Einstein was a 9w1 (so/sp)
Einstein quotes:
“I simply enjoy giving more than receiving in every respect, do not take myself or the doings of the masses seriously, am not ashamed of my weaknesses and vices, and naturally take things as they come with equanimity and humor. Many people are like this, and I really cannot understand why I have been made into a kind of idol.” – Albert Einstein, in Einstein, a Life by Denis Brian, p. 389.
“…we know from daily life that we exist for other people – first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent.” – Einstein, in Einstein, A Life, p. 196
“I feel so much a part of every living thing that I am not in the least concerned with where the individual begins and ends.” – Einstein, spoken to Heidi Born, wife of physicist Max Born Einstein, A Life, p. 159.
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Quotes from Einstein biographies:
Tradesmen found him lovable, polite, serene, kindly, gentle
and detached. Colleagues at Fine Hall used exactly the same
words to describe Einstein to friends. He was the new “saint”
of Princeton. When he patted a little girl on the head, every-
one in town grew shiny-eyed.
—
Elsa’s condition deteriorated through 1936. By December,
she was dying. Einstein spent many hours at her bedside, read-
ing and talking to her. But he had his emotions under firm
control. Although there were tears in his eyes, his head was
clear. “In this atmosphere of coming death,” said Infeld, “Ein-
stein remained serene and worked constantly.”
—
“Just to be with the Professor seemed to help you ease
tension,” said Fred Biallas, who had many tense moments
with the Princeton boat crews. “In other words, I think it
would have been impossible to have held a grudge or be riled
while talking to him. He was so serene himself that the feeling
seemed to pass on to you.”
—
Now, Einstein’s name surged in and out of the newspapers.
People saw him as a doughty old warrior in a do-or-die attempt
to stop the cold war and promote his world government. Let-
ters and statements tumbled out of his Mercer Street study.
Einstein, the theoretical physicist, dissolved into Einstein, the
saintly world citizen a kind old man devoting his last years
to bringing happiness to the earth.
—
That was the image Einstein put forward to the world. A
few newspapers sent reporters to Princeton to help build it up.
Friends and neighbors praised his humility and serenity,
his many kind deeds. The sweet stories were printed around
the world. The myth was the man.
—
Besides all this, Prague was a surly city. It was peopled
mainly with Czechs, Germans and Jews, and each group was
constantly insulting the other. To the irritation of the German
professors, Einstein would not pick sides. He thought such
bickering infantile. He stayed aloof, devoting all his time to
his job and to his private research. Students enjoyed the ses-
sions with Einstein in the physics laboratory. There was al-
ways an air of uncertainty; frequently his experiments did not
work.
—
—
Few in Prague had any notion of the extent of Einstein’s
obsession with physics. It even intruded into his music. He
needed to play well-turned, complete pieces. He wanted har-
mony in his music as well as in the universe. To him, this
meant Mozart. He played Mozart beautifully, and he played
Mozart often.
—
“He sought friends with whom he could play music or dis-
cuss ideas about the universe,” said Philipp Frank, the physicist
and Einstein biographer who was to replace Einstein in Prague.
“Yet he did not like to become so intimate with his friends
that they could in any way interfere with his freedom. His
attractive, frank and witty personality easily made friends, but
his predilection for isolation and his concentration on his artistic
and scientific life disappointed many people and estranged
some who had been, or at least believed themselves to be, his
friends.”
—
Einstein fairly brimmed over with life. Like a child, he liked
to sneak extra time in bed in the morning. Mileva would
finally get him out. He whistled merrily while he shaved and
dressed. He ate breakfast hungrily and walked off to the uni-
versity, twenty minutes away, with a jaunty stride. In the
late afternoon, before dinner, he spent time with his sons.
He liked to play with their toys. He loved to play his violin
while Hans Albert played a little tune on the piano, Edward
was only three then and just starting to plunk the piano. His
father said it would not be long before “Teddy” was playing
too. At three, Edward was already reading. Sometimes the
boys were naughty and Einstein spanked them. But he could
not stay angry. He preferred to laugh. Hans Albert thought
his father was “a riot.” But not when he was working. He hated
to be interrupted when he worked.
—
—
Those were good days and everybody was content and pros-
perous. The strife and hatred in other parts of Europe were
far away. Mileva wanted this happy time to last forever. She
was conscious of her brooding, but one day it would pass. The
occasional squabbles with Albert were not all her fault. He
had not changed basically since college. He was still infuriat-
ingly vague about worldly matters. He could also be stubborn.
If he reasoned something out to the last detail and made up
his mind one way or the other, nobody could budge him.
Take psychoanalysis, for instance. Albert had decided this
was worth investigating. He studied it, reasoned it, and found
it too inconclusive. After that, he refused to take it seriously.
—
European nations were picking sides in the squabble and nobody was looking ahead to the day of climax. It would be a big explosion because Germany was behind Austria and Russia backed Serbia.
Einstein was aware of this slow-burning fuse, but he hoped
it would be snuffed out in time. He convinced himself that his
work would be undisturbed, even in Berlin.
—
Einstein’s joy over his new advance in Relativity lasted
him a long time and kept him immune from worries about the
savagery of the world.
