In 1919, after the successful verification of the phenomenon of light from faraway stars bending near the sun — as predicted earlier by Einstein's theory of gravity — became an observable fact, Albert Einstein was acclaimed as “the most revolutionary innovator in physics” since Isaac Newton. J. Robert Oppenheimer, called the American physics community's "boy-wonder" in the 1930s, became a popular figure from 1945 onwards after overseeing the first ever successful test of nuclear weapons.