The papers Einstein wrote in 1905 covered a broad swath—special relativity, electrodynamics, Brownian motion, light quanta. Churned out in less than a year, these ideas had lasting impact: scientists today still devote their lives to evaluating Einstein’s work on gravity, space and time. Einstein isn’t the only scientist, however, to pull off such compacted productivity. Newton, Galileo and others had their own superproductive 12-month stretches—but as far as we can tell, no post-Einstein scientist has managed one. Why? Read on.

Galileo Galilei: 1609-1610