Talk:Albert Einstein

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Font problems

This talk page keeps growing, and an incorrectly coded signature of one participant, User:Gaff, messed up the fonts on the previous version of this page. (I have left a note on the talk page of that user asking him to fix the problem with his signature.) I have fixed the fonts in Talk:Albert_Einstein/Archive/2 and moved recent discusions to a new archive page (see link above).---CH (talk) 22:30, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Man, tht Einstein is stupid.Who cares if he flew a kite?

Table

Why don't we have a table in here about Einstein, like Richard Feynman, and most developed biographical articles? Or is it just no one has made one yet? -- Mac Davis ญƛ. 08:29, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

• They are not required and a lot of people think they look ugly and select one quote entirely arbitrarily as a "representative" quote. --Fastfission 16:21, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Use of the word "creation"

Is it appropriate that the word "creation" is being used to describe the universe as part of an objective encyclopedia article?

From the third paragraph:

"His reverence for all creation, his belief in the grandeur..."

Einstein and Religion

From Ze'ev Rosenkranz "The Einstein Scrap Book", ISBN 0801872030, p. 89.

It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropomorphic concept which I cannot take seriously. I feel also not able to imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere. My views are near to those of Spinoza: admiration for the beauty of and belief in the logical simplicity of the order and harmony which we can grasp humbly and only imperfectly. I believe that we have to content ourselves with our imperfect knowledge and understanding and treat values and moral obligations as a purely human problem—the most important of all human problems.

Yesselman 19:07, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

From Max Jammer's "Einstein and Religion"; ISBN: 0691006997; p. 43.

The extent Einstein concurred with the philosophy of Spinoza:

Rejecting the traditional theistic concept of God, Spinoza denied the existence of a cosmic purpose on the grounds that all events in nature occur according to immutable laws of cause and effect. The universe is governed by a mechanical or mathematical order and not according to purposeful or moral intentions. Though he employed the notion of "G-D," Spinoza applied it only to the structure of the order and declared that "neither intellect nor will appertain to G-D's nature." He therefore denied the Judeo-Christian conception of a personal God. What the Bible refers to as divine activities are identified by Spinoza course of nature. G-D is the "infinite substance" having and thought. G-D is devoid of ethical properties, for good and evil human desires. What is commonly called "G-D's will" is identical with the laws of nature. People do not act freely in the sense of having alternatives to their actions; their belief in freedom arises only from their ignorance of the causes of the desires that motivate their actions. The ultimate object of religious devotion can only be the perfect harmony of the universe, and human aspirations must accept the inexorable dictates of the deterministic laws that govern life.

Yesselman 16:12, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Einstein and Immanuel Kant

Does anyone who really knows Einstein's life know if he read Kant at all? I ask this for several reasons. First, Einstein said the following:

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

— Albert Einstein, Religion and Science (article in Ideas and Opinions)

Here's a quote from Kant:

Intuitions without ideas are blind, and ideas without intuitions are empty.

— Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason)

Kant means "a type of experience" from what has been translated as "intuition" here.

They're obvious not exactly the same, but they are similar enough for me to think they either come from a common source or one (Einstein's) is adopted from the other (Kant's).

Another reason I think Einstein might be affected by Kant (or maybe the German Idealists in general??) is because of the importance of space and time in Kant's philosophy - they are the prerequisites to knowledge, and in this way we can know the structure of future experiences before we've even experienced them (we know that we will always experience them in time).

My second reason is probably off target, but I think the issue I brought up with the quotes is interesting - I welcome any responses.

--FranksValli 08:44, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Einstein read Kant's Critique of Pure Reason at the age of 13.

bio by Pais, "Subtle..." , p 13, says he first read Kant in high school GangofOne 07:50, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

1889: Meets 21 year old student Max Talmud, introduces Einstein to key science and philosophy texts including Kant’s "Critique of pure reason" [1] --24.253.120.206 13:50, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Age 10. Did he understand it? GangofOne 05:39, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

That source, which is posted above, does not say. This site states that he understood it at the age of 13, which is one of the reasons why the psychometrician estimates his ratio IQ to be 183. [2] --24.253.120.206 12:22, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Some V Stats

Big improvement in the past few days, keep it up! :-)

From the history page:

• 10 Dec (so far): V < 1 min
• 9 Dec: blanked for 1 min
• 8 Dec: no V (first time I've seen that in months!!)
• 7 Dec: V 1 min, 5.5 hrs, 2 min, 1 min
• 6 Dec: V 7 min, 1 min, 3.3 hrs, 1 min, 1 min

Maybe we finally have those pests on the run? ---CH 00:02, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Guess not, darn it, just saw a vandalism which was hear for 1.6 hours today. ---CH 04:27, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Asperger's

For the vague "several researchers at the universities of Cambridge and Oxford", I have substituted the name of the principal researcher. But I am not convinced this belongs here at all. There is a lot of speculation along these lines, much of it published, including questions about the size of various lobes of Einstein's brain etc. But I don't think any of this has been widely accepted in the scientific community. In any case, I am surprised to see such a major thing introduced into the article without discussion on Talk, and with all the documentation coming from BBC news stories! --Macrakis 03:39, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. The "diagnosis" of Einstein is extremely speculative at best - and let's not get into the controversy about Asperger's diagnoses in general. I've tried to edit this to help keep the pro-Asperger's POV from standing, and I'm not sure the current version is superior in any way to earlier versions - almost every word has had to be hammered out in numerous article revisions rather than discussions here on the talk page. --Krich 03:55, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

I explained some time ago why I feel this entire paragraph should be removed as unverifiable speculation, not to mention an irrelevant distraction in a short biography of Einstein. If someone feels it is terribly important to have this (mis?)-information mentioned somewhere in the Wikipedia, I'd suggest creating a seperate article on "unverifiable speculations concerning Albert Einstein".---CH 03:59, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Wow, mathematicians really are amazingly arrogant, unpleasant people to be around.... --Mistress Selina Kyle 04:01, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

We're writing an encyclopedia. The contents should be well-sourced. What's more, they should be well-chosen. Lots and lots of people have speculated about many things about Einstein. But somehow we need to boil this down to a good article. Let's look at what Baron-Cohen himself says. In Essential Difference: Male and Female Brains and the Truth about Autism (p167), he writes "[Einstein and Newton] certainly showed many of the signs of AS, though whether they would have warranted a diagnosis is questionable, since they hgad found a niche in which they could blossom." (my emphasis) So even B-C is not very definitive about it. I also note that the references are to BBC News articles. Piling on anonymous researchers at Oxford and Vanderbilt doesn't help. --Macrakis 04:07, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

The current revision by User:Macrakis seems like a reasonable compromise between the need to keep unverifiable speculations and other possibly inappropriate distractions to a minimum, and the obviously very strong desire on the part of some users to prominently mention this "controversy". I hope that Selina will agree. ---CH 04:22, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

The version by Macrakis looks absolutely fine to me as it current reads. I'll not make further edits in this section if this language stands. --Krich 05:38, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

And of course it did not. I've changed this back to Macrakis' version, as it seems the most concise, accurate, and fair. Selina, you appear to be the only editor here that wants to push the Asperger's language. Honestly, if this keeps up, I'm going to change my stance to one of removing the reference to AS altogether - I was never sure it belonged here in the first place due to its dubious nature. Please work with us in the spirit of compromise, if you'd like your input to stand. I just don't think you are going to be able to get away with pushing a pro-diagnosis POV in this article. --Krich 16:10, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

I see that Selina has reverted to the old POV language once again today. I believe that she is now in violation of the three revert rule, and have told her so on her talk page, after trying several times to get her to discuss this issue on our talk pages or here on this talk page. She refuses to do so with me, or the others that are attempting to work with her on including language that refers to the controversial Asperger's issue without using pro-diagnosis POV wording. --Krich 20:04, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Could we put the Asperger's stuff in a separate article? Pfalstad 20:12, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, please! (I too think the Asperger's stuff belongs in a separate article.) ---CH 20:22, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

P.S. There is (or was and could be again) a Category:Albert Einstein in which someone tried to collect all articles dealing with something Einstein did, or which otherwise referenced Einstein.

Asperger's material absolutely belongs in its own catagory. This is suppose to be a fact-base account on Einstein only, and not saddled with anything that remotely resembles opinion, hypervolie, speculation etc. This Selina should be reminded that its an encyclopedia, not a repository for personal bias. Any intent on trying to shift from that damages the integrety of this medium turns Wikipedia into a website aspiring to be an encyclopedia, rather than just being. P.N.G 20:43, 31 Jan 2006

Given the normie's desire to monopolise all beneficial discoveries of history, despite the fact that many gains in the fields of computing (just for instance) are the responsibility of verified, diagnosed Aspies, the speculation should stand. In fact, many reliable sources consider the posthumous diagnosis (and shamefully, if you died in our so-called enlightened English-speaking society before 2000, posthumous diagnosis was as good as you got) factual. Einstein's intelligence was focused entirely upon a pervasive, singular interest, to the point where schoolteachers told his parents he was retarded (see if you can name one of them) and his social skills were underdeveloped. That's two strikes against his being a normie. Strike three is that he apparently believed in not wasting his time choosing clothes to wear for the given day, and thus had a lot of suits that all looked the same (seriously, is there any photograph of him that does not show him in a simple suit?).

Given the rampant abuse that we aspies have to suffer, on top the of the flat-out lies from scum like Dick Wolf, while it might not be prudent to say that Einstein was definitely an Aspie (in spite of this being believed as fact by many credible sources), leaving the theory open to consideration is a must. This man endured much in an inability to buckle down and think like everyone else, and since Asperger's Syndrome is turning out to be nature's way of reminding us that it does not want us all to be the same, I feel that he would happily throw in his lot with we Aspies.

I concur with the statement above. If you took archive footage of Einstein, Warhol, and Gates, then ran it alongside footage of verified, diagnosed Aspies like myself, you would reach one conclusion. If Einstein was not an Aspie, then he was doing a very good job of impersonating one. That, by the way, is a very popular catchphrase among the plague of adults who should have been diagnosed decades ago.

World War IV quote

I have changed the quote to what I found in the Calaprice 2005 book. (diff) Adrian Buehlmann 16:50, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Brain examined vs Cremation

If his body was cremated, according to his wishes, on the same day of his death, how could his brain be analyzed post-mortem as stated in the Early Years chapter?

• He was autopsied before he was cremated, apparently, and had specifically outlined to donate his brain to science. --Fastfission 01:26, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I've Copied

I've copied "He was also the stereotypical "absent-minded professor"; he was often forgetful of everyday items, such as keys, and would focus so intently on solving physics problems that he would often become oblivious to his surroundings. In his later years, his appearance inadvertently created (or reflected) another stereotype of scientist in the process: the researcher with unruly white hair. " into the People speculated to have been autistic article. It is relevant there. Barbara Shack 15:29, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't believe there is any reason to suspect that Einstein was an autist. High-functioning autists may be considered "little professors", but that doesn't mean all eccentric professors are autistic. One of the signals that a person is autistic is that they are "mindblind", that is, unable to infer anything about the intentions of others. Einstein did not display such characteristics, to the best of my knowledge; his views on politics were sensitive and sophisticated, as is pretty notorious. Lucidish 21:33, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

The article seems pretty balanced, and appropriately sourced, though, so my worries should take a back seat to that. Lucidish 02:46, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh, dear God. Not another one. That makes, what, 634,572,204 people, doesn't it? Please, Lucidish. If you'd like to stereotype people, at least read up on them first. If you read things on high-functioning autism, you probably would be ashamed that people would say things like that. It's like feeling sorry for a blind person, only worse, because

A. They don't remember what it was like before they got it, because they've always had it.

B. It's easier to spot a blind person on sight, whereas you think even worse of autistics because until you learn they have it, you wonder why they're not normal. And

C. People reason that if autistics are like this, then, thusly, if someone's not like this they're not autistic. But what if not all autistics are like this? This also leads to B.

I won't argue that Einstein is autistic, though. I try not to force my opinions on others, unless my opinion is that they're using illogical reasoning.

