[fargolime]

If a paper describing the new theory of special relativity would be round-filed today, it tells me that Einstein got lucky. In 1905 he was in the right place at the right time, getting reviewed by Planck, perhaps the only reviewer who wouldn't have summarily rejected the papers. If not for Planck the anomalous perihelion shift of Mercury might well still be a mystery, for Einstein's answer to that came a decade later. Presumably he'd have been ignored if his 1905 papers hadn't already opened the doors to academia.