Einstein is a good “test object”. Suppose, we move him here from 1905. Would he get a faculty position now? No way. Would he be able to publish his 4 revolutionary papers in the top leading journal of physics? No way.

The Western culture is in the decaying phase of the Roman culture. Remember Cicero (surface and style instead of depth and real value), Roman rights (lawyers), highly organized army and structure; and murdering Archimedes while forgetting the Greek science.

Take physics, for example. Quantum theory was developed only after years confusion about certain radiation phenomena, and centuries after Newton’s Principia, which itself emerged only centuries after Aristotle. The point is that great discoveries take centuries to foment, and are led up to by a series of smaller discoveries. Having talent or genius is not enough. There also need to be fertile ground it to blossom. There is an old Chinese saying: “The times make the heros.” Paul Dirac once commented about physics in the early 20th century, saying, to the effect, that “physics today is so rich with opportunities that even second-rate physicists can do first-rate work.”

To lament that we no longer have great minds of the stature of Einstein and Edison is somewhat misguided, I believe. Today there are many many more professional physicists and other scientists and engineers than before, and it’s getting harder and harder for one great mind to distinguish itself from another. To get the forefront of physics research, say string theory, one needs to know a lot more mathematics than Einstein ever had to learn.

It’s a very different world now.