Young Einstein

The nice thing about this New York Times article about the Einstein and the World Year in Physics, is that they provide a picture of Einstein when he was rather young. Isn’t it strange how the picture of Einstein many of us have in our head–the picture many of associate withe genius–is of the older Professor Einstein, and not of the young man working in a patent office?
Many argue that today no one “working in a patent office” could produce the same quality papers as Einstein did in 1905. But I doubt this. Maybe it’s because I still believe that our next fundamental breakthroughs in physics will be both revolutionary and simple. I guess this sits me on the opposite side of much progress in theoretical physics, which has seen a progressive increase in the level of sophistication, from special relativity to quantum theory to general relativity to quantum field theory to the standard model to superstring theory. But I’m a sucker for simplicity, and especially for conceptual simplicity. There are many ideas which are conceptually simple, but whose consequences are very difficult to sort out. And if it’s a simple idea with deep consequences which leads to the next new set of ideas in physics, then why can’t it come from someone passionate who isn’t sitting behind the standard academic bandwagon?