And for a different look at the subject, see this link. http://isnt.autistics.org/

1337 r0XX0r 20:38, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Well now, JeffK, I would be better equipped to cite sources and defend my comments if I knew what exactly you were complaining about. The purposefully hedged mindblindness reference? The "little professors" reference? The acknowledgement of sourcing in the article? For info on mindblindness, read Uta Frith's "Autism: Explaining the Enigma" and Simon-Baron Cohen's ";Mindblindness". For a reference on the characterization of "little professors", see the classic works of Kanner and Asperger -- that is to say, the persons who discovered the disorder. For info on the sourcing of the article, see the article. Lucidish 20:44, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry about all that. I really got carried away... I hope it didn't offend you. I still stand by my point, but it was a bit too harsh on you, Lucidish. My point was you probably should learn about what they're really like before you generalize about them, but you probably were just citing what you know when you talked about mindblindedness... true, generally it takes them a bit longer to realise things like that, but just because a person's diagnosed with autism doesn't mean they have no idea that other people have their own ideas and opinions. I certainly never had a problem with that. And truth be told, I'm probably taking a very biased stance. But small story short (too late ;-)), I was just angry at the time. People do stupid stuff when they're angry. Oh, and btw... autist? That can't be right... ;-p 1337 r0XX0r 15:22, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Don't sweat it. The thing is, I didn't generalize: it's one of the symptoms, not the only symptom. There are other hallmarks, like certain pragmatic language deficits, and routined behaviors, which are just as important in gauging a person on the autistic spectrum. My point was just that mindblindness seemed to be a key criterion, and Einstein didn't seem to have it; this is reason to beleive that he wasn't an autist. Also, I wanted to point out that hindsight evaluations purely on the funny characteristics of professorial types may simply be superficial personality-related stuffs. If he had other characteristics (preferably the sort outlined in DSM4), then that would be reason to discount my worries.

None of this means anything about the autistic population at large, or that mindblind autists can't learn to compensate for that problem by learning complicated schemata (and it certainly doesn't mean that they lack instinctual empathy, which is not what's meant by "mindblindness"). It's just one way of trying to figure out the likelihood that a person was or wasn't autistic.

"Autist" is the term that Frith used in her book, and I like it a bit better than saying "an autistic", because it just seems aesthetically nicer. Though people in the field probably still use the descriptor "autistic", since "autist" sounds too much like "artist". Lucidish 16:35, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

German-American theoretical physicist

I disagree with the opening line which reads "..[Einstein] was a Jewish theoretical physicist..". The word Jew is used in many ways but generally refers to a follower of Judaism, a child of a Jewish mother, or someone of Jewish descent with a connection to Jewish culture, ethnicity and/or religion; It's improper to refer to Einstein with an ethnic/religious pretext. Traditionally, the opening line refers to one's place/nation of birth, not their cultural or religious background. I'm going to change this to German-American, and leave it up to the rest of the article to debate over his ethnic and religious heritage.

His parents were Jewish as far as I know. Was also educated at a Jewish school, and persecuted for being Jewish. What's improper? Lucidish 04:28, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I am not disputing his Jewish heritage at all. However, traditionally the opening line for an article relating to a person (or persons) outlines their profession (one related to their accomplishment(s)) and his or her place of birth. Discussing one's cultural/religion background should be debated in the body of the article, not the opening line. I.e.: Georges Cziffra (and other figures of distinct heritage) was Gypsy by birth, yet you don't see anyone describing him as a Gypsy first, and a classical pianist second. 22:24, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Okie doke, that sounds prudent. Lucidish 17:20, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Merge the children

I added the Mergefroms for Einstein's two sons, Eduard Einstein and Hans Albert Einstein. Neither of them is noteworthy for any reason other than having the name Einstein. Eduard's article even agrees with that: "...Eduard, however, is famous due to his family lineage." If we added a bio for every schizophrenic and hydraulic engineer in Wikipedia, we'd have a real huge (and uninteresting) database.

Comments? —Wknight94 (talk) 15:04, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

• Keep them out of the main article please. Merge them into "family of Albert Einstein" or something if you must. Kappa 15:07, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Seems like everything useful in those articles is already in this one so maybe I'll just Afd those. —Wknight94 (talk) 15:10, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

• Of course we wouldn't have them in here if they were just schizophrenics or hydraulic engineers. They are in here because they are related to Einstein. Considering how much attention has been focused on Einstein's family members (the whole Maric thing) I think having short entries on his sons is not problematic in the slightest. Just ignore them, they were doing nobody any harm as they were. --Fastfission 20:09, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

What about his contribution to fridge engineering?

You'll probably think I'm nuts, but there was an article about Einstein's contribution to fridge engineering in Scientific American quite a few years back. I'm surprised this isn't even touched on in the article. The German wikipedia actually mentions it: [3]. - Samsara 16:45, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

See Albert Einstein#The Einstein refrigerator. Lupo 09:00, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Dürrenmatt

Friedrich Dürrenmatt wrote an essay, Albert Einstein, that examines Einstein's interpretation of Spinoza's monotheism. Dürrenmatt also wrote a play, Die Physiker, the main character of which is a genius physicist who has found a formula that could be used to create a terrible weapon. Copenhagen by Michael Frayn is a similar work, although here the characters are not fictional. - Samsara _contrib ^talk 03:50, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

"German-American"?

Why does the article begin by describing Einstein as "German-American"? It's inaccurate, or at least incomplete. If you're going to use such a hyphenate, it should be "German-Swiss-American", or better yet it should be dropped altogether. Einstein's somewhat complex citizenship is explained in the body of the article. It seems the only reason for the hyphenate is somebody wanted to tag Einstein as "American".

Spurious(?) quote

This is from Talk:Hanlon's Razor: Please discuss there

- "Albert Einstein also believed in the power of stupidity: 'Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.'" - I believe that this quote is spurious. I have a personal animus against this quote, and this is my chance to do something about it.

• (1) I don't remember ever seeing this quote before maybe sometime in the 1990s
• (2) This really doesn't sound like Einstein to me. He was very good-natured in his public pronouncements and didn't go around calling people "stupid". (Heck, he'd been considered "stupid" himself as a child, so I don't think he'd find this very amusing.)

Therefore, I challenge everyone reading this: can anyone find a good cite for this? (Preferably one dating from Einstein's own lifetime?) -- Writtenonsand 14:27, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

--- This wasn't in response to the Manhattan project was it? From what I've read of him, he became quite cynical about the human race in general...

Württemberg citizenship?

-"he renounced his Württemberg citizenship and became stateless."- Ths is somewhat confusing to the ignorant. Why "Württemberg citizenship" and not "German citizenship"? Could somebody please add a note of explanation about how this worked? Thanks -- Writtenonsand 14:34, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

1931 Unified Field Theory... Gone Missing???

From the International Herald Tribune's "In Our Pages 100, 75 & 50 Years Ago" article, 23 Jan 2005:

1931: Einstein's New Theory

PASADENA, California: The fundamental unity of light, gravity and electromagnetism was proclaimed by Professor Albert Einstein here today [Jan. 22], in a theory which scientists hail as the most revolutionary and the most daring ever propounded in the whole history of science. The theory which Einstein has now made public, after having been at work on it for the last 10 years, is known as the theory of the unified field. According to the generalized conception reached by the great mathematician, all optical, gravitational and electromagnetic phenomena figure as modifications, identical in their essence, of this one field.

Einstein explained that he believes that he has finally reduced all the principal laws of nature, as known to physics, in this one theory. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.81.219.54 (talk • contribs) .

Einsteins nationality / citizenship

I noticed there is a lot of dispute about Einstein's nationality. In order to stop the bouncing, removal of nationalities and insertion of nationality that einstein possesed once in his life i have added a small section about the nationalities that einstein used to have during his life. I sincerly hope that this clears up something, but i also hope that people do not simply delete this info (such as User:Max_rspct), (due to hateful feelings against germans?? or the belief that einstein would want to be a german, lets stay to the facts pls). Hanseichbaum 14:16, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

In addition, omitting the nationalities in the first sentence may lessen the controversy. Shawnc 13:53, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I dont feel that it is necessary to dedicate a whole section to his nationality; Is it really that important to know whether or not he was german? If so, I believe that this kind of information would reveal itself to the reader in the intorduction, or the section concerning his early life. Delta[XK] 21:47, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

German Democratic Party: Cite, please

"Einstein was a co-founder of the liberal German Democratic Party"

Could we get a cite on this, please? -- Writtenonsand 14:03, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

American Federation of Teachers: Cite, please

"Einstein was a ... a member of the AFL-CIO-affilated union the American Federation of Teachers."

Could we get a cite on this, please? -- Writtenonsand 14:05, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikilinked dates

Every date should not be linked. It's bad style and inapposite to information provided in the article. I removed said links. Please do not revert. green 65.88.65.217 19:59, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

• Our Manual of Style says that full dates (i.e. April 1, 1900) should be wikilinked, because then the Wiki software can re-adjust it to whatever the date format the user has specified (i.e. 1 April 1900). Only individual years (i.e. 1900) should not be linked, because no formatting occurs. I agree that it's sort of silly to have so many links of this sort but that's the normal convention followed on here.--Fastfission 20:48, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't see any requirement to link dates. In fact, the style rules state that overlinking is undesirable. They give different acceptable (unlinked) formats. If you concur, please revert what you changed. Thanks. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_%28dates_and_numbers%29#Avoid_overlinking_dates green 65.88.65.217 21:04, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

• But right above that it explains about date linking so that date preferences will work. "Editors are not required to link full dates, but most full dates in Wikipedia are linked so that each user's date-formatting preference appears in the text." --Fastfission 21:49, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't wish to pursue this, but if date linking is not required, and is, as you agree, non-informative, from the pov of style they should be eliminated from the article. Have I missed something here? green 65.88.65.217 00:28, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

They serve a useful function and do little harm. That's why they are kept. BrokenSegue 03:09, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

What's the function? green 64.136.26.226 04:00, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

From above, "the Wiki software can re-adjust it [the date] to whatever the date format the user has specified". BrokenSegue 04:07, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Right. Of course. But what does it mean? Have you used it profusely, or at all? What was the value-added? green 64.136.26.226 04:22, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

The value added is that the date is formatted in a way that is most understandable to the reader. Truth be told, I don't understand your comment, but whatever, it doesn't matter that much. BrokenSegue 04:32, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Ahhhaaa! It means that if an editor is dumb enough to use a date like 01/02/06, Wiki software will default Jan 2 say, instead of Feb 1, if it is smart enough to know that 06 is not June. But if the editor was that careless, his edits would surely have greater insufficiencies. green 64.136.26.226 04:43, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

No, it means that if I prefer to have dates display as '2001-01-15 16:12:34', then I can, but if I prefer the more human-readable '16:12, January 15, 2001', I can do that too. You might notice this preference if you logged in. FireWorks 02:34, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Einstein, Hilbert, Lorentz, and Poincaré dispute

Relativity anticipated by Leibniz claim

A recent addition suggests that Gottfried Leibniz anticipated Einstein's relativity. I'm pretty sure that's not a serious claim. If it is, though, please discuss it in Talk:Gottfried Leibniz. In the meantime, I'll remove the probable joke. The Rod 05:20, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

It was no joke, see Talk:Gottfried Leibniz.

I took that out of the intro paragraph. It doesn't belong there, breaking up the flow of the paragraph that introduces the subject of this article. Assuming it's true (I've no reason to believe otherwise), it really belongs in the article about relativity, or maybe the section about relativity here. But not up in Einstein's face, as it were, in the paragraph introducing Einstein in his own article. — Kbh3^rdtalk 19:32, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Agreed, it was a bad place for it. Thank you and sorry for the inconvenience. Dr. Gabriel Gojon 22:21, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

• There is a big difference between the theory of relativity and the principle of relativity, just as an aside. When playing with priority disputes (I think they miss the point) we should be sure to clarify which is which and exactly what sort of relativity one is speaking about. --Fastfission 20:34, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Claim that Poincaré first published the Theory of Relativity

Why is there no mention of the controversy surrounding the origin of Relativity ? Folsing in his authoritive biography of Einstein points out that E=mc2 and the Theory of Relativity were actually first published in detail by the Frenchman Henri Poincare, before Einstein. For numerous sources see http://www.xtxinc.com

Provide sources. Rumors do not belong to encyclopedia. Pavel Vozenilek 03:20, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't know about the Frenchman, but there was an Italian scientist who published E=mc^2 in a journal in 1903, then it was reprinted in an Italian scientific magazine in 1904 (Einstein was 1905). The Italian's name was Olinto De Pretto and there is a Wiki entry for him.

