In social networks, a story about the famous physicist is popular, designed to illustrate that many do not notice other people's successes, but criticize single mistakes. We checked the reliability of such publications.

The “canonical” version of the text, which tells the instructive episode from the life of Albert Einstein, looks like this: “Once Albert Einstein wrote on the board:
9 × 1 = 9
9 × 2 = 18
9 × 3 = 27
9 × 4 = 36
9 × 5 = 45
9 × 6 = 54
9 × 7 = 63
9 × 8 = 72
9 × 9 = 81
9 × 10 = 91
Suddenly, chaos began in the hall because Einstein made a mistake. The correct answer is 9 × 10 = 90.
And all his students ridiculed him.
Einstein waited for everyone to shut up, and said: “Despite the fact that I correctly analyzed nine questions, no one congratulated me. But when I missed only one question, everyone started to laugh. This means that even if a person is very successful, society will notice his slightest mistake. And they will like it. Therefore, do not allow criticism to destroy your dreams. The only person who is never mistaken is nothing who is not anything that is not anything. does "."

They told about this story on VKontakte as rather large Publics, and individual Users. Similar publications can also be found in Facebook*, Twitter, Telegram and other social networks.

Any texts written or said by a person with the level of fame as that of Einstein are the subject of a detailed study of modern historians who collect all known materials in huge collections and digital projects. In different universities, such online collections dedicated to, for example, have been conducting for several years Margaret Thatcher, Winston Churchill, Isaac Newton, Abraham Lincoln, Charles Darwin And many others. Einstein's heritage are engaged At Princeton University and California Technological University in the USA, as well as at Jewish University in Jerusalem.

In the collection published in 2011 The Ultimate QUOTABLE EINSTEIN, which was prepared in Princeton, a story about a mistake in a simple arithmetic example is not mentioned. Moreover, in Google Books there is not a single publication at all English And Russian languages where the incident would be described, so popular among users of social networks.

With a request to comment on the history of the Australian Aap Australian Australian History of History Turned To several organizations engaged in the legacy of Einstein. Representatives Einstein Papers Project (groups of researchers working on the basis of the California Technological University) informed our colleagues that the story about a deliberate mistake is undoubtedly a false quote. Employee Archive of Albert Einstein At the Jewish University in Jerusalem, Aap answer: “We have never heard of this story and this quote; Therefore, she is very likely incorrect. "

Apparently, the story of Einstein’s mistake “grew” in social networks from publications about the nameless teacher, and in these stories the first was the first among the multiplication operation (9 × 1 = 7), not the latter. The rest of the content of such publications is identical to those in which they talk about the case with the Nobel laureate. Posts with an instructive story about the teacher on June 13 and 14, 2020 were posted in Russian users "VKontakte", Instagram* And Facebook*.

Probably the earliest mention of this story on the Internet dates from 2016. On August 18, it was published in English in his blog by one of the users of the Medium site, in the following days it began to be placed on their pages and Facebook*users. The only difference from Russian -speaking posts is that a female teacher appears in the original story (the pronoun SHE is used in the text to describe the character).

If you explain the transformation of the teacher into a teacher, it is easy, then with the replacement of an ordinary teacher with a Nobel laureate, everything is not so obvious. Unfortunately, we could not reliably establish the “genealogy” of these changes, but for the first time Einstein in posts dedicated to the history of unnoticed successes and the mistake noticed began to appear at the end of 2020. We managed to discover the then published publications: one on Russian And one on Spanish language (the latter was also equipped with translation into English). Such posts have become viral already in the fall of next year. Then they began to appear massively in "VKontakte" (the earliest post we managed to find is dated September 21), Russian -speaking Facebook* (September 29) and to a lesser extent Twitter (October 7). In English -speaking Facebook* the first wave of popularity It fell At the end of September.

Thus, not any authoritative source mentions the story of the error made by Einstein in the simplest mathematical operation. Popular posts about great physics in social networks grew out of the previously emerging publications, where the main character was an unnamed teacher. In turn, the Nobel laureate replaced her already in a slightly redesigned text, which Internet users began to place on their pages at the end of 2020 and which gained viral popularity almost a year later.

*Russian authorities They think Meta Platforms Inc., which owns social networks Facebook and Instagram, an extremist organization, its activities in Russia are prohibited.

Photo on the cover: American Museum of Natural History