Did Einstein really fail at school?

Did Einstein fail at school?

At the end of the 20th Century, Time magazine voted Albert Einstein to be the Man of The Century. He authored four papers that changed our understanding of the way the universe works.

Generations of school kids have consoled themselves over their poor school marks with the belief that Einstein failed at school. Some motivational speakers also make this claim - but this is wrong.

The truth is, Einstein seemed to relish problem solving, and little else. Despite minor troubles in French and the Humanities, Einstein was a prodigy in math and physics from a young age. He loathed the busy work of a typical school day and dropped out when he was 15.

This rumor actually started while he was still alive and even showed up in a particular issue of Ripley’s Believe It Or Not. Einstein reportedly found the article humorous and remarked: ““I never failed in mathematics… Before I was fifteen I had mastered differential and integral calculus.”

With that said, Einstein’s story is full of quirks and quarks, putting aside math and physics it is true the Einstein wasn’t always considered the smartest guy in the room… prior to 1905.

Today the word Einstein is synonymous with “smart” in the modern English lexicon.

Debunked!