ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Einstein's Blackboard

Okay kiddo, so you know how sometimes when you're working on a big project, you might use a whiteboard or a chalkboard to write down all your ideas and keep track of everything you need to do? Well, Albert Einstein was a really smart scientist who had lots of big ideas too, and he needed a special kind of chalkboard to help him work on them.

Einstein's chalkboard was called a blackboard because it was a big rectangle made of black slate. He used it to write down all sorts of things about physics, which is a kind of science that helps us understand how the world works. On the blackboard, Einstein would draw pictures and write equations to show how things like light, gravity, and space-time were related to each other.

And the really cool thing is that sometimes, Einstein would make mistakes on his blackboard! But instead of erasing them or trying to cover them up, he would just write "Blunder!" next to them and keep going. This taught other scientists that it's okay to make mistakes when you're working on something really complicated, and that even the smartest people in the world don't always get things right on the first try.

So there you have it, kiddo. Einstein's blackboard was a special kind of chalkboard that he used to write down all his ideas about physics, and even when he made mistakes, he wasn't afraid to keep trying and learning from them.