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Peter Gallison makes some intriguing points about the life and discoveries of Albert Einstein, but to start off, I think he misrepresents exactly what the effect of Einstein’s discoveries were. He states that the discovery of the variability of time and length (and mass, although he doesn’t mention it) redefined the entire understanding of physics. This is true but misleading. Einstein did not invalidate every calculation ever made by way of Newtonian methods. His discoveries of dilation do not apply to most forms of physics and mechanics, as the amount of dilation for almost all naturally occurring phenomena, is extremely small, only in quantum physics are his formulas for dilation actually used. I am not saying this is not a profound discovery, one that clearly required the mind of a genius, but it does not crush the works of Isaac Newton. Einstein work is revolutionary in that it wrote the fundamental laws which were used to build quantum physics, which has since been used to make many fundamental discoveries about our universe. Einstein may have said, ”Newton forgive me” but this should be interpreted more as, “I found some complex exceptions for your laws,” not, “I disproved everything you ever worked for.” Gallison also mentions that Einstein’s great discovery was actually “discovered” several years previously by a Frenchman named Poincare. Without actually saying it, he makes the point that the reason Poincare’s discovery was not so widely published is because he discovered it from an engineering perspective, while Einstein looked at it as a scientist. Poincare discovered the issue with the time it takes to relay a signal caused time discrepancies over great distances, so he found how to compensate for it and as such his job was done. His only objective was to find an effective method of keeping accurate time at different locations, so as to better control the vast French Empire. Einstein on the other hand, was interested in what this discovery might mean for the greater scientific community. He discovered the issue with frames of reference and simultaneity as Poincare had, //and// he then continued to study the idea, wanting to know every detail of the scientific explanation. This is why Einstein expanded the theory to the dilation of time length and mass and published them in one of the most famous papers in history, he had no end point for how deep he would research what he saw. Later in his discussion Gallison also mentions the actual life of Einstein and expressed his theories for what actually made Einstein the great thinker he was. He pointed out that science is not something that builds on itself necessarily, but rather several important discoveries can be made at the same time, and it when these ideas come together (sometimes by pure coincidence) that is when big discoveries get made. So in general science may be a progression of slowly growing but knowledge, but the ideas come from simple moments of understanding in the human brain.