NCERT Solutions 09th English Chapter 4 A Truly Beautiful Mind

1. Here are some headings for paragraphs in the text. Write the number(s) of the paragraph(s) for each title against the heading. The first one is done for you.

Answer:
2.Who had these opinions about Einstein?
(i) He was boring.
(ii) He was stupid and would never succeed in life.
(iii) He was a freak.
Answer:
(i) Einstein’s playmates thought that he was boring.
(ii) Einstein’s headmaster thought that he was stupid and would never succeed in life.
(iii) Einstein’s mother thought that he was a freak.
3. Explain what the reasons for the following are.
(i) Einstein leaving the school in Munich for good.
(ii) Einstein wanting to study in Switzerland rather than in Munich.
(iii) Einstein seeing in Mileva an ally.
(iv) What do these tell you about Einstein?
Answer:
(i) Einstein left the school in Munich for good because he hated the regimentation of school, because of which he often had clashes with his teachers.
(ii) Einstein wanted to study in Switzerland rather than in Munich because it was more liberal than Munich.
(iii) Einstein found in Mileva an ally because she, like him, was against those people in his family and at the university with whom he was constantly at odds.
(iv) These tell us about Einstein that he loved freedom. He had his own view of life. He was liberal. He always did the things the way he wanted to.
4. What did Einstein call his desk drawer at the patent office? Why?
Answer:
Einstein called his desk drawer at the patent office the “bureau of theoretical physics” because it was the place where he used to store his secretly developed ideas.
5.Why did Einstein write a letter to Franklin Roosevelt?
Answer:
When the Nazis came to power in Germany, Einstein emigrated to the United States of America. Five years later, the discovery of nuclear fission in Berlin had American physicists in an uproar. Many of them had fled from Fascism, just as Einstein had, and now they were afraid the Nazis could build and use an atomic bomb. Einstein wrote a letter to Franklin Roosevelt to warn him of the consequences of the explosion of an atomic bomb.
6. How did Einstein react to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
Answer:
Einstein was deeply shaken by the extent of destruction caused in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He wrote a public missive to the United Nations. He proposed the formation of a world government to stop the use of nuclear weapons.
7. Why does the world remember Einstein as a “world citizen”?
Answer:
Einstein is remembered as a “world citizen” because of his efforts towards world peace and democracy. He was concerned about the consequences of the atomic bomb. He even wrote a public missive to the United Nations and proposed the formation of a world government to control the use of nuclear weapons. This shows him as a world citizen who was concerned about humanity.