To see numerous sources see http://www.xtxinc.com

There are seemingly more credible sources supporting the claim. See Who Invented Relativity, for instance. Since they are stronger than rumors, we probably shouldn't be so quick to revert such claims as "vandalism". The Rod 15:48, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

The user making the claim I reverted didn't document it enough for me to determine that it was a valid edit, and since it look questionable I reverted without any further ado. My apologies if this was incorrect. I'll watch more carefully when RC patrolling this article in the future. Thanks for the pointer to this discussion on my Talk page. Triona 16:03, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

I am concerned that anonymous user 69.22.98.162 is being accused of vandalism, and his edits subject to reverts, for attempting to integrate a mention of Poincare into this article. For example, a recent edit by Prodego has eliminated the Poincare mention, despite the MathPages citation added above. I am not an expert in this area, and so do not feel knowledgable enough in writing an addition re: Poincare here, but I strongly encourage the editors of this article to take the claim seriously. Lucidish 01:23, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Nobel Prise edit (claim that Poincaré first published the Theory of Relativity, part 2)

IP 69.22.98.162, has repeatedly edited this sentence from the intro:

He was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize for Physics for his explanation of the photoelectric effect in 1905 (his "miracle year") and "for his services to Theoretical Physics.

so as to omit the phrase:

in 1905 (his "miracle year"),

and add the phrase:

although no specific mention was made of Relativity because of the "controversy surrounding its origin" as is stated in the Encyclopedia Britannica's entry on Einstein.,

susequently to be reverted by several editors (including me). First there is no reason to delete the year and thereference and link to" miracle year". Second this is not the proper place to introduce speculation about the originality of "Relativity". Can anyone verify the claim that his special relativity paper went unmentioned because of "controversy surrounding its origin"? The current Britannica entry merely says he was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize for Physics “for your photoelectric law and your work in the field of theoretical physics.” Relativity, still the centre of controversy, was not mentioned. It does not say what the controvesy was.

Paul August ☎ 22:15, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

The controversy was Henri Poincare's already publishing Relativity in detail before Einstein, including e=mc2. The Nobel Committee was aware of this and so refused to give Einstein a Nobel Prize for Relativity. Why does Wikipedia cover this up ?

• Because this is nonsense, and we don't publish nonsense. If you understood Poincaré's work a little better, and maybe Einstein too, you'd see that they had different programs even though some aspects of their work were interrelated. A good, readable history of both of them is Peter Galison's Einstein's Clocks, Poincaré's maps, recently published. --Fastfission 00:46, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Pais, Einstein Lived Here has a chapter on exactly why the Nobel committee awarded the prize, FYI. I don't have it at hand so I can't refer to it now. I believe Whittaker's A History of Theories of the Aether and Electricity in notable for giving Poincare credit over Einstein. Any commnets? (I haven't read it; this is a question not a statement.) GangofOne 01:23, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

The reason Einstein was not given the prize for relativity was for a number of reasons; one major one being that it was still regarded as controversial among physicists at the time and the photoeletric theory was a much "safer" achievement. Again, the Poincaré/Einstein priority issue has been tossed around by various anti-Einsteinians for some time but no mainstream historians give it much attention. --Fastfission 01:35, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, Sir Edmund Whittaker wrote that Poincare published E=mc2 in 1900, five years before Einstein, and Sir Whittaker credited Henri Poincare with the discovery of Relativity, not Einstein.

What page? GangofOne 04:23, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

In Sir Whittaker's famous book, named above, he has an entire chapter entitled The Theory of Relativity of Poincare and he there repeatedly refers to Poincare's E=mc2. Folsing's popular biography of Einstein quotes Whittaker, as does http://www.xtxinc.com

• The link to Bjerknes's crank site actually does not seem contain any Whittaker quotes. So I'm not sure that helps your argument much. The question is not whether or not people over the years have said various things to disparage Einstein (there was an entire movement devoted to just this purpose in Germany if you will recall) but what the mainstream historical and scientific opinion is, which has repeatedly concluded that most such objections misunderstand quite a number of things. --Fastfission 01:35, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I think to put the matter to rest would require a) rationales and responses to the quotes on that site from Harry Bateman, Charles Nordmann, Max Born, G. H. Keswani, and James Mackaye, and b) an explanation of the actual similarities and differences between Poincare/Lorenz and Einstein. Lucidish 02:12, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Trying to "put the matter to rest" will become the sort of point/counterpoint B.S. which characterizes usenet debates. Let the historians sort it out. We just quote htem. I suspect most of those quotes are taken quite out of context. If the historians of science could show Einstein to be a fraud or his contributions are misunderstood on some grounds, they'd be happy to -- they do it with other luminous figures all of the time (Freud, Darwin, etc.). --Fastfission 17:32, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
      • I'm dissapointed. Oh, well. In the following subsection I will quote a passage which I hope will clear up this discussion. Lucidish
    • There are NO differences whatsoever with what Poincare published and what Einstein later published. Keswani is definitive on this matter. So is Whittaker. In addition, Kip Thorne in his popular book on General Relativity, available in all bookstores, Thorne states that General Relativity was published one week before Einstein by David Hilbert, which is generally recognized in the scientific community, and I intend to put that also on Wikipedia's Einstein Page as well.
      Keswani is definitive, that what Einstein inaccurately called General Relativity is really only a theory of gravitation, nothing more.
      Bjerknes' second book, which he published under the close guidance of Dr. Friedwardt Winterberg, points out that the central equation of General Relativity was published one week before Einstein by David Hilbert. This fact is recognized by Kip Thorne and Stephan Hawking. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.22.98.162 (talk • contribs) .
      • Please sign your posts with four tildes. You haven't told us the reference where Hilbert published it, where Thorne said it (which book , which chapter), where Hawking said it. --GangofOne 04:33, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Sorry, our anonymous friend, you are not only wrong in an ultimate sense in my opinion, but the historical and scientific community agree that you are wrong. The latter is what matters more here: Wikipedia is not the place to hash out what is true and what is not, see WP:NOR. We publish what is considered reputable. Winterberg is not a reputable source on this topic anyway and he does not reflect any scientific or historical opinion of merit. He's a cranky guy with some very strange Lyndon LaRouche ties if I remember correctly. --Fastfission 17:26, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
    • And I should say: If you want to take the time to get a mainstream historical book, to discuss it with citations, to not mislead and to demonstrate that you understand our WP:NPOV policy -- your contributions will of course be welcome. But your avid citation of some of the crank-iest material on the subject does not lead me to think that this is the path you will be likely to follow. --Fastfission 17:32, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

To Fastfission: Keswani and Sir Edmund Whittaker are as mainstream as you can get, and they both agree with Winterberg, and let me remind you that Dr. Winterberg is a professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Nevada who has published hundreds of scientific articles and who received his PhD from Werner Heisenberg at world renowned Goettingen University.

Regarding what Einstein called General Relativity, Kip Thorne on page 117 of his popular book Black Holes and Time Warps, writes the following and I quote Kip Thorne: Recognition for the first discovery of the equation must go to David Hilbert. - It was therefore Hilbert who published the equation of General Relativity before Einstein, and this quotation should be inserted into Wikipedia's Einstein Page in the section discussing General Relativity. (Stephan Hawking said the same thing as Kip Thorne in Time Magazine, page 57, December 31, 1999). I will now insert Kip Thorne's quote into Wikipedia's Einstein Page. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.22.98.162 (talk • contribs) .

Clearing up the similarities and differences

Darrigol, Olivier. (2004) "The Mystery of the Einstein-Poincaré Connection". Isis. Philadelphia: Vol.95, Iss. 4; pg. 614, 14 pgs

By 1905 Poincaré's and Einstein's reflections on the electrodynamics of moving bodies led them to postulate the universal validity of the relativity principle, according to which the outcome of any conceivable experiment is independent of the inertial frame of reference in which it is performed.2 In particular, they both assumed that the velocity of light measured in different inertial frames was the same. They further argued that the space and time measured by observers belonging to different inertial systems were related to each other through the Lorentz transformations. They both recognized that the Maxwell-Lorentz equations of electrodynamics were left invariant by these transformations. They both required that every law of physics should be invariant under these transformations. They both gave the relativistic laws of motion. They both recognized that the relativity principle and the energy principle led to paradoxes when conjointly applied to radiation processes.3

On several points - namely, the relativity principle, the physical interpretation of Lorentz's transformations (to first order), and the radiation paradoxes - Poincaré's relevant publications antedated Einstein's relativity paper of 1905 by at least five years, and his suggestions were radically new when they first appeared. On the remaining points, publication was nearly simultaneous.

I turn now to basic conceptual differences. Einstein completely eliminated the ether, required that the expression of the laws of physics should be the same in any inertial frame, and introduced a "new kinematics" in which the space and time measured in different inertial systems were all on exactly the same footing. In contrast, Poincaré maintained the ether as a privileged frame of reference in which "true" space and time were defined, while he regarded the space and time measured in other frames as only "apparent." He treated the Lorentz contraction as a hypothesis regarding the effect of the edgewise motion of a rod through the ether, whereas for Einstein it was a kinematic consequence of the difference between the space and time defined by observers in relative motion. Einstein gave the operational meaning of time dilation, whereas Poincaré never discussed it. Einstein derived the expression of the Lorentz transformation from his two postulates (the relativity principle and the constancy of the velocity of light in a given inertial system), whereas Poincaré obtained these transformations as those that leave the Maxwell-Lorentz equations invariant. Whereas Einstein, having eliminated the ether, needed a second postulate, in Poincaré's view the constancy of the velocity of light (in the ether frame) derived from the assumption of a stationary ether. Einstein obtained the dynamics of any rapidly moving particle by the direct use of Lorentz covariance, whereas Poincaré reasoned according to a specific model of the electron built up in conformity with Lorentz covariance. Einstein saw that Poincaré's radiation paradoxes could be solved only by assuming the inertia of energy, whereas Poincaré never returned to this question. Lastly, Poincaré immediately proposed a relativistic modification of Newton's law of gravitation and saw the advantages of a four-vector formalism in this context, whereas Einstein waited a couple of years to address this problem complex.4 Lucidish

Olivier is only pointing out cosmetic differences, no real differences. He is just talking semantics. In addition, regarding any ether, Poincare was actually ambivalent towards any ether, he regarded ether as superfluous, and correctly so. It changes absolutely nothing in the equations. Finally, note that Olivier says Poincare was first, before Einstein. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.22.98.162 (talk • contribs) .

1. Yes, indeed, that is what Olivier says. This is an argument in your favor, though now with the benefit of reputable reference and citation which cannot be ignored (unlike your previous comments, which were lacking in that department).

2. Absolutely none of the above is "cosmetic" or "semantics". Either there is an ether, or there isn't: you claim one, or you claim the other. As it turns out, there isn't any such thing as an "ether"; Einstein helped bring an end to that notion. That's a core, very substantive difference. If you believe this to be "semantics", then it is only semantics in the sense that all substantial issues, including physics, are semantic. Lucidish 16:09, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

In the 1930's Dirac wrote that one can always keep a concept of an ether. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.22.98.162 (talk • contribs) .

You can also always keep a concept of invisible, untouchable bunnies who propel atoms by shooting fire from their noses. Science doesn't have anything to say about that. Lucidish 17:01, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

To Lucidish, you are correct there, that ether is a philosophical question. If you regard ether as the fabric of space then you can even today maintain a concept of ether, it really is a superfluous subject. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.22.98.162 (talk • contribs) .

We mostly agree. My point is, it's still an issue of substance, not just semantics. And it is not scientifically credible. That's a weakness of Poincare's, and one way in which Einstein was a clear improvement from a scientific POV. Lucidish 22:24, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

To Lucidish, Au Contraire, Poincare was correct to remain ambivalent towards a hypothetical ether. In contrast, Einstein was wrong to categorically support one side of an open question. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.22.98.162 (talk • contribs) .

I do not get the impression that "ambivalence" was quite the manner in which the above paragraphs characterize Poincare's take on the ether.

As to whether or not Einstein repudiated the ether as a concept, or simply removed the need for it, I don't know; only the former might be considered, perhaps, infelicitous of him. The latter, however, does not violate any nice conventions on scientific prudence. Lucidish 22:57, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Darrigol is probably one of the most reliable historians of physics out there (he's one of the few who both has a tremendous historical and philosophical mind while also having a truly remarkable understanding of physics), and I will be happy with any edits based on his work, as long as they don't misconstrue in any way. I don't have time at the moment to go over all of the above but I'll probably read the whole article when I get a chance next week, as it would be good to have down pat. --Fastfission 03:03, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Darrigol wants to keep his job and not step on any toes, he is restricted by political correctness. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.22.98.162 (talk • contribs) .

I suspect that my eyes could not roll any further back into my head without breaking retinae. Lucidish 03:34, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

And comments like this are why there is very little good faith assumed in this case. --Fastfission 17:47, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Hilbert vs. Einstein

To Referees: Kip Thorne writes on page 117 of his book Black Holes and Time Warps that Einstein's Gravitational equation was first published by David Hilbert and that recognition for the equation must go to David Hilbert. So WHY don't you allow this to be posted in the section regarding General Relativity ? Kip Thorne is as good a source there is. Why do you disallow his words ? - Stephan Hawking agrees with Kip Thorne as I pointed out above. - Why do you censure this information  ? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.22.98.162 (talk • contribs) .

Paul August's revert is understandable, given the lack of citation. However, I must admit being puzzled by the following revert (by Zsinj et al), since you did provide the source.

