Henry Slesar's "Reluctant Genius" (flash fiction, uplift, free): How aliens aided the beginning of modern physics!

Buos & Laloi are aliens - on earth an an assignment. Their own world is dying, & they need help. Man looks like a promising creature that might be able to help in centuries ahead, but he needs to go a long way before he can help them. They decide to help uplift man.

Only, their bodies aren't physical - they're vaporish. They've selected a man worthy of imparting inspiration, but how do they communicate? Until inspiration strikes one of them...

Fact sheet.

First published: Amazing Stories, January 1957.
Rating: B.
Download full text from Project Gutenberg, or Manybooks. [via QuasarDragon]