
Einstein was no lone genius - etiam
http://www.nature.com/news/history-einstein-was-no-lone-genius-1.18793
======
sriku
What Einstein and others contributed towards GR in a decade is now generally
taught in one semester of grad school physics. Ruling out the possibility that
grad students are today >20x intelligent than Einstein, and considering that
Einstein needed no more experimental results than already available to
everyone in 1905, the emphasis ought not to be as simplistic as "lone genius",
but on his perseverance and nose for an interesting problem, enduring all the
false twists and turns that exploring one entails.

I believe this is the general trait of who we recognize as great minds.

~~~
LukeShu
I don't disagree with your thesis, but: understanding a solution to a problem,
and coming up with the solution are two _vastly_ different things.

~~~
visakanv
Yes! It takes the Universe billions of years to produce a cow. It takes that
cow less than a year to produce many more cows.

~~~
lsh
Just one cow actually. If you're lucky you might get twins or three cows in
two and a bit years but not many cows. Almost always just one. Sorry to be a
pedant ;)

~~~
visakanv
Whoops, I was thinking of puppies when I wrote cow. Need to get more sleep!

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cubano
Einstein's big year was 1905, not 1915, and the four (five?) papers he
produced during that year (one of which won him a Nobel) could easily be
described as the work of a "lone genius."

He did most of work of that year while working, of course as we all know, as a
patent clerk.

Obviously, no one lives in a vacuum, and all legendary geniuses stand on the
shoulders of other giants, but I can't help but think this article somewhat
misrepresents the reality of Einstein's world-changing contributions.

[edits]

~~~
rewqfdsa
It's part of a larger push toward revisionist history in general. It's no
longer correct to imagine that great people moved history through inspiration
and force. Now, everything is cooperative, gradual, social, and voluntary.
Today's archaeologist might find the remains of a burned city littered with
arrowheads and skulls and say, "There was no invasion! This was clearly just
theater!" You might see an entire civilization wiped out, a language made
extinct, a change in religious idols, and a sudden decrease in the
sophistication and production of pottery, and the conclusion has to be "Oh!
The people of this region voluntarily absorbed the language and practice of
their neighbors" and not the fucking obvious conclusion "They were wiped out
and replaced." And now, there are no inventory, no inspired people, just
groups and systems that at some place and time happened to squirt out
relativity.

~~~
forgingahead
I wish I could upvote this again. There is definitely this shift in the
understanding of the world, and I believe it stems from an unwillingness to
accept the cruelty of life. Accepting the harshness of the world and of human
nature means also accepting the need to act in ways to survive and thrive in
such an environment. Standards, dare I say virtues, have fallen to the wayside
in pursuit of an easy, sedentary acceptance.

~~~
hsitz
There is no shift. The question of whether individuals are primary influence
on events or whether things are "in the air" and thus almost bound to happen
(albeit caused by some individual or other) has been kicked around for at
least a couple centuries. Napoleon was one of early examples often used. Was
he a unique individual who exerted enormous influence on course of world
events? Certainly. Were conditions in the world ripe for an individual to
exert forces like Napoleon did, and would someone like Napoleon have arisen if
Napoleon had never been born? Also, perhaps, yes.

Evidence for the "in the air" version clearly exists in science and
mathematics, where progress leads a certain direction, then a particular
individual is the one who makes big advance or discovery. Often more than one
person is independently making the same advance at the same time. Think of
Newton and Leibniz, who independently and at same time developed calculus. Or
Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, same thing with theory of evolution. All of
these guys did extremely impressive things. But do you really think nobody
else would have developed calculus or discovered evolution if these guys had
all died in childbirth?

I'm not saying all advancements are 100% "in the air" and that individuals
basically do nothing. But, certainly, for many of these individuals -- who we
(rightfully) revere -- the same advancements (or discoveries, or destruction,
or whatever) would have been accomplished by someone else if they had never
been born.

~~~
hguant
Right, but the conditions being ripe for a Naploean still requires Napolean.
Saying that "the time was such that someone like so and so HAD to rise up" is
meaningless. Nothing HAS to happen, in the realms of human behavior. People
may be likely to do something, or the potential to do a great thing might be
more potent at one point in time than another, but that potency still requires
an efficient cause to become real. People with vision and talent and will can,
and do, and have been changing the world.

