WTF Fun Fact 12572 – Einstein Never Failed Math

It’s incredible how pervasive myths about Albert Einstein are. In fact, very few of the quotes attributed to him are even accurate. It turns out if you just say something about the man and it gains traction, it becomes fact in some people’s minds.

And we’ve always loved the story that even though he was a genius, Einstein failed math as a schoolboy. Algebra, to be specific.

Apologies to anyone who has used their own math grades to portend their future genius, but Einstein failing any class is just flat-out wrong. He was a genius as a child, too, especially in math.

His school records were retrieved from his Swiss school by the New York Times, showing excellent grades in every subject. They state:

“The records, contained in a collection of the great theorist’s papers now being prepared for publication at Princeton, confirm that Einstein was a child prodigy, conversant in college physics before he was 11 years old, a ”brilliant” violin player who got high marks in Latin and Greek. But his inability to master French was the bane of his school days, and may have been chiefly responsible for his failing college entrance examinations.”

So, where did we get this idea? Well, it wasn’t invented out of thin air. Instead, it was the result of a misunderstanding.

The first biographers who saw Einstein’s records were likely confused by the grading system used by his school in Switzerland. At age 16, he received a 1 out of 6 in arithmetic and algebra. But what the scholars didn’t realize is that 1 was the highest, and 6 was the lowest.

Now, there’s a further explanation that makes us realize it was an honest mistake. The following year, Einstein’s grades in math were 6 on a scale of 1 to 6. However, the school reversed the grading system that year, making 6 the highest grade. – WTF Fun Fact

Source: “Einstein Revealed as Brilliant in Youth” — The New York Times

WTF Fun Fact 12403 – Your Brain on Math

Mathematics is a strange beast. It uses our language, but it isn’t quite the same – our brains hear it entirely differently from everyday speech. For example: when we hear a sentence like “cats like warm milk,” our brains process that information mainly in the left hemisphere. Something like “eight plus one is nine,” though, will fire neurons in both.

A study published in the journal Current Biology took a closer look at how our brains process mathematics (as opposed to regular speech). While our brains process ordinary language in the left hemisphere, math triggers neurons in both hemispheres.

The neuroscientists from the Universities of Tübingen and Bonn said in an interview: “We found that different neurons fired during additions than during subtractions.”

Esther Kutter, a doctoral candidate involved with the research group, confirmed: “Even when we replaced the mathematical symbols with words, the effect remained the same. For example, when subjects were asked to calculate ‘5 and 3’, their addition neurons sprang back into action; whereas for ‘7 less 4,’ their subtraction neurons did.”

The lead author of the study Prof. Dr. Dr. Florian Mormann of the Department of Epileptology at University Hospital Bonn, remarked on the study’s significance: “This study marks an important step towards a better understanding of one of our most important symbolic abilities, namely calculating with numbers.” – WTF Fun Facts

Source: Math Neurons” Fire Differently Depending On Whether You Add Or Subtract — IFL Science