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Albert’s parents were Jews, but they were, it seems, not very strict in the faith. When the time came for Albert to go to school, when he was five years old, he was sent to the Catholic school, simply because it was near the family’s home. At the same age, Albert began to learn to play the violin under his mother’s guidance. The violin always remained important to him, and in later life he became quite a good amateur player.

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Albert was a quiet child. He had a normal childhood and there was little to characterize him as a future genius. In fact, he was late in learning to walk, and did not speak fluently until he was nine. At first he was even thought of as a somewhat backward child. All this had changed completely by the time he reached his teens. At the age of seven, Einstein started to learn algebra with his uncle Jacob, and by the age of thirteen he had mastered a good deal of mathematics. He had also started to study physics and philosophy under the guidance of Max Talmey, a friend some years older than himself. Talmey recommended that Albert should read the works of the great German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804). Later, Talmey wrote, “At that time he was still a child, only thirteen years old, yet Kant’s works, incomprehensive to ordinary mortals, seemed to be clear to him.” Yet to Albert’s teachers at school, this did not seem to be so. At the age of ten he

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