New Einstein Archive Busts 'Bad Student' Myth

Albert Einstein fans can now get a deeper look into his life thanks to the Einstein Archives Online, which debuted yesterday. Some 2,000 documents are currently available, including Einstein's high school certification, a manuscript with the E=mc² equation written by Einstein, his 1921 Nobel Prize for Physics, and a postcard sent to his mother in 1919. The complete archive of 80,000 documents will ultimately be made available on the site, LiveScience reports.

The documents belong to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Albert Einstein Archives and the California Institute of Technology's Einstein Papers Project; a $500,000 grant allowed them to be digitized. Bad news, though, for anyone who was inspired by the legend that Einstein was a poor student: His high school certification shows that he was actually quite a good one, although he did apparently have issues with authority. (More Albert Einstein stories.)