Vladimir Lenin lies in a mausoleum in Red Square in Moscow in a preserved state. But he has no brain. That鈥檚 because the Soviet government had it removed after he died in 1924. They wanted to have the brain examined scientifically to see how it differed from that of mere mortals. After all, someone who thought up something as clever as communism must have had a very special brain! The item in question was sent to Oskar Vogt, a well-known German neuroscientist, who spent a couple of years studying it. His conclusion? At least one part of the cerebral cortex had more and larger nerve cells than expected. Maybe it was in this area of the cerebral cortex that the concept of communism was born. Or maybe not.
Lenin鈥檚 brain was not the only one studied in search of physical signs of great intellect. Perhaps the most famous brain in the world belonged to Albert Einstein. Al died in 1955 and was cremated. But his son thought that such a wonderful brain was too hot an item to burn and decided it should be saved for research. An autopsy was performed on Einstein by Dr. Thomas Harvey at Princeton Hospital who removed the brain. Apparently, the brain was sectioned and examined, but the findings were not made public. Eventually the pieces were packed in two jars, which Dr. Harvey kept as a bizarre souvenir.聽
Sometime in the 1970s a reporter got wind of the Einstein brain business, tracked down Dr. Harvey and wrote an article on the weird affair. Dr. Harvey got all sorts of requests for samples, some of which he did provide to respected neuroscientists. Eventually three scientific papers were published about the brain, each one finding some differences between it and ordinary brains. There was nothing really dramatic, except for the fact that some parts of the brain had a greater density of nerve cells. Einstein鈥檚 brain weighed less than that of the average adult male, so certainly, in this part of the body, it is not size that counts!
Small or not, Einstein鈥檚 brain was spectacular. He always had a brilliant answer to a question. Reportedly, one time he was fed up by all the questions he was being asked about relativity and came up with a humorous analogy. "Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That鈥檚 relativity!" Whether Einstein actually said this is debatable. A careful check of his speeches, writings, and interviews turn up nothing. Neither does anybody know who came up with the quote, wrongly attributed to Einstein: 鈥淥nly two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.鈥� But I think the man with the most famous brain would have agreed.
