Young Albert was a quiet boy. “Perhaps too quiet”, thought Hermann and Pauline Einstein. He spoke hardly at all until age 3. They might have thought him slow, but there was something else evident. When he did speak, he’d say the most unusual things. At age 2, Pauline promised him a surprise. Albert was excited, thinking she was bringing him some new fascinating toy. But when his mother presented him with his new baby sister Maja, all Albert could do was stare with questioning eyes. Finally he responded, “where are the wheels?” 小爱因斯坦是个安静的孩子。爱因斯坦夫妇赫尔曼和波琳认为他“或许太安静了”。爱因斯坦直到三岁时还很少开口说话。父母差点就误认为他是反应迟钝，但有一个明显的事实打消了他们的疑虑，因为当他真的开口说话时，说出的话便异乎寻常。两岁时，母亲波琳许诺给他一个惊喜。小爱因斯坦非常高兴，以为妈妈会带给他一件有趣的新玩具。但当妈妈把刚出生的妹妹玛嘉抱到他面前时，小爱因斯坦只是以疑虑的眼光盯着她，最后说道，“轮子在哪儿？”
When Albert was 5 years old and sick in bed, Hermann Einstein brought him a device that did stir his intellect . It was the first time he had seen a compass. He lay there shaking and twisting the odd thing, certain he could fool it into pointing off in a new direction. But try as he might, the compass needle would always find its way back to pointing in the direction of north. “A wonder,” he thought. The invisible force that guided the compass needle was evidence to Albert that there was more to our world than meets the eye. There was “something behind things, something deeply hidden.” 爱因斯坦五岁的时候有一次卧病在床，父亲赫尔曼送给他一个新玩意儿。正是这个小玩意开启了他的智力。那是小爱因斯坦第一次见到指南针。他躺在床上摇晃摆弄着这个稀奇的东西，认为自己能将指针糊弄到指向另一个方向。但是无论他怎样摆弄，指针却总是会回到原来指北的位置。“真奇妙
So began Albert Einstein’s journey down a road of exploration that he would follow the rest of his life. “I have no special gift,” he would say, “I am only passionately curious.” 阿尔伯特?爱因斯坦就这样踏上了他穷其一生的探索之路。“我没有特殊的天分”，他常常说，“我只是有强烈的好奇心。”
Albert Einstein was more than just curious though. He had the patience and determination that kept him at things longer than most others. Other children would build houses of cards up to 4 stories tall before the cards would lose balance and the whole structure would come falling down. Maja watched in wonder as her brother Albert methodically built his card buildings to 14 stories.
Later he would say, “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.” 爱因斯坦不仅仅只是有好奇心。他的耐心和毅力使他做起事情来能比大多数人都更持久。其他孩子用纸牌搭楼房，搭到四层高时房子就会失去平衡而坍塌下来。而玛嘉却惊奇地看着她哥哥阿尔伯特能有条不紊地搭起14层的纸牌高楼。后来爱因斯坦说道，“这不是因为我有多聪明，而是因为我能坚持得更久。”
One advantage Albert Einstein’s developing mind enjoyed was the opportunity to communicate with adults in an intellectual way. His uncle, an engineer, would come to the house, and Albert would join in the discussions. His thinking was also stimulated by a medical student who came over once a week for dinner and lively chats. 人进行智力交流。他的叔叔是工程师，经常到爱因斯坦家里来，于是爱因斯坦就有机会参与他们的讨论。爱因斯坦的思想还受到一位医科学生的启迪。此人每星期都来爱因斯坦家一次，与爱因斯坦一家共进晚餐，一起谈天说地。
At age 12, Albert Einstein came upon a set of ideas that impressed him as “holy.” It was a
little book on Euclidean plane1 geometry. The concept that one could prove theorems of angles and lines that were in no way obvious made an “indescribable impression” on the young student. He adopted mathematics as the tool he would use to pursue his curiosity and prove what he would discover about the behavior of the universe. 爱因斯坦12岁的时候发现了一系列他认为是“神圣”的观念。那是一本有关欧几里得平面几何的小册子。原来人可以证明那些不易明显看出的角度和线段的定理。这个想法给年轻学生爱因斯坦留下了“难以形容的印象”。他把数学当做满足自己好奇心并用以证明他后来发现宇宙运行规律的手段。
He was convinced that beauty lies in the simplistic. Perhaps this insight was the real power of his genius. Albert Einstein looked for the beauty of simplicity in the apparently complex nature and saw truths that escaped others. While the expression of his mathematics might be accessible to only a few sharp minds in the science, Albert could condense the essence of his thoughts so anyone could understand. 他坚信美丽寓于简朴。或许这个悟性才是激发他天分的真正力量所在。阿尔伯特•爱因斯坦在表象复杂的大自然中寻求简朴的美，并发现别人看不到的真理。爱因斯坦用数学公式表达的思想也许只有少数才思敏锐的科学家才能理解，但他却能简洁地阐明自己思想之精髓，使人人都能够理解。
For instance, his theories of relativity revolutionized science and unseated the laws of Newton that were believed to be a complete description of nature for hundreds of years. Yet when pressed for an example that people could relate to, he came up with this: “Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour and it seems like a minute. THAT’s relativity.” 比如说，他的相对论推翻了数百年来一直被认为是完整地描述了自然界一切规律的牛顿，给科学界带来了一场彻底的变革。但是当有人敦促他举例说明，以便让大众能理解相对论时，他说：“把手放在烫人的炉上时，一分钟就像是一个小时。坐在漂亮姑娘的身边，一个小时就像是一分钟。这就是相对论。”
Albert Einstein’s wealth of new ideas peaked while he was still a young man of 26. In 1905 he wrote 3 fundamental papers on the nature of light (a proof of atoms), the special theory of relativity and the famous equation of atomic power: E=mc . For the next 20 years, the curiosity that was sparked by wanting to know what controlled the compass needle and his persistence to keep pushing for the simple answers led him to connect space and time and find a new state of matter. 阿尔伯特•爱因斯坦的创新思维在年仅26岁时就达到了高峰。1905年他写了三篇重要的论文，分别是关于光的本质（证明原子存在）、相对论以及著名的原子能等式：E=mc<sup>2</sup>.。在随后的20年里，正是由于想知道是什么力量控制了指南针的指向所激发的这份好奇心以及坚持追求简单答案的毅力，引导他将空间与时间联系起来思考问题，由此发现了一种崭新的物质状态。
What was his ultimate quest? 他追寻的最终目标是什么呢？
“I want to know how God created this world ... I want to know His thoughts; the rest are details.” “我想知道上帝是怎样创造世界的??我想知道他的思路；其余的就都是细枝末节了。”
总结：
爱因斯坦的特性：耐心和毅力、强烈的好奇心、强大的专注力、乐于和学识渊博的人交流、对事物具有深刻的洞察力、精益求精，无止境的追求、对自己未知事物的执着追求…
可能他的天赋正是因为他极尽人的品质中一些优点才被激发出来的吧！
