[yaakov34]

Yes, you are wrong. Einstein did very well in elementary school, and was accepted to a competitive gymnasium at age 9. He also did very well at the gymnasium, although he didn't like the rigid structure. He left school at 15 and applied to university with special permission. He was not admitted due to mediocre grades in French and Latin; his exam grades in Physics, Mathematics, and Chemistry were excellent. He finished another year at school and passed the entrance exams with excellent grades. Hardly an underachiever, although it's true that you couldn't tell the later greatness from this.

[Locke1689]

In fact, he had finished Euclid's Elements textbook at age 11 and had taught himself calculus by 16 (not an unusual accomplishment these days, I admit -- I also taught myself calculus at 15. I am no Einstein.)

In no way was Einstein deficient -- he would at least be described as advanced, just maybe not as a prodigy.

[bad_user]

No, you're the one that's wrong. Einstein did poorly in elementary school, being classified as mentally retarded. He indeed fast-tracked to gymnasium and university after one of his teachers observed his talent at math.

This doesn't mean he was stupid. Go and read "The Einstein Syndrome" [1], it's a fascinating read.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/The-Einstein-Syndrome-Bright-Children/...

[yaakov34]

Your information is completely ridiculous, and doesn't become less so because it has appeared in some books. It has been debunked not by some random guy on the internet, but by the Albert Einstein Archives at Hebrew University, to which he willed his documents - as I cited earlier.

Einstein started in the second grade of elementary school at age 6 1/2, was one of the top students in his class, and was admitted to a competitive gymnasium at 9 1/2. He studied not just "math", but Latin, Greek, art, music (he was a very talented violinist who could have played with any number of orchestras), literature, history, philosophy, and theology. He did very well in all of these, was not "fast tracked" to anywhere, and tried, on his own, to enter university more than 1 year early. This failed, largely because French was not a strong subject for him. He studied it in Munich, where it was a lot less important than in multi-lingual Switzerland. After half a year of schooling in Switzerland, he passed the university entrance exams with flying colors, both in sciences and humanities. He was not an incredible child prodigy, but he was doing fine, and nobody ever thought he was mentally retarded. Enough.