If you're interested in a smarter man than me going on about this idea, I
suggest you read the Foundation series by Issac Asimov.

~~~
akiselev
Perhaps the conditions being ripe for Napoleon require _a Napoleank_ not _the
Napolean_ , which is the crux of this individual vs circumstances debate. The
interesting question is whether Napoleon (or Hitler or Stalin) was a unique
individual necessary for the progression of events we call history or could
that role have been fulfilled by another narcissistic, paranoid egomaniac
(which Napolean, Hitler, and Stalin arguably were)? Was it fate, random
chance, or is it a case of the nature of those randomly in power deciding the
destiny of all? We'll probably never know.

~~~
hsitz
Yeah, kind of undecidable, in similar way to nature vs. nurture debate.
However, I would say that the case for scientific advancements being "in the
air" and nearly inevitable is much stronger than, say, the inevitability of a
paranoid egomaniac arising as a leader, rather than a more even-keeled and
humane figure. Political action often seems balanced to go either way, for ill
or for good, while scientific progress is in comparison mostly in a single
direction, onward and upward.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I'd say that the case of scientific, as well as technological 'advancements
being "in the air" and nearly inevitable' is much stronger than individuals
effecting social changes. For example, Reformation happened not because of
Martin Luther per se, but because of printing press that gave common people
the Bible, and that spread the Luther's theses around Germany in a matter of
weeks, and around the world in a matter of months (arguably, this was one of
the first cases of pre-Internet outrage). If you were to remove Luther, a
similar movement would likely start anyway, given that it was actually growing
elsewhere in parallel! People we name and attribute changes to seem to be just
puppets of the circumstances.

EDIT

Scott Alexander covers that one too:

[http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/03/07/we-wrestle-not-with-
fle...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/03/07/we-wrestle-not-with-flesh-and-
blood-but-against-powers-and-principalities/)

------
mettamage
To some I might seem like Captain Obvious, but to me this article gave me a
big insight. I mean I know social capital is important. I know it really well.

Nevertheless, I didn't know that social capital is _that_ important. Even
Einstein needed it. I had no idea. I only thought he stood on the theories of
others, but a lot of other people also helped him?! I never knew.

How about Stephen Hawking? Did he receive significant help from fellow
physicists as well? Are all popular scientists not lone geniuses? Are they
all, for lack of a better term, _group geniuses_?

~~~
sholanozie
The big lie sold to us is that there is such a thing as a "self-sufficient"
man. The people who make it the furthest are the people with the most
extensive and powerful networks.

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Theodores
The artist Damien Hirst does not make any of his own work, he has a team that
do all that for him. Nonetheless, everything out his studio is 'by Damien
Hirst' as in the artist, not one of his 'artworker' collaborators or business
managers.

I wonder if one could work as a scientist or an inventor like that? Which
inventors, e.g.Edison, actually did?

The art movement of the 'Blair era' could be described with only the names of
half a dozen Hirst type artists mentioned, yet all those names have teams of
helpers. Maybe the invention scene a hundred years ago was like that to a
certain extent?

~~~
psuter
Arguably, most professors run their labs in the same way Damien Hirst runs his
studio, focusing on "design" and "sales".

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danharaj
Einstein being a socialist and all around lover of human beings probably would
agree. His letters to people like Levi-Civita make that clear. There are very
few hermit geniuses. Whom we consider geniuses now were often gregarious
individuals who mixed themselves up with others. An individual can only be as
great as the communities that nurture them. We all rely on others to guide us
towards truth and away from error.

[http://arxiv.org/abs/1202.4305](http://arxiv.org/abs/1202.4305)

Before developing his 1915 General Theory of Relativity, Einstein held the
"Entwurf" theory. Tullio Levi-Civita from Padua, one of the founders of tensor
calculus, objected to a major problematic element in this theory, which
reflected its global problem: its field equations were restricted to an
adapted coordinate system. Einstein proved that his gravitational tensor was a
covariant tensor for adapted coordinate systems. In an exchange of letters and
postcards that began in March 1915 and ended in May 1915, Levi-Civita
presented his objections to Einstein's above proof. Einstein tried to find
ways to save his proof, and found it hard to give it up. Finally Levi-Civita
convinced Einstein about a fault in his arguments. However, only in spring
1916, long after Einstein had abandoned the 1914 theory, did he finally
understand the main problem with his 1914 gravitational tensor. In autumn 1915
the G\"ottingen brilliant mathematician David Hilbert found the central flaw
in Einstein's 1914 derivation. On March 30, 1916, Einstein sent to Hilbert a
letter admitting, "The error you found in my paper of 1914 has now become
completely clear to me".

