Who was the first person to spread the incorrect story that Einstein had failed mathematics in school?
The source of the rumor is as follows: It is true that he failed something, but it wasn’t math. His father and uncle had an electronics manufacturing business that went bust when Einstein was a junior in high school and when they relocated it to Italy, Albert was left behind in Germany to finish his schooling. Einstein acquired a doctor’s note that let him out of high school and he went to Italy, surprising his family. When they demanded that he go back and finish high school, he mentioned his own plan to take the entrance exam for the ETH (the Swiss version of MIT) a year early, allowing him to go to university without a high school diploma — hardly a move that would be undertaken by someone failing mathematics! He did fail that exam, but not the math section. As a result, he finished his high school work at a more liberal school in Switzerland and passed the entrance exam, enrolling at the ETH the next year. I’m not finding a particular person.
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