Einstein Dies: Physics Loses Its Greatest Mind
Albert Einstein died at Princeton Hospital on April 18, 1955, refusing surgery. 'It is tasteless to prolong life artificially,' he said. 'I have done my share; it is time to go.' He was 76. The pathologist who performed the autopsy removed his brain without permission and kept it in a jar for 40 years, periodically sending samples to neuroscientists. The studies found his inferior parietal lobe — associated with mathematical and spatial reasoning — was 15% wider than average and lacked a groove usually found there, which may have allowed more neural connections. He spent the last decades of his life at Princeton trying to find a unified field theory that would reconcile gravity and electromagnetism. He never found it. Nobody has.
April 18, 1955
71 years ago
Key Figures & Places
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