> Brian Greene who wrote The Elegant Universe says he thinks Einstein's original papers would've been round-filed if submitted today.
I'm not sure that tells us very much, the field has changed a lot in the past 110 years. Would other papers of the time be rejected today also? He could have been on par with his peers.
I don't think it was his thought experiments so much as predicting the precession of Mercury's perihelion that got everybody's attention. "You have a vivid imagination? We all do, kid." And then "You figured out the Mercury problem?!?!? Tell me about those thought experiments again?"
If a paper describing the new theory of special relativity would be round-filed today, it tells me that Einstein got lucky. In 1905 he was in the right place at the right time, getting reviewed by Planck, perhaps the only reviewer who wouldn't have summarily rejected the papers. If not for Planck the anomalous perihelion shift of Mercury might well still be a mystery, for Einstein's answer to that came a decade later. Presumably he'd have been ignored if his 1905 papers hadn't already opened the doors to academia.
I'm not sure that tells us very much, the field has changed a lot in the past 110 years. Would other papers of the time be rejected today also? He could have been on par with his peers.
I don't think it was his thought experiments so much as predicting the precession of Mercury's perihelion that got everybody's attention. "You have a vivid imagination? We all do, kid." And then "You figured out the Mercury problem?!?!? Tell me about those thought experiments again?"