Albert Einstein was named one of the smartest person for the 20th century. In 1905, at age of just 26, he published the theory of relativity which superseded a 200-year-old theory of mechanics created by Isaac Newton.
So, what made Einstein so smart and how different was his brain from us?
Professor Dean Falk, from Department of Anthropology at Florida State University, has revealed the secret of Einstein's brain in the journal Brain. According to Falk, Einstein had an extraordinary corpus callosum, also known as the colossal commissure, which is a flat bundle of neural fibers connects the left and right brain.
Below pictures shows the left and right midsagittal sections of Einstein's brain.
"The
corpus callosum keeps each side of the brain informed about what the
other half is doing," says Falk.
The inter-brain connection allows our hands to coordinate and our bodies
to move with intention. But it also allows thoughts and ideas that are
generated in the right brain to be processed and expressed with
language, which originates in the left.
In 2010, high-resolution images of Einstein's
brain were discovered. Falk collaborated with Weiwei Men, from East China Normal University's Department of
Physics, using graphical method to measure the thickness and
number of nerves of Einstein's corpus callosum on the images. They then compared the result with normal people. "No matter who
you compare Einstein to, young or old, the right and left sides of his
brain were really connected," says Falk.
Convincing Nobel prize-winning physicists to submit themselves to brain
scans is clearly the next job for Falk's team. "It's the obvious thing
to do," she says. "It would raise the significance about how a really
big corpus callosum affects brilliance."
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