No doubt a large part of the reason why people are keen to revert you is that you are an anonymous user. Anons are regarded with suspicion by the community of Wiki-editors, especially on Featured Articles. I recommend you get an account. Lucidish 04:28, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Very Good, thank you, for finally adding to the article that Einstein's Gravitational Field Equation was indeed first published by David Hilbert. This equation is what Einstein called General Relativity and yes, it was first published by Hilbert, not Einstein. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.22.98.162 (talk • contribs) .

Thanks for providing the Kip Thorne source. However his statement needs to be placed in context. According to Thorne, Hilbert published the result five days earlier than Einstein, after "mulling over things he had learned" from a recent visit by Einstein to Gottingen. He goes on to say:

"Quite naturally, and in accord with Hilbert's view of things, the resulting law of warpage was quickly given the name the Einstein field equation rather than being named after Hilbert. Hilbert had carried out the last few mathematical steps to its discovery independently and almost simultaneously with Einstein, but Einstein was responsible for essentially everything that preceded those steps: the recognition that tidal gravity must be the same thing as a warpage of spacetime, the vision that the law of warpage must obey the reativity principle, and the first 90 percent of that law, the Einstein field equation. In fact without Einstein the general relativistic laws of gravity might not have been discovered until several decades later." (Kip Thorne, Black Holes and Time Warps pp. 117-118)

So Einstein seems deserving of the credit. Perhaps the fact that Hilbert published five days earlier together with the above quote could be placed in a footnote. Paul August ☎ 05:53, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Einstein could not do it, it took Hilbert to complete it, and what counts in science is who publishes first, not second. —the preceding unsigned comment is by 69.22.98.162 (talk • contribs) 00:26, 9 January 2006 vandalism has occured from this IP

What is your source for saying that Einstein "could not do it alone"? The source you cite above indicates that Einstein developed the equation independently from Hilbert. Paul August ☎ 17:53, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Einstein submitted wrong field equations on November 4 and 11, 1915. The first set was only invariant under volume-preserving diffeomorphisms while the second was generally covariant, but required the vanishing of the trace of the stress-energy tensor of matter. On November 18, Einstein confirmed the arrival of a postcard (or letter) from Hilbert, probably written on November 16, containing information about Hilbert's work on the field equations. Also on November 18, Einstein submitted his Mercury paper, (wrongly) claiming twice (on p. 831 and p. 834) that the solution is based upon this assumption, while adding (apparently shortly before submission) a footnote stating that this assumption is not really necessary, and that he intended to change the field equations yet another time. This happened on November 25, 1915. See my WN wiki survey of the issue. User:De kludde Feb 5, 2006

Credit is about merit. Temporal priority is important as a means toward determining who merits what, who developed what independently of who. The fact that Hilbert's work was provoked by Einstein seems like a cogent enough reason to give Einstein credit. Lucidish 16:23, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Hilbert's merit is to have arrived at the correct field equations and also for pointing out that the problem of energy conservation, which was bothering Einstein, has a trivial solution if the field equations are derived from the principle of least action. This became known as the "Noether theorem" later on, and Emmy Noether was of course motivated by Hilbert's work, and acknowledged this in her paper. While it is is possible that Einstein might have arrived at the correct field equations pursuing his earlier line of thought, there is absolutely nothing to indicate that he did so, and there is every reason to believe that his decision to change his November 4/November 11 field equations was motivated by Hilbert's November 16 letter. The fact that Einstein (or Einstein/Grossmann) were the first authors to point out that gravity ought to be described by a pseudo-Riemannian metric doesn not at all change this situation. Theories may have several fathers. For instance, consider electromagnetism. The insight that electricity and magnetism are somehow linked together is totally non-trivial. In a way, the Einstein/Grossmann Entwurf paper can be compared to this insight. It pointed out that gravity should be described by a tensor theory, while people had previously tried to describe it as a scalar theory (like Poincare in his second Sur la Dynamique d'Électron paper). But without the correct field equations, you don't have a useful theory. No one would consider the fact that Maxwell was probably motivated by (inter alia) Faraday and Ørsted as a "cogent reason" to give them credit for the Maxwell equations! Thus, general relativity should be considered to be the work of Einstein AND (probably) Grossmann AND Hilbert. See, for instance, the remarks at the end of Winterbergs paper debunking the Corry-Renn-Stachel claims: In summary, one can say that general relativity is the work of three men: 1. Einstein ... 2. Grossmann ... 3. Hilbert ... User:De kludde, February 5, 2006

To Referees: It is correctly stated on your Henri Poincare Page that Poincare first published the famous equation E=mc2 in 1900, five years before Einstein. This fact needs to be inserted on your Einstein Page for correctness. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.22.98.162 (talk • contribs) .

• That page, as you might note, is listed as factually problematic for reasons such as this. --Fastfission 17:45, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

• As for the substance of it — if the question is really one of historical dispute, then the dispute itself needs to be mentioned in neutral terms. One does not cherry-pick one POV (see WP:NPOV) and use it to stand in as the general truth of the thing. One reason the anon is getting reverted consistently is because he or she is inserting contentious information repeatedly and is otherwise acting like a POV-pusher. I have not pored over this particular question in detail but I don't trust the anon's contributions at all; they have not shown themselves to be anything more than a crank. The misconstruing of Kip Thorne's quote -- which does not simply say that Hilbert had priority, but points to a more complex and nuanced approach -- and "flattening" of it to fit the anon's pre-held POV about it, is simply more evidence of this. --Fastfission 17:45, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
  • The Hilbert claim may not stand up to scrutiny, but the Poincare thrusts seem to have legs -- though I'm not sure if he came up with the E=mc2 principle, unless that's what's meant by "principle of relativity". Lucidish 18:05, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
    • No, the principle of relativity is not the same thing as matter/energy equivalence (it refers to the fact that simultaniety is merely a convention. However unlike Einstein I'm fairly sure Poincaré still believed there was an absolute reference even if it was unobtainable. Lorentz surely believed in such a thing. But anyway this can be checked fairly easily), not the same thing at all. --Fastfission 21:21, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
      • Alright, good to know, thank you. Regarding relativity/absolute: Darrigol points out that Poincare privileged one point of view, the "ether" view, as absolute. But in practical terms, he talked in terms of relativity. Anyway, the merits of Poincare are that he had published "the relativity principle, the physical interpretation of Lorentz's transformations (to first order), and the radiation paradoxes" five years prior to Einstein. Lucidish 21:48, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

To Fastfission: Kip Thorne is categorical: Thorne's page 117 says and I quote Recognition for the first discovery of the equation must go to Hilbert - that is a precise quote.

To Lucidish: Wikipedia's Poincare Article is absolutely precise, that Poincare published E=mc2 in 1900. The article even describes the precise way in which Poincare derived E=mc2. This is exactly why Sir Edmund Whittaker called it Poincare's E=mc2. There is no arguing this it is precisely clear, no way around it. —the preceding unsigned comment is by 69.22.98.162 (talk • contribs)

In what paper did Poincare give this equation? Lucidish 22:07, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

• On Kip Thorne: The exact quote is above. You'll see it is not categorical. You are taking a quote out of context in a very intellectual dishonest way. --Fastfission 21:21, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
  • If Thorne did write the quote attributed to him by Anon, what did he mean by it / what was he referring to? Lucidish 21:48, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
    • To Lucidish: The equation that Thorne is referring to is the famous Field Equation of General Relativity, it is the central equation of General Relativity, the heart of the theory, and is regarded as the theory itself, in just one concise statement, which is the beauty of it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.22.98.162 (talk • contribs) .
  • To Fastfission, Kip Thorne wrote recognition for the first discovery MUST go to Hilbert, and I italicise MUST. Sir, can you not read English ? Have you looked at Thorne's book ? I suggest you do so. Credit MUST go to Hilbert. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.22.98.162 (talk • contribs) .
    • Read above. The quote is there in its entirety, including all of the parts you are ignoring. It specifically discusses the way in which Hilbert's work was built upon Einstein's. Perhaps you are the one who cannot read English. Kip Thorne very clearly says "In fact without Einstein the general relativistic laws of gravity might not have been discovered until several decades later." But perhaps he was just trying to keep his job, right? --Fastfission 22:55, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

To both Fastfission and Lucidish: I have a PhD in Physics from UCLA. I suggest you leave the pages as they are, until another Physicist checks in, because obviously neither one of you is functional in this domain. I will be glad to continue to offer my expertise, as other Physicists check in. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.22.98.162 (talk • contribs) .

You're quite right that I'm not a physicist. That doesn't mean I can or cannot read sources, citations, or observe when they are lacking. None of these skills are especially unique to physics scholarship (and if they were considered so, I would be worried, since they are quite elementary).

One example of where you were lacking in this department is, evidently, your selective ommission from Thorne, as demonstrated by Paul August. Though admittedly it remains to be proven what's going on with your particular "must be given credit" quote, a superficial interpretation of the quote indicates that Thorne thinks Hilbert deserves credit for doing it first, but not overall credit, which involves other factors.

Here is another bit of strange scholarship, re: the Time citation of Hawking: "Einstein had discussed his ideas with the mathematician David Hilbert during a visit to the University of Gottingen in the summer of 1915, and Hilbert independently found the same equations a few days before Einstein. Nevertheless, as Hilbert admitted, the credit for the new theory belonged to Einstein. It was his idea to relate gravity to the warping of space-time." What's interesting is that it says the very same thing as the Thorne quote provided by Paul August: that Einstein deserved the credit, because he laid the foundation for what Hilbert did. Quite clear.

But as I've indicated, I'm no physicist. Fastfission, on the other hand, is a historian of science. If we go by authority alone, then he has more than you, since credit has more to do with history and less with actual physics. Luckily, we being reasonable people, would not resort to such empty conceits, would we? Lucidish 22:38, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

• It wouldn't matter if I or he were the Queen of England; he's POV-pushing, citing bonkers sources on the one hand, taking quotes completely out of context from legitimate sources on the other, and engaging in a rather pointless edit war at the same time. All of these are very serious violations of Wikipedia editing policy and I've personally seen no reason to assume any good faith with this guy in comparison with a dozen reasons to assume he is a quack. --Fastfission 22:55, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I think it's reasonable to point out the relative contributions of Poincare and Hilbert, once a review of the literature is completed. Because of Darrigol's comments, I believe there is great substance to the claim that Poincare did a lot of seemingly unrecognized work that predates Einstein. It remains to be seen if he formulated E=mc2, or if anyone really has claimed he did. That'll require a trip to the library. Hilbert's contributions seem minimal given what I've read so far from Thorne and Hawking, but perhaps deserving of some brief mention, as Paul August suggested. Lucidish 23:06, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
    • OK, I've looked up the Whittaker reading. Whittaker does, indeed, state that Poincaré had formulated E=mc2 in 1900. The citation is "Archives Néerland. v (1900), p252." This absolutely deserves mention. However, what also deserves mention is that Poincaré never proved it, while Einstein did (at least, for one particular phenomenon). This is mentioned on page 52 of the same source. So Anon's point is a half-truth, but an important half-truth (assuming Whittaker got it right). Lucidish 21:41, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
      • The question in this case has not been whether or not Whittaker (and others) have assigned priority one way or the other over time (it is well known that many people -- usually mathematicians or physicists taking a play as historian -- have made conclusions on all sides of things. Whittaker is apparently one of the rare anti-Einsteinians from the period with no history of anti-Semiticism,[4] good for him!) but 1. whether this priority question is notable enough to worth mentioning and 2. how Wikipedia's article should word it. Let me look into this a bit. --Fastfission 04:58, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

To Lucidish: (Regarding E=mc2) You need to put on your reading glasses, you are misquoting Whittaker - he did not say that Poincare never proved it. Whittaker said that Poincare gave practically no proof, but Whittaker adds (p. 51) that Poincare did however give good scientific reasoning for stating that E=mc2.

Alright, "practically no proof". I think that that in itself is pretty clear on the point. Lucidish

Poincare's reasoning was correct, in deducing E=mc2, as described by Whittaker (p.51). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.22.98.162 (talk • contribs) .

To Lucidish: You write that Hilbert's contributions seem minimal ? If you were a physicist you would know better than to say that. Hilbert published the famous gravitational Field Equations of General Relativity before Einstein. - and The Field Equations ARE the theory itself ! Einstein was furious that Hilbert was the first to correctly deduce and publish the Field Equations, because THAT IS the Theory of General Relativity, before Einstein. If you were a physicist you would understand this. Try reading Folsing's biography of Einstein. Folsing quotes Einstein who said it himself that the Field Equations are the theory itself.

