When did Einstein Died ?
It seems clear that Albert Einstein, the Nobel Prize–winning scientist who discovered E = mc2 and the law of the photoelectric effect, had a unique brain. So exceptional that Thomas Harvey, the on-call pathologist, snatched it when he passed away in Princeton Hospital on April 18, 1955.
Who had stolen Einstein's Brain ?
Einstein did not want to be idolised or have his body or brain investigated. Brian Burrell wrote in his 2005 book, Postcards from the Brain Museum, "He had left behind explicit instructions regarding his remains: cremate them, and disperse the ashes privately to deter idolaters". Thomas Harvey nevertheless removed the brain without asking Einstein's or his family's permission. When the information was discovered a few days later, Harvey was able to get Hans Albert Einstein's reluctant approval for the investigation, with the now-standard caveat that any further research would be done only for scientific purposes.
What has happened to the stolen Brain ?
The Einstein's brain was cut into 240 pieces and stored in celloidin, a tough and stretchy type of cellulose, in Philadelphia But when Harvey abruptly lost his employment at the Princeton hospital. The parts were divided between two jars, which he kept in his basement.
However, After his wife threatened to dispose of it, he returned to his cellar to retrieve the brain and carried it to the Midwest. During his position as a medical director in a laboratory for biological research in Wichita, Kansas, he kept the brain in a cider box hidden beneath a beer fridge. He relocated once more, to Weston, Missouri, where he continued to practise medicine while trying to learn more about the brain in his free time. However, in 1988, he lost his medical licence after failing a three-day competency exam. In Lawrence, Kansas, he eventually settled down, got a job working an assembly line in a plastic-extrusion factory, rented a second-floor apartment close to a petrol station, and made friends with his next-door neighbour, the beat poet William Burroughs.
On Burroughs' front porch, the two men frequently got together for cocktails. Harvey used to tell tales about the brain and how he would slice off pieces to deliver to scientists all across the world. In response, Burroughs would boast to guests that he could always have a piece of Einstein.
What Scientists discovered about his Brain ?
In 1985, The first research paper of Einstein's brain was published by Harvey and colleagues in California, who claimed that it contained an abnormally high proportion of the two cell types glia and neurons. Five further studies that reported additional variations in specific cells or brain areas in Einstein's brain came after the first one. These studies' authors claim that learning more about Einstein's brain could reveal the neurological foundations of brilliance.
The experiments, however, sparked controversy, with Terence Hines, a psychology professor at Pace University, calling them a waste of time. At the annual meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, he displayed a poster summarising all the problems with each of the six research.
Research in 1985
Harvey and his colleagues discovered that Einstein's neuron-to-glia ratio was much lower in Brodmann Area 39 than it was in the same area in 11 control brains. This area is where the temporal, parietal, and occipital lobes converge. In contrast to Einstein, who passed away at age 76, the control group's brains came from individuals between the ages of 47 and 80. The brains of the controls were also new, but Einstein's had been dormant for three decades in cellars and beer coolers. The fact that cell counts are subjective and that the researchers performing them were not completely unaware of which tissue was Einstein's and which was not is perhaps the most troubling.
Research in 1996
In this research project, Harvey collaborated with a scientist from Alabama and counted neurons in the frontal cortex's Brodmann Area 9 of Einstein's brain as well as those of five controls. The study discovered that while there were no changes in the quantity or size of neurons, Einstein's tissue was thinner than controls. The authors hypothesised that denser neuron packing would result in shorter cell-to-cell distances between signals, which would lead to a general increase in processing speed. That's a really big stretch. The discovery was based on just one square millimetre of Einstein's brain, as Hines points out in his poster. Furthermore, the authors acknowledge that they did not include any information about how Einstein's brain compared to controls.
Research in 1999
Harvey and Canadian coworkers succeeded in publishing Einstein's brain in The Lancet, one of the most prominent medical journals in the world. The researchers asserted that Einstein had an aberrent folding pattern in part of his parietal lobe, an area that has been connected to mathematical ability, based on old images that had been taken of Einstein's brain before it was dissected. His parietal lobes were also revealed to be 15% wider and 15% more symmetrical than those of control brains. Yet again, the researchers were not in the dark regarding which images depicted Einstein's brain. Despite the writers' hasty attempts to link these purported discrepancies to Einstein's mastery of mathematics, Hines argues that Einstein was not a very gifted mathematician.
What was Concluded from the Research ?
Being incredibly brilliant, Einstein was aware of our culture's preoccupation with individuality and fame. He knew that if given the opportunity, scientists would examine the neurons, glia, sulci, and gyri in his brain and make sweeping statements about what defines intelligence. But, with that being said, scientists also confirmed that the Einstein had an abnormal folding pattern in a region of his parietal lobe, which has been linked to mathematical aptitude. Taking into account the considerable amount of math used in the field of physics and Einstein's contributions to the field. There is no question as to why Albert Einstein is referred to as "The Father of Modern Physics.".
Where is Einstein's Brain Now ?
As we now know, The brain of Albert Einstein was divided into 240 blocks after his passing, and Thomas Harvey maintained the majority of the preserved bits in his custody for more than 40 years. According to the BBC, 170 of those blocks were brought back to the University Medical Center of Princeton today and are now secured behind locked doors. The Mütter Museum of Medical History in Philadelphia is home to an additional 46 minuscule slices of Einstein's brain tissue. The other parts are still lacking in large numbers.