Yup. The way I like to express this is as follows - It took Einstein about 10 years to formulate the general theory of relativity, needing no further experimen

Yup. The way I like to express this is as follows - It took Einstein about 10 years to formulate the general theory of relativity, needing no further experimental input into the work during this period. A few other scientists such as Wheeler, Schwarzschild and others, not to mention mathematicians like Riemann, put in at least as many "top scientist years" of time - about 20 TSYs in all, conservatively. The core content of this is taught in grad school these days over one semester and could be considered about 1/2 grad student years worth of intellectual effort. So what did these people do for the remaining 19.5/20 of the time? They got hold of a problem that wouldnt let go of them, that they poorly understood, but nevertheless persevered through false starts, uglifications, and what not to arrive finally at the beautiful theory that it is. i.e. Problem finding and perseverence through foggy days with all but a candle that seems to threaten to blow out any minute is at least 40x harder and that much more valuable than problem solving. I believe your phd would've served you well on that front.