I've tracked down your sources, read them, noted what each said. In both cases, the issue is that Hilbert a) used Einstein's ideas, and b) Einstein did the work, anyway (albeit five days later). Unless Hilbert's formulations were in turn read by Einstein, and Einstein used them in the creation of his own formulations, Hilbert's contribution is minimal. Noteworthy, I guess, but minimal, at least with respect to credit. Lucidish

Yes of course Einstein did read Hilbert's correct derivation of the Field Equations and then Einstein republished them. See Folsing, he cites the letter that Hilbert sent to Einstein giving him the correct Field Equations, days before Einstein then republished them. - Fully documented by Folsing. In addition, Hilbert in public conference presented the Field Equations five days before Einstein republished them, see Folsing it is all there, search Hilbert in Folsing's index for the pages. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.22.98.162 (talk • contribs) .

To Lucidish: You need understand some physics here. Keswani (p.276) wrote what any physicist can tell you, that what Einstein inaccurately called the General Theory of Relativity is in fact in no sense a general theory of relativity, it is only a theory of gravity. -This is why Kip Thorne's book on general relativity is entitled simply Gravitation.

To Lucidish: Kip Thorne and Hawking have to say something good about Einstein to get their books distributed, but I am certain that they BOTH know that it was Grossmann who constructed the theory for Einstein. Einstein couldn't do it. It took Hilbert's genious to complete it.

Grossman is a new name. So is Smoluchowski. I'm not exactly interested in what Google has to say, have you got credible sources on hand for this? Lucidish 21:13, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

See Folsing's biography of Einstein, he writes in detail regarding Marcel Grossmann who did the work constructing for Einstein the framework that Einstein had regarding General Relativity. Folsing continues, that Grossmann's work was still lacking terms, and how it took the genius of Hilbert to correctly produce the correct Field Equations. Regarding Smoluchowski, it is right there in Wikipedia, just click on Smoluchowski. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.22.98.162 (talk • contribs) .

To Lucidish: Search Smoluchowski on the net and you will find references that Einstein's solution for Brownian Motion was copied line for line from Smoluchowski. Einstein was indeed the Incorrigible Plagiarist. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.22.98.162 (talk • contribs) . on 22:50, January 10, 2006)

I think we've come to the end of our reading of Whittaker. He says both a) that Poincare, in "referring to the fact that in free aether the electromagnetic momentum is (1/c^2) times the Poynting flux of energy, suggested that electromagnetic energy might possess mass density equal to (1/c^2) times the energy density : that is to say, E=mc^2 where E is energy and m is mass", and remarked that this fact would predict that a "Hertz oscillator" would recoil when fired; and b) that "Poincare had suggested this equation [E=mc^2] but had given practically no proof, while Einstein, who had also suggested it, had given a proof ... for a particular case". In the former, you have a very good point. In the latter, at least in Whittaker's estimation, you do not.

Alright, most of the rest of these comments are novel allegations with novel sources that need to be looked into. What is the exact title of Folsing's work? Lucidish 23:04, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Ask at any bookstore for Folsing's biography on Einstein, it is usually right on the shelf, it is considered the definitive biography of reference. Also, search on the net for The Einstein Myth Ives, to see Ives' publication regarding Einstein's 1905 derivation of E=mc2 which was an incorrect derivation, that nevertheless yielded the correct E=mc2, proving that Einstein was trying to derive what he knew was the correct answer, namely Poincare's E=mc2. -Einstein's 1905 paper derived therefore nothing. See Ives. The book The Einstein Myth reproduces Ives' published paper, and this book is in most major university librairies in the Physics section.

Lorentz transofrmation? Poincare and E=mc^2

Current version (1/27/06) says that Henri Poincare published the E=mc^2 equation first. As I understand it, this is inaccurate. I believe that Poincare developed results (the Lorentz transformation) which IMPLIED that E=mc^2 but that Poincare did not actually explore this aspect of his own work. I do not think the mass/energy conversion equation had been published in that form prior to Einstein, even if it was 'latent' within Poincare's own work. Perhaps an expert could clarify this and edit the page if necessary?Ben Kidwell 18:38, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I am no expert in this area, but I can independently verify that this bit of information has been claimed (if not established) in the work cited and discussed above by Sir Edmund Whittaker. Moreover, I have run this particular text by historian/philosopher of science Howard Plotkin, who has indicated that Whittaker's claim seems to have some autheticity to it (though his area of concentration appears to be in astrophysics-related things). I will continue to investigate by presenting other authorities with the Whittaker text.

Fastfission is (so far as I can tell) the only one with an interest in this page who is an expert in the field of the history of science, but I believe he is occupied with other duties at the moment. So for the timebeing, it would not be prudent to remove the claim unless more evidence is put forward. Lucidish 19:24, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I did some research with one of the best tools available (wikipedia, that is) and discovered a huge quantity of useful information at Talk:Henri_Poincaré. This issue has been debated extensively there, and it seems to me that crediting Poincare with the basic proportionality that underlies the equation is correct, altho he did not have the contextual understanding that Einstein created. I think the current one sentence statement in the article should be expanded. The whole topic of priority for the E = mc^2 equation is actually worth a whole article of its own, it's a fascinating case study in how complex these issues become when examined in detail. I'd like to see text along the lines of the following in the main:

"Einstein's famous equation E = mc^2 is a consequence of the Lorentz transformations that structure Minkowskian space-time. Henri Poincare anticipated this result in a prescient 1900 paper, but did not have Einstein's unifying perspective to give this proportionality context and significance."Ben Kidwell 04:45, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

That sentence seems a little too dismissive of Poincare. Try: "In 1900 Poincare had shown, as a consequence of Maxwell's radiation pressure, and Lorentz's theory of electrons, that radiation, when emiited or absorbed, could be considered as a fictitious fluid with an equivalent mass of m = E/c^2. Einstein (1905), working from the variation of mass with velocity, suggested that when a body lost or gained energy of the amount E its mass decreased or increased by the amount E/c^2". This 1905 paper is the last? published in 1905, not the elctro-dynamics one. E4mmacro 21:35, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

"The whole topic of priority for the E = mc^2 equation is actually worth a whole article of its own" -- Writtenonsand 23:31, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

It can be avoided by instead concentrating on the contribution of Einstein: he was the first to present that equation as implying the equivalence of mass and energy content. Harald88 07:43, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Einstein's Introduction must be rewritten

Wikipedia's own articles point out that Henri Poincare discovered Relativity, and David Hilbert first published on Novemer 20, 1915 the famous Field Equations of general relativity which completed that theory. Reference See Einstein-Hilbert action. Also, the so called theory of general relativity is only a theory of gravity, which should be pointed out. Thus, Einstein's Introduction on Wikipedia must be re-written. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.22.98.162 (talk • contribs) 11:21, January 31, 2006.

Your complaint is no longer about facts, and now about presentation. How does any of this justify a factual accuracy warning on the article page? Lucidish 18:43, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

This idea was covered many months, if not years, ago on the talk pages here. An anonymous user tried to accuse Einstein of plagarism. It may be the same person. It is certainly true that Einstein's work built substantially on those who had gone before, and that Poincare and Hilbert both made significant advances in what might be called Relativity. Who exactly 'discovered' it is one of those questions that depends on exactly what you mean by Relativity. What is certainly true is that Einstein was fully deserving of the praise he eventually got for the discoveries he did make. DJ Clayworth 19:53, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Made a slight tweak to acknowledge Poincare's simultaneous proposal of reltivity. Besides E=mx² deserves a mention in the intro. DJ Clayworth 20:04, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Needs more re-writing. He was not one of the original proposers. The theory was fully formulated, final discovery demonstrated, by Henri Poincare, all before Einstein's first paper even appeared. Also, Einstein did not correctly derive E=mc2 ever, his derivation was a tautology (Ives 1952). Also, the formula E=mc2 first appeared in 1900 in a paper by Poincare. Also David Hilbert completed the General theory, not Einstein. Hilbert first published the key equation the Field Equation, which completed General Relativity, not Einstein. Also General relativity is a misnomer, it is only a theory of gravity which needs be pointed out for correctness.69.22.98.146 20:13, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

There is a difference between the principle of relativity, and the theory of relativity. While Pointcare and Lorentz certainly made huge advances, it was Einstein's interpretation that gave us the complete theory and made it more than a thought experiment.--Stephan Schulz 22:32, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

to Schultz, you are incorrect. Einstein's 1905 paper had no new interpretations from Poincare's 1905 paper. -- And the subject here is the 1905 discovery of relativity. 69.22.98.146 22:40, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

I just now re-wrote it factually. If everyone agrees, we could lift the red tag. 69.22.98.146 23:34, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. Your interpretation is far out of the maintream (to avoid a stronger word, like "false"). --Stephan Schulz 23:38, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Look at the dates, it is precise what I wrote. 69.22.98.146 23:45, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Please get a consensus on this talk page instead of reintroducing that priority dispute on the main article page. The Rod 00:08, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

It's silly to point to Wikipedia articles as proof of anything. If you want to document a controversy, create a page on "Disputes over the origin of Relativity" and describe the controversy there, and CITE YOUR SOURCES. --Alvestrand 00:11, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Precise dates with Sources are at Henri Poincare and David Hilbert. Einstein's Introduction ignores all the precise historical dates. 69.22.98.146 00:15, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

"The theory was fully formulated, final discovery demonstrated, by Henri Poincare". Whittaker's work says the exact opposite of this. Explain your conclusions. Lucidish 00:18, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Au contraire ! Whittaker calls it Poincare's Relativity, and Poincare's E=mc2, in 1900. Also it is a fact Hilbert completed General relativity before Einstein. FACTS ! 69.22.98.146 00:20, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually Whittaker caled it "The relativity theory of Poincare and Lorentz". E4mmacro 21:51, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

I think History of special relativity gives background on why it's called Einstein's relativity, not Poincaré's relativity. And History of general relativity gives the same background on Hilbert - mentioning that Hilbert never tried to get credit for his earlier publication. With reference. Did Poincaré ever dispute the general perception that it was Einstein's theory? --Alvestrand 00:29, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Sure did, Poincare always claimed it was Lorentz's theory, not Einstein's. See the Poincare page and the Lorentz page. E4mmacro 21:51, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Sigh. I should read talk pages before adding to them. This is covered in much greater detail further up the page. --Alvestrand 00:38, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

dates are all that matters. Face the facts. 66.194.104.5 00:42, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

1. Whittaker talks about "The relativity theory of Poincare and Lorentz" as a chapter heading, sure -- but this is not substance, it is superficial. Actual substance would involve justification, facts. And Whittaker's testimony is, in fact, the opposite of what you attribute to him wrt Poincare. Poincare did NOT fully formulate E=mc2, only arrived at that conclusion with the help of "practically no proof" (which we discussed above). It was Einstein who proved it. If you read the Whittaker text, and recall the discussion on this we've already had, you'd note it.

2. Again, dates are one consideration to be weighed against many others, such as the depth of the explanation involved.

The article is factually accurate. The header should be removed. Lucidish 00:55, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

To Lucidish: Shame on you Lucidish. How much plainer could Whittaker make it ! -- And you call it no substance, are you crazy or blind ? -- Whittaker made it clear that Einstein's 1905 paper had the equivalent content, with no new interpretations, as Poincare's 1905 paper. 69.22.98.146 03:26, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Nope. "Practically no proof": page 52. You are engaging in simple fabrication. Lucidish 19:47, 3 February 2006 (UT

Header removed, slight change to intro. Aside from your Hilbert complaint, I'm at a loss to see any lingering dispute. Perhaps you'd like to show where your greivance lies within the text.

About the "general theory" complaint: indeed, the general theory of relativity is just about gravity. It's a very popular misnomer which is well understood in physics circles (or so I'm told by my undergraduate physics friends). Its inclusion here would be harmless, if you insist upon it. Lucidish 01:20, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

OK Lucidish yes I do insist. I shall then insert it. 69.22.98.146 03:29, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

FACT : Hilbert published the Field Equations, which completed the General theory on November 20, 1915, before Einstein, and Hilbert called the general theory Meiner theorie . Einstein is NOT therefore the discoverer of general relativity, SOURCE: Folsing's biography of Einstein. Also SEE David Hilbert. 02:52, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

FACT: Einstein did NOT FORMULATE the General theory in November of 1915. It was David Hilbert who first derived the Field Equation and published it on November 20, 1915, not Einstein. -- Therefore Hilbert FORMULATED it, not Einstein. -- It must be removed that Einstein is the one who formulated it. SOURCE: Folsing. 69.22.98.146 03:45, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Nope. First to formulate != the only to formulate.

