As someone whose parents knew Einstein as well as some other major “geniuses,” such as Godel and von Neumann, I have long heard about the personal flaws of these people and their human foibles. Einstein was notoriously wrong about a number of things, most famously, quantum mechanics, although there is still research being done based on questions that he raised about it. It is also a fact that a number of other people had many of the insights into both special and general relativity, with him engaging in a virtual race with Hilbert for general relativity that he barely won. Quite a few had the basic ideas for special relativity, including Poincare, but just never quite put it all together.
What is actually more amazing about Einstein’s genuine achievements, is that not only was he a patent clerk in 1905, his “miracle year,” when he was unable to get an academic position, but for some period of time before that he could not even get any sort of job at all. Continuing to work creatively and innovatively in such an environment did take a special degree of ingenuity, insight, and sheer self-confidence, not to mention good luck. Of course, it can be argued, as some have, that it was precisely this outsider position that allowed him to make his conceptual breakthroughs, that he was at his best when he was a patent clerk in Berne, and that once he found general relativity and achieved fame and prominent professorships, his productivity and innovativess fell way off, although perhaps it was the overly comfortable existence he was provided with by his second wife, who also was more willing to overlook some of his peccadilloes, such as his constant pursuit of other women, although apparently she could not abide a certain Austrian princess who used to leave her underwear behind on the family boat.
As someone whose parents knew Einstein as well as some other major “geniuses,” such as Godel and von Neumann, I have long heard about the personal flaws of these people and their human foibles. Einstein was notoriously wrong about a number of things, most famously, quantum mechanics, although there is still research being done based on questions that he raised about it. It is also a fact that a number of other people had many of the insights into both special and general relativity, with him engaging in a virtual race with Hilbert for general relativity that he barely won. Quite a few had the basic ideas for special relativity, including Poincare, but just never quite put it all together.
What is actually more amazing about Einstein’s genuine achievements, is that not only was he a patent clerk in 1905, his “miracle year,” when he was unable to get an academic position, but for some period of time before that he could not even get any sort of job at all. Continuing to work creatively and innovatively in such an environment did take a special degree of ingenuity, insight, and sheer self-confidence, not to mention good luck. Of course, it can be argued, as some have, that it was precisely this outsider position that allowed him to make his conceptual breakthroughs, that he was at his best when he was a patent clerk in Berne, and that once he found general relativity and achieved fame and prominent professorships, his productivity and innovativess fell way off, although perhaps it was the overly comfortable existence he was provided with by his second wife, who also was more willing to overlook some of his peccadilloes, such as his constant pursuit of other women, although apparently she could not abide a certain Austrian princess who used to leave her underwear behind on the family boat.