Einstein the "lone genius" is a complete myth

"Perhaps the most commonly told myth in all of science is that of the lone genius. The blueprint for it goes something like this. Once upon a time in history, someone with a towering intellect but no formal training wades into a field that's new to them for the first time. Upon considering the field's issues, they immediately see things that no one else has ever seen before."

"That's the myth we frequently tell ourselves about Albert Einstein. That he, an outcast and a dropout, taught himself everything he needed to know on his own about physics and astrophysics. Just through his own, private, hard work, he revolutionized our understanding of reality in a number of profound ways. In the early days, his work - inspired by his thoughts about light - gave us the photoelectric effect, special relativity, and E = mc², among other advances."

The lone-genius myth portrays an inexperienced outsider who, unaided by formal training or collaborators, instantly sees solutions that elude established experts and thereby revolutionizes a field. The Einstein legend is commonly framed this way: an outcast dropout who taught himself physics and produced landmark results alone. In 1905 Einstein published papers that transformed understanding of light, energy, and mass, leading to the photoelectric effect, special relativity, and E = mc². Later work led to general relativity. However, significant evidence shows that these achievements arose within a broader scientific context shaped by prior findings, dialogue with peers, and cumulative research.

Read at Big Think