Credit goes to those who put most work into the conceptual foundations AND mathematical acumen to follow through. Hence: Einstein credit. Lucidish 19:47, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Lucidish by your logic you must credit Marcel Grossman who did 90% of the work for Einstein. -- But Neither Grossmann nor Einstein could complete the theory, it took the mathematical acumen of Hilbert to correctly formulate the theory (the Field Equation). 69.22.98.146 21:13, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

I have yet to read Folsing's bio and info on Grossman, because the bio seems to have gone missing from my school's library. I will contiue to look. Hopefully your reading of Folsing is not as blatantly and explicitly false as your reading of Whittaker. Lucidish 22:08, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

FACT : H. E. Ives (1952) proved that Einstein's derivation of E=mc2 was a tautology ( 0 = 0 ). Einstein derived nothing, no E=mc2, in his 1905 paper. -- It must be removed from Wikipedia that Einstein proved E=mc2 in 1905, he did not. -- IVES (1952) was never refuted and still stands. 69.22.98.146 02:54, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

So? Anything with an equal sign involved is a tautology. That doesn't mean anything. Lucidish 05:22, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

• I'm heading off to sleep right now, but point #1 seems to be somewhat more complicated than you make it out to be. Hilbert's Nov. 20 paper was not the final version published, as I understand it. One article which discusses all of the math and the publication history in detail is: Leo Corry, Jürgen Renn, and John Stachel, "Belated Decision in the Hilbert-Einstein Priority Dispute" Science 278:5341 (14 Nov 1997), 1270-1273. I'm happy to send a PDF to anyone interested in following this up, just use the "E-mail this user" button. --Fastfission 04:25, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Leo Corry was totally discredited, by Dr. Winterberg, whose published article destroying Corry is reproduced in full at the site http://www.xtxinc.com 69.22.98.146 04:48, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Where on that site? It seems to be a commercial site adverising a couple of polemical, pseudo-scholary books by a certain Bjerknes. I could not find a Winterberg there, or the full text of anything serious. I take an article in science over that site any day. Bjerknes even proudly points to a publication in Infinite Energy, an obvious quack publication. Oh yes: FACT: Writing "FACT:" in front of an alleged fact does not necessarily make it so. --Stephan Schulz 07:55, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Winterberg's paper is here on his homepage. The article of Logunov et al. debunking CRS is here, but only the Russian version is for free. A list of links compiled by the publisher of a recent anti-CRS book written by Wuensch is here. You may also have a look at the mutilation of Hilbert's printer proofs (a fact which CRS did not tell their readers) here. User:De kludde, Feb6, 2006

click on his second book, go to references. 69.22.98.146 12:56, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

FACT: Hilbert's publication of the Field Equation on Nov 20, 1915 which completed GR is indeed the final discovery of GR, before Einstein(Source: SEE Folsing). -- Also in Folsing: Hilbert sent Einstein a copy of the Field Equation, only then did Einstein later publish it, after Hilbert published it. THUS, Hilbert FORMULATED GR, not Einstein, so the Wikipedia Introduction must be re-written. 69.22.98.146 04:57, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

What makes Einstein a major proponent of relativity ? 69.22.98.146 05:27, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

The fact that he (along with Poincare) posited the universal validity of the relativity principle, relativistic laws of motion, etc. Lucidish 19:54, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Lucidish, Lucidish, you know better than that. -- Poincare showed those points in his 1905 paper which was identical in content to Einstein's 1905 paper, which was hailed as the discovery. -- Poincare's was the same, and first. -- Second does not count in science, you know that. 69.22.98.146 20:33, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Look again at the claim you're supposed to be disputing -- that he was a "major proponent" -- and you'll find that your above comment does not conflict with it. (Presuming you meant "1900" in reference to Poincare). Dates do matter; so does the quality and degree of proof; which, according to Whittaker, and contrary to your claims, lies in Einstein's favor. Lucidish 22:08, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

To Lucidish: a major proponent publishes first, not last. -- And, you need re-read Whittaker who calls it Poincare's theory of Relativity and Poincare's E=mc2. 69.22.98.146 03:59, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

We've been over this. Won't repeat myself. For my reply, see above. Lucidish 05:18, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Thorne, Kip, Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy, W. W. Norton & Company; Reprint edition, January 1, 1995, ISBN 0393312763, deals with the priority issue. From our David Hilbert article:

According to Thorne pp. 117–118, after "mulling over things he had learned" from a recent visit by Einstein to Gottingen, Hilbert published the correct derivation of the field equation five days before Einstein, going on to say: "Quite naturally, and in accord with Hilbert's view of things, the resulting law of warpage was quickly given the name the Einstein field equation rather than being named after Hilbert. Hilbert had carried out the last few mathematical steps to its discovery independently and almost simultaneously with Einstein, but Einstein was responsible for essentially everything that preceded those steps: the recognition that tidal gravity must be the same thing as a warpage of spacetime, the vision that the law of warpage must obey the reativity principle, and the first 90 percent of that law, the Einstein field equation. In fact without Einstein the general relativistic laws of gravity might not have been discovered until several decades later."

Kip Thorne is making excuses for Einstein. And what Kip Thorne won't tell you is that it was Marcel Grossmann who did 90% of the work for Einstein. 69.22.98.146 20:36, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Now Corry, from looking at new evidence (some original galley's) calls into question the whether Hilbert actually published the result five days earlier. But even if he did publish first (and that begs the question who actually proved the equations first), by five days, the standard view, as given by Thorne and shared by Hilber, is that Einstein deserves the Lion's share of the credit. Paul August ☎ 19:31, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Forget Corry, Corry was destroyed by Dr. Winterberg's article published recently in Z. Naturforsch. 69.22.98.146 20:34, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

So, the FACT remains, that David Hilbert was the first to correctly formulate and publish General relativity, before Einstein, who could not do it, reference see Einstein-Hilbert action. Hilbert gave the solution to Einstein who only then re-published Hilbert's solution, source reference: Folsing. 69.22.98.146 20:41, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Conclusion: Hilbert FORMULATED general relativity, not Einstein, -- Also, Ives (1952) proved that Einstein did NOT derive E=mc2 in 1905. -- So, the Introduction must be re-written. 69.22.98.146 20:44, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Kip Thorne in his book referenced above, wrote that Hilbert MUST be given credit. --Hilbert was the first to correctly formulate GR. 69.22.98.146 21:45, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

FACT: Einstein did not FORMULATE GR. --The INTRO must be re-written for accuracy. 69.22.98.146 21:28, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't know where you get your facts, but this is really not the place to expose conspiracy theories. Einstein has received credit for this work- whether or not he deserves it doesn't matter. -Gyzmr

Keswani 1966 wrote that GR is only a theory of gravity. Kip Thorne p. 117 says David Hilbert Must be given credit for the completed formulation of GR, not Einstein. Ives 1952 proved that Einstein's derivation of E=mc2 was wrong and proved nothing. Henri Poincare first published E=mc2 in 1900. -- DOES WIKIPEDIA OPERATE BY SOURCES OR NOT ? -- The INTRO needs be completely re-written. 69.22.98.146 15:36, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

In case you have not noticed so far, Wikipedia works by consensus. It requires sources (well, in fact, it requires verifiability). Secondary source like the ones you cite are at best evidence, not proof of something. In this case, the consensus seems to be that your evidence is lacking and unconvincing. --Stephan Schulz 16:00, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Not entirely. Anon's point about Poincare has substance, and his point about GR being a theory of gravity is true (though obvious, and banal). The rest is either a misreading of the sources cited or depends upon a very narrow and out-of-the-way criterion of priority. Lucidish 18:12, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

I quote KIP THORNE. 16:10, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

...apparently out of context and without understanding. Hint: What is the title of his pular science book on general relativity and black holes?--Stephan Schulz 16:14, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

KIP THORNE IS PRECISE, p. 117. 66.194.104.5 16:19, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Let's have a poll on Hilbert & Poincare!

Since the lone ranger promoting the Hilbert/Poincare viewpoint simply won't give up, I suggest we take a poll, so that the community (and the logs) can show that there IS a commonly held view that SHOULD be the one given in the introduction. Sign up below! Of course polls can't decide what the facts are. But they DO show pretty clearly the majority opinion among the Wikipedia crowd on how to evaluate those facts. --Alvestrand 16:29, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

• I've noticed user 69 has refused to sign under any of the options. To 69: could you, you know, come up with a name so we won't have to continually refer to you by your IP adress? Delta[XK] 02:59, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Alternative 1A: Albert Einstein should have main credit for Special Relativity

• --Alvestrand 16:29, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
• --Gyzmr 20:25, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
• --24.253.120.206 12:13, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
• --Dalmoz 11:02, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
• --Delta[XK] 02:24, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Alternative 1B: Henri Poincare should have main credit for Special Relativity

• --User:De kludde

Alternative 1C: Both Poincare and Einstein should receive equal (or near-equal) credit

• Lucidish 18:01, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
• E4mmacro 21:19, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Alternative 1D: Poincare-Lorentz and Einstein/Minkowski should receive equal (or near equal) credit

• E4mmacro 21:19, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

"Einstein's work was the keystone to an arch which Lorentz, Poincare and others had built and which was to carry the structure erected by Minkowski. I think it is wrong to forget these other men ...", Max Born, Physics in My Generations, Pergamon Press, 1956, p 195, as quoted by G. H. Keswani "Origin and Concept of Relativity (II)", Brit J Phil Sci 1966. So I added to Minkowski to my alternative 1D. Actually I thought my one vote looked lonely so I dragged in Max Born :) E4mmacro 04:35, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Alternative 2A: Albert Einstein should have main credit for General Relativity

• --Alvestrand 16:29, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
• Lucidish 18:01, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
• Paul August ☎ 19:09, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
• --Gyzmr 20:26, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
• 24.253.120.206 12:13, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
• E4mmacro 21:21, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
• --Dalmoz 11:02, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
• --Delta[XK] 02:24, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
• --Muugokszhiion 05:07, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Alternative 2C: Einstein (and possibly Grossmann) and Hilbert should receive equal (or near equal) credit

• --User:De kludde

I adapted the formulation of the intro to the known facts. For now I left "author" of GRT; but in view of Hilbert, that might be considered POV as it could be seen as suggesting that Einstein was the sole contributor. Harald88 07:47, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Quality

The quality of the introduction has been seriously deteroriating over the last couple of days. It seems some people are intent on spoiling a once well written and fluent page on Einstein, with pointless references to Poincare and Hilbert in the intro. D Simms —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.36.166.26 (talk • contribs) 16:32, February 4, 2006 (UTC)

"Some people" = the anon user who's argued for days just above on the talk page. I just reverted him (again) - when nobody listens to his arguments, he just goes ahead and does it. Let's poll! --Alvestrand 16:42, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is NOT mob rule, it is rule by SOURCES. Look at wikipedia's own articles on Henri Poincare and David Hilbert. They are fully referenced. Poincare COMPLETED the discovery of the theory of relativity before the plagiarist Einstein's first paper even appeared. - KIP THORNE p.117 states that Hilbert MUST get the credit for the Field Equation, which is general relativity itself, formulated correctly and published 20 Nov 1915 by Hilbert, not Einstein. The INTRO must be completely re-written. -- Poincare published E=mc2 five years before Einstein. 69.22.98.146 20:20, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

This is completely ridicules; so far I have seen maybe four sites and one book claiming Einstein did not come up with these theories- that's five sources! I can show you at least 100 encyclopedias all claiming the opposite. I'm sorry but you simply can't discredit one of the world's most famous scientists with just that. I suggest we stick the mainstream opinion of how events took place. At the moment this artical is very well written, so stop editing it. If you want, add a note at the end and a link to one of your sources. Gyzmr 20:35, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

There is NO BETTER SOURCE than Kip Thorne. and it is a published fact that Poincare derived and published E=mc2 in 1900, five years before Einstein.. 69.22.98.146 20:44, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Lucidish had agreed that GR is only a theory of gravity -- Lucidish approved this -- so do not knock it out. 69.22.98.146 21:00, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

First of all, say it is true- this kind of information doesn't belong in the first paragraph- the one that should sum the life of Einstein; I think this note in the body of the article is more than enough: "A few historians of science believe that Einstein and his wife were both aware that the famous Frenchman Henri Poincare had already published the equations of Relativity, a few months before Einstein; most believe their work independent, especially given Einstein's isolation at this time."

OK, but Hilbert should be mentioned in the body as well. 69.22.98.146 21:26, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Second, please stop editing the article until we have reached an agreement! Give the poll a week, and we'll see the general feeling is regarding this subject.

