"SR similarly wasn't required to explain anything important"
Wasnt it the case that no one was able to explain Michaelson-Morley experiment? That speed of light was measured to be the same irresective of observer speed? Ppl came with all sorts of explanations (ether/lorentz tx etc), but it was Einstein who had the creativity to suggest that maybe time itself was slowing down. With that insight, the rest was beautifuly derivable.
And this is also why, Hilbert was able to (and otherws were racing to) derive the field equations before Einstein, since Einstein needed help from mathematicians (Grossman?), and Hilbert was an already excellent mathematician. SR and GR is derivable from beautifuly simple insights (time slowdown, gravity/acceleration equivalence).
One could say Einstein came with this insight out of the blue, but Poincare was also investigating time dilation, but stopped because it was too counter-intuitive.
Wasnt it the case that no one was able to explain Michaelson-Morley experiment? That speed of light was measured to be the same irresective of observer speed? Ppl came with all sorts of explanations (ether/lorentz tx etc), but it was Einstein who had the creativity to suggest that maybe time itself was slowing down. With that insight, the rest was beautifuly derivable.
And this is also why, Hilbert was able to (and otherws were racing to) derive the field equations before Einstein, since Einstein needed help from mathematicians (Grossman?), and Hilbert was an already excellent mathematician. SR and GR is derivable from beautifuly simple insights (time slowdown, gravity/acceleration equivalence).
One could say Einstein came with this insight out of the blue, but Poincare was also investigating time dilation, but stopped because it was too counter-intuitive.
Edit: typos