Albert Einstein died at Princeton Hospital in the early hours of April 18, 1955, having requested cremation and no memorializing of his remains. Pathologist Thomas Harvey performed the autopsy and, without authorization, extracted and preserved Einstein's brain, later cutting it into more than 200 pieces sent to researchers worldwide. Studies conducted decades later reported unusual features in brain structure, though scientists remain divided on what, if anything, they reveal about intelligence.
Albert Einstein died at age 76 from an abdominal aortic aneurysm he had refused to have surgically treated, telling doctors he wanted to leave when he chose. He had explicitly requested his body be cremated and his ashes scattered secretly to avoid his grave becoming a monument.
Thomas Harvey, the pathologist on duty, had other ideas. During the autopsy he removed Einstein's brain, weighed it, photographed it, and eventually obtained grudging retroactive permission from Einstein's son, Hans Albert, on the condition it be used purely for scientific research. Harvey then lost his hospital job over the unauthorized removal, and spent decades carrying jars containing slices of the brain across the country in the trunk of his car, occasionally mailing samples to researchers.
Decades later, studies of the preserved tissue reported an unusually high density of glial cells and an atypically shaped parietal lobe, structures some scientists speculated might relate to spatial reasoning, though the small sample size and lack of comparable control brains make such conclusions scientifically shaky. The brain's odyssey, chronicled in the book 'Driving Mr. Albert,' remains one of science history's strangest sagas.