Walter Isaacson

He even tries about 14 different high schools, a gymnasium, to get a job, and they won't take him.

So he's a third-class examiner in the Swiss Patent Office in 1905.

Third class because they've rejected his doctoral dissertation.

And so he can't be second class or first class because he doesn't have a doctoral degree.

And yet he's sitting there on the stool in the patent office in 1905 and writes three papers that totally transform science.

And if you're thinking about being...

misunderstood or unappreciated.

In 1906, he stole a third-class patent.

In 1907, he stole it.

It takes until 1909 before people realize that this notion of the theory of relativity might be correct and it might upend all of Newtonian physics.

And there's really three papers, but there's also an addendum.

Because once you figure out quantum theory and then you figure out relativity and you're understanding Maxwell's equations and the speed of light,

He does a little addendum.

That's the most famous equation in all of physics, which is E equals MC squared.

So it's a pretty good year.

It partly starts because he's a visual thinker, and I think it was helpful that he was at the patent office rather than being the acolyte of some professor at the academy where he was supposed to follow the rules.

And so at the patent office, they're doing devices to synchronize clocks because the Swiss have just gone on standard time zones, and Swiss people, as you know, tend to be rather...

You know, Swiss, they care if it strikes the hour in Basel, it should do the same and burn at the exact instant.

So you have to send a light signal between two distant clocks.

And he's visualizing what's it look like to ride alongside a light beam.