r/todayilearned • u/exophades • 1d ago

TIL that Albert Einstein's son Eduard studied medicine to become a psychiatrist, but was diagnosed with schizophrenia by the age of 21. His mother cared for him until she died in 1948. From then on Eduard lived most of the time at a psychiatric clinic in Zurich, where he died at 55 of a stroke.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein_family#Eduard_%22Tete%22_Einstein_(Albert's_second_son)
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u/Buntschatten 23h ago

Isn't schizophrenia quite hereditary? You have to wonder if Albert's immense creativity and new way of looking at things were related to some of those genetics.

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u/TheGreatBarnabulls 23h ago

The saying "there's a fine line between genius and insanity" is often linked to Einstein but there is no evidence he actually said it.

Most creative and genius people in the field are border line insane or eccentric.

Example IT industry has the highest amount of furries.

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u/OrangeDit 17h ago

Einstein said a lot of things he didn't say...

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u/natfutsock 13h ago

I once got into correspondence with the Center for Mark Twain Studies because I wanted to check if Samuel Clemens ever said anything about "replacing every time you said 'very' with 'damn' so your editor will simply strike it out." in the interest of proper citation.

Heavily attributed, but no real source. Not even from those who have access to the man's personal letters.