When Albert Einstein Helped A Student With Math Homework And Gave Them The Wrong Answer
The famous genius made headlines when he helped out a young girl who requested his assistance with a difficult math problem — but his answer wasn’t exactly correct
Few people are so synonymous with something as Albert Einstein is with the concept of genius. The theoretical physicist remains one of the greatest minds who ever walked the earth, whose excellence in science and mathematics, among other subjects, had an indelible impact on all of humanity. However, he wasn’t infallible. This was proven to the whole world when he once helped a young girl who had written him with her math homework and ended up giving her the wrong answer.
In 1952, Johanna Mankiewicz of Los Angeles was 15 years old and like many young people of her age was flustered by homework her teacher had given her. In particular, there was a geometry problem that neither she nor her classmates could solve. Deciding to get an answer once and for all, she wrote Einstein, who was then 73, at his office at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey.
Einstein was born in Germany in 1879. He was a whiz at math and science from an early age and ended up renouncing his…
