> Accustomed to being always at the top of his class, Heisenberg found it hard to accept the lowest of three passing grades for his doctorate What part of "pas

> Accustomed to being always at the top of his class, Heisenberg found it hard to accept the lowest of three passing grades for his doctorate What part of "passing grade for his doctorate" did he not understand? And certainly it's not entirely bad to learn how to deal with something less than complete success occasionally. But it seems to me like he correctly optimized his efforts. If he had scored higher, it would have meant that he had wasted time and effort that could have been better spent working on things he was actually interested in – like his eponymous uncertainty principle.