[adrian_b]

Copernicus has only revived a theory first proposed millennia before him (in Ancient Greece), but initially rejected for insufficient evidence. Even for Copernicus, his theory was based more on faith than on evidence, because it became possible to measure the stellar parallaxes only much later.

When Einstein published his theory of Special Relativity, it did not contain any fact or formula that had not already existed previously in the works of Lorentz, Poincaré and many others. It was just a new and original point of view about which is the meaning of those known relationships (i.e. that it is the speed of light which is constant in all reference systems, while other quantities are variable, instead of making other choices about which quantities are constant and which are variable).

His contribution is actually very similar with that of Copernicus, who also did not provide any new fact or relationship, but just a new choice about which position should be considered constant, Sun's or Earth's. Both changes were very small compared with the existing knowledge, but they were very important for enabling further progress.

Every progress is really incremental and it adds very little over the existing body of knowledge, even if the addition is essential for any further progress and for improving the practical applications.

[LadyCailin]

This might be confirmation bias to a degree, because of something called “the adjacent possible”. That is, that ideas that are too far ahead of their time, simply don’t catch on, and so no one has ever heard of them. However, the individuals inventing these things would be extraordinary individuals, I would argue. Clive Sinclair might be one example of this.

[prng2021]

What’s stopping you from making an incremental contribution like Einstein and earning yourself a Nobel like he did?