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"Here in Pasadena it is like Paradise. Always sunshine and clear air, gardens with palms and pepper trees and friendly people who smile at one and ask for autographs." - Albert Einstein ( U.S. Travel Diary, 1930-31, p. 28 )

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Psychology and Neuroscience Achieve the Impossible: A New, Revolutionary Look Inside the Cerebellum- Driven Mind of Albert Einstein

• First Online: 24 June 2022

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• Larry Vandervert 4  

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Can psychology explain the unique brilliance of Einstein’s new conceptions of reality? This chapter examines the cerebellum’s role in learning internal models (models of everything that is going internal to the cerebral cortex), optimizing them through repetitive thought, and then sending them back to the cerebral cortex for testing. When in the cerebral cortex, these internal models may be blended to bring together visual-spatial working memory and verbal working memory in new ways. This blending that may occur suddenly in the cerebral cortex is used to explain how not only Einstein’s sudden intuitions but yours as well.

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Albert Einstein’s letter to Dr. H. L. Gordon, May 3, 1949. This is Item 58–217 in the Control Index to the Einstein Archive, which may be consulted at Mudd Library, Princeton University.

Albert Einstein letter to Dr. H. L. Gordon, May 3, 1949. This is Item 58–217 in the Control Index to the Einstein Archive which may be consulted at Mudd Library, Princeton University.

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Vandervert, L. (2022). Psychology and Neuroscience Achieve the Impossible: A New, Revolutionary Look Inside the Cerebellum- Driven Mind of Albert Einstein. In: The New Revolution in Psychology and the Neurosciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06093-9_1

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Albert Einstein: Biography, facts and impact on science

A brief biography of Albert Einstein (March 14, 1879 - April 18, 1955), the scientist whose theories changed the way we think about the universe.

• Einstein's birthday and education

Einstein's wives and children

How einstein changed physics.

• Later years and death

Gravitational waves and relativity

Additional resources.

Albert Einstein was a German-American physicist and probably the most well-known scientist of the 20th century. He is famous for his theory of relativity , a pillar of modern physics that describes the dynamics of light and extremely massive entities, as well as his work in quantum mechanics , which focuses on the subatomic realm. 

Albert Einstein's birthday and education

Einstein was born in Ulm, in the German state of Württemberg, on March 14, 1879, according to a biography from the Nobel Prize organization . His family moved to Munich six weeks later, and in 1885, when he was 6 years old, he began attending Petersschule, a Catholic elementary school.

Contrary to popular belief, Einstein was a good student. "Yesterday Albert received his grades, he was again number one, and his report card was brilliant," his mother once wrote to her sister, according to a German website dedicated to Einstein's legacy. But when he later switched to the Luitpold grammar school, young Einstein chafed under the school's authoritarian attitude, and his teacher once said of him, "never will he get anywhere."

In 1896, at age 17, Einstein entered the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich to be trained as a teacher in physics and mathematics. A few years later, he gained his diploma and acquired Swiss citizenship but was unable to find a teaching post. So he accepted a position as a technical assistant in the Swiss patent office. 

Related: 10 discoveries that prove Einstein was right about the universe — and 1 that proves him wrong

Einstein married Mileva Maric, his longtime love and former student, in 1903. A year prior, they had a child out of wedlock, who was discovered by scholars only in the 1980s, when private letters revealed her existence. The daughter, called Lieserl in the letters, may have been mentally challenged and either died young or was adopted when she was a year old. Einstein had two other children with Maric, Hans Albert and Eduard, born in 1904 and 1910, respectively.

Einstein divorced Maric in 1919 and soon married his cousin Elsa Löwenthal, with whom he had been in a relationship since 1912.

Einstein obtained his doctorate in physics in 1905 — a year that's often known as his annus mirabilis ("year of miracles" in Latin), according to the Library of Congress . That year, he published four groundbreaking papers of significant importance in physics.

The first incorporated the idea that light could come in discrete particles called photons. This theory describes the photoelectric effect , the concept that underpins modern solar power. The second explained Brownian motion, or the random motion of particles or molecules. Einstein looked at the case of a dust mote moving randomly on the surface of water and suggested that water is made up of tiny, vibrating molecules that kick the dust back and forth. 

The final two papers outlined his theory of special relativity, which showed how observers moving at different speeds would agree about the speed of light, which was a constant. These papers also introduced the equation E = mc^2, showing the equivalence between mass and energy. That finding is perhaps the most widely known aspect of Einstein's work. (In this infamous equation, E stands for energy, m represents mass and c is the constant speed of light).

In 1915, Einstein published four papers outlining his theory of general relativity, which updated Isaac Newton's laws of gravity by explaining that the force of gravity arose because massive objects warp the fabric of space-time. The theory was validated in 1919, when British astronomer Arthur Eddington observed stars at the edge of the sun during a solar eclipse and was able to show that their light was bent by the sun's gravitational well, causing shifts in their perceived positions.

Related: 8 Ways you can see Einstein's theory of relativity in real life

In 1921, he won the Nobel Prize in physics for his work on the photoelectric effect, though the committee members also mentioned his "services to Theoretical Physics" when presenting their award. The decision to give Einstein the award was controversial because the brilliant physicist was a Jew and a pacifist. Anti-Semitism was on the rise and relativity was not yet seen as a proven theory, according to an article from The Guardian .

Einstein was a professor at the University of Berlin for a time but fled Germany with Löwenthal in 1933, during the rise of Adolf Hitler. He renounced his German citizenship and moved to the United States to become a professor of theoretical physics at Princeton, becoming a U.S. citizen in 1940.

During this era, other researchers were creating a revolution by reformulating the rules of the smallest known entities in existence. The laws of quantum mechanics had been worked out by a group led by the Danish physicist Niels Bohr , and Einstein was intimately involved with their efforts.

Bohr and Einstein famously clashed over quantum mechanics. Bohr and his cohorts proposed that quantum particles behaved according to probabilistic laws, which Einstein found unacceptable, quipping that " God does not play dice with the universe ." Bohr's views eventually came to dominate much of contemporary thinking about quantum mechanics.

Einstein's later years and death

After he retired in 1945, Einstein spent most of his later years trying to unify gravity with electromagnetism in what's known as a unified field theory . Einstein died of a burst blood vessel near his heart on April 18, 1955, never unifying these forces.

Einstein's body was cremated and his ashes were spread in an undisclosed location, according to the American Museum of Natural History . But a doctor performed an unauthorized craniotomy before this and removed and saved Einstein's brain. 

The brain has been the subject of many tests over the decades, which suggested that it had extra folding in the gray matter, the site of conscious thinking. In particular, there were more folds in the frontal lobes, which have been tied to abstract thought and planning. However, drawing any conclusions about intelligence based on a single specimen is problematic. 

Related: Where is Einstein's brain?