—
Hedwig Born, the gentle wife of the brilliant physicist Max
Born, used to talk over her troubles with Einstein. She was
a Quaker and the war sickened her. “His serenity gave me
peace of mind,” she said.
—
The older the physicist grew, the more he
lived in his intellect. He was now more obstinate about his
scientific convictions, but he was as indecisive as ever about
everyday matters that were unimportant to him. The analysis
also gave one explanation of why Einstein did not brood and
did not build up resentments. He had only flashes of hate or
other high emotion. Mostly, he was serene. He was able very
quickly to resign himself to personal disappointments, both in
physics and in politics.
—
—
An agreeable, childlike demeanor:
[Quoted from a past article (not mine) suggesting that Einstein was not a 5.]
It may seem heretical to question whether Einstein, that epitome of scientists, is actually a 5, the epitome of scientist personality types. Einstein was clearly an introvert and a shy person, like many 5s, but the other withdrawn types 4 and 9 can appear shy as well, particularly self-preservation subtypes. Many who knew Einstein were most struck not by his intellect, but his cheerfulness, child-like demeanor, agreeable good-humor, playfulness, plain-spokenness, and absent-mindedness. Close friends, neighbors, children, and complete strangers universally noted these qualities in him. These qualities, for better or worse, are often seen in healthy 9s, but it is rare for even a healthy 5 to be so widely seen in this way, for so long, and by so many people, and I challenge anyone to give me an example. One contemporary journalist said:
“…Einstein is a jolly fellow in company. He enjoys a good joke and readily breaks into peals of rollicking, childish laughter, which momentarily change his eyes into those of a child. His remarkable simplicity is so charming that one feels like hugging him or squeezing his hand or slapping him on the back…” (a jounalist quoted in “Einstein, a Life”, p. 151)
This is just one of many such reports. The writer Upton Sinclair noted:
“I report him as the kindest, gentlest, sweetest of men. He had a keen wit and a delightful sense of humor and his tongue could be sharp – but only for the evils of the world.” (ibid, p. 215)
A family friend, Thomas Bucky, recollected:
“With Einstein, there was always humor. Almost everything was turned to be funny. The face was always smiling …” (ibid, p. 290)
The founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud (a social 5), once spoke to Einstein for two hours. Afterward he judged Einstein to be:
“Cheerful, sure of himself, and agreeable … very pleasant. He understands as much about psychology as I do about physics.” (ibid, p. 157).
Stories about Einstein’s neglectfulness and absent-mindedness are legion in his biographies (e.g. forgetting his own address, failing to notice a broken vase in his house for 3 years, etc.). Both 5s and 9s can seem absent-minded, for different reasons, so this point does not decide the issue on its own, but just adds another wrinkle to our view of Einstein.
What 4 wing?
One might argue that Einstein’s gentle qualities came from having a strong 4 wing. However, Einstein’s emotionality lacked the drama of most 4s, and I can find almost no specific evidence of a 4 wing in Einstein. His emotionality seems to have been more positive than 4s, or 5w4s, who are more likely to explore both positive and negative extremes of the emotional spectrum. It is notable that other 5w4s, like Freud, had strong introspective tendencies which they used to great advantage, while Einstein did not, and wrote that introspection was not particularly important to him.
Comparison with other 5s:
Einstein lacked the intellectual combativeness of some prominent 5s. For example, Freud (a social 5) fought mightily with dissenters, and had titanic disagreements with professional collaborators such as Jung and Adler. Einstein, by contrast, seems to have maintained relatively serene friendships, both personal and professional, throughout his life, despite having prominent critics and disbelievers (e.g. Nikola Tesla). Of course, Einstein’s profession, physics, is based more on empirical verification than Freud’s arena, and hence Einstein had less need to assert personal authority to prove his point. But Einstein’s interests in later life expanded into the political sphere when he became interested in world peace and Zionism. Even in this more politically charged arena, he still coexisted amiably with an wide range of people.
Unification and World Peace:
Science is an intellectual pursuit, which attracts many 5s. But science is also about explaining nature, which draws many 9s. Einstein’s Theory of Relativity is particularly notable for its pervasive unifying principles: it weaves time and space together, and equates mass with energy (E=mc2). But Einstein didn’t stop there – he spent the last decades of his life searching for a grand unified theory of physics, as well as world peace; both were attempts to resolve conflict in the world. Today many physicists are seeking a grand unified theory of physics, but Einstein was one of the first to see it as an important goal, possibly because his personality was already oriented in that direction.
Couldn’t Einstein be an extremely healthy 5w4, who overcame the cynicism of the average 5 and the inner emotional turmoil of the average 4? Perhaps, but Einstein did have some unhealthy qualities, including his absent-mindedness, and benign neglect of his first wife and their two children. I find it hard to believe that any 5 can be both healthy enough to transcend the average 5’s cynicism and acquire an upbeat and soothing 9-like effect on others, while also deteriorating so much as to reject the 5’s alertness and adopt a 9-like absent-mindedness, neglect, and forgetfulness. It seems simpler to suppose that Einstein was simply a 9.
