Albert Einstein Lefties are often considered creative, so it's no surprise that many famous inventors and great minds were left-handed, including Einstein, Marie Curie, Ben Franklin, and Henry Ford. Bill Gates is also a southpaw.
Einstein wrote with his right hand, and authoritative sources state flatly that he was right-handed. An autopsy on Einstein's brain showed a symmetry between the two hemispheres, rather than a left-sided dominance as is typical of most right-handed people or a right-sided dominance as found in most left-handed people.
Yes, Albert Einstein was ambidextrous, which means he was able to use both his left and right hands equally well. Einstein was known to use his left hand for writing, but he was also able to use his right hand for tasks such as drawing and playing the violin.
Billionaire Bill Gates and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerburg are left-handers.
Many claim that Albert Einstein was right handed therefore all participants examined were right handed. Even though this may be the case, an autopsy of Einstein's brain shows that neither hemisphere of his brain shows any signs of dominance.
Einstein was surprisingly candid to Elsa about his extramarital affairs. Between the mid-1920s and his emigration to the US in 1933, there were several women in his life: a Margarete, an Estella, two women called Toni and an Ethel. He shared holidays with them, read books and attended concerts.
In fact, the difference is 90:10. This means that dyslexia may be more commonly found in left-handed people but the relationship is not necessarily causal.
Most of the current research suggests that left-handedness has an epigenetic marker—a combination of genetics, biology and the environment. Because the vast majority of the population is right-handed, many devices are designed for use by right-handed people, making their use by left-handed people more difficult.
As demonstrated with her regal right-handed wave, our current monarch, Queen Elizabeth, is no southpaw — but plenty of her relatives/ancestors are/were. These include her great-grandmother Queen Victoria, her dad King George VI, her mum the Queen Mum, and her grandson, William.
Lefties are often considered creative, so it's no surprise that many famous inventors and great minds were left-handed, including Einstein, Marie Curie, Ben Franklin, and Henry Ford. Bill Gates is also a southpaw.
Slightly Lower IQ, Higher Creativity
This symmetric brain activity comes at a cost: ambidextrous people score slightly lower on IQ tests than those with a dominant hand. They have lower ability in reasoning, math, and memory. But it's also true that ambidextrous people tend to do better in sports, arts, and music.
IQ test experts estimate his IQ was somewhere between 160 and 180, which is quite high. Some people estimate his IQ was just over 200, hovering around 205. However, 160-180 is the more commonly estimated range. Only one in over 11,000 people score a 160, and only one in every 3.5 million people score a 180.
Leonardo da Vinci is one of history's most famous lefties. He was known by his contemporaries as “mancino”—Italian slang for a left-handed person—and experts today use signs of left-handedness to authenticate the artist's work, particularly his drawings.
Elementary school records show he was a gifted child, particularly in maths, physics, and violin playing. He rebelled against formal education by rote learning and was expelled at the age of 15 (reputedly just before he dropped out). His family moved to Italy, mainly for business reasons.
Here are famous left-handed people, including Oprah, Prince William.
The Left-handed Royals
Middleton has a right hand bag, but she is usually left-handed when attending royal events. Princess Diana, like Prince Philip and Prince Charles, is a right-handed person. The extent of Queen Elizabeth II's father's left hand is unknown.
Left-handedness occurs in about 8% of the human population. It runs in families and an adoption study suggests a genetic rather than an environmental origin; however, monozygotic twins show substantial discordance.
In a Turkish study, 33% of blue-eyed participants were left-handed, compared to 19% of brown-eyed. This statistic is significant in the context of a blog post about Blue Eyes Statistics because it suggests that there may be a correlation between eye color and handedness.
If two parents are right-handed, their offspring has a 10% chance of being left-handed. However, if one or both parents are left-handed, the chance of their child being left-handed becomes higher at 18 to 22% and 27%, respectively.
In Japan, about one out of every ten people is left-handed. Therefore, left-handed people are the minority in society. There are also people who can only use one side of their body due to physical disabilities.
The researchers found that individuals on the autism spectrum were 2.49 times more likely to be left-handed than people without autism. Altogether, about 28 percent of individuals on the autism spectrum were left-handed as compared to about 10 percent in the general population.
Left Handedness in Research
In a study controlled for average intelligence (IQ), sex, and age, roughly 62% of those on the autism spectrum were not right-handed (i.e., they were more likely to be either left-handed, mix-handed, or of unclear handedness) compared to only 37% of the control sample population.
In a 2008 study, Alina Rodriguez, a psychology professor at Mid Sweden University in Östersund who studies handedness, brain development and ADHD, found that left- or mixed-handedness in children was linked to a greater risk of difficulty with language as well as ADHD symptoms.