It's time to stop the rumor mill: Albert Einstein's grades show he was actually good at math in high school
Was one of the most brilliant physicists of modern history, Albert Einstein, bad at math when he was younger?
The Nobel Prize shared a photo of the future laureate's report card online from when he was 17 years old, attending Cantonal High School in Aarau, Switzerland in 1896.
The grades followed a scoring scheme of 6 being the highest and 1 being the lowest. Einstein excelled in mathematics and other related subjects, garnering a 6 in algebra, geometry, descriptive geometry, and physics. He also got the highest grade in history.
Here's the rest of his grades:
German language and literature: 5
French language and literature: 3
English language and literature: —
Italian language and literature: 5
History: 6
Geography: 4
Algebra: 6
Geometry (planimetry, trigonometry, stereometry and analytical geometry): 6
Descriptive geometry: 6
Physics: 6
Chemistry: 5
Natural history: 5
In drawing: 4*
In technical drawing: 4*
*The performance over the course of the year is considered.
Previously, a grade of 6 was considered the lowest mark while 1 was the highest. The myth started because his school reversed its marking system, according to ABC Science.
Answering news articles claiming he was bad at math, Einstein dismissed them as a myth and said, "Before I was 15 I had mastered differential and integral calculus."
The mind behind the theory of relativity would later earn a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921 for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect.