The Walter Issacson biography quoted Kip Thorne as saying if Einstein didn’t come up with relativity, likely no one would have for 30-40 years after. Which is insane and totally sensible. This theory had nothing to do with any observation or conundrum we could measure back then or even today except the weird discrepancy in Mercurys orbit. Truly a great genius with unparalleled originality. Somehow beats newton for this reason imo.
Great spoilers for the book Project Hail Mary below so stop reading if you’ve not finished it (and why havent you?): it was such a brilliant idea in that book to suggest that the space faring alien race never figured out relativity still and could still head out to a nearby star and only then discover there’s a massive discrepancy in their calculations. To use such an obscure observation that relativity is not obvious at all as a plot point needs a lot of kudos to the author.
Great spoilers for the book Project Hail Mary below so stop reading if you’ve not finished it (and why havent you?): it was such a brilliant idea in that book to suggest that the space faring alien race never figured out relativity still and could still head out to a nearby star and only then discover there’s a massive discrepancy in their calculations. To use such an obscure observation that relativity is not obvious at all as a plot point needs a lot of kudos to the author.