OK, I'll wait some, but the INTRO is simply factually WRONG and must be completely re-written, to conform with facts and with the body of the article. The INTRO makes it sound like he discovered E=mc2 and the Field Equation, which he did not. 69.22.98.146 21:21, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

And your edition makes it sound as if Einstein stole it! Here is the passage from Hilbert's article regarding the subject: "Hilbert had carried out the last few mathematical steps to its discovery independently and almost simultaneously with Einstein, but Einstein was responsible for essentially everything that preceded those steps: the recognition that tidal gravity must be the same thing as a warpage of spacetime, the vision that the law of warpage must obey the reativity principle, and the first 90 percent of that law, the Einstein field equation. In fact without Einstein the general relativistic laws of gravity might not have been discovered until several decades later." There was a reason Einstein received credit for this work and he deserved every bit of it- the scientific community agrees on that, and as you can see from the poll, so do we. Now if you want, add a small note at the end about Hilbert having published the last bit five days before him- but that's it. Gyzmr 22:30, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

What Kip Thorne will not tell you is that Marcel Grossmann did 90% of the work for Einstein. So why aren't you hypocrits crying for poor Grossmann ?? -- The fact is, neither Grossmann nor Einstein could figure it out. -- That is why Einstein went begging to Hilbert to figure it all out for him. -- Hilbert worked on the problem four or five months and put it all together in the correct Field Equation which Hilbert then published, and ALL SCIENTISTS KNOW that who publishes first gets the credit. The theory of gravity (GR) belongs to Hilbert, So stop your cry baby and correct the INTRO it must be re-written. 17.255.240.78 00:26, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Know what? Noone-nowhere around the world thinks like you. I've read the links from both articles, and none of them mentions the things you say. Why do you think this theory was named after Einstein in the first place? Because everyone likes him? The scientific community was facing the same facts you have- and they've decided Einstein deserves the credit. We all agree with them. I doubt Even Hilbert himself argued. It's you and you alone who wants to change history, and you're just mad because no one here lets you do it. Now either add a note at the end about Himler having published the last step of the theory five days before Einstein, or pray for a majority. Gyzmr 08:03, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi. I am newly arrived and definitely NOT an Einstein basher. However, I find plausibility in the thesis that to some extent Einstein succumbed to plagiarism. E.g., his 1905 paper, On the Electrodynamics of a Moving Body, contains no references whatever -- odd in itself -- and there is pretty firm documentation that he was aware of Poincare's seminal work on the Principle of Relativity and clock synchronization. Both concepts are featured prominently in his 1905 paper but there is not acknowledgement of Poincare. green 65.88.65.217 19:33, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

I like the 90% of the work done by Einstein/Hilbert made the last step thing above, so Einstein has to get majority of credit. It is similar to what I think about Lorentz and special relativity. Some large % of the work was done by Lorentz and Poincare/Einstein independently took the last step. However, I notice the argument is always about Poincare/Einstein, never Lorentz, which seems a bit strange to me. At least Lorentz has his name on the transformations. E4mmacro 21:41, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

You cannot claim that Einstein has done 90% of the work. He came up with the correct framework in which to describe gravity, but then failed to find the correct field equations for several years, until Hilbert solved that problem. See my remarks above, or the WN Wiki article on the subject. Also, even if your remark was correct, this would not change the fact that Einstein probably plagiarized these alleged 10% from Hilbert. User:De kludde, Feb 5, 2006

Note how you said "probably"; you yourself are not quite sure about the subject you're arguing about! Anyways, an encyclopedia is not where you can post new ideas; it has been accepted for some time that Einstein desereves the credit. Delta[XK] 02:33, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Hilbert field equations revisited

Indeed the world is cruel. Marcel Grossmann did 90% of the work for Einstein, and is never mentioned. -- In science he who publishes first gets the credit. -- David Hilbert first published the correct Field Equation, so GR belongs to Hilbert, even though Grossmann, and not Einstein, did 90% of the work. -- Hilbert in 1924 stated that GR is MEINER THEORIE-- So the INTRO must be re-written for correctness. 69.22.98.146 22:43, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

To Mr. 69: What you state above flat-out contradicts what you wrote today on Poincare Talkpage, namely,

"To anyone who may be overly sensitive, I want it clear that I am in no way implying in the article that GR belongs to Hilbert instead of Einstein -- I am simply writing down in chronological correctness for the article. 69.22.98.146 23:19, 5 February 2006 (UTC)"

On that particular site it is true, I was not making a point of it, but here, I am, and why not? . 69.22.98.146 03:37, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Further, what your wrote today on this page is a serious distortion of history. Hilbert was put on the path to the field equations by Einstein's profound physical intuition that matter-energy warps spacetime. Moreover, Einstein had been working the problem for many years before contacting Hilbert. These points have been made here and on the Poincare Talkpage. It's a no-brainer; namely, that even if Einstein was unable to derive the equations himself -- and I am not sure this was the case -- the credit for GR must go primarily to Einstein, with some recognition of course and deep gratitude to Hilbert. green 65.88.65.217 01:14, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Why is no one insisting that Grossmann be recognized, instead of Einstein ? -- Grossmann did 90% of the work, not Einstein. Neither Grossmann nor Einstein could finish the theory. Einstein went begging to Hilbert, to finish it, which Hilbert did. Hilbert called the theory MEINER THEORIE, and the published record fully justifies his doing so. 69.22.98.146 03:37, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

How do you know Einstein went "begging"? Were you there? Btw, if Hilbert thought it was his theory, why did he name the field equations, "Einstein's"? I read that somewhere on these Talkpages and it seemed authoritative. I forget the source. green 65.88.65.217 03:53, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

This is what Einstein wrote to Hilbert on November 15, 1915: Your analysis interests me tremendously *** If possible, please send me a correction proof of your study to mitigate my impatience. (Volume 8 of the Princeton edition of Einstein's collected papers, document 144). Whether one should call this "begging" is open to dispute, but he clearly asked Hilbert for a copy of Hilbert's paper, and confirmed on November 18 that he received the information he wanted, while Einstein's November 25 field equations paper does not mention Hilbert at all. A clear cut case of plagiarism, no matter what you believe about the details of Hilbert's November 16 letter/postcard.User:De kludde, Feb 6, 2006

The way I see it is that Einstein and Hilbert collaborated when the former got bogged down in highly esoteric mathematics. No "begging" afaict or guess; rather, an extremely reasonable division of labor. However, as I recently posted, the case for plagiarism is hardly vacuous. Einstein could still have legimately called GR his theory while crediting Hilbert's key contribution. Or they could have negotiated an "Einstein-Hilbert GTR". green 65.88.65.217 04:53, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

They did not really collaborate. Einstein had published several versions of his theory along the lines of the Entwurf paper, and Hilbert started work of his own along the same line, quoting Einstein as the author of the idea to describe graivity by Riemannian geometry. This is a perfectly normal thing to do. For instance, the guys who came up with the electroweak interaction started work on their own, rather than contacting Yang and Mills about possibly writing a joint paper. They should have settled on "Einstein-Hilbert GTR" or "Einstein-Hilbert-Grossmann GTR", depending on what you believe about Grossmann's role. The Entwurf paper was divided in a physics section, written by Einstein, and a mathematics section, written by Grossmann. It is the physics section which contains what was to become the decisive new contribution of this paper, the use of the metric tensor to describe gravity. But Grossmann's role in the invetion is difficult to assess. I dont know how this division of the Entwurf paper came about, nor what is known about the subject. Grossmann may have objected to Einstein's looking for non-covariant field equations, for instance. Given the way Einstein treated Hilbert and Poincare, I am not inclined to believe anything Einsein may have written about the subject, unless it is confirmed by someone else. User:De kludde, Feb6, 2006

Einstein went begging to Hilbert see Einstein-Hilbert action. -- Hilbert called the theory MEINER THEORIE in 1924, how much clearer could he be ? 69.22.98.146 03:57, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

I read it. Now stop avoiding my questionS. How do you know he went "begging"? Didn't AE have something to offer?! (It's a no-brainer.) Why did Hilbert name the equations after Einstein? green 65.88.65.217 04:16, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Einstein was UNABLE to finish the theory. 69.22.98.146 04:20, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

You continue avoiding the question! How do you know he went "begging"? Istm, he did the smart thing. He needed help from perhaps the greatest living mathematician of his time, and if Einstein didn't have something reeeeely substantial, do you think Hilbert would have wasted his (Hilbert's) time?

Hilbert did not waste much time. Wuensch, in the book [Wue05] I am quoting here, thinks he sent Einstein a postcard or two, containing the functional to which Hilbert applied the principle of least action, the least action principle itself, and the explicit field equations. She bases her speculation upon Hilbert's personal notes, which have a remark "3 Eq(uations) on a postcard, underlined in blue" on a sheet of paper devoted to the subject. Writing down these three equations would have taken a few minutes at most. But this information would have been sufficient for Einstein to come up with a slightly modified form of the field equations in his November 25 paper. User:De kludde, Feb6, 2006

Why do you think Hilbert called it MEINER THEORIE. 69.22.98.146 04:19, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Again you avoid my question. Why did Hilbert originally call it "Einstein's" field equation? Was it not because he understood Einstein's crucial conceptual role. Is this so hard to understand? green 65.88.65.217 04:34, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

I am not aware that Hilbert ever called his field equations "Einstein field equations". Could you give a source for this claim? Hilbert did mention Einstein as the inventor of the correct framework to describe gravity (ie, as a pseudo-Riemannian metric). He did this in the printer proofs of his field equations paper, as well as in all published versions tereof. But I am not aware of a single line where he attributes the field equations to Einstein. And Hilbert did claim priority for the field equations, see my WN wiki article on the subject. User:De kludde, Feb 6, 2006

Thanks. I'll check out your link. I recall reading that claim within the last few days, either here or on Poincare Talkpage I think, but it would be hard to locate. It could be an error. Did Hilbert ever refer to GR as "MEINER THEORIE" as 69 alleges? green 65.88.65.217

Yes, absolutely. His field equations paper was reprinted in the Mathematische Annalen in 1924. He writes: Einstein *** kehrt schließlich in seinen letzten Publikationen geradewegs zu meiner Theorie zurück (Einstein *** in his most recent publications, returns directly to my theory, highlighting made by myself). And in his November 13 letter to Einstein he refers to his paper as meine axiomatische Lösung Ihres großen Problemes (my axiomatic solution to your big problem.) I am quoting Wuensch's book, 81-83, instead of the original sources. User:De kludde, Feb6, 2006

De Kludde, your paper system seems to have suffered a LaTex crash - the equations are replaced with error messages. However, more interesting to me is your quote:

The version of his paper printed in 1916 contains the sentence "Die so zu Stande kommenden Differentialgleichungen der Gravitation sind, wie mir scheint, mit der von Einstein in seinen späteren Abhandlungen aufgestellten großzügigen Theorie der allgemeinen Relativität in gutem Einklang." "The differential equations of gravity obtained in this way appear to me to be in good accordance with the magnificant theory of general relativity established by Einstein in his later publications", where later (später, highlighted by the author) appears to refer to the fact that Hilbert had submitted the first version of his paper earlier.

This seems to say that Hilbert claimed that his formulas WERE NOT general relativity. Just that they WERE IN ACCORDANCE WITH general relativity - a completely different claim. do you have a reference for this version of the Hilbert paper, or are they quoted in the sources you cite there? --Alvestrand 05:36, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

The TeX problem seems to be caused by the fact that the people who run WN wiki have not installed all the math programs (latex,gs) yet. I will complain to them again. But it works perfectly well for the wiki I run from my hard drive (which is unaccessible to the outside world). It would probably work here as well, but may face quick deletion if I try to post it here. Concerning your other claim, my point of view is that Hilbert, while he held Einstein's achievements as a physicist in high esteem, always insisted upon his priority for the field equations, and that later (später) is his polite way of expressing that Einstein's paper depended on his. See my response to "green 65.88.65.217" above. User:De kludde, Feb6, 2006

De Kludde, if you create a page called "Hilbert, Einstein and the General Theory of Relativity", I doubt very much that it will be deleted. I even think it's likely that a link in "see also" of the Einstein article will stay there. As far as I can tell, it's only the modifications to the Einstein article intro that get rapidly reverted.

