Quotes from John S. Rigden

There is a disturbing fact about current science. If a contemporary journal editor received a manuscript from an unknown clerk working in a nondescript place, that editor would, in all likelihood, reject it, possibly without even reading it. Yet Einstein, an unknown clerk working in a nondescript place, produced one of the most significant and beautiful manuscripts in the history of physics.

The fine-structure constant derives its name from its origin. It first appeared in Sommerfeld's work to explain the fine details of the hydrogen spectrum. ... Since Sommerfeld expressed the energy states of the hydrogen atom in terms of the constant [alpha], it came to be called the fine-structure constant.