Physics Does Thrive under the Strangest of Circumstances

Albert Einstein had famously said that Nature is subtle but not malicious. He should know better because he had unravelled some of the secrets of Nature at a relatively young age as an obscure patent clerk working in isolation. This paper tells of stories of other scientists who had also made ground-breaking discoveries in forced or self-imposed isolation. Their passion and devotion to physics was largely driven by what Einstein himself called "the hunger of the soul".