
Was Einstein really a poor student? - mak120
http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/956/was-einstein-really-a-poor-student
======
wisty
This has a few roots:

* It's said he didn't speak till he was (I forget) ~8. I'd believe it - speech develops at different times, and I doubt it has any reflection on adult intelligence.

* He joked that his math wasn't very good. That makes him modest, not a bad student.

* He didn't know how to do the math for non-Euclidian, to develop general relativity (though he did have a vague idea that he needed a curved space, and what it meant, and he vaguely remembered doing it at uni - which shows he wasn't too ignorant), and had a friend help him get up to speed.

* He was probably not the sharpest mathematician in the room, once he was famous enough that every room he walked into would quickly become crowded with the sharpest mathematicians in the world.

* He may not have really liked school, but he obviously liked learning.

Most importantly, everyone likes to think that you can succeed without trying.

~~~
ErrantX
_He was probably not the sharpest mathematician in the room, once he was
famous enough that every room he walked into would quickly become crowded with
the sharpest mathematicians in the world._

This, I can't help thinking, would be a good problem to have :)

------
othello
Here is Einstein's certificate for the year 1879 (he was 10):

[http://www.scienceblogs.de/frischer-wind/einsteins-
zeugnis.j...](http://www.scienceblogs.de/frischer-wind/einsteins-zeugnis.jpg)

Long story short, he obtained the best score (6) in the three mathematical
topics (algebra, geometry and descriptive geometry) and in physics.

I guess one of the reasons the myth has endured so long may be that it makes
for such a great story. A sort of intellectual rags-to-riches, so to speak.

Edit: corrected the physics score.

~~~
hasenj
I was a top student (always perfect score) up until I was 11

After that I was still a great student, but not the top and not straight As. I
still liked math.

By the end of high school, I was extremely dis-interested in math and
specially in calculus. It all seemed like arbitrary pointless rules. (I blame
the teachers and the curriculum).

~~~
mbm
How do we change this?

~~~
tokenadult
_How do we change this?_

Here are some suggestions for improving the mathematics education of pupils
who show early advanced abilities in mathematics:

[http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Resources/articles.php?pa...](http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Resources/articles.php?page=calculustrap)

[http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Resources/articles.php?pa...](http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Resources/articles.php?page=problemsolving)

[http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Resources/articles.php?pa...](http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Resources/articles.php?page=discretemath)

[http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Resources/articles.php?pa...](http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Resources/articles.php?page=learning)

[http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Resources/articles.php?pa...](http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Resources/articles.php?page=stupidquestions)

(Summary of the advice linked above is make sure students learn mathematics
beyond the standard school curriculum, which is not designed for the top
students, and make sure the top students have a chance to meet one another and
to challenge themselves with difficult problems that they can discuss
afterwards. The site that provides those links provides many of the
opportunities necessary, largely for free.)

Here is commentary by a Fields medalist on what successful mathematics
education looks like over the long haul:

<http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/math/pdf/0503/0503081v1.pdf>

(Summary of Thurston's advice is emphasize connectedness of mathematics and
deep understanding over racing through the standard curriculum.)

------
jleyank
I don't know whether he was a "good" or "bad" student. He was certainly a
disinterested one, as there wasn't great overlap between what he thought about
and what they were trying to teach. He must have been an effective one,
however, as he picked up the information needed to solve problems in many
fields, expand physics, and have a "typically European scientist" level of
culture.

For those in science, most dream of having a career that can compare to his
1905.

~~~
kragen
_Most_? You can think of an exception?

~~~
jleyank
Some do science to teach, and many do science to cure a particular problem.
The first set is probably orthogonal, but while most people won't equate a
successful drug launched to market as 1905-like, those trying to cure a
disease would disagree.

Different strokes for different folks. Hell, some probably do science for the
bucks, as being an academic with the hot med/bio topic can result in serious
coin.

------
JonnieCache
The story that I have always heard is not that he got bad grades, but that he
was a "poor student" in a more general sense, that he was extremely
disinterested. I remember hearing claims that his teachers complained to his
parents: "he just sits at the back and smiles."

------
maw
I'm reminded of what was probably my favorite single Calvin and Hobbes strip:
"You know how Einstein got bad grades as a kid? Well, mine are even worse!"

------
tokenadult
Albert Einstein (1879-1955), co-winner of the 1921 Nobel Prize in physics,
wrote this statement about his own schooling, in an autobiographical essay he
wrote for the introductory material of a book about his role as a philosopher
of science:

". . . I worked most of the time in the physical laboratory [at the
Polytechnic Institute of Zürich], fascinated by the direct contact with
experience. The balance of the time I used in the main in order to study at
home the works of Kirchoff, Helmholtz, Hertz, etc. . . . In [physics],
however, I soon learned to scent out that which was able to lead to
fundamentals and to turn aside from everything else, from the multitude of
things which clutter up the mind and divert it from the essential. The hitch
in this was, of course, the fact that one had to cram all this stuff into
one's mind for the examinations, whether one liked it or not. This coercion
had such a deterring effect [upon me] that, after I had passed the final
examination, I found the consideration of any scientific problems distasteful
to me for an entire year. In justice I must add, moreover, that in Switzerland
we had to suffer far less under such coercion, which smothers every truly
scientific impulse, than is the case in many another locality. There were
altogether only two examinations; aside from these, one could just about do as
one pleased. This was especially the case if one had a friend, as did I, who
attended the lectures regularly and who worked over their content
conscientiously. This gave one freedom in the choice of pursuits until a few
months before the examination, a freedom which I enjoyed to a great extent and
have gladly taken into the bargain the bad conscience connected with it as by
far the lesser evil. It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the
modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy
curiosity of inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation,
stands mainly in need of freedom; without this it goes to wreck and ruin
without fail. It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing
and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty. To the
contrary, I believe it would be possible to rob even a healthy beast of prey
of its voraciousness, if it were possible, with the aid of a whip, to force
the beast to devour continuously, even when not hungry, especially if the
food, handed out under such coercion, were to be selected accordingly."

