163 ways to lose your job

摘要

On 20 May 1921, excited crowds milled around Boston's railway station hoping to catch a glimpse of Albert Einstein, who was making his first visit to America's most famously learned city. After an impromptu tour, the physicist was whisked off to breakfast with the city's mayor and the governor of Massachusetts. Afterwards, as the diners relaxed over cigars, reporters lobbed the celebrated genius a question more fit for a teenager: "What is the speed of sound?" Einstein was stumped. He didn't know off-hand, he admitted. "EINSTEIN SEES BOSTON; FAILS EDISON TEST," crowed the next day's headlines - and Thomas Edison (left) claimed his most prominent victim yet in a "brainmeter" craze that revolutionised public attitudes towards aptitude tests.