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Deb's Mathematics Blog

By Deb Russell, About.com Guide to Mathematics since 2002

Who Was Karl Arbeiter Talking About?

Saturday January 3, 2009
“You're aware the boy failed my grade school math class, I take it? And not that many years later he's teaching college. Now I ask you: Is that the sorriest indictment of the American educational system you ever heard? No aptitude at all for long division, but never mind. It's him they ask to split the atom. How he talked his way into the Nobel prize is beyond me. But then, I suppose it's like the man says, It's not what you know ...”

Find out who Karl Arbeiter's student was..

Comments

January 7, 2009 at 12:59 am
(1) patricia says:

your website is no user friendly for grandparents. If I am looking on how to teach long division and your site comes up I want to see this…I don’t want to spend 10 minutes on signing in for free information just to find out that you do not have any answeres.

January 20, 2009 at 4:42 am
(2) manu says:

Why then did Arbeiter say that Einstein failed his math class and that he has no aptitude for long division?
Also, is he really criticizing Einstein because his last line doesn’t sound like that, unless he is being sarcastic?

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