[captain_price7]

> What does physics need? The world doesn't know. Nobody knows but someone will do it, someday in a manner no one else thought possible or could really anticipate.

I think that is precisely what the professor meant when he talked about Einstein, not the person himself with all his brilliance and mistakes, but someone capable of revolutionary way of thinking to jolt physics out of it's current stagnant state. Which is specially important since, physicists have turned into almost religious believer of their own, untestable theories, and incapable/unwilling to think outside of that narrow box.

[willis936]

Something important to know about Einstein: he was a patent clerk. He didn’t have much in the way of original revolutionary ideas. He read what other physicists had submitted patents for and combined the work. Without a doubt he did good work and all of mankind greatly benefited from it, but it goes a bit too far to claim all of the revolutionary ideas that came out of him were original.

The most important work, relativity, should be credited to Lorentz and Poincaré.