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As 1905 dawned,

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the soon to be 26-year-old Albert Einstein
faced life as a failed academic.

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Most physicists of the time
would have scoffed at the idea

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that this minor civil servant
could have much to contribute to science.

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Yet within the following year,

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Einstein would publish not one,

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not two,

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not three,

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but four extraordinary papers,
each on a different topic,

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that were destined to radically transform
our understanding of the universe.

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The myth that Einstein had failed 
math is just that.

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He had mastered Calculus on his own
by the age of 15,

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and done well at both 
his Munich secondary school

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and at the Swiss Polytechnic,

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where he studied for a math 
and physics teaching diploma.

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But skipping classes to spend 
more time in the lab,

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and neglecting to show proper deference
to his professors,

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had derailed his intended career path.

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Passed over even 
for a lab assistant position,

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he had to settle for a job
at the Swiss patent office,

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obtained with the help 
of a friend's father.

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Working six days a week as a patent clerk,

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Einstein still managed to make 
some time for physics,

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discussing the latest work
with a few close friends,

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and publishing a couple of minor papers.

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It came as a major surprise

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when in March 1905 he submitted 
a paper with shocking hypothesis.

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Despite decades of evidence 
that light was a wave,

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Einstein proposed that it could,
in fact, be a particle,

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showing that mysterious phenomena,
such as the photoelectric effect,

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could be explained by his hypothesis.

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The idea was derided for years to come,

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but Einstein was simply 
twenty years ahead of his time.

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Wave-particle duality was slated to become
a cornerstone of the quantum revolution.

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Two months later in May,
Einstein submitted a second paper,

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this time tackling the centuries old 
question of whether atoms actually exist.

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Though certain theories were built on
the idea of invisible atoms,

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some prominent scientists still believed
them to be a useful fiction,

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rather than actual physical objects.

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But Einstein used an ingenious argument,

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showing that the behavior 
of small particles

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randomly moving around in a liquid,
known as Brownian motion,

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could be precisely predicted

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by the collisions of millions
of invisible atoms.

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Experiments soon confirmed 
Einstein's model,

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and atomic skeptics threw in the towel.

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The third paper came in June.

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For a long time,

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Einstein had been troubled 
by an inconsistency

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between two fundamental 
principles of physics.

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The well established 
principle of relativity,

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going all the way back to Galileo,

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stated that absolute motion
could not be defined.

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Yet electromagnetic theory,
also well established,

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asserted that absolute motion did exist.

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The discrepency, 
and his inability to resolve it,

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left Einstein in what he described
as a state of psychic tension.

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But one day in May,

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after he had mulled over the puzzle
with his friend Michele Besso,

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the clouds parted.

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Einstein realized 
that the contradiction could be resolved

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if it was the speed of light 
that remained constant,

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regardless of reference frame,

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while both time and space 
were relative to the observer.

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It took Einstein only a few weeks
to work out the details

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and formulate what came to be known
as special relativity.

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The theory not only shattered
our previous understanding of reality,

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but would also pave the way 
for technologies,

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ranging from particle accelerators,

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to the global positioning system.

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One might think that this was enough,

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but in Sepember,

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a fourth paper arrived as a "by the way" 
follow up to the special relativity paper.

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Einstein had thought a little bit more
about his theory,

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and realized it also implied 
that mass and energy,

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one apparently solid 
and the other supposedly ethereal,

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were actually equivalent.

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And their relationship could be expressed
in what was to become the most famous

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and consequential equation in history:

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E=mc^2.

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Einstein would not become a world famous
icon for nearly another fifteen years.

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It was only after his later general theory
of relativity was confirmed in 1919

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by measuring the bending of starlight
during a solar eclipse

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that the press would turn him
into a celebrity.

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But even if he had disappeared back
into the patent office

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and accomplished nothing else after 1905,

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those four papers of his miracle year

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would have reamined the gold standard 
of startling unexpected genius.