This is a biography of Albert Einstein for the ignorant and the idiotic.

The popular image we have of Einstein is of an avuncular, kind hearted man, with a lined face and curly white hair. But how much do we really know about the man?

As a child, he loved to play with magnets, and as an adult he loved solving puzzles.

But Einstein had an unimpressive career as a student. A high school dropout, he failed the entrance examination to Institute of Technology. Indeed, he had difficultly in cramming facts and figures when he appeared for exams – which we all know are the hallmark of academic excellence. Not surprisingly, he was a clumsy teacher, and was dismissed from several teaching positions. What is more surprising still is that this undisciplined young man and academic failure is now being held out as a role model for aspiring students!!

As is well known, Einstein worked as an examiner in the Swiss patents office. Einstein approved certain applications, and rejected yet others. But Einstein was a clerk of average ability, and he was deservedly pulled up for wasting office time, and scribbling meaningless notes on paper in his spare time (notes which he promptly hid in a drawer whenever anyone came nearby).

Einstein was a loner and something of a stubborn person as well. But he had his redeeming points: he was a simple man, and he loved simplicity. To cite a common example, he refused to buy shaving soap when he could make do with ordinary soap just as well. He also loved to play the violin.

Though was a late talker as a child, and had an average sized brain, Einstein came to be known for his witticisms and his (poor) jokes. He was given to making bombastic statements, such as “all things are relative” and “God does not play dice with the cosmos”; and for this reason alone he is often quoted. In fact, one is likely to find one or more of his famous quotations in any standard quotations book.

Some people thought that he was a genius, others that he came from outer space, but the truth of the matter is that he was very much the “hippie” that he looked.