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I think you're really underestimating how influential Einstein's work was. I can't think of another physicist besides Newton himself whose impact is comparable
by nilkn 12y ago
I think you're really underestimating how influential Einstein's work was. I can't think of another physicist besides Newton himself whose impact is comparable to Einstein's. Maxwell might be a close runner up (and Einstein himself said as much). In terms of lasting impact, Einstein clearly deserves the credit he gets.
At the same time, I think you're also underestimating how much credit other physicists get. Anybody who has studied some physics knows how profound and significant Feynman, Maxwell, Dirac, Schrödinger, Landau, Pauli, Fermi, etc., all were. In fact, Feynman might get even more adoration among physics undergraduates than Einstein.
But Feynman's work on renormalizing quantum electrodynamics, while one of the great accomplishments of 20th century physics, still did not have the sheer impact of general relativity, which had such far-reaching and grand predictions about the cosmos that many of them took 50+ years to verify. Kip Thorne doesn't identify the "golden age" of GR as even beginning until 1960, when scientists were finally able to not only understand its implications better but also verify them.
Even today Einstein has some predictions that remain to be completely verified (e.g., gravitational waves).