[sriku]

Absolutely this! Another way I express this to my colleagues is to consider that Einstein (and others) took fifteen years to develop the relativity theories that did not require any new theoretical or experimental input. All of that is typically taught in a semester's graduate level course today.

The "genius" perception hides all the hard work, false turns, recoveries, retries, .. busy work as you put it .. that's behind the core insights and discoveries.

[redis_mlc]

> Einstein (and others) took fifteen years to develop the relativity theories that did not require any new theoretical or experimental input.

Further to that, when Einstein worked in the patent office, it's likely that applications related to railroad time synchronization crossed his desk, inspiring his work on relativity.

[andrepd]

Hardly. Special relativity was a collaborative effort that was underway before Einstein gave his contribution. It was general relativity which was 100% Einstein's idea.