.

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You Got:
/10
refer to hsw