Basically, it's purely academic
pp. 11-27
in: Diederik Aerts, Jan Broekaert, Ernest Mathijs (eds), Einstein meets Magritte: an interdisciplinary reflection, Berlin, Springer, 1999Abstract
Einstein was surely one of the greatest "basic" scientists that ever lived. Yet it is doubtful if he was ever referred to as such during his lifetime. A glance at a few books suggests that this usage did not become common until the 1970s. It wasn"t the default expression that every scientist's word processor was coded to insert automatically at suitable points in any text about research. It wasn"t even listed, along with Basic English and the basic wage, in the largest dictionaries of the time.