Albert Einstein and His Little Foibles

Have you heard this one of ... Albert Einstein and his Maths student ...

When Albert Einstein was a Maths Professor at Princeton University he had his chauffeur live close by. One evening the six year old child of the chauffer sidled up to the great man in his evening walk around his compound:

" Are you a maths professor around here?",

"Yes I am", admitted the professor.

"Are you any good at it?", queried the youngster, innocently.

"So they say", he went along, intrigued at the line of questioning,

"Alright then," the little girl, "Could you teach me Maths?", she asked rather bluntly, in haste, feeling shy of the old man with whitish, dishevelled hair.

"Of course, I will", he quickly agreed, and asked in return, "and how much will you pay me for the tuition?",

"Daddy gives me one dollar a week", she bargained, "and I will give you seventy-five cents of that", she surrendered.

"Oh, good", agreed Albert Einstein with cheerful readiness, "We will begin our classes right now".

And they carried on with their classes every evening. A few days later, the father approached Albert Einstein apologetically and said, "Sir, our child ... she is too small to understand ...

Before he finished, Albert Einstein, calmed him, "No, no, it's alright ... I enjoy that one hour with her very much", and added, "Besides, no institution has ever offered me seventy-five per cent of their total assets for one hour of engagement".

That's one of his nuggets ... we picked up here and there in our walks ...!

And there is this one of the father of the Maths student ... the bold, innocent little girl ...

Albert Einstein, was the author of the Theory of Relativity. Is that the one about M C = E squared? Anyway, that theory wasn't understood even by professors and lecturers of mathematics themselves ... we will leave it aside for the moment and follow the story.

Einstein was on invitation to several Universities to speak on the subject. He had a set speech and he delivered it. At the end of it he asked if there were any questions. Generally the theory was more heard of than understood. And consequently there usually were no questions forthcoming from the audience.