In addition to his incredible legacy regarding relativity and quantum mechanics, Einstein conducted lesser-known research into a refrigeration method that required no motors, moving parts or coolant. He was also a tireless anti-war advocate, helping found the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists , an organization dedicated to warning the public about the dangers of nuclear weapons . 

Einstein's theories concerning relativity have so far held up spectacularly as a predictive models. Astronomers have found that, as the legendary physicist anticipated, the light of distant objects is lensed by massive, closer entities, a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing, which has helped our understanding of the universe's evolution. The James Webb Space Telescope , launched in Dec. 2021, has utilized gravitational lensing on numerous occasions to detect light emitted near the dawn of time , dating to just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang.

In 2016, the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory also announced the first-ever direct detection of gravitational waves , created when massive neutron stars and black holes merge and generate ripples in the fabric of space-time. Further research published in 2023 found that the entire universe may be rippling with a faint "gravitational wave background," emitted by ancient, colliding black holes.

Find answers to frequently asked questions about Albert Einstein on the Nobel Prize website. Flip through digitized versions of Einstein's published and unpublished manuscripts at Einstein Archives Online. Learn about The Einstein Memorial at the National Academy of Sciences building in Washington, D.C. 

This article was last updated on March 11, 2024 by Live Science editor Brandon Specktor to include new information about how Einstein's theories have been validated by modern experiments.

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Adam Mann is a freelance journalist with over a decade of experience, specializing in astronomy and physics stories. He has a bachelor's degree in astrophysics from UC Berkeley. His work has appeared in the New Yorker, New York Times, National Geographic, Wall Street Journal, Wired, Nature, Science, and many other places. He lives in Oakland, California, where he enjoys riding his bike. 

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• Problematic Thinker His brain was eclpsed by other body parts concerning women. His wife worked to support him through school, forfeiting her own education until later, then he repaid her by having an affair with his much younger cousin and divorcing the wife. Quite an honorable little guy. Reply

Problematic Thinker said: His brain was eclpsed by other body parts concerning women. His wife worked to support him through school, forfeiting her own education until later, then he repaid her by having an affair with his much younger cousin and divorcing the wife. Quite an honorable little guy.

admin said: So much more than funny hair. Albert Einstein: The Life of a Brilliant Physicist : Read more

• William Madden Albert Einstein was never, ever a "professor of physics" at Princeton University. At the time, Princeton, like most Ivy League universities, was highly anti-Semitic and either forbad the hiring of Jewish faculty or enforced a quota on their number. Einstein accepted a position at the newly established Institute For Advanced Study, headquartered in the the town of Princeton but legally and operationally distinct from the university. At the time, this was not known to be a particularly elite appointment, the Institute having no track record whatsoever. Its ability to attract many of the finest minds in their fields quickly changed that perception. (Nevertheless, Richard Feynman, years later, was highly critical of its cloistered atmosphere and, in science at least, its disconnection with the experimental side of the constituent disciplines. ) The Institute is a purely postdoctoral entity, granting no degrees and offering no classes (apart from ad hoc seminars). In the ensuing years, some faculty at the Institute have established collaborative relationships with faculty and postdoctoral fellows at Princeton University, including Einstein with Nathan Rosen (who later moved from the university to the Institute). However, the Institute remains to this day entirely independent of Princeton University. Reply

William Madden said: Albert Einstein was never, ever a "professor of physics" at Princeton University. At the time, Princeton, like most Ivy League universities, was highly anti-Semitic and either forbad the hiring of Jewish faculty or enforced a quota on their number. Einstein accepted a position at the newly established Institute For Advanced Study, headquartered in the the town of Princeton but legally and operationally distinct from the university. At the time, this was not known to be a particularly elite appointment, the Institute having no track record whatsoever. Its ability to attract many of the finest minds in their fields quickly changed that perception. (Nevertheless, Richard Feynman, years later, was highly critical of its cloistered atmosphere and, in science at least, its disconnection with the experimental side of the constituent disciplines. ) The Institute is a purely postdoctoral entity, granting no degrees and offering no classes (apart from ad hoc seminars). In the ensuing years, some faculty at the Institute have established collaborative relationships with faculty and postdoctoral fellows at Princeton University, including Einstein with Nathan Rosen (who later moved from the university to the Institute). However, the Institute remains to this day entirely independent of Princeton University.

• James DeMeo Einstein's theory of relativity was negated by the positive ether-drift experiments that both preceded and followed his earliest works. Michelson-Morely got a 5 to 7.5 kps ether-drift, Dayton Miller got 11.2 kps, and in more recent years Munera got an 18 kps ether wind detection. Each progressively higher value was at higher altitudes, indicating an altitude-velocity dependency, which affirmed a material, entrainable and dynamic ether. Einstein knew these experimental detections would destroy both his general and special relativity theories, and wrote in June 1921, to Robert Millikan: "I believe that I have really found the relationship between gravitation and electricity, assuming that the Miller experiments are based on a fundamental error. Otherwise, the whole relativity theory collapses like a house of cards" In July 1925, Einstein wrote to Edwin Slosson: "My opinion about Miller's experiments is the following ... Should the positive result be confirmed, then the special theory of relativity and with it the general theory of relativity, in its current form, would be invalid. Experimentum summus judex." Miller's ether-drift work was carried out over many years, using a far more sensitive apparatus than M-M, including high atop Mount Wilson. The Mt.Wilson experiments ran over four seasonal epochs, detecting variations in net ether-wind velocity, and overall proving that space is not empty, and light-speed is variable according to direction, and in accordance with the velocity of the emitter and receiver. Experimentum summus judex? In spite of a slap-jack amateurish effort to "prove" Miller's work was due to thermal artifacts -- an unethical effort supported by Einstein in the year before he died -- Miller's findings, and those of other ether-drift experimenters (there are many) who got positive results stand unchallenged. By ignoring such empirical results, the discipline of astrophysics has run itself into a metaphysical cul-de-sac, and today uses brute force firings of professors, dismissals of students and censorship to maintain its assertions of an increasingly complicated and bizarre universe. A prime example is how Halton Arp's findings challenging redshifts as distance indicators was systematically ignored, censored, and he then being forbidden additional telescope time. He was forced to move to Germany to sustain an academic post. There are other examples, many, who didn't have Arp's good reputation prior to making his heresy, and who suffered far worse. Einstein's "space time gravity warps", the "big bang", "black holes", and other bizarre metaphysical fantasies of modern astrophysics will eventually go the way of the Ptolemaic astrologer's epicycles. A good introduction to these facts of science history is found in the book "The Dynamic Ether of Cosmic Space: Correcting a Major Error in Modern Science". https://www.amazon.com/Dynamic-Ether-Cosmic-Space-Correcting/dp/0997405716 Reply

