He wrote three groundbreaking papers in 1905; Special Relativity was just one of them. He continued writing groundbreaking papers for decades after that. Ev

He wrote three groundbreaking papers in 1905; Special Relativity was just one of them. He continued writing groundbreaking papers for decades after that. Even his unsuccessful investigations produced interesting insights. Sure, "someone else" may have eventually written down much of the content of any one of these three papers, but probably not all three and not all in the same year. Notably, he could have won the Nobel prize for any of those important 1905 papers (and did so for the photoelectric effect, rather than Special Relativity). In the same year he also had more than twenty other papers published, several of which were intersting, and all of which are eclipsed by the famous one on relativity. In objectively quantifiable terms, the count, rate, and accuracy of his published papers over the years is simply exceptional. A bit more detail here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14823796 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14823796