Einstein: the poor student?

One of the not so recent; yet continuously purported, myths about Albert
Einstein concerns his allegedly poor scholastic endeavours[1]. You
might recall the quite typical comment; in the context of not receiving
good grades, that Einstein himself failed in mathematics.

As this article aims to prove these rumours and popularised references to
him are found wanting. The common variants of the “poor student”
myths; that Einstein failed math, and that he was a poor student, are
popular misconceptions.

Let's start from the beginning. Einstein's interest in math and science
began quite early in childhood: he built various kinds of mechanical
devices and models for fun and quickly showed a gift for mathematics.
By the age of twelve; he began to study geometry by himself and in his
early teens; he also started to read a lot about general physics and most
notably calculus. When Einstein was around fifteen years of age; he
wrote his first work on science.[2] It was also around this time that he
started his own work trying to unify the laws of physics into one
explanatory field of theory, something he would spend the bulk of his
life pursuing.

When he was nine, he entered the Luitpold-Gymnasium. By the age of
twelve, as noted above, he was studying calculus. Studying calculus
when you were twelve was highly advanced. Since the students who
would normally study calculus were fifteen years old. He was very good
at the sciences; though likely due to the 19th-century German education
system being quite harsh and regimented, he didn't really develop his
non-mathematical skills (for example; history, language, geography and
music).

When Einstein was sixteen years old; he took the entrance exam to the
prestigious Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich. He failed to pass the

test; however he didn’t fail on the scientific aspects of the test, but on
the non-scientific ones such as language and history. It is important to
note that this was a test in the French language; a language Einstein had
not learned fluently, since this was in Switzerland he was not accepted.
Furthermore, he was sixteen years old during this time, as opposed to
the usual age of students taking it who were eighteen.

During Albert Einstein’s life his family had to move around on several
occasions, naturally resulting in periodical change of schools, even
dropping out of school entirely for short periods. Thus with his
comparable flaw in general languages, having to learn a new language
(French) and then read, write and express himself using it, while deeply
entrenched with his interest and private study of physics potentially
overwhelmed him.[3]

A year later at age seventeen; Einstein took the entrance exam again and
passed it this time. He was thus accepted into the Federal Polytechnic
school in Zurich, while still being one year younger than his peers.

However, during the year when he studied French to increase his
changes for entering the school in Zurich; he spend an intermediate year
at a Swiss secondary school[4], from where he graduated in 1896, the
same year he was able to enrol to the Zurich Polytechnic school.

How did the myth of Einstein's poor grades come about?

Well; in 1896 Einstein's last year at the school in Aargau, the school's
system of marking/grading was reversed. So the grading of "6", which
had previously been the lowest grade, was suddenly the highest mark.
So vice versa; the grading of "1", that had been the highest grade,
became the lowest mark.

Below is his transcript of his graduation diploma of 1896[5];

"The Board of Education of the Canton Aargau hereby certifies that Mr.
Albert Einstein of Ulm, born on March 14, 1879, attended the Aargau
Kantonsschule, namely the III and IV classes of the vocational school.
After taking the written and oral school-leaving examination held on
September 18, 19, 21 and 30, 1896, he received the following marks:

German 5
Geometry 6
French 3
Descriptive Geometry 6
English -
Physics 6
Italian 5
Chemistry 5
History 6
Natural History 5
Geography 4
Artistic Drawing 4
Algebra 6
Technical Drawing 4"

What if one would dismiss all of the above; how Einstein had excelled
in maths, physics and even managed to get decent all-around grades?
Well, one could restrict ones usage of the “poor student” claim to his
(college) years at the Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich.

Would this suggestion hold more water for the premise that Einstein was
a poor student?

