I am sure I am not the only one in this year of Einstein who receives calls from journalists asking, “Why is there no new Einstein?” While we have ready answers, there is still the disquieting worry that perhaps a lesson might be learned from the fact that this one person, who was initially unable to find an academic job, did more to advance physics than most of the rest of us put together have since.
Many of Einstein’s contemporaries testified that he was not unusually talented mathematically. Instead, what enabled him to make such tremendous advances was a driving need to understand the logic of nature, tied to a breathtaking creativity and a fierce intellectual independence. But Einstein does not stand alone. One can cite many examples showing that big advances in physics come when unusually creative and intellectually independent individuals ask new questions and forge new directions.
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