Class 9 English – Lesson 4
A Truly Beautiful Mind | Complete Interactive Notes
Thinking About the Text
1. Matching Paragraph Headings
| Heading Title | Paragraph Number(s) |
|---|---|
| Einstein’s equation | 9 |
| Einstein meets his future wife | 7 |
| The making of a violinist | 3 |
| Mileva and Einstein’s mother | 10 |
| A letter that launched the arms race | 15 |
| A desk drawer full of ideas | 8 |
| Marriage and divorce | 11 |
2. Opinions About Einstein
| Opinion / View | Who held this opinion? |
|---|---|
| He was boring. | Einstein’s playmates |
| He was stupid and would never succeed in life. | Einstein’s headmaster |
| He was a freak. | Einstein’s mother |
Detailed Textual Questions & Answers
- Leaving Munich school: Einstein hated the school’s strict rules and regimentation, and had disagreements with his teachers.
- Studying in Switzerland: Switzerland was more liberal than Munich.
- Seeing Mileva as an ally: She, like him, disapproved of “philistines” (people who disliked art, literature, or music).
- What it tells about him: He was cultured, liberal, had independent views on life, and preferred freedom over a controlled atmosphere.
Letter to Roosevelt: He wrote to warn him of the serious effects of an atomic explosion and encourage the potential development of a deterrent bomb.
Reaction to Hiroshima & Nagasaki: He was profoundly disturbed by the devastation. He wrote a public letter to the United Nations proposing a world government and actively worked for world peace through politics.
Chronological Order of Einstein’s Life Facts
| Order | Fact / Event Description |
|---|---|
| [1] | Einstein is born in the German city of Ulm. |
| [2] | Einstein attends a high school in Munich. |
| [3] | Einstein’s family moves to Milan. |
| [4] | Tired of the school’s regimentation, Einstein withdraws from school. |
| [5] | Einstein joins a University in Zurich where he meets Mileva. |
| [6] | He works in a patent office as a technical expert. |
| [7] | Einstein publishes his special theory of relativity. |
| [8] | He provides a new interpretation of gravitation. |
| [9] | He is awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. |
| [10] | When Hitler comes to power, Einstein leaves Germany for the United States. |
| [11] | Einstein writes a letter to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt warning against Germany’s atomic bomb project. |
| [12] | Einstein dies. |
Thinking About Language
I. Word Substitutions (Synonyms in Context)
| Sentence / Phrase | Substitution Word |
|---|---|
| …the marriage faltered. | became weak |
| …constantly at odds with people… | in disagreement |
| …newspapers proclaimed his work… | declared |
| …agitating for an end to arms buildup. | campaigning |
| …left the school for good. | permanently |
| …physicists in an uproar. | in a state of commotion |
| …appealed to the dashing young man… | interested |
II. Participial Clauses Exercise
| Original Sentence Context | Completed with Participial Clause |
|---|---|
| Firefighters put out fire (worked round the clock) | Working round the clock, the firefighters finally put out the fire. |
| Watched sunset above mountain (noticed colors blending) | She watched the sunset above the mountain, noticing the colours blending softly into one another. |
| Excited horse pawed ground (neighed continually) | The excited horse pawed the ground rapidly, neighing continually. |
| Found myself in Bangalore (taken wrong train) | Having taken the wrong train, I found myself in Bangalore, instead of Benaras. |
| Desperate to get to bathroom (not bathed for two days) | Having not bathed for two days, I was desperate to get to the bathroom. |
| Stone steps needed to be replaced (worn down) | The stone steps, being worn down, needed to be replaced. |
| Actor received letters from fans (asked for photograph) | The actor received hundreds of letters from his fans, asking him to send them his photograph. |
Writing Newspaper Reports & Dictation
Newspaper Report: Student Unearths Einstein Manuscript
NETHERLANDS, 21 AUGUST 2005: Surprisingly, an original handwritten Albert Einstein manuscript has been unearthed by a student at a university in the Netherlands.
A student in the University of the Netherlands, Rowdy Boeynik, was researching papers belonging to an old friend of Einstein when he stumbled upon the manuscript. Fingerprints of Einstein have reportedly been traced on these research papers. The yellowed 16-page German manuscript was dated December 1924.
The document, titled ‘Quantum theory of the monatomic ideal gas’, contains Einstein’s work on what is now known as the Bose-Einstein condensation. It discusses the behavior of atoms at low temperatures and is considered the last major work of the scientific genius.
Authorities confirmed that the manuscript will be kept at Leyden University, where Einstein was awarded his Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921.
Dictation Passages: Chaplin & Einstein Anecdotes
In 1931, Charlie Chaplin invited Albert Einstein, who was visiting Hollywood, to a private screening of his new film, “City Lights”. As the two men drove into town together, passers-by waved and cheered.
Chaplin turned to his guest and explained: “The people are applauding you because none of them understands you, and applauding me because everybody understands me.”
One of Einstein’s colleagues asked him for his telephone number one day. Einstein reached for a telephone directory and looked it up. “You don’t remember your own number?” the man asked, startled.
“No,” Einstein answered. “Why should I memorise something I can so easily get from a book?” (In fact, Einstein claimed never to memorise anything which could be looked up in less than two minutes.)