Was Einstein really a poor student? • Hacker News Board

Re: Was Einstein really a poor student?

#31

Post by tokenadult » Fri, Mar 18, 2011, 2:39 PM UTC

mbm wrote: post #20

hasenj wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

How do we change this?

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...

(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.)

Re: Was Einstein really a poor student?

#32

Post by 6ren » Fri, Mar 18, 2011, 3:09 PM UTC

6ren wrote: post #9

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.

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

Re: Was Einstein really a poor student?

#33

Post by cmontgomeryb » Fri, Mar 18, 2011, 3:52 PM UTC

hasenj wrote: post #18

othello wrote: post #4

Here is Einstein's certificate for the year 1879 (he was 10): http://www.scienceblogs.de/frischer-wind/einsteins-zeugnis.j... 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…

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).

I bet a lot of people here can relate to this.

Re: Was Einstein really a poor student?

#34

Post by contextfree » Fri, Mar 18, 2011, 4:28 PM UTC

wisty wrote: post #15

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,…

To summarize a post above, his math indeed wasn't very good (or at least very advanced) for a research-level mathematician because he was a physicist, not a mathematician.

Re: Was Einstein really a poor student?

#35

Post by jleyank » Fri, Mar 18, 2011, 5:17 PM UTC

kragen wrote: post #26

jleyank wrote: post #3

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 h…

Most ? You can think of an exception?

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.

Re: Was Einstein really a poor student?

#36

Post by Wawl » Fri, Mar 18, 2011, 5:23 PM UTC

ugh wrote: post #23

brown9-2 wrote: post #22

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?

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 la…

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.

Re: Was Einstein really a poor student?

#37

Post by acqq » Fri, Mar 18, 2011, 6:20 PM UTC

othello wrote: post #8

acqq wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong: Algebra, geometry, descriptive geometry AND physics are all 6 (obviously the highest possible). Chemistry and the history of nature are 5, as well as German and Italian, art drawing and geography are 4 and some "..drawing" I can't recognize. French 3. Moreover as far as I see it's his final degree score of his whole secondary education (the last step before university). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gymnasium_(…

Thank you for pointing the mistake out. However, it is not so obvious that 6 is the highest score. While it was the case in Switzerland (where Einstein was studying at that age), it was the exact contrary in Germany at that time - 1 being the best score and 6 the lowest. As pointed out in the Stack Exchange's answers, this discrepancy in scoring systems may also have contributed to the myth of Einstein's poor perform…

othello: (in http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2339956) "Here is Einstein's certificate for the year 1879 (he was 10)"

Wrong, in the certificate it's clearly written that he's born in 1879 and that the exams happened in 1896, as he was obviously 17. As I already claimed it is a "final degree" score before the university.

Re: Was Einstein really a poor student?

#38

Post by calibraxis » Fri, Mar 18, 2011, 9:56 PM UTC

calibraxis wrote: post #7

bad_user wrote: post #2

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 a…

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…

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

Re: Was Einstein really a poor student?

#39

Post by realitygrill » Sat, Mar 19, 2011, 12:13 AM UTC

cmontgomeryb wrote: post #33

hasenj wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

I bet a lot of people here can relate to this.

Very much so. Poll?

Re: Was Einstein really a poor student?

#40

Post by gsivil » Sat, Mar 19, 2011, 4:12 AM UTC

tokenadult wrote: post #29

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…

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