James DeMeo said: Einstein's theory of relativity was negated by the positive ether-drift experiments that both preceded and followed his earliest works. Michelson-Morely got a 5 to 7.5 kps ether-drift, Dayton Miller got 11.2 kps, and in more recent years Munera got an 18 kps ether wind detection. Each progressively higher value was at higher altitudes, indicating an altitude-velocity dependency, which affirmed a material, entrainable and dynamic ether. Einstein knew these experimental detections would destroy both his general and special relativity theories, and wrote in June 1921, to Robert Millikan: "I believe that I have really found the relationship between gravitation and electricity, assuming that the Miller experiments are based on a fundamental error. Otherwise, the whole relativity theory collapses like a house of cards" In July 1925, Einstein wrote to Edwin Slosson: "My opinion about Miller's experiments is the following ... Should the positive result be confirmed, then the special theory of relativity and with it the general theory of relativity, in its current form, would be invalid. Experimentum summus judex." Miller's ether-drift work was carried out over many years, using a far more sensitive apparatus than M-M, including high atop Mount Wilson. The Mt.Wilson experiments ran over four seasonal epochs, detecting variations in net ether-wind velocity, and overall proving that space is not empty, and light-speed is variable according to direction, and in accordance with the velocity of the emitter and receiver. Experimentum summus judex? In spite of a slap-jack amateurish effort to "prove" Miller's work was due to thermal artifacts -- an unethical effort supported by Einstein in the year before he died -- Miller's findings, and those of other ether-drift experimenters (there are many) who got positive results stand unchallenged. By ignoring such empirical results, the discipline of astrophysics has run itself into a metaphysical cul-de-sac, and today uses brute force firings of professors, dismissals of students and censorship to maintain its assertions of an increasingly complicated and bizarre universe. A prime example is how Halton Arp's findings challenging redshifts as distance indicators was systematically ignored, censored, and he then being forbidden additional telescope time. He was forced to move to Germany to sustain an academic post. There are other examples, many, who didn't have Arp's good reputation prior to making his heresy, and who suffered far worse. Einstein's "space time gravity warps", the "big bang", "black holes", and other bizarre metaphysical fantasies of modern astrophysics will eventually go the way of the Ptolemaic astrologer's epicycles. A good introduction to these facts of science history is found in the book "The Dynamic Ether of Cosmic Space: Correcting a Major Error in Modern Science". https://www.amazon.com/Dynamic-Ether-Cosmic-Space-Correcting/dp/0997405716

Mario Sanchez said: Thanks, for these irrelevant informations that are nothing important to understand the matter.

Pifou said: Feminist zealots in despair fellows. They think that there is always someone smarter that is being exploited while the other one steals all the glory. Do not worry about them here they are just dumb as bricks. They have been trying to push this story about Einstein for the last 40 years while themselves cant even make a good sandwich

• Mario Sanchez Who is really this participant adopting these names? (Shwinger_Feinmann) Reply
• View All 16 Comments

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New Information about Albert Einstein's Brain

1 Department of Anthropology, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA

In order to glean information about hominin (or other) brains that no longer exist, details of external neuroanatomy that are reproduced on endocranial casts (endocasts) from fossilized braincases may be described and interpreted. Despite being, of necessity, speculative, such studies can be very informative when conducted in light of the literature on comparative neuroanatomy, paleontology, and functional imaging studies. Albert Einstein's brain no longer exists in an intact state, but there are photographs of it in various views. Applying techniques developed from paleoanthropology, previously unrecognized details of external neuroanatomy are identified on these photographs. This information should be of interest to paleoneurologists, comparative neuroanatomists, historians of science, and cognitive neuroscientists. The new identifications of cortical features should also be archived for future scholars who will have access to additional information from improved functional imaging technology. Meanwhile, to the extent possible, Einstein's cerebral cortex is investigated in light of available data about variation in human sulcal patterns. Although much of his cortical surface was unremarkable, regions in and near Einstein's primary somatosensory and motor cortices were unusual. It is possible that these atypical aspects of Einstein's cerebral cortex were related to the difficulty with which he acquired language, his preference for thinking in sensory impressions including visual images rather than words, and his early training on the violin.

Introduction

Although the hypothesis that gross neuroanatomical features may reflect the mental abilities of exceptionally talented individuals has held a long fascination (Amunts et al., 2004 ; Witelson et al., 1999b ), efforts to address it are frequently viewed with hesitation for several reasons: First, such studies have historically been associated with phrenology, which was rightfully dismissed at the end of the 19th century as a pseudoscience (Gould, 1981 ). Second, the extent to which one of the traditional foci of these studies, brain size, is correlated with intelligence is difficult to assess (Roth and Dicke, 2005 ). Finally, although sulcal patterns have also been of interest, sulci usually do not correlate precisely with the borders of functionally defined cytoarchitectonic fields (Amunts et al., 1999 ; Zilles et al., 1997 ), some of which have been associated with exceptional competence, e.g., the extraordinary cytoarchitectonic features in Broca's area of Emil Krebs (1867–1930) who was fluent in more than 60 languages (Amunts et al., 2004 ). Despite these caveats, however, gross sulcal patterns have been associated with enlarged cortical representations that subserve functional specializations in mammals including carnivores (Welker and Campos, 1963 ) and primates (Falk, 1982 ), in a phenomenon called the ‘principle of proper mass’ (Jerison, 1973 ). Raccoons, for example, have greatly enlarged primary somatosensory forepaw representations in which the various palm pad and digit areas are demarcated from one another by sulci, and this remarkable cortical morphology has been attributed to the fact that these animals use their forepaws extensively to explore their environments (Welker and Campos, 1963 ).

It is also well known that dramatic changes may occur in sensory and motor cortices during a human's lifetime as revealed by medical imaging studies of Braille readers and upper limb amputees, which show that the cerebral cortex can exhibit long-term adaptations, including enlargement or relocation of specific representations such as those for hands (Amunts et al., 1997 ). Further, gross cortical features entailing sulcal depths or patterns have been identified in people with exceptional abilities such as highly trained musicians (Amunts et al., 1997 ; Bangert and Schlaug, 2006 ; Schlaug, 2001 ) and the world-renowned physicist who is the subject of this report, Albert Einstein (Witelson et al., 1999a , b ).

