Locrian said:
It is certainly true that most of what is popularly known about Einstein is more myth than reality. The fact that he is so well known by the public is actually a bit of a conundrum - he was a great scientist, but frankly there were better in the 20th century.
Possibly. Alongside Heisenberg and Born and a few of the other QM crowd, he was certainly the most important of the 20th century. He may be overrated in terms of pop culture. In terms of physics, he is not.
Locrian said:
If it was his contributions that have made him so famous, how come almost no one knows anything about what they really were and how he actually came up with them?
Because most people don't care about such things. The people who matter are the ones who know what he did and why what he did was so important. The ones who actually make scientific progress are the ones who know what he did. That Freddy Nobody on the street doesn't know or understand or care doesn't make a lick of difference as to how why he was so important. The simple fact that he took what was there and formulated what he did from it was a huge leap forward.
Locrian said:
Nevermind the fact that just about no physicists acted like Einstein before or after - including the ones who produced much more science.
So it's quantity above quality? No one is saying he was Newton. No one is saying he was Euler. And he may not have truly had the mind for math or science lesser known scientists (this century or others) had, but again, his accomplishments are remarkable. That's not a pitious reflection, it's a genuine fact. Relativity is a pillar of modern science.
Locrian said:
People also like him because he has a popular image as being a maverick. He was bad at math. He had no physics degree. He just thought of his theory of relativity, sitting in a patent office.
That's all bunk of course. He was better at math than 99% of the rest of the population - he was just no mathematician. He had a degree that would compare to at least a masters in todays terms. He had a lot of help. Above all, there was already extensive evidence for everything he described in SR. He did a great job of putting it together, but it is not an example of some rebel outside the mainstream upsetting the physics world.
No, it really is. Indeed, he was better at math than pop culture lets on. He never flunked math in school, he just never excelled at it. He
was very educated. He
did have great help, especially from his wife. Much of the information was indeed known-- what he did was take the things we knew, asked an important question, apply the knowledge he had, and totally rethink and reshape the way it had been formulated by scientists before him. And yes, he did do it at the patent office, and yes he did turn physics on its head. A 4-dimensional, maleable manifold that describes actual, physical reality, rather than being just an interesting mathematical construct, was revolutionary. That energy and matter are one and the same was revolutionary. That time is relative to the observer was revolutionary.