Einstein was one of history's most successful, perhaps the most successful, abstract thinkers. Some of his reasoning was based on simple observation of light a

Einstein was one of history's most successful, perhaps the most successful, abstract thinkers. Some of his reasoning was based on simple observation of light and making logical deductions about how it must work. It's pretty amazing when you can make simple observations and reason about the workings of the universe. Abstraction is in and of itself an art which is both a learned skill and highly dependent upon intellect. Now, this is the stinker. Imagine that Einstein had been born in a non-English-speaking part of the world. Would this separation from the scientific community have prevented him from telling us all about relativity? I imagine it would have, and it's likely that a good number of abstract thinkers of his caliber have lived and died without us learning from them.