It is no secret that his years at the school were anything than friction-
free; Einstein was oft in discussions and debates with some of his
professors:

“Even as a teenager, Einstein had already developed a profound
mistrust of authority. He questioned not only his teachers but also long-

standing mathematical and scientific "givens," such as ancient Greek
rules of geometry and laws of physics established by other scientists.
Ironically, Einstein's queries and resulting breakthroughs eventually
turned him into an authority himself.” [6]

Einstein's doctoral advisor of physics at the University in Zurich was at
first Pr. H.F Weber, though naturally they argued over Albert's ideas and
where his work was heading so Einstein had to switch doctoral advisors.
One thing which bothered Einstein was the fact that the works of James
Clerk Maxwell[7] wasn't included, and Maxwell was "the man" of
physics in those times. It's as if you attended college astrophysics class
today with no mention whatsoever of Hawking's or George Smoot's
works.

One of Einstein’s classmates (Louis Kollros) noted the following about
Weber’s omission of Maxwell’s work;

“His lectures were outstanding and a magnificent introduction to
theoretical physics, but Weber … was a typical representative of
classical physics. Anything that came after Helmholtz was simply
ignored. At the close of our studies we knew all the past of physics but
nothing of their present or future” [8]

It is worth noting that Einstein wanting nothing more than to work on
the contemporary problems that heckled the scientific world of those
times. He wanted to pursue the quest which he had started on several
years earlier; unifying the fields of physics under one coherent theory,
not becoming an outstanding academic example for status and respect,
as he had a profound mistrust for authority aligned with slight
skepticism of academics. His new doctoral advisor was Alfred Kleiner,
with whom Einstein decided not to pursue the similar tone of
stubbornness or challenge.

In “Einstein: A Life” Denis Brian writes;

“October 1900. Albert wants to get a Ph.D., but not until 1909 did ETH
begin offering doctoral degrees. In the meantime, a special arrangement
allowed ETH students to obtain doctorates from the University of
Zurich. However, in 1900 theoretical physics was only beginning to be
recognized as an independent discipline in German-speaking
universities. That status and the fact that university professors
customarily assigned a dissertation topic presented a bit of a problem
for the theoretically and independently-minded Einstein. Nevertheless,
the problems were overcome, and Albert proposed "the kinetic theory of
gases" as the subject for his doctoral thesis. Professor Alfred Kleiner
approved the proposal”. (Brian, Einstein: A Life, 1996, 28)

Einstein also continuously skipped the lectures; as he was more
interested in reading about Maxwell in his spare time, spending time in
the physics lab than going to lectures. Hence he asked his friend and
future co-author Marcel Grossmann (who early on recognized Einstein
to have been a brilliant and promising theoretical physicist) to take notes
of what the lectures entailed; so that he might still somewhat keep up
with the scholastic requirements for what was to be included on the
upcoming tests. On the final exam, Einstein ended up on forth place.
Louis Kollros scored 60 points, Marcel Grossmann scored 57.5, Jakob
Ehrat 56.5 and Albert Einstein scored 54.[9]

Now; one might consider this to be ample proof of Einstein having been
a poor student, though it is important to recognize that his score was
quite good over-all. Also that the other three students (Kollros,
Grossmann and Ehrat) being between a year to two years older; had
naturally studied more thoroughly as to what would be on the tests,
which Einstein had neglected out of his interest in the more
contemporary and at the time quite exciting problems in physics.
Einstein clearly had neglected to cover and acquire the exams decided
questions in favour of his own introverted pursuit of the answers to

contemporary problems. So; whilst he didn't do the exam to come out as
the top of his class, the end result was very respectable for someone who
had missed out on most of the lectures that pertained to the exams.

Below is a brief presentation of papers written by Albert Einstein after
he had graduated from the University of Zurich and published
subsequently published in 1905 (a lot more papers followed these ones,
however the list below only includes those from the given year).

In 1905, while Einstein was working at the patent office in Bern, he
submitted a dissertation and recieved his doctorate/PhD from Prof.
Kleiner on his thesis;

"Eine neue Bestimmung der Moleküldimensionen" (translated: "A new
determination of molecular dimensions").

