One hundred years ago this week, a young German physicist stood in the gym of the Andra school in the Austrian city of Salzburg explaining his groundbreaking work to the audience of his peers.

As he spoke, many of the 1,300 participants in the 81st Meeting of the Society of German Scientists and Physicians were baffled by the physicist’s findings.

The young physicist was Albert Einstein and the work he was delivering for the first time in the public forum was his theory of relativity. First published in 1905, the famous formula, E = mc ², would eventually revolutionize physics, but on the afternoon of September 21, 1909 it was met with skepticism. Even the most prominent physicists of the era who attended Einstein’s lecture – including Nobel laureates Max Planck, Johannes Stark and Max von Laue – did not fully understand the significance or future impact that the formula would have on the development of physics and science in general.

The rest, as the saying goes, is history. Despite the cool reception on that day, Einstein went on to a brilliant career and, in 1921, a Nobel Prize in Physics. Today, he is universally recognized as one of the greatest multi-disciplinary minds in world history, whose far-reaching vision paved the way to how we view gravity, time, space, and energy.

Many of Einstein’s contemporaries might have underestimated his out-of-the-box ideas, but time has proven them wrong. We have much to learn from Einstein, of course, and some of the lessons have nothing to do with physics. Rather, they teach us about the value of perseverance – staying the course despite the obstacles in our way – as well as the power of human curiosity and quest for knowledge that constantly push us to reach higher and farther.

Nothing expresses better those principles than two of Einstein’s own quotes: “The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing,” and “Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.”

And there is nothing relative about that.

For all the protests and controversy that preceded it, President Obama’s speech to America’s students this week turned out to be an inspirational and positive discourse. Despite alarming warnings from the President’s harshest GOP critics, his core message – stay in school, work hard, and follow your dreams – didn’t smack of any veiled political agenda.

On the contrary, it reiterated what many youths in this nation already know but sometimes don’t heed – that education is the key to success, even though the path might sometimes be bumpy, “and you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try,” the President said.

But perseverance will pay off – literally and figuratively speaking – in the end because, according to some published numbers, high school graduates will earn $143 more per week than high school dropouts. And college grads will make, on average, $336 more per week than high school graduates (and certainly MUCH more than high school dropouts).

Indeed, according to a survey by The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, a college education has become necessary for a good job and comfortable lifestyle. In the survey, 66 percent of those who did not go to college say they wished that they had, and 62 percent feel that having gone to college would have made a significant difference in their current standard of living.

Of course, at the end of the day, the value of education is not just about dollars and cents. It is also about fostering a sense of curiosity and knowledge, preparing us to face life’s challenges, opening our minds and enlarging our horizons. Educated people will have a positive and meaningful impact on society by helping build a strong economy and a healthier environment for everyone. As Martin Luther King put it: “Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.”

It’s true – a good education is never wasted. Knowledge is power. And those are not just tales out of school.