One widely held belief about Einstein is that he failed math as a student, an assertion that is made, often accompanied by the phrase “as everyone knows,” by scores of books and thousands of websites designed to reassure underachieving students. A Google search of Einstein failed math turns up more than 500,000 references. The allegation even made it into the famous “Ripley’s Believe it or Not!” newspaper column.
Alas, Einstein’s childhood offers history many savory ironies, but this is not one of them. In 1935, a rabbi in Princeton showed him a clipping of the Ripley’s column with the headline “Greatest living mathematician failed in mathematics.” Einstein laughed. “I never failed in mathematics,” he replied, correctly. “Before I was fifteen I had mastered differential and integral calculus.” In primary school, he was at the top of his class and “far above the school requirements” in math. By age 12, his sister recalled, “he already had a predilection for solving complicated problems in applied arithmetic,” and he decided to see if he could jump ahead by learning geometry and algebra on his own. His parents bought him the textbooks in advance so that he could master them over summer vacation. Not only did he learn the proofs in the books, he also tackled the new theories by trying to prove them on his own. He even came up on his own with a way to prove the Pythagorean theory.
Alas, Einstein’s childhood offers history many savory ironies, but this is not one of them. In 1935, a rabbi in Princeton showed him a clipping of the Ripley’s column with the headline “Greatest living mathematician failed in mathematics.” Einstein laughed. “I never failed in mathematics,” he replied, correctly. “Before I was fifteen I had mastered differential and integral calculus.” In primary school, he was at the top of his class and “far above the school requirements” in math. By age 12, his sister recalled, “he already had a predilection for solving complicated problems in applied arithmetic,” and he decided to see if he could jump ahead by learning geometry and algebra on his own. His parents bought him the textbooks in advance so that he could master them over summer vacation. Not only did he learn the proofs in the books, he also tackled the new theories by trying to prove them on his own. He even came up on his own with a way to prove the Pythagorean theory.
For more about Einstein, you can look at "Twenty Things You Need to Know About Einstein". by Walter Isaacson, which is the source of all of the above.
My thanks to John D. Cook for putting me onto this site via his twitter @AnalysisFact.
Addendum: I got a comment from Peter Krautzberger that added a little to the story. He wrote, "In Germany the story is kept alive by Einstein's report card from school:
The misconception in this case is that both the German and the Swiss system uses grades 1-6 but in Germany 1 is the top grade while the Swiss have 6 as top grade."
Thanks for sharing Peter. From a German view, it does look like he did very poorly in school.
Addendum: I got a comment from Peter Krautzberger that added a little to the story. He wrote, "In Germany the story is kept alive by Einstein's report card from school:
The misconception in this case is that both the German and the Swiss system uses grades 1-6 but in Germany 1 is the top grade while the Swiss have 6 as top grade."
Thanks for sharing Peter. From a German view, it does look like he did very poorly in school.
My recollection is that the origin of this rumor comes from Einstein's university education, where he was given a non-passing mark on a preliminary exam from a professor who bore him a grudge.
ReplyDeleteIn Germany the story is kept alive by Einstein's report card from school, see, e.g., http://www.leifiphysik.de/web_ph12/geschichte/07einstein/einst_zeugnis.htm
ReplyDeleteThe misconception in this case is that both the German and the Swiss system uses grades 1-6 but in Germany 1 is the top grade while the Swiss have 6 as top grade.