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Some measure greatness in height and weight, but great people are never so tall as when they bend their knees to help lift someone who has fallen. Some measure greatness in physical strength, but great people are never so strong as when they carry the burden of a downtrodden stranger. Some measure greatness in terms of financial gain, but those who give generously to others have a wealth that is far better than money. Some measure greatness in applause and fame, but those who seek opportunity to serve in quiet or unpopular ways gain the highest praise. Some measure greatness in their own ability to reach goals, yet those who spur others toward a higher purpose for the good of all is the most successful of all.
Great people have vision and do not keep the truth to themselves. Great people have passion and a purpose for their life and are not ashamed to show it. Great people expect the best from others and give the best of themselves. Great people seek to make the world a better place. Great people know how to work – with discipline and consistency – in order to reach goals. In short, greatness is measured best by what a person has done; by what he achieves.
Achievement despite Adversity
Of the billions of people in the world, most have lived and died in obscurity. Very few have been worthy of being called “great.” Those who have earned that moniker share one thing in common: they have faced great obstacles, overcome stigmas and setbacks, and have persevered and still went on to do great things. Life was not easy for them, but they did great things anyway.
For example, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln was born into poverty. Hellen Keller was deaf and blind before the age of two. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was stricken with infantile paralysis. Marie Curie was so poor that her family could not afford for her to attend university, and even if they had been able to afford it, higher education was not available to girls in Poland. South African President Nelson Mandela was put in jail due to political persecution and stayed there for 27 years. Harriet Tubman was born a slave. Stephen Hawking had a very difficult life due to his early diagnosis at age 21 with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Florence Nightingale was forbidden from studying nursing at a time when the profession was not considered suitable for women. None of these obstacles or adversities stood in the way of their achievements. These individuals are all seen in history as “Great”. But what made them great was what they achieved despite the obstacles and challenges.
Albert Einstein: Person of the Century
Even the most brilliant people can face adversity and go on to do great things. Consider Albert Einstein. According to the biography Einstein: His Life and Universe, “Einstein reportedly was slow in learning how to speak.” Because of that, his parents were concerned about his intelligence. And, combined with his tendency to whisper words softly to himself before saying them aloud, it led to his family nicknaming him “der Depperte” — the dopey one. And yet Albert Einstein went on to become one of the great minds of the 20th century.
But, while Einstein is almost synonymous with genius, it was his achievements not his IQ, which earned him the title of “Great Man.” Few people really know all that Einstein achieved. First, Einstein provided empirical evidence for the atomic theory. In 1827, Robert Brown observed pollen grains in water through a microscope and found that they moved through water but he couldn’t determine what that caused this motion. In 1905, Einstein published a paper on this random motion of particles in a fluid, which became known as Brownian motion. Einstein explained how the motion Brown had observed was a result of the pollen being moved by individual water molecules. Though atoms and molecules had long been theorized by scientists, Einstein’s explanation of Brownian motion served as definitive confirmation that atoms and molecules actually exist.
Einstein also enabled the determination of Avogadro’s number and, thus, the size of molecules. For those who aren’t scientists, Avogadro’s number is the number of units in one mole (the unit of measurement used by chemists to measure very small things like atoms, molecules, or other particles) of any substance — defined as its molecular weight in grams — is equal to 6.02214076 × 1023. The units may be electrons, atoms, ions, or molecules, depending on the nature of the substance and the character of the reaction, if any. In explaining Brownian motion, Einstein determined the size of atoms, and how many atoms there are in a mole. In so doing, Einstein gave scientists a way to count atoms by looking through an ordinary microscope.
These things alone distinguish him as a great scientist. But that’s not all Einstein accomplished. Einstein also came up with the particle theory of light, solving the riddle of the Photoelectric Effect (which is the emission of electrons from a metal when light shines on it). Until 1905, scientists had been puzzled by this effect because it couldn’t be explained with Maxwell’s wave theory of light. But, in 1905 Einstein released a paper challenging the wave theory of light and suggested that light could also be regarded as a collection of discrete energy packets (photons). At first, Einstein’s particle theory of light was universally rejected by physicists until it was experimentally verified by Robert A. Millikan about a decade later. Einstein’s discovery was key in establishing the field of quantum mechanics. And, quantum mechanics in turn explained many features of our universe and is used a great deal in modern technological inventions. It was so important that, in 1921, Albert Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics “for his services to theoretical physics and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect”.
And, of course, there is Einstein’s special theory of relativity. The inconsistencies of Newtonian mechanics with Maxwell’s equations of electromagnetism led Einstein to write his legendary paper, ‘On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies‘, which was published in September 26, 1905. Einstein proposed major changes to mechanics while handling situations close to the speed of light. This became known as Einstein’s special theory of relativity. This was confirmed through experiments and quickly became widely accepted. Even now over a century later, Einstein’s theory of special relativity is the most accurate model of motion at any speed.
He did all that in one year, what some have called his “Miracle Year”, and he was only 26 years old at the time!! Talk about being disciplined, consistent and taking bold action. But, Einstein did not stop there. In fact, it was his concept of rest energy for which is he is best known. Einstein predicted the equivalence of mass (m) and energy (E) through his famous mass–energy equivalence formula E=mc2, where c is the speed of light in vacuum. This was critically importance because it showed that a particle possesses an energy called the “rest energy”, distinct from its classical kinetic and potential energies. That implied gravity had the ability to bend light and could be used to calculate the amount of energy released or consumed during nuclear reactions.
That led to Einstein’s general theory of relativity in 1916 which provided a unified description of gravity as a geometric property of space and time, or spacetime. General relativity helped to model the large-scale structure of the universe and its predictions have been confirmed in all observations and experiments to date. It has developed into an essential tool in modern astrophysics providing understanding of phenomena like black holes and gravitational lensing.
Einstein also had other achievements which were in collaboration with other scientists. For example, he extended a counting method put forth by Satyendra Nath Bose (an Indian physicist) in 1924 which assumed light could be understood as a gas of indistinguishable particles. Einstein extended that idea to atoms which led to the prediction of the existence of phenomena, known as the Bose-Einstein condensate. It wasn’t until 1995 – over seven decades later — that this condensate was actually produced in an experiment and thus validated. Talk about being ahead of their time. Likewise, his debates about quantum mechanics with Niels Bohr brought to focus an element of quantum theory, namely quantum non-locality, which is essential in our modern understanding of the physical world.
For all of his achievements, Einstein was awarded the Copley Medal by the Royal Society, the oldest surviving scientific award in the world, the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1926, the Max Planck Medal in 1929 and the Franklin Medal in 1935. In 1999, Time magazine named Albert Einstein as the Person of the Century.
Einstein is a prime example of a “Great Man”, but he did not become so without overcoming adversity. But he stayed relentlessly true to his values and goals. He had a vision and refused to keep the truth to himself. He had a passion and purpose in his life, and he was not ashamed to share it and show it. He worked relentlessly throughout his lifetime and challenged himself and others to do… to act… to achieve. And while he was a brilliant, driven, moral and faith-filled man, it was his achievements that earned him the title of “Great Man.”
Next week, we’ll look at another person who overcame adversity and went on to achieve greatness. Stay tuned.
Quote of the Week
“Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.” Robert Kennedy
© 2022, Keren Peters-Atkinson. All rights reserved.