After his death in 1955 at 76 years of age, Albert Einstein's brain was removed from his body by Thomas Harvey (a pathologist), fixed, measured, photographed, and sectioned into 240 blocks that were embedded in celloidin (Lepore, 2001 ). Twelve sets of microscopic slides were prepared from the embedded blocks and distributed to various neuropathologists by Harvey (Lepore, 2001 ). It took decades, however, before papers began to appear on the histology or gross morphology of Einstein's brain. Although the neuron:glial ratio was determined to be significantly smaller in Einstein's left than right Brodmann's area (BA) 39 using the Kluver–Barrera stain (Diamond et al., 1985 ), this report has been criticized on methodological grounds (Hines, 1998 ). Another study determined that Einstein's prefrontal cortex had a greater neuronal density than those of normal controls because it packed approximately the same number of neurons into a thinner cortex (Anderson and Harvey, 1996 ), but one does not know the extent to which this was due to age, especially in people with superior intelligence (Shaw et al., 2006 ). Because the blocks of Einstein's brain were embedded in celloidin, histological studies using Golgi or other more revealing techniques would have been difficult if not impossible (Diamond et al., 1985 ). Einstein's cerebral cortex was thin (Anderson and Harvey, 1996 ) and had widened sulci, which were normal for his age (Magnotta et al., 1999 ). His brain mass of 1230 g (Witelson et al., 1999b ) was also unexceptional. Gross anatomical studies of Einstein's brain included identifications for a number of sulci that were indicated on photographs (Witelson et al., 1999a , b ), and provided measurements that were obtained directly from the brain, as well as others that were measured from calibrated photographs (Witelson et al., 1999b ). The table in which the measurements appeared, however, did not indicate which ones were from each source, or when they were collected.

After being removed and processed, what remained of Einstein's previously whole brain were histological slides, fragments of brain stored in a jar of formaldehyde, unspecified measurements that Harvey obtained directly from the brain, and calibrated photographs (Lepore, 2001 ). Nevertheless, sulci may still be identified and interpreted from the extant photographs of Einstein's whole brain, in much the same way that cortical morphology is observed and studied on endocasts from fossils by paleoneurologists. It is hoped that the newly identified gyral and sulcal features reported below for Einstein's cerebral cortex will be of interest to future scholars. Despite the fact that a large portion of Einstein's cerebral cortex was superficially unremarkable, regions in and near his primary somatosensory and motor cortices were highly unusual, and it is tentatively suggested that these may have contributed to the neuroanatomical substrates for some of his remarkable abilities.

Materials and Methods

Previously unrecognized gyral asymmetries and sulci are identified on published photographs of dorsal and lateral views of Einstein's whole brain (Witelson et al., 1999b ), using traditional landmarks (Brodmann, 1909 ; Connolly, 1950 ; Ono et al., 1990 ; Yousry et al., 1997 ) and the terminology of Connolly ( 1950 ). To the extent possible, certain observations are quantified by comparing them to the range of measurements for normal humans published in Ono et al. ( 1990 ) and by referring to data published by Steinmetz et al. ( 1990 ), Witelson et al. ( 1999a ), and Falk et al. ( 1991 ). Conflicting reports regarding Einstein's handedness have been resolved through photographic evidence that reveals Einstein held pens, manipulated objects, and played the violin like a right-hander (Wolff and Goodman, 2007 ). Results are tentatively interpreted in light of contemporary medical imaging studies (Bangert and Schlaug, 2006 ; Caulo et al., 2007 ; Falk et al., 1991 ; Steinmetz et al., 1990 ; Yousry et al., 1997 ) and published details about Einstein's linguistic and musical abilities (Bucky, 1992 ; Einstein, 1970 ; Hadamard, 1945 ; Wertheimer, 1959 ; Wolff and Goodman, 2007 ). The controversial question of whether or not Einstein had opercular cortices (Galaburda, 1999 ; Witelson et al., 1999a ,b) is revisited.

My identifications for cortical sulci are indicated on photographs of Einstein's brain (Figure ​ (Figure1). 1 ). As far as I know, this is the first time that the following sulci have been identified on such photographs: angular ( a 2 ), anterior occipital ( a 3 ), diagonal ( d ), descending terminal portion of the caudal Sylvian ( dt ), inferior frontal ( fi ), middle frontal ( fm ), superior frontal ( fs ), precentral inferior and superior ( pci , pcs ), marginal precentral ( pma ), medial precentral ( pme ), ascending ramus of Sylvian fissure ( R ), middle temporal ( tm ), and superior temporal sulcus ( ts ). The knob ( K ) representing hand motor cortex (discussed below) is also identified on Einstein's brain for the first time.

Photographs of Einstein's brain that were taken in 1955, adapted from Witelson et al. ( 1999b ) with identifications added here . (A) Dorsal view, (B) left lateral view, (C) right lateral view. Sulci: angular ( a 2 ), anterior occipital ( a 3 ), ascending limb of the posterior Sylvian fissure ( aSyl ), central fissure (red lines), diagonal ( d ), descending terminal portion of aSyl ( dt ), inferior frontal ( fi ), middle frontal ( fm ), superior frontal ( fs ), horizontal limb of the posterior Sylvian fissure ( hSyl ), intraparietal ( ip ), precentral inferior and superior ( pci , pcs ), marginal precentral ( pma ), medial precentral ( pme ), postcentral inferior and superior ( pti , pts ), ascending ramus of Sylvian fissure ( R ), subcentral posterior sulcus ( scp ), middle temporal ( tm ), superior temporal sulcus ( ts ), unnamed sulcus in postcentral gyrus ( u ). Other features: branching point between hSyl and aSyl (white dots, B ), hand motor cortex knob ( K , shaded in A , C ), termination of aSyl (white dots, S ).

The central fissure ( C , red in Figure ​ Figure1) 1 ) forms the boundary between the postcentral gyrus that represents primary somatosensory cortex and the precentral gyrus that contains motor cortex. On the lateral surface of the brain, Einstein's postcentral gyri were noticeably wider at their lateral compared to medial ends (Figures ​ (Figures1B,C), 1 B,C), contrary to measurements from 25 human cadavers, which revealed that the widths of pre- and postcentral gyri are very similar along their entire lengths and manifest little asymmetry between hemispheres (Ono et al., 1990 :152–153) (Figure ​ (Figure2). 2 ). Einstein's left postcentral gyrus contained a long unnamed sulcus ( u ) parallel to C (Figure ​ (Figure1B), 1 B), which suggests expansion in depth as well as width in the cortical regions that normally represent face and tongue (Penfield and Rasmussen, 1968 ). [Although this unnamed sulcus has been identified elsewhere as the retrocentralis transversus ( rct ) (Witelson et al., 1999a ), rct is much shorter and triradiate, as detailed by Connolly (Connolly, 1950 :208–209).]

Widths of pre- and postcentral gyri (mm) in left and right hemispheres from 25 human cadavers . Mean widths and ranges are summarized from Ono et al. (1990, pp. 152–153). S , primary somatosensory cortex; M , motor cortex. As illustrated, the range for the medial measurement for the right M is 9–22 mm rather than 9–12 mm, which is a typo in Ono et al. (C. D. Abernathey, personal communication). Note that, contrary to Einstein's brain in which the postcentral gyri are noticeably wider in their lateral compared to medial ends, particularly in the left hemisphere (Figures ​ (Figures1B,C), 1 B,C), the widths of pre- and postcentral gyri in normal individuals are very similar along their entire lengths and manifest little asymmetry between hemispheres.