------
acqq
Also worth mentioning, general relativity appeared to violate the conservation
of energy until Emmy Noether's contribution:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmy_Noether](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmy_Noether)

"Noether was brought to Göttingen in 1915 by David Hilbert and Felix Klein,
who wanted her expertise in invariant theory to help them in understanding
general relativity, a geometrical theory of gravitation developed mainly by
Albert Einstein. Hilbert had observed that the conservation of energy seemed
to be violated in general relativity, due to the fact that gravitational
energy could itself gravitate. Noether provided the resolution of this
paradox, and a fundamental tool of modern theoretical physics, with Noether's
first theorem, which she proved in 1915, but did not publish until 1918."

~~~
no1ne
Also worth mentioning is that feminists said Mileva Maric, his wife was the
real credit behind his work and PBS even aired a documentary (which just shows
how even documentaries are biased), until the back-lash from the scientific
community dismantled this fantasized myth.

~~~
acqq
Maric story is irrelevant in relation to Noether, I don't know why it's
brought up, because:

Emmy Noether really did this, it was really a big thing:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noether's_theorem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noether's_theorem)

Certainly not a myth.

~~~
no1ne
Just stating another thing worth mentioning.. that is all :)

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aschreyer
Einstein's most genius insight was probably not to make any initial
assumptions and simply to follow his thought experiments regardless of the
outcome (even if they contradicted contemporary dogma). The idea that time is
not constant and space can be bend was certainly genius and as far as I know
rejected by others who thought the maths must be wrong. He certainly relied on
others for the mathematical foundation but he always mentioned that. Science
even today is strongly ego-driven and he surely had the personality to take on
the other scientists of his time.

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thelastguy
Reminds of me the series Connections, where, no one man
invented/created/discovered something all by himself. It was more of like, the
thing of one man lead to this other thing of this other man, while this third
man over here is also doing this other thing, and then bam! Something new and
revolutionary that changed mankind for ever. Pete and repeats.

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khattam
I don't know much about physics but I always thought that he was popular ONLY
because he was a "Jewish German".

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tiatia
in 1881:

m=E/c^2

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Hasen%C3%B6hrl](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Hasen%C3%B6hrl)

Einstein: E=m x c^2

~~~
saiya-jin
quoting your own link:

... However, Max von Laue quickly rebutted those claims by saying that the
inertia of electromagnetic energy was long known before Hasenöhrl, especially
by the works of Henri Poincaré (1900) and Max Abraham (1902), while Hasenöhrl
only used their results for his calculation on cavity radiation. Laue
continued by saying that credit for establishing the inertia of all forms of
energy (the real mass-energy equivalence) goes to Einstein, who was also the
first to understand the deep implications of that equivalence in relation to
relativity.

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ratsmack
I wonder how many geniuses there have been in the world that never had the
opportunity to expand their natural skills because they were to busy just
surviving.

~~~
api
Billions. IQ is normally distributed, so it's easy math. Lots of cynics think
people are dumb or we don't have enough smart ones, but the truth is that we
quite literally have more brains than we know what to do with. We are a
species of bored underachievers trapped in a gravity well with nothing much to
do and no future, so we spend our time fighting and drugging and making
pointless doodads as townies trapped in some nowheresville often do.

~~~
javajosh
Humanity is ~7B, and "billons" implies >= 2B which is >= 30% of humanity.

I'd define "great" to be the top 1% of minds, which is ~70 million people. So,
yes, _tens of millions_ of great minds are certainly wasted, but not
_billions_. (Not that that's much consolation).

~~~
robrenaud
Apparently 107 billion humans have ever lived. 1% of that is greater than a
billion.

[http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-16870579](http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-16870579)

> here are currently seven billion people alive today and the Population
> Reference Bureau estimates that about 107 billion people have ever lived.

That said, merely being in the top 1% of intelligence doesn't seem to be
worthy of the genius title.

~~~
api
If you are in the top 1% or even 5% you are probably capable of genius things
if given the opportunity. The majority never are.

Genius is much more common than opportunity.

~~~
birbal
How do i up vote this. I have the genius but lacking the opportunity i think