"Autobiographical Notes," in _Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist,_ Paul
Schilpp, ed. (1951), pp. 17-19 © 1951 by the Library of Living Philosophers,
Inc.

<http://learninfreedom.org/Nobel_hates_school.html>

John Kemeny, who was Einstein's assistant at the Institute for Advanced Study,
commented on Einstein's pattern of developed abilities that "Einstein did not
need help in physics. But contrary to popular belief, Einstein did need help
in mathematics. By which I do not mean that he wasn't good at mathematics. He
was very good at it, but he was not an up-to-date research level
mathematician. His assistants were mathematicians for two reasons. First of
all, in just ordinary calculations, anybody makes mistakes. There were many
long calculations, deriving one formula from another to solve a differential
equation. They go on forever. Any number of times we got the wrong answer.
Sometimes one of us got the wrong answer, sometimes the other. The
calculations were long enough that if you got the same answer at the end, you
were confident. So he needed an assistant for that, and, frankly, I was more
up-to-date in mathematics than he was."

<http://scidiv.bellevuecollege.edu/math/Kemeny.html>

~~~
gsivil
I fact he was the sole-winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics for 1921

~~~
tokenadult
<http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1921/>

Yes. Awarded a year later, which may be the detail I was remembering.

------
brown9-2
Is it common in the Swiss school system for students to take classes in four
different languages (German, English, French, Italian), or did Einstein attend
a special/elite school?

~~~
ugh
It wouldn’t surprise me since French, Italian and German are three of the four
official languages of Switzerland. (I don’t know whether that was the case in
1897 but those three languages were definitely all spoken in Switzerland in
1897.)

Today students in Swiss secondary education have to learn at least two non-
native languages (besides their native language), one of those two has to be
one of the official Swiss languages. Einstein only learned one more language,
that doesn’t seem extraordinary.

It would be nice if someone from Switzerland could shed some more light on
this. The situation in, for example, Germany is as follows: If you want to
continue on to university learning two languages is standard, learning a third
language is optional but possible pretty much everywhere. The four available
languages in my school were English, French, Latin [0] and Spanish and you
could pick up to three of those. (Only certain combinations were possible,
English was always the first foreign language and you had to take it.)

[0] I still hate myself for picking Latin. It’s beyond useless.

~~~
Wawl
You are correct.

I am from the French-speaking part of Switzerland, I started learning German
in kindergarten (though those lessons were mostly useless until 7th grade). By
9th grade I had French, German, English and two options : Latin and Ancient
Greek. (All students were required to stay from 8AM to 4PM at school, those
who didn't study ancient languages just sat in a room guarded by a teacher
whose task was to make sure they did not talk to each other too much).

In High School it was a bit different, you had to choose between German and
Italian (Two of the four official languages) and between English and Ancient
Greek (Yes, some people actually pick Ancient Greek) and an option, which
spans from Math, Biology/Chemistry or Psychology to Latin, Spanish or Italian.

None of these choices actually restrict what you can study later in college.

------
bad_user
When I hear about geniuses that lived, most of the time I hear about how
awesome their memory was ... which worries me, as I can't even remember the
names of people I meet without effort and this would mean that I may never be
good enough for anything, so why bother?

But Einstein wasn't one of those people. His IQ may have been great, but he
wasn't one of those people that could recite all U.S. states or presidents at
age 6.

What I like about Einstein is that he worked hard for his whole life. Whatever
disability he may have had regarding his memory, he compensated multiple times
by being persistent and obsessed with his work.

~~~
calibraxis
You might also like to look at Grothendieck. He wrote how he felt like a
plodding turtle compared to his peers. Hilbert also must've seemed slow.

Of course, when people write stories on mental feats, they'll choose a more
showoffy person who can do well on the tests that people remember from
childhood. That means fewer stories about people taking time to think about
things in their own way.

(What horrors would result if a schoolchild got it into her head that maybe
she should just take a day off from school and lie in a hammock and think?
That kind of crazy thinking gets you Clojure.
(<http://clojure.blip.tv/file/4457042/)>)

~~~
calibraxis
(I checked Grothendieck's quote after I got home. It wasn't "plodding turtle"
but rather "dumb ox.")

------
vecter
If you're not talented at math when you're younger, there's practically no
hope for you to be good at it later. Given that Einstein did a good bit of
math for the physics he was involved with, you can be pretty confident he was
sharp when he was younger.

------
6ren
I seem to recall he had trouble getting into university... which I guess is
supported by him being a patent examiner, instead of a student.

~~~
6ren
No, it was that he had trouble getting a teaching post:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein#Patent_office>