The medial parts of Einstein's sensory/motor strip manifested several unusual features (Figure ​ (Figure1A): 1 A): On both sides, the precentral superior and inferior sulci ( pcs and pci ) were continuous, contrary to the normal condition in which the precentral sulcus is separated into two or more segments that characterized 98% of the 50 hemispheres scored by Ono et al. (1990:43). The medial extent of the left postcentral gyrus was unusually narrow (compare Figures ​ Figures1 1 and ​ and2), 2 ), while on the right it was interrupted by a knob-shaped fold of precentral gyrus, or ‘knob’ ( K ; shaded in Figures ​ Figures1A,C), 1 A,C), that protruded into C , causing the latter's middle ‘knee’ (genu) to merge superficially with the postcentral superior sulcus ( pts ). Although this knob of hand motor cortex is usually better defined in deeper planes (Caulo et al., 2007 ; Yousry et al., 1997 ), it sometimes appears on the brain's surface in the perirolandic region as an ‘omega sign’ (Bangert and Schlaug, 2006 ), which was the case for Einstein's right hemisphere ( K ; Figure ​ Figure1A). 1 A). Functional imaging studies on normal humans reveal that the knob extends from the surface to the base of the precentral gyrus, and is typically larger in the hemisphere that is contralateral to the preferred hand (Caulo et al., 2007 ; Volkmann et al., 1998 ). Although Einstein was right-handed (Wolff and Goodman, 2007 ), his superficial knob appeared larger in the right hemisphere, which may have been related to his musical training (see below).

My identifications of postcentral superior ( pts ) and inferior ( pti ) are based on their relationship to the intraparietal sulcus ( ip ) (Connolly, 1950 ). As reported by Witelson et al. ( 1999b ), Einstein's pti , which defines the caudal boundary of the postcentral gyrus, connected bilaterally with the termination ( S ) of the ascending limb of the posterior Sylvian fissure ( aSyl ), instead of coursing separately and more rostral to aSyl as is typical (Figures ​ (Figures1B,C). 1 B,C). Connolly discusses this variation and notes that, although rare, it is more likely to occur on the right hemisphere (Connolly, 1950 :210). Additionally, he illustrates this pattern in the left hemisphere of one child (p. 177).

My identification of the level at which aSyl and pti meet in Einstein's right hemisphere [at the white dot labeled S (the caudal termination of the Sylvian fissure) in Figure ​ Figure1C] 1 C] is noticeably lower than Witelson et al.'s ( 1999b , indicated by arrow in Figure ​ Figure1C). 1 C). It is not clear when or by whom the arrows were placed on Witelson et al.'s photographs, or what methods were used to determine the terminal points of the Sylvian fissures. Ideally, one would determine the point ( S ) of confluence of a Syl and pti by examining their submerged morphology (Connolly, 1950 ; Steinmetz et al., 1990 ). Einstein's gross brain is no longer available, however, and there is no indication that the relevant blocks/sections were analyzed for submerged sulcal patterns. My location for right S is based on a number of observations: In lateral view, the sulcus at this level appears relatively wide compared to the medially located and slightly arched pti that merges with it, similar to Einstein's left hemisphere (Figures ​ (Figures1B,C). 1 B,C). These locations result in lengths and positions of pts and pti that are relatively balanced in the two hemispheres (Figure ​ (Figure1), 1 ), and yield an aSyl that is shorter in the right than left hemisphere, consistent with a statistically significant finding in a 3D MR study on eight normal volunteers (Falk et al., 1991 ). A descending terminal ( dt ) portion of aSyl appears in Einstein's right hemisphere (compare with Ono et al., 1990 :148, photograph C).

The distance between the lateral ends of C and pti (which coincides with S in Einstein's brain) appears shorter on the right than left side, which is consistent with the reported distance of 3.5 cm between these two points in Einstein's left hemisphere and 2.0 cm in the right hemisphere [measurement 22 in Witelson et al.'s ( 1999b ) Table]. On the other hand, Witelson et al.'s lateral photographs of Einstein's brain (Witelson et al., 1999b :Figures ​ :Figures1B,C) 1 B,C) reveal an obviously longer distance between the lateral ends of C and pti (= S indicated by arrow) on the right, which contradicts measurement 22 in their Table. The lateral end of Einstein's left C is also more rostral than its counterpart on the right (compare Figures ​ Figures1B,C, 1 B,C, this paper), which is another significant asymmetry that characterizes normal people (Falk et al., 1991 ). These data suggest that the correct location for S in Einstein's right hemisphere is the one presented here.

Of 58 brains from normal humans that could be scored bilaterally, a pattern of pti connecting with S similar to Einstein's appeared in 8 (13.7%) of the right hemispheres and 1 (1.7%) of the left hemispheres, but never appeared in both hemispheres of the same brain (Steinmetz et al., 1990 ). If one generalizes from this sample and makes the assumption that the left and right occurrences are independent, then the odds of it occurring on both sides of one individual's brain (as it did on Einstein's) are 0.137 × 0.017 = 0.002 (or 0.2 of 1%). Because of this unusual sulcal pattern, Einstein's aSyls were not capped by continuous supramarginal gyri (Figure ​ (Figure3) 3 ) that represent an important language area in the left hemisphere, Brodmann's area 40 (BA 40, Brodmann, 1909 ). As discussed below, this morphology may have been related to Einstein's delayed acquisition and use of language.

(A) Typical distribution of Brodmann's areas 39, 40, and 43 (Brodmann, 1909 ). BA 40 constitutes the supramarginal gyrus, which caps the fissure between B and S . A minimal region that encloses BA 40 may be defined by the Sylvian fissure, and lines that connect the end of scp with S and the latter with the end of an unnamed sulcus that extends caudally from B . (B) These landmarks are available in Einstein's left hemisphere and enclose an area that probably approximates a minimal surface representation of BA 40. A supramarginal gyrus containing BA 40 did not cap aSyl , however, because the latter was continuous with pti .

Did einstein have parietal opercula?

Whether or not Einstein had parietal opercula has been debated (Galaburda, 1999 ; Witelson et al., 1999a , b ). The term ‘operculum’ derives from the Latin operire , which means to close or shut and refers to a lid or cover. Cortical opercula begin to develop around the fifth month in the human fetus as parietal, temporal and, eventually, frontal cortices expand and gradually cover the (previously) exposed insula (Connolly, 1950 ). Normally, the parietal operculum is located between the lateral end of C and the termination of aSyl and includes lateral portions of the inferior postcentral gyrus (BA 43) and rostral supramarginal gyrus (BA 40) (Steinmetz et al., 1990 ) (Figure ​ (Figure3A), 3 A), although most of it is buried on the superior bank within the Sylvian fissure (Eickhoff et al., 2006 ).

