"Everyone wants to be the patent clerk slaving away in isolation who pops out with a new revolutionary theory of the universe, but it's just not realistic these

"Everyone wants to be the patent clerk slaving away in isolation who pops out with a new revolutionary theory of the universe, but it's just not realistic these days." And note that that patent clerk wasn't just some patent clerk. He had published four papers (plus a bunch of reviews) and finished his dissertation by 1905.