Why size mattered for Einstein

Stephen Williams writes "Have a look at this BBC story. Examination of Albert Einstein's brain has revealed that a section of it is larger than average. " Kinda a fluff piece, but it is friday and this is kinda interesting. And I think its the first time that we've used Einstein's mugshot there on a story about him. The section in question is the parital lobes, behind the ears. Apparently they were larger then normal from a young age on. As well, his brain was about 15% wider across then average.

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Relativity? how about music instead?

[CodeShark]

(Cheap pun alert) So they're trying to RELATe the size of Einstein's brain to the intellectual actIVITY now? HAHAHAHAHA thump... (The sound of me falling of the chair to ROFLMHO...got that out of my system, I'm ready to be serious now).

Last week I watched a video presentation of a seminar discussion -- the subject being "music" and "learning". The speaker, Dr. Michael Ballam at Utah State University, related that part of what solved Einstein's early learning difficulties was that his mother purchased a violin for him, and as he began to learn to play, his learning abilities improved as well. Dr. Ballam also mentioned (quoting from biographers) that later in life Einstein thought of physics in nearly "musical terms."

Big laugh, right? Not really. According to neuroscientists, the parietal lobes of the brain seem to be the "interpreters" for sensory signals from other places in the brain: (vision, HEARING, motor, sensory and memory). [Thick quote alert... highlighting, mine] (from American neuroscientist Gerald Edelman's book Bright Air, Brilliant Fire):

• "Whatever the skill employed in thought - that of logic, mathematics, language, spatial or musical symbols - we must not forget that it is driven by the Jamesian processes, undergoes flights and perchings, is susceptible to great variations in attention, and in general is fueled by metaphorical and metonymic processes. It is only when the results of many parallel, fluctuating, temporal processes of perception, concept formation, memory, and attentional states are "stored" in a symbolic object - a sequence of logical propositions, a book, a work of art, a musical work - that we have the impression that thought is pure."

A final thought. Einstein was somewhat dyslexic, which is, in essence, where the brain is not correlating the senses correctly. Dr. Ballam's discussion showed how many times music is the great HARMONIZER that often makes the difference.

(Small bio note here: I am ADD (attention deficit disorder), but survived and even did well in school, so long as I was also involved in music because my spatial awareness went way up.)

Interesting stuff, eh?

P.S. I'm trying to see if the text of Dr. Ballams' seminar is available online, and will post a link if I find it.)