"riverman" wrote in message
...

"Wolfgang" wrote in message
...

"Lat705" wrote in message
...
She, surprised, responded that she had finished that in
her freshman year.

High School?

It's been a lot of years since I read that anecdote. I can't be
certain,
but I don't think that question was answered. At any rate, I'd venture
to
guess that Mr. Einstein was more surprised and impressed by being in the
presence of such a prodigy than either Myron or Ken would be.

Possibly so, however I had heard it that Mr. Einstein stated that he
studied
Physics. In any case, a quick google search didn't verify it.

In the version I read it was most definitely algebra. That is specifically
why I remembered it and, I think, an important consideration in the point of
the anecdote......the co-ed, the reader is left to suppose, was vapid, and
Einstein was being wry. This works well with something as mundane and
accessible to EVERYONE as algebra, but is a bit more abstruse when something
as formidable (in the public eye) as physics is substituted. Not to put too
fine a point on it, but I think your reaction and Ken's bear this out. Also
present (perhaps....and however subtle) is the suggestion that the great man
himself saw algebra as something worthy of a lifetime of study even by one
so presumably well versed in the subject as he himself must surely have
been.....a position probably shared by many professional mathemeticians if
not, necessarily, by math teachers and free lance writers. Moreover, many
thousands of high school and college freshmen (as well as your humble
narrator) consider algebra to be as worthy and formidable as anything they
wish to encounter, not excluding composition, physical education, civics,
philosophy or logic.

Meanwhile, in my 13 year career as a math teacher, I have only encountered
two students astute enough to have completed Advanced Algebra in or before
their freshman year (in high school),

The Einstein story, as I read it, made no mention of what level of algebra
either of the principals was working on. The reader is left to surmise that
they weren't quite talking about the same critter......or that's the
impression I came away with, anyway.

and neither of them was particularly impressive.

It has been my experience that teachers of mathematics more than any other
subject tend to be confounded by the notion that students have not mastered
the course material by the time they show up for the first session.

A bit arrogant and pretentious was more like it.

There's a lot of that going around, I hear.

Wolfgang
so, snake, how's about them lit courses?