Ten Obscure Factoids Concerning Albert Einstein

1. He Liked His Feet Naked

“When I was young, I found out that the big toe always ends up making a hole in the sock,” he once said. “So I stopped wearing socks.” Einstein was also a fanatical slob, refusing to “dress properly” for anyone. Either people knew him or they didn’t, he reasoned – so it didn’t matter either way.

2. He Hated Scrabble

Aside from his favourite past-time sailing (“the sport which demands the least energy”), Einstein shunned any recreational activity that required mental agility. As he told the New York Times, “When I get through with work I don’t want anything that requires the working of the mind.”

Pressable photonic crystals produce full-colour fingerprints and promise enhanced security

Experiment reveals layers of data missed by traditional ink fingerprints

In the future, law enforcement officials may take full-colour fingerprints using new technology developed by a University of Toronto-led team of international researchers.

 

Far from the basic black-and-white fingerprints collected today, the new technology would use elastic photonic crystals to capture data-rich fingerprints in multiple colours, but the fingerprinting technique is just one potential application for the new technology. A paper on the new research is featured on the cover of the current issue of the journal Nature Materials.