The sad story of Heisenberg's doctoral oral exam (1998)

Einstein not only "did fine" but was extremely precocious. From the wiki entry:

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Einstein excelled at math and physics from a young age, reaching a mathematical level years ahead of his peers. The 12-year-old Einstein taught himself algebra and Euclidean geometry over a single summer.[28] Einstein also independently discovered his own original proof of the Pythagorean theorem aged 12.[29] A family tutor Max Talmud says that after he had given the 12-year-old Einstein a geometry textbook, after a short time "[Einstein] had worked through the whole book. He thereupon devoted himself to higher mathematics... Soon the flight of his mathematical genius was so high I could not follow."[30] His passion for geometry and algebra led the 12-year-old to become convinced that nature could be understood as a "mathematical structure".[30] Einstein started teaching himself calculus at 12, and as a 14-year-old he says he had "mastered integral and differential calculus".[31]

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At age 16, he tried to skip the last two years of gymnasium and directly go to University -- to what is now known as ETH, a fantastically rigorous and selective research university -- but failed the entrance examination. He excelled at the math and physics portions, but of course did not pass in the humanities questions covering material he never studied. This is what caused many myths about him getting kicked out of school, or failing to graduate, etc. In reality, this just means he needed to attend a gymnasium to get the required secondary education in the humanities that he tried to skip.

Starting with university, he did focus on physics, so compared to many theoretical physicists who had the equivalent of a dual math/physics PhD, Einstein's PhD was more physics focused, and for this reason he is not considered as strong of a mathematician as he is a physicist, but this doesn't mean he wasn't good at math, or that he received failing grades, or that he dropped out, etc.

It's true that the NAZI govt thought the war would be won or lost in a couple of years, so longer programs weren't much valued. But they invested in rockets which didn't come into play quickly. The German physicists told the govt the bomb was far off; but there's every reason to think the scientists knew better and deliberately fudged their calculations.

Many years ago I worked for a professor who allowed me into weekly meetings which were mostly of touring faculty, presenters, or academics on the job market.

The audience was always a pretty stable group of multidisciplinary, world-class faculty. Most of them were cordial but there were a few aggressive ones too. I remember a statistician who drove real hard. I didn't know any of the words he said, but the room felt electrified every time he started.

It was like intellectual UFC, but hero vs mob. I felt for the speakers, but as a fly on the wall, it was amazing. I haven't experienced anything like it since.

> Accustomed to being always at the top of his class, Heisenberg found it hard to accept the lowest of three passing grades for his doctorate

What part of "passing grade for his doctorate" did he not understand? And certainly it's not entirely bad to learn how to deal with something less than complete success occasionally.

But it seems to me like he correctly optimized his efforts. If he had scored higher, it would have meant that he had wasted time and effort that could have been better spent working on things he was actually interested in – like his eponymous uncertainty principle.

Which other theoretical physicists were amazingly great at mathematics? I am genuinly curious.

I am certainly not alluding that Einstein was great at maths. But I do think he was good enough.

von Neuman is someone I think was a beast but he was more of a mathrmatician than a physicist (at least I think so).