🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <17241@mindlink.bc.ca> Gordon_Wong@mindlink.bc.ca (Gordon Wong) writes:
>I read that Einstein was a very poor student in his early years. Was it
>because he just didn't bother to go to school because he found that what was
>being taught just wasn't stimulating enough for him or was it something else?

   It was, I am told, due primarily to historian error (and likely a dose
of wishful thinking).
   European schools did and do use a system assigning numbers in place of
the american letter-grade system. A student's mark was summarized by a
number from one to five. Now, I believe that at present a good mark is a
'1', and a poor mark is '5'. It wasn't always so, though. When young
Einstein began school the mapping was opposite to the way it is now.
Partway through his schooling they changed to the modern convention.
   Now, some historian goes back and looks at Einstein's old report cards
and sees that he went from earning '4' and '5' to earning '1' and '2' all
of a sudden, partway through his career. "Well," (s)he says smugly to
(her)himself, "look at that! I got a better math mark in grade three than
Albert Einstein!"
   The quick answer, according to news reports which came out about two
years ago, is that Einstein was always a very good student throughout
his schooling. Of course, there is that famous quote by some math
professor allegedly telling Einstein that he "would never amount to
much", but that doesn't necessarily mean he was doing badly in that
course, either.

-- 
 Christopher Neufeld....Just a graduate student  | Don't let your mind
 neufeld@helios.physics.utoronto.ca    Ad astra  | wander -- it's too little
 utzoo.utoronto.ca!generic!cneufeld              | to be let out alone.
 "Don't edit reality for the sake of simplicity" |