It is reasonable to speculate that the supramarginal gyrus began to develop prenatally in Einstein's left hemisphere but was subsequently divided when pti merged with aSyl , consistent with Connolly's discussion of the order in which prenatal opercula and postcentral sulci develop (Connolly, 1950 ). Numerous landmarks suggest that the cortex directly rostral to aSyl in Einstein's brain was part of BA 40 and that a separate portion of this area also occurred caudal to aSyl above an unnamed sulcus stemming from the branching point ( B ) in the left hemisphere at the junction of the horizontal limb of the posterior Sylvian fissure ( hSyl ) and aSyl (Brodmann, 1909 ; Eickhoff et al., 2006 ; Steinmetz et al., 1990 ) (Figure ​ (Figure3B). 3 B). BA 40 and 43 normally share a border near the subcentral posterior sulcus ( scp ) (Brodmann, 1909 ; Eickhoff et al., 2006 ), which is present on Einstein's left hemisphere and permits tentative identification of BA 43 in addition to BA 40 (Figure ​ (Figure3B). 3 B). These observations support Galaburda's identification of a left parietal operculum in Einstein's brain (Galaburda, 1999 ).

Einstein's right insula is also covered with an operculum that probably contained BA 43 which may, or may not, have extended onto the brain's lateral surface (Eickhoff et al., 2006 ) (Figure ​ (Figure1C). 1 C). One would need to examine the cytoarchitecture within the superior bank of the Sylvian fissure in this hemisphere to determine whether the operculum also contained part of BA 40 (Eickhoff et al., 2006 ). Given how the brain was processed, however, it seems unlikely that such a study could be done.

Exceptional abilities are sometimes manifested in cortical symmetries or asymmetries that depart from those of normal controls (Amunts et al., 2004 ). For example, the better performances of musicians with perfect pitch are associated with relatively enlarged left planum temporale (Schlaug et al., 1995 ), and early commencement of musical training is sometimes associated with pronounced structural differences in hand representations (Schlaug, 2001 ) that are reflected in cortical sulcal patterns (Bangert and Schlaug, 2006 ). Professional keyboard players have deeper and more symmetrical (in terms of depth) central sulci within their sensorimotor hand representations than normal controls, which appears to be related to increased skill of the nondominant hand as a result of early training (Amunts et al., 1997 ; Jancke et al., 1997 ). The cytoarchitecture of BA 44 was more symmetric in the polyglot Emil Krebs than in controls, while that of his BA 45 was more asymmetric than theirs (Amunts et al., 2004 ).

Einstein's brain was characterized by an unusual mixture of symmetrical and asymmetrical features. A rare convergence of the postcentral sulcus with the Sylvian fissure (Steinmetz et al., 1990 ) occurred bilaterally in Einstein's brain (Witelson et al., 1999b ), which nonetheless manifested a marked degree of asymmetry in the width of the lateral postcentral gyrus that favored the left hemisphere, and a pronounced knob in the right hemisphere. These asymmetries together with an atypical lack of uniformity in the medial and lateral widths of the pre-and post central sulci (Ono et al., 1990 ) indicate that the gross anatomy of Albert Einstein's brain in and around the primary somatosensory and motor cortices was, indeed, unusual.

Musicians have more pronounced cortical knobs than nonmusicians, and right-handed string-players (as opposed to pianists) tend to have differentially pronounced superficial knobs on their right rather than left hemispheres, especially if they began their musical training early in life (Bangert and Schlaug, 2006 ). Correspondingly, somatosensory representations for the left digits of right-handed violinists are larger than those of controls (especially if they began training before the age of 12), presumably because their performances engage their left digits more than the right ones that manipulate the bow (Elbert et al., 1995 ). Einstein's differentially enlarged knob ( K ) on the surface of his right hemisphere is consistent with the fact that he was a right-handed string-player who took violin lessons from age 6 to 14 years (Bangert and Schlaug, 2006 ; Bucky, 1992 ). Although there is no proof that musical training induces changes in hand representations of musicians, the correlation between early commencement of training and pronounced structural differences (Amunts et al., 1997 ), including superficially prominent knobs (Bangert and Schlaug, 2006 ), suggests that these features developed in response to individuals' lifetime experiences (Schlaug, 2001 ), which does not rule out a genetic component.

An earlier report concluded that Einstein's visuospatial and mathematical cognition may have been influenced by relatively expanded parietal regions (Witelson et al., 1999b ). Recent neuroanatomical and functional imaging studies suggest, further, that cortical features reported here may also have been related to Einstein's self-reported preference for thinking in sensory impressions including visual images rather than words (Einstein, 1970 ). Normally, BA 40 is one continuous region that is involved with short-term maintenance of phonemes and syllables during language tasks (Galaburda et al., 2002 ), and damage to the left supramarginal gyrus and its underlying white matter may result in a profound disability in which ‘words are no longer a means of expression of thoughts, although the individual may still be capable of thinking’ (Crosby et al., 1962 ). It is therefore tempting to speculate that the unusual superficial cleaving of BA 40 and seamless melding of its rostral portion with the postcentral gyrus in Einstein's left hemisphere (Figures ​ (Figures1B 1 B and ​ and3B) 3 B) may have been associated with his well-known delay at acquiring language and the fact that he repeated sentences to himself softly until the age of about seven (Wolff and Goodman, 2007 ).

As an adult, Einstein famously observed that ‘the words or the language, as they are written or spoken, do not seem to play any role in my mechanism of thought. The psychical entities which seem to serve as elements in thought are certain signs and more or less clear images which can be ‘voluntarily’ reproduced and combined’ (Hadamard, 1945 ). Einstein laughed when informed that many people always think in words (Wertheimer, 1959 ), and emphasized that concepts became meaningful for him ‘only through their connection with sense-experiences’ (Einstein, 1970 ). He was a synthetic thinker. Family members and friends have documented that, when stuck on a physics problem, Einstein would play the violin until, suddenly, he would announce excitedly, ‘I’ve got it!' (Bucky, 1992 ). It is interesting to contemplate that such synthesizing may have contributed to Einstein's insights, and that his extraordinary abilities may, to some degree, have been associated with the unusual gross anatomy of his cerebral cortex in and around the primary somatosensory and motor cortices. Although these views are speculative, the identifications of previously unrecognized cortical morphology on Einstein's brain will, hopefully, be of use to future scholars who have access to new information and methodologies.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

Marc Bangert of Harvard Medical School provided feedback on an earlier version of this paper. For other helpful correspondence, I thank neurosurgeon C. D. Abernathey; Albert Galaburda of the Beth Deaconess Medical Center, Boston; Elliot Krauss of University Medical Center, Princeton; Frederick E. Lepore of Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Jersey; and Barbara Wolff of the Albert Einstein Archives, Jewish National … University Library, Jerusalem. Kathryn O'Donnell helped with manuscript preparation, and Jonathan Lewis assisted in preparation of the images. This paper was completed while I was a 2008–2009 visiting scholar at the School for Advanced Research (SAR) in Santa Fe, New Mexico, for which I am deeply appreciative to SAR and its president, James Brooks.

