genie+7.0

Albert Einstein to be or not to be Many regard Albert Einstein as the greatest scientist of all time. Even our class placed Einstein on the top of the pyramid. So it was no surprise to read that Time magazine voted Einstein to be the person of the century. Personally, I feel as though he deserves that honor but at the same time, there are many worthy candidates for a position that is not even exclusive to science. Like the article points out, he has reached such lofty fame because he is such a memorable character. “He was the embodiment of pure intellect, the bumbling professor with the German accent, a comic cliché in a thousand films. Instantly recognizable, like Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp, Albert Einstein's shaggy-haired visage was as familiar to ordinary people as to the matrons who fluttered about him in salons from Berlin to Hollywood.” He is on that level where it is quite common to hear someone mention a person is “the Einstein” of their field. But on another level, I think many consider Albert Einstein to be great because they don’t really understand his work. Einstein is so good at science that we try not to think about what he thinks about. For the average guy, we know he shaped modern science with his special and general theories of relativity, but we don’t really care about the details; we leave it up to him. Basically, he is researching things an ordinary person could never comprehend. And in our society, we hold intelligence very high. Since we aren’t born that smart, we trust that he is doing something special with his gift. On the other hand, looking at the runner ups (Gandhi and FDR), we kind of reason in our mind that Gandhi just has really high morals. If we wanted to, we, ourselves, could hold our values and beliefs that highly. Or in FDR’s case, there are many other people who have become presidents (so it’s possible) while no one has reached Einstein’s status. So in essence, we could hypothetically do the things Gandhi or FDR did, however genius level intelligence is something you’re blessed with. And since there isn’t a potential in us to be an Einstein, we envy what we could never be. This is obviously not to belittle any of the achievements that the individual himself accomplished. Rather comparatively, Einstein possesses a rarer quality (wisdom).