When They Were Young
It’s that time of year again… Take your Kid to Work Day is rapidly approaching! This April 27th, parents and caregivers across the United States will bring their daughters and sons with them to their workplace to share their professional life and experiences and inspire our future generations. (We’re secretly hoping some of them are inspired to become physicists or historians of science!)
In celebration of Take your Kid to Work Day, we’re sharing a series of photographs of physicists when they were kids! Long before these now-famous physicists became experts in their fields, won Nobel Prizes, or went on to teach others physics, they were curious young children. Can you recognize some of the most prominent physicists in our April Photos of the Month?
If you are interested in sharing the wisdom of perhaps the most well-known physicist, Albert Einstein, with the budding scientist in your life, we recommend Dear Professor Einstein: Albert Einstein’s letters to and from children , edited by Alice Calaprice and with a foreword by Albert Einstein’s granddaughter, Evelyn Einstein.
Portrait of the Bohr Family, including his brother Harald, sister Jenny, mother, and Niels, age four, on the right, circa 1889.
AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Margrethe Bohr Collection. Bohr Niels G1.
Portrait of Emilio Segrè (whose childhood nickname was Pippi) at age three, 1908.
Photograph by Flli D’Alessandri studio in Rome, courtesy of AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Gift of Rosa Segrè. Segrè Emilio A27.
Martinus Veltman writing simple equations on a chalkboard at age four, circa 1935.
AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives. Veltman Martinus B2.
Portrait of Wolfgang Pauli at age four in Vienna, Austria, July 1904.
CERN, courtesy of AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives. Pauli Wolfgang G2.
Mildred Allen standing on a chair at age two, 1896.
AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, gift of Christine Erb. Allen Mildred B1.
Ronald Mickens seated in a soap-box derby car at age eleven in Petersburg, Virginia, June 1954.
AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Ronald E. Mickens Collection. Mickens Ronald G2.
