Great Babies: Baby Einstein, Baby Feynman, Baby Schroedinger, and More

JF Ptak Science Books   Post 2425

Here's an interesting set of delightful photographs (and one painting) of some great scientists as babies and kids.  Many of them are obvious, I think, and you can see their developed and mature faces in themselves from very early on.  For example in the first photo is Niels Bohr, his arched eyebrows and halfways-kinda-grin already there at age 4 or 5.  Paul Dirac is gorgeous as a kid and he keeps those eyes throughout his life. The Einstein is an uncommon images, plucking him from a class photo--I guess you can see him in there, somewhere, though it isn't as Einstein-y as some of the other early photos of him where his eyes are just unmistakable.  Feynman looks like Feynman, sly and smart-as-hell; and the impish and sparkling Turing seems as he would be decades on.  On the other hand the fabulous Kurt Goedel baby could be almost anyone--though I have to say it isn't often you see photos with the baby's arm raised.  

Four of these came from a very nice post on exactly this topic at Kuriositas: (http://www.kuriositas.com/2011/10/famous-scientists-as-children.html) though even at the outset there are more science babies and kids together here than I can find elsewhere.  

Niels Bohr, 1890, age about 5. Source: http://www.nbi.ku.dk/english/www/niels/bohr/barndom/

 

Marie Curie   http://www.kuriositas.com/2011/10/famous-scientists-as-children.html

 

Charles Darwin at 7 in 1816. http://www.peterboyd.com/darwinyoung.htm

 

[Paul Dirac (1902-1984), in 1907, Image source]

 

Freeman Dyson http://www.towntopics.com/wordpress/2013/09/25/ias-program-pays-90th-birthday-tribute-to-maverick-scientist-freeman-j-dyson/

 

Einstein at 10 (middle) http://longstreet.typepad.com/thesciencebookstore/2012/09/einstein-at-10-school-photograph.html

 

Richard Feynman (left)  http://ysfine.com/feynman/fphoto.html

 

Enrico Fermi https://www.flickr.com/photos/fotovelvet/4995736309/

 

Kurt Goedel as a baby, with his brother.  http://www.univie.ac.at/bvi/photo-gallery/photo_gallery.htm

 

Stephen Hawking  http://www.bitrebels.com/geek/childhood-pictures-of-our-favorite-historical-scientists/

 

Robert Oppenheimer  http://www.kuriositas.com/2011/10/famous-scientists-as-children.html

 

 

Ernest Rutherford  http://www.rutherford.org.nz/biography.htm

 

 

Alan Turing [Turing image via ComputerWorldUK.] 

 

Erwin Schroedinger  http://www.zbp.univie.ac.at/schrodinger/ebio/bio1.htm

 

John von Neumann   http://www.kuriositas.com/2011/10/famous-scientists-as-children.html