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Brazilian hospital raises the bar for health research in Latin America

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A researcher examines confocal microscopy images at Einstein's new Education and Research Center. Credit: Leo Ramos Chavez via Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein

In the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, as doctors at Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein in São Paulo scrambled to save one patient after another, scientists in the institution’s research arm shelved their usual projects and focused on sequencing the virus and developing therapies to curb the country’s rising death toll. Less than three months after the first cases were identified in Brazil, the coronavirus had infected 23,955 people in the country, and killed 1,361 1 . São Paulo, Brazil’s most populous state, was hit hardest, and the staff at Einstein were determined to help.

After months of research and a clinical trial involving 289 patients with severe COVID-19, in June 2021 the researchers, in partnership with Pfizer, announced a breakthrough. They had discovered that tofacitinib, a drug originally approved to treat rheumatoid arthritis, had reduced risk of death or respiratory failure from COVID-19 by 37% 2 .

The finding changed how Einstein, and hospitals around the world, treated severe COVID-19. “It was very rewarding,” recalls immunologist Luiz Vicente Rizzo, Einstein’s research director. “We could see the patients coming out of the ICU.”

A research ecosystem

Rizzo credits Einstein’s ability to rise to the challenge of COVID-19 to collaboration between the hospital, its research institute and its medical school. Before the pandemic, Einstein had reconfigured itself to create an integrated research ecosystem in which the needs of the hospital and its patients drove scientific research, as well as the education of its students.

“One of the things that makes us different in Latin America is that we have the health-care excellence of the hospital beside us; that provides us with a goal,” says Rizzo. “Doing research in a university, you don't necessarily see the end to what you do.”

Having that collaborative system in place, Rizzo believes, positioned Einstein to respond to the pandemic. “We’d been preparing for that day, in a sense, with a lot of flexibility,” he says. The hospital also bolstered Brazil’s pandemic response by participating in Coalizão Covid, a coalition of Brazilian hospitals evaluating potential therapies.

The pandemic drove the institution’s development in other ways. Perhaps most notably, it spurred the hospital to further extend its reach to those using Brazil’s public health-care system. Einstein — which is best known for its private care, but which has been partnering with the public health system for more than 20 years — now sees more patients using the public system than those with private insurance, Rizzo says.

“People from Latin America come to São Paulo, especially when they have a condition that is difficult to diagnose or treat, because of this hospital,” says vascular surgeon and Einstein vice president Nelson Wolosker, who oversees research and innovation. Wolosker explains that the hospital was established in the 1950s as a philanthropic organization by the Jewish community to “give back after the good reception our grandfathers had here” during World War II, and it is now consistently ranked as one of the world’s leading hospitals. For the past three years, Einstein has been the only Latin American hospital featured in the top 50 of Newsweek’s list of the best health centres worldwide . That wasn’t always the case, adds Wolosker, who first visited the hospital when he was 10 years old, accompanied by his father, also a vascular surgeon at Einstein.

While the hospital focused on providing quality private medical care from the beginning, in 1988 the directors decided that, to better serve the community, it needed to conduct research and provide quality education in medicine. With that in mind, it created a research and teaching institute, and later a medical college. Today, Einstein’s clinicians often split their time between seeing patients, doing research and teaching. Last year, Einstein researchers published 1,300 papers.

Built for the future

Einstein’s four pillars — patient care, research, education and social responsibility — are now melded more closely than ever, thanks to the new Centro de Ensino e Pesquisa (Education and Research Center), completed in 2022. The sustainable building’s layout fosters collaboration, with modular laboratories that allow researchers of different disciplines to easily switch locations. Its proximity to the hospital encourages interaction between researchers, students and medical staff, says Wolosker.

The Education and Research Center features modular laboratories that encourage collaboration between scientists of different disciplines. Credit: Fabio H Mendez via Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein

Einstein invested 96.6 million reais (US$18.1 million) in research in 2021, a 30% year-on-year increase. The focus on building a complementary research ecosystem continues to pay off. The institution’s publications in indexed journals grew by 47% in the same year, while citations of articles produced by Einstein researchers rose by 111%.

Einstein’s research initiatives include an effort to harness CRISPR gene-editing technology to treat sickle cell anaemia, which is pervasive in Brazil. Another project is investigating CAR T-cell therapy to treat leukaemia and lymphoma. The process involves extracting a patient’s T cells, engineering them to recognize a tumour antigen, and then injecting the cells back into the patient to mount a targeted defence. These research strands are part of the Brazilian government’s PROADI-SUS programme, which supports projects to strengthen the country’s public health system.

Rizzo credits Einstein’s Scientific Advisory Board, established a decade ago, with elevating its research programme into the emerging powerhouse it is today. The group, comprising scientists from around the world, acts as a sort of peer review body for Einstein’s research-related decisions. “It has been instrumental in helping the institution find its way in science,” says Rizzo. The hospital’s new level of recognition helps it attract top talent and new funding, he adds, which in turn strengthens its research and patient care.

The board contributes expertise across virtually every field of medicine. “We have this amazing group of scientists who have seen, between them, just about everything in medical research for the past 100 years,” Rizzo says. “And they're very generous with their time.” While the board officially meets every four years, members exchange ideas about once a month, Rizzo adds. “They give valuable advice because they have no vested interest whatsoever, and they have seen everything.” The board has helped to ensure that Einstein’s research remains relevant to the hospital’s work.

Einstein Scientific Advisory Board member António Coutinho of the Gulbenkian Institute of Science in Portugal says he has witnessed the tremendous strides of Einstein’s science programme in recent years. “There have been dramatic changes, mostly in the volume and quality of the research.”

Coutinho got the chance to experience firsthand the quality of Einstein’s care a few years ago, when he needed care while visiting São Paulo. Ultimately, it’s the patients who benefit from Einstein’s growing research ecosystem. “They took care of me for a couple of days, and I was really impressed,” Coutinho says. “Quality of research is what separates a great hospital from a good one.”

To learn more about Einstein’s world-class patient care and research ecosystem, visit our homepage .

Marson, F.A.L. & Ortega, M.M. Pulmonology 26, 241-244 (2020)

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How light can vaporize water without the need for heat

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It’s the most fundamental of processes — the evaporation of water from the surfaces of oceans and lakes, the burning off of fog in the morning sun, and the drying of briny ponds that leaves solid salt behind. Evaporation is all around us, and humans have been observing it and making use of it for as long as we have existed.

And yet, it turns out, we’ve been missing a major part of the picture all along.

In a series of painstakingly precise experiments, a team of researchers at MIT has demonstrated that heat isn’t alone in causing water to evaporate. Light, striking the water’s surface where air and water meet, can break water molecules away and float them into the air, causing evaporation in the absence of any source of heat.

The astonishing new discovery could have a wide range of significant implications. It could help explain mysterious measurements over the years of how sunlight affects clouds, and therefore affect calculations of the effects of climate change on cloud cover and precipitation. It could also lead to new ways of designing industrial processes such as solar-powered desalination or drying of materials.

