Einstein was ostracized from academia. He is the quintessential lone genius. Einstein's 1905 papers were ignored, even by his own teacher Minkowski. Einstein

Einstein was ostracized from academia. He is the quintessential lone genius. Einstein's 1905 papers were ignored, even by his own teacher Minkowski. Einstein was considered an arrogant academic failure. The "lone genius" was that Einstein knew that he was right and and smarter than his peers and superiors, so he kept working. Max Planck was the one who identified Einstein's Brownian motion paper as significant. Planck knew that Einstein was onto something and that if Planck continued "quantum"/atom research history would acknowledge Einstein's previous work. Planck didn't want to needlessly share his glory so he pushed Einstein's relativity work. Planck elevated Einstein's relativity work in an effort to remove Einstein from the quantum. Einstein betting on himself continued. He promised Mileva his Nobel prize money in 1918 long before it was certain in 1921.