During this time he also published four additional papers;

* “On the Motion of Small Particles Suspended in Liquids at Rest
Required by the Molecular-Kinetic Theory of Heat”.[10]

This paper on Brownian motion is one which conclusively proved
(along with the tests done by Jean Perrin[11]) the existence of atoms.
Prior to this paper the existence of atoms was a matter of great dispute
and doubt. As Einstein said himself on this paper; “My major aim in this
was to find facts which would guarantee as much as possible the
existence of atoms of definite finite size”.[12] Here-in, he established the
existence and size of molecules.

Perrin received the Nobel Prize in physics (1926) for his work in testing
the bold predictions of Einstein’s Brownian motion thesis.

This was a ground-breaking paper, showing that Einstein wasn’t simply

a competent scientist of notable understanding, but also having a
remarkable eye for the problems in theoretical physics and how they
were to be solved.

* “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies”.[13]

In this paper; Albert presented his take on relativity in the form of a
special theory of relativity. It contained no actual bibliography of
references to prior work on relativity (which had been numerous), it did
however contain references to J.C Maxwell and Hertz and also
contained reference to Lorentz (on the treatment of the electromagnetic
field).[14]

* “Does the Inertia of a Body Depend on its Energy Content?"[15]

The three-pages short paper which is a continuance of his third paper
(see footnote 11 on previous page). It contained his successful
demonstration of using the E=mc2 formula.

Excerpt thereof;

“I base that investigation on the Maxwell-Hertz equations for empty
space, together with Maxwell's expression for the electromagnetic
energy of space, and also the following principle: The laws according to
which the states of physical systems change are independent of which
one of the two coordinate systems (assumed to be in uniform parallel-
transnational motion relative to each other) is used to describe these
changes (the principle of relativity).”[16]

*”On a Heuristic Point of View Concerning the Production and
Transformation of Light “[17].

Here Einstein explains the physics behind his theory on the
photoelectric effect; for which he received the Nobel Prize in 1921,
demonstrating how light wasn’t just electromagnetic wave (J.C
Maxwell) but also a particle which he called “light quanta” (photon) and
laid further ground for Quantum Theory.

The claim that Albert Einstein was a poor student; and this besides is
otherwise in conflict with his scientific work, is as proven above
demonstrably wrong. There is little basis of relevance or coherence in
attempts made to turn Einstein's merits against him in the sense of them
not having been good enough was he really a genius.

[1] Recent examples of this myth have been argued by Christopher Jon
Bjerknes in his books; ‘The Manufacture and Sale of Saint Einstein’
[available at the following address:
http://www.jewishracism.com/SaintEinstein.htm], ‘Albert Einstein: The
Incorrigible Plagiarist’ [available at the following address:
http://home.comcast.net/~xtxinc/AEIPBook.htm] and ‘Anticipations of
Einstein in the General Theory of Relativity’ [available at the following
address:

http://home.comcast.net/~xtxinc/AEGRBook.htm

].

[2] Albert Einstein,

The Investigation of the State of Aether in Magnetic

Fields

, 1895

[3] Folsing, Albrecht; “Albert Einstein: A Biography”, 1998
[4] Aargau Kantonsschule
[5] http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/einstein/life/popups/school.php
[6] http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/einstein/life/early.php
[7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Clerk_Maxwell

[8] Clark, R. W. Einstein: The Life and Times (1971, 34)
[9] Brian, D. 1996. Einstein: A Life
[10]
http://www.math.princeton.edu/~mcmillen/molbio/papers/Einstein_diffu
sion1905.pdf
[11] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Perrin
[12] http://www.rhfleet.org/einstein/atoms.html
[13] http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/einstein/specrel/www/
[14] http://press.princeton.edu/catalogs/series/cpe.html
[15] http://dbserv.ihep.su/~elan/src/einstein05c/eng.pdf
[16] Princeton University Press; ” The Collected papers of Albert
Einstein”
[17] http://www.bun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/~suchii/Bohr/lightQ.html
Posted 6th July 2008 by Karl Radl