As a layman I was amazed to learn that Einstein did not come up with E=mc2 in 1905; others (obscure) scientists had already come up with the formula.
In addition, Einstein's formula did not lead to the A-bomb. Einstein came up with the formula in 1905, yet Rutherford and other scientists already knew that massive amounts of energy were locked up in the atom, and they also knew that the decay of the atoms produced large amounts of energy.
Futhermore, Einstein had nothing to do with the discovery of atomic power. It took other scientists almost 30 to map the atom (mainly Rutherford and Bohr) and it wasn't until 1932 that neutrons were discovered.
Fission was discoved by accident in 1939 and E=mc2 was used to EXPLAIN why large amounts of energy were released during fission. IOW, scientists did not discover atomic powere because of E=mc2; they discovered nuclear power and used E=mc2 to EXPLAIN why it released large amounts of energy.
Furthermore, Einstein was NOT a nuclear scientist, he was well known name and used by nuclear scientists as a "celebrity". All he did was SIGN a letter - drafted by others -to FDR stating we needed a Manhatten Project.
He had nothing to do with actually making the A-bomb or the H-bomb.
Why then the hero worship? Yes, he was a great theoretical scientist but so what?
Believe I read somewhere that Einstein actually "rode" a light beam to understand it. That's pretty hero-like (if true).
Mmm, he come up with theory of relativity???
He actually talked President in to funding Nuke project in 1939 before Germans did it..
He is the smartest man ever lived :)
As for "smartest man ever"... I don't think so. There are just too many candidates for that title.
"As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear-headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as the result of my research about the atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particles of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter." -- Max Planck
[see also: http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/PlancksConstant.html]
Einstein is revered because in one year he published the matter-energy equivalence (E=mc^2), the invariable nature of the speed of light (Special Relativity and all of its daughter products), as well as the defining paper describing the photo-electric effect. The last one won him his only Nobel Prize. No one else has had a better year in the history of physics, and that doesn't even touch his work with General Relativity.
Of course, to be fair, he didn't invent an entirely new branch of mathematics to describe his theories, like Newton, so who can say which is smarter. They're both beyond me...
umm he could actually spell "Manhatten" Manhattan
point well taken though - if he was so smart, why is he dead