Einstein isn't celebrating the eureka moment—he's confessing to the grinding arithmetic of failure that precedes it. Most people hear this and think "persistence pays off," but what's actually radical here is his willingness to quantify how *wrong* he was willing to be. He's describing not blind stubbornness but iterative thinking, where each false conclusion teaches something that edges you closer to truth. A surgeon perfecting a new technique knows this rhythm intimately: the ninety-nine failed approaches aren't wasted time but the necessary scaffolding that makes the hundredth procedure work.