The findings, and the many different lines of evidence that demonstrate the reality of the phenomenon and the details of how it works, are described today in the journal PNAS, in a paper by Carl Richard Soderberg Professor of Power Engineering Gang Chen, postdocs Guangxin Lv and Yaodong Tu, and graduate student James Zhang.

The authors say their study suggests that the effect should happen widely in nature— everywhere from clouds to fogs to the surfaces of oceans, soils, and plants — and that it could also lead to new practical applications, including in energy and clean water production. “I think this has a lot of applications,” Chen says. “We’re exploring all these different directions. And of course, it also affects the basic science, like the effects of clouds on climate, because clouds are the most uncertain aspect of climate models.”

A newfound phenomenon

The new work builds on research reported last year , which described this new “photomolecular effect” but only under very specialized conditions: on the surface of specially prepared hydrogels soaked with water. In the new study, the researchers demonstrate that the hydrogel is not necessary for the process; it occurs at any water surface exposed to light, whether it’s a flat surface like a body of water or a curved surface like a droplet of cloud vapor.

Because the effect was so unexpected, the team worked to prove its existence with as many different lines of evidence as possible. In this study, they report 14 different kinds of tests and measurements they carried out to establish that water was indeed evaporating — that is, molecules of water were being knocked loose from the water’s surface and wafted into the air — due to the light alone, not by heat, which was long assumed to be the only mechanism involved.

One key indicator, which showed up consistently in four different kinds of experiments under different conditions, was that as the water began to evaporate from a test container under visible light, the air temperature measured above the water’s surface cooled down and then leveled off, showing that thermal energy was not the driving force behind the effect.

Other key indicators that showed up included the way the evaporation effect varied depending on the angle of the light, the exact color of the light, and its polarization. None of these varying characteristics should happen because at these wavelengths, water hardly absorbs light at all — and yet the researchers observed them.

The effect is strongest when light hits the water surface at an angle of 45 degrees. It is also strongest with a certain type of polarization, called transverse magnetic polarization. And it peaks in green light — which, oddly, is the color for which water is most transparent and thus interacts the least.

Chen and his co-researchers have proposed a physical mechanism that can explain the angle and polarization dependence of the effect, showing that the photons of light can impart a net force on water molecules at the water surface that is sufficient to knock them loose from the body of water. But they cannot yet account for the color dependence, which they say will require further study.

They have named this the photomolecular effect, by analogy with the photoelectric effect that was discovered by Heinrich Hertz in 1887 and finally explained by Albert Einstein in 1905. That effect was one of the first demonstrations that light also has particle characteristics, which had major implications in physics and led to a wide variety of applications, including LEDs. Just as the photoelectric effect liberates electrons from atoms in a material in response to being hit by a photon of light, the photomolecular effect shows that photons can liberate entire molecules from a liquid surface, the researchers say.

“The finding of evaporation caused by light instead of heat provides new disruptive knowledge of light-water interaction,” says Xiulin Ruan, professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue University, who was not involved in the study. “It could help us gain new understanding of how sunlight interacts with cloud, fog, oceans, and other natural water bodies to affect weather and climate. It has significant potential practical applications such as high-performance water desalination driven by solar energy. This research is among the rare group of truly revolutionary discoveries which are not widely accepted by the community right away but take time, sometimes a long time, to be confirmed.”

Solving a cloud conundrum

The finding may solve an 80-year-old mystery in climate science. Measurements of how clouds absorb sunlight have often shown that they are absorbing more sunlight than conventional physics dictates possible. The additional evaporation caused by this effect could account for the longstanding discrepancy, which has been a subject of dispute since such measurements are difficult to make.

“Those experiments are based on satellite data and flight data,“ Chen explains. “They fly an airplane on top of and below the clouds, and there are also data based on the ocean temperature and radiation balance. And they all conclude that there is more absorption by clouds than theory could calculate. However, due to the complexity of clouds and the difficulties of making such measurements, researchers have been debating whether such discrepancies are real or not. And what we discovered suggests that hey, there’s another mechanism for cloud absorption, which was not accounted for, and this mechanism might explain the discrepancies.”

Chen says he recently spoke about the phenomenon at an American Physical Society conference, and one physicist there who studies clouds and climate said they had never thought about this possibility, which could affect calculations of the complex effects of clouds on climate. The team conducted experiments using LEDs shining on an artificial cloud chamber, and they observed heating of the fog, which was not supposed to happen since water does not absorb in the visible spectrum. “Such heating can be explained based on the photomolecular effect more easily,” he says.

Lv says that of the many lines of evidence, “the flat region in the air-side temperature distribution above hot water will be the easiest for people to reproduce.” That temperature profile “is a signature” that demonstrates the effect clearly, he says.

Zhang adds: “It is quite hard to explain how this kind of flat temperature profile comes about without invoking some other mechanism” beyond the accepted theories of thermal evaporation. “It ties together what a whole lot of people are reporting in their solar desalination devices,” which again show evaporation rates that cannot be explained by the thermal input.

The effect can be substantial. Under the optimum conditions of color, angle, and polarization, Lv says, “the evaporation rate is four times the thermal limit.”

Already, since publication of the first paper, the team has been approached by companies that hope to harness the effect, Chen says, including for evaporating syrup and drying paper in a paper mill. The likeliest first applications will come in the areas of solar desalinization systems or other industrial drying processes, he says. “Drying consumes 20 percent of all industrial energy usage,” he points out.

Because the effect is so new and unexpected, Chen says, “This phenomenon should be very general, and our experiment is really just the beginning.” The experiments needed to demonstrate and quantify the effect are very time-consuming. “There are many variables, from understanding water itself, to extending to other materials, other liquids and even solids,” he says.

“The observations in the manuscript points to a new physical mechanism that foundationally alters our thinking on the kinetics of evaporation,” says Shannon Yee, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Georgia Tech, who was not associated with this work. He adds, “Who would have thought that we are still learning about something as quotidian as water evaporating?”

“I think this work is very significant scientifically because it presents a new mechanism,” says University of Alberta Distinguished Professor Janet A.W. Elliott, who also was not associated with this work. “It may also turn out to be practically important for technology and our understanding of nature, because evaporation of water is ubiquitous and the effect appears to deliver significantly higher evaporation rates than the known thermal mechanism. …  My overall impression is this work is outstanding. It appears to be carefully done with many precise experiments lending support for one another.”

The work was partly supported by an MIT Bose Award. The authors are currently working on ways to make use of this effect for water desalination, in a project funded by the Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab and the MIT-UMRP program.

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Interesting Engineering reporter Rizwan Choudhury spotlights a new study by MIT researchers that finds light can cause evaporation of water from a surface without the need for heat. The photomolecular effect “presents exciting practical possibilities,” writes Choudhury. “Solar desalination systems and industrial drying processes are prime candidates for harnessing this effect. Since drying consumes significant industrial energy, optimizing this process using light holds immense promise.”

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