How did Albert Einstein become a world famous scientist?

Answer 1

He worked in a patent office in his early years, after graduating averagely from a local college. He read various books on maths and physics - the reason he got such a job as a patent approver in Germany was because it gave him so much free time to read and work maths.

In this time, he slowly formulated his first few formulae, including the special theory of relativity. This was submitted to a local physics journal, where, after a short while, it amazed physicists everywhere. However, this special theory was said to be very good, but not exceptional; some other bright spark could probably have thought it up in the next 5 or so years.

A few months after the SPECIAL theory, he then developed the GENERAL theory of relativity, which included (as a side-note, no more) e=mc2. THIS formula is said to be truly revolutionary, and would not have been independently thought up for 100's of years if he hadn't. At the time, it was widely believed to be even more complex that it really was (Einstein himself had to enlist help from leading mathematicians to help with the formal proof), and many people believed that, "only 3 people in the world could understand it". This isn't true - most people can get the gist of it. This formula, and the subsequent hype over how ground-breaking it was, it what lead to his immortalisation

immortalisation as one of the greatest scientists of all time. immortalisation immortalisation as one of the greatest minds of all time.

An interesting fact, that helped to encourage the hype surrounding him, is the the New York Times sent their golfing correspondent to interview him, who was quickly out of his depth and helped to make all the maths and science seem much more impressive.

Another interesting note that probably helped to increase the hype surrounding him and his formulae is that the NY Times sent its golfing correspondent to interview him. Obviously, this man was fast out of his depth and wrote a totally incorrect report, which only added to the amazed confusion most scientists felt.