My personal conclusion at the moment is that Hilbert seems to have considered the field equations to be *part* of General Relativity, and give Einstein credit for the whole, while he wanted some credit for the part. That doesn't seem like a very controversial issue... --Alvestrand 07:03, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Saying that the field equations are "part" of the theory downplays their importance way of too much. This is a correct description of the situation only if it is understood that removal of that "part" causes the collapse of the entire edifice. Without the equations, the theory does not make any prediction which you can test experimentally. One could say that Einstein only pointed out the direction in which one should look for a theory and that Hilbert filled this program with life. If this was a mere "part" of the theory, then why did Einstein write paper after paper in his vain attempt to get the correct field equations? Also, look at the plagiarism issue which is involved: Einstein published two papers containing wrong field equations on November 4 and 11, the main text of this November 18 Mercury paper still states that Einstein believed in this theory, while a footnote apparently added shortly before submitting the paper announces that Einstein was going to modify his equations. It is reasonable to assume that Einstein received Hilbert's postcard on November 17, and his November 18 letter confirms its arrival, and the fact that Einstein had read it and compared it to his own theory. So the picture is that Einstein changed his mind on the theory he had developed in early November in the first 24 hours after he received Hilbert's postcard. A clear cut case of plagiarism, in my opinion. Why should Einstein have done such a thing if Hilbert's paper was of minor importance? De kludde 06:46, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Hilbert preferred to correctly call it The Theory of Gravity, and he also called it MEINER THEORIE in 1924, and the published record fully backs up his statement. -- GR belongs to Hilbert not Einstein. 69.22.98.146 06:02, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

To De kludde, et al: Here's a reputable link from your site, an article written in 2004 by authors at the Max-Planck Institute for the History of Science, that claims Einstein had the field equations as early as 1913 but didn't believe they were correct and hence didn't publish them at that time. The article is 86 pages in length and appears extremely well researched by individuals who know GR well. If the argument is valid, to some non-trivial extent it attenuates allegations of Einstein's plagiarism and mathematical deficiencies.

http://www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/Preprints/P264.PDF , green 65.88.65.217 18:35, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

I have addressed this issue in section 7 of my WN wiki article on the CRS paper you are referring to. Their claim that Einstein found his way back to the correct field equations he had given up in 1913 is misleading. The 1996 Renn-Stachel paper only claims this to be true on the level of the linearized field equations ("auf der Ebene der linearisierten Feldgleichungen"). The preprint you are quoting does not really modify this assertion, although they state more in the title and in the introduction. The only chapter in it which deals with the notebook in detail is chapter 2 on p. 14, and as far as I can see they cannot pinpoint a line in the notebook where Einstein has the correct field equations.

Understanding the notebook is not easy, but it is easy (assuming a modicum of familiarity with the math being used) to form an educated guess about such claims, using Einstein's November 11 paper. On p. 800 he writes:

Dieser Tensor $G_{im}$ ist der einzige Tensor, der für die Aufstellung allgemein kovarianter Gravitionsgleichungen zur Verfügung steht.

Setzen wir nun fest, daß die Feldgleichungen der Gravitation lauten sollen

$G_{\mu \nu }=-\kappa T_{\mu \nu },$

so haben wir damit allgemein kovariante Feldgleichungen gewonnen.

I am now translating into English, using the modern $R_{im}$ instead of $G_{im}$ (in case you try to read the origninal paper, be warned that Einstein denotes something else by $R_{im}$):

This Tensor $R_{im}$ is the only one which can be used to formulate covariant equations of gravity.

If we postulate that the field equations of gravity should be

$R_{\mu \nu }=-\kappa T_{\mu \nu },$

then we have obtained generally covariant field equations.

Now, Hilbert's field equations are

$R_{\mu \nu }-{\frac {R}{2}}g_{\mu \nu }=-\kappa T_{\mu \nu },$

where are $R=\sum _{\mu \nu }R_{\mu \nu }g^{\mu \nu }$ is the scalar derived from $R_{\mu \nu }$. If Einstein was familiar with forming this kind of field equations, then why didn't he propose

$R_{\mu \nu }-\lambda Rg_{\mu \nu }=-\kappa T_{\mu \nu },$

or

$R_{\mu \nu }=-\kappa T_{\mu \nu }+\lambda Tg_{\mu \nu }$

(where the scalar T is obtained the same way as R), and then present his case for $\lambda =0$ (resulting in Einstein's wrong field equations of November 11)? Jannsen/Renn discuss this November 11 paper on pp. 48-50 without answering (or even posing) this very natural question.

This way of making bombastic and misleading claims seems to be typical of the Renn/Stachel crowd. They make a bombastic claim about the correct field equations beeing found and abandoned in 1912/13, and when you look closer it only applies to the linearized form or something else close to but not identical with the correct field equations. Maybe Einstein could have arrived at the correct form easily, but the simple truth appears to be that he didn't. Another example for their way of making misleading claims is the claim, made in their paper with Corry, that Hilbert was allegedly motivated by Einstein's November 25 paper to introduce the trace term (this notion refferring to terms like $Tg_{\mu \nu }$ or $Rg_{\mu \nu }$) into his equations. The simple fact is that they have absolutely no proof whatsoever that Hilbert ever wrote down field equations of gravity which have to be corrected by introducing such terms. The extant part of Hilbert's printer proofs no longer contains the field equations in explicit form, but only the correct principle of least action. Most likely this is so because part of the proofs has been cut off, a fact which CRS failed to tell their readers. But even if the missing part of the proofs did not contain the field equations in explicit form, this simply means that Hilbert did not bother to derive this form (which is somewhat unlikely since he wanted to discuss things with Einstein and since he gave a lecture about his work on November 16, of which Einstein btw obtained notes from a third person). There is absolutely no indication whatsoever that Hilbert ever miscalculated the derivative of his action functional.De kludde 06:46, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Here is some material that puts the issue in perspective. http://home.comcast.net/~xtxinc/Response.htm. Is Bjerknes generally respected among his peers and considered reliable? Do you know when the mutilation of Hilbert's printer proofs was discovered? green 65.88.65.217 19:44, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't know what Bjerknes' formal qualifications are, or if he is a kinsman of [Vilhelm Bjerknes]. I have both his books and think they are an indispensible item on your bookshelf if you are interested in this matter. It was Bjerknes' second book from which I learned the significance of some remarks in the Mercury paper for the priority dispute over the field equations. However, I am not always happy with his way of presenting things. Part of these problems may be caused by the fact that Bjerknes writes for a popular publisher. Sommer, Wuensch and Winterberg (who wrote about the field equations issue) all have academic titles in one of the relevant fields. The same holds for Logunov, who is coauther of a refutation of the CRS article and author of a useful book on Poincaré and special relativity, giving an english translation, using modern notations, of Poincaré's E=mc² on p. 113. Logunov points out, among other important facts, that Einstein reviewed papers for the Beihefte der physikalischen Annalen in 1905, and that these Beihefte had published a review of the Lorentz transformation paper. This discredits the often made claims that Einstein was working in isolations and did not know about the Lorentz transformation when he wrote the 1905 paper. Bjerknes has interesting ideas and his books are useful if you have some familiarity with the subject, but he often formulates things in a misleading way. It is the Logunov, Sommer, Wuensch and Winterberg works to which I would turn for reliable information. But they all quote Bjerknes, probably because Bjerknes contributed several useful ideas to this debate.

It is not known when the cut to Hilbert's printer proofs was made. Wuensch (who is a historian of physics as well as a Hilbert and Kaluza expert) presents her case for the theory that it was made in modern time, while authors closer to the Renn/Stachel crowd naturally disagree. She thinks it was done by someone without a scholarly reputation to loose (perhaps acting on behalf of others with such a reputation), not by "Corry with his little razor blade". The cut must have been present when CRS wrote their paper, because they would have pointed out the opposite otherwise. The presence of the cut is mentioned by CRS themselves in a later article (but not in the Science article which attracted so much attention) and by Sauer and Winterberg. Bjerknes was informed about the cut by Winterberg.

I will be offline for a couple of days and cannot answer further questions before Sunday.De kludde 07:54, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

One thing I am not clear about. Did Hilbert's first paper contain the same equations now known as Einstein's field equations, or is there some ambiguity here as well? Was his paper submitted and published first? green 65.88.65.217 19:52, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I have explained all this in the WN Wiki article on the CRS paper. Hilbert derived his field equations from the principle of least action. There is no doubt at all that he had the correct action functional in early November 1915. To derive the field equations from this, you have to calculate the derivative of this action functional. As Hilbert rewrote his article and the printer proofs of the original article have been mutilated, we no longer have direct proof that the article contained the field equations in explicit form.

Indirect evidence is, however, overwhelming. Einstein never accused Hilbert of having introduced essential new material not described in his November 16 postcard. Several people have heard his November 16 lecture or received notes from it. Not one of them claimed that Hilbert's theory was lacking an explicit version of the field equations. Calculating the derivative is not that hard (I think Lorentz gave his own calculation when he wrote about the field equations), and it is likely that Hilbert has done it because he gave a talk about his theory and because he wanted to exchange ideas with Einstein.

In Hilbert's published paper, the field equations take the form $R_{ij}-(R/2)g_{ij}=-\kappa T_{ij}$, from which one obtains $R=\kappa T$ by taking traces. The trace term $(R/2)g_{ij}$ can now be identified with $(\kappa /2)Tg_{ij}$ and brought to the other side. The result is

$R_{ij}=-\kappa (T_{ij}-(T/2)g_{ij}),$

which is the form in which Einstein formulated the field equations in his November 25 paper. This purely algebraic manipulation was not hard for Einstein to carry out. But Hilbert's paper was only printed in 1916. It is the November 16 postcard, and the fact that Einstein had been given notes of Hilbert's November 16 Goettingen lecture by a third person (which was recently pointed out by Wuensch) upon which accusations of plagiarism against Einstein may be based.De kludde 07:54, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Worst case scenario; Einstein flat-out stole Hilbert's equations. But is it still not the case that it was Einstein who had the crucial physical insight to model gravity as a distortion of spacetime? Clearly, it was a bitch working out the details -- in this case the field equations -- but without the physical insight there would have been no details to work out! Isn't this the ultimate reality of the situation? green 65.88.65.217 07:18, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Einstein was presenting versions of the Field Equations during that period, and they were all missing key terms. 69.22.98.146 20:38, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Leo Corry went to Goettingen University with his little razor blade and started slicing up the archives to make it look like Hilbert did not have the Field Equations, but Corry did not cut enough -- Hilbert clearly did have the Field Equations, and as the published record clearly shows, GR belongs to Hilbert not Einstein, and the INTRO must be re-written. 69.22.98.146 12:38, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

There is another big problem that still no one is addressing, the paper by H.E.Ives (1952) which proves that Einstein's derivation of E=mc2 was a tautology which proved nothing, no E=mc2 in 1905 by Einstein. Einstein was TRYING to derive the E=mc2 that Henri Poincare had published five years earlier, but Einstein couldn't do it in 1905. -- The INTRO must be re-written. 69.22.98.146 21:39, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

New article: Disputes about Einstein's claim to the relativity theories

It may seem strange to start trying to write an NPOV article about a subject where I have a strong opinion on the validity of the issues being questioned. But since the proponent of the theories refuses to do so, I guess someone has to start. Disputes about Einstein's claim to the relativity theories is a stub. Once it's no longer a stub, it makes sense to me to link it from the Einstein article. --Alvestrand 05:00, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Why not just re-word Einstein's existing article to make it consistent with the facts and dates. This can be easily done. -- David Hilbert first (20 Nov 1915) published the Field Equations to complete the General theory of Relativity, which is a misnomer by Einstein and which is actually only a theory of gravity. -- And Henri Poincare first (5 June 1905) completed the Special Theory of Relativity, which is then actually the unique Theory of Relativity. -- Also Poincare first published E=mc2 in 1900 five years before Einstein, who never properly derived the equation in 1905. -- Just re-write the article consistent with these facts and dates and you'll be accurate. -- There is no need for any separate article, except perhaps one on Einstein the liar and plagiarist and media clown. --Einstein's article will forever be red tagged, unless you correct its inconsistency with historical publication dates. 69.22.98.146 13:28, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Because I think you're wrong. Poincare never (AFAIK) abandoned the concept of the "unique frame of reference" aka "ether", and Hilbert never (AFAIK) claimed to have invented the concept of "curved spacetime" to describe what he had helped to describe mathematically. Indeed, my impression is that both were extremely impressed with Einstein. Since we have a dispute, the Right Thing is to document it, not to make the Einstein article into a POV for the not-generally-accepted viewpoint. --Alvestrand 14:08, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

You are ignorant of the subject -- Poincare refused the idea of an absolute reference frame. - Also, Poincare never mentioned Einstein, why should he ? -- And Hilbert was the first to correctly publish GR, not Einstein. -- Also Grossmann told Einstein about curved spacetime. - BTW you can always still today keep a concept of an ether, it is superfluous. 69.22.98.146 15:16, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Cite sources, cite sources, cite sources! So far I have one Nevada professor and one distorting, Jew-hating quote-collector with no cited qualifications as your sole quoted witnesses. Your addition of sources to Disputes about Einstein's claim to the relativity theories are unlikely to be reverted out. Put your sources where your mouth is! --Alvestrand 16:20, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

sources are wikipedia's own articles on Poincare and Hilbert ! 67.78.143.226 16:27, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

before or after you edited them? Wikipedia can't be an authoritative source for Wikipedia! --Alvestrand 17:02, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

For sure! (that is, Wiki can't be used as an authoritative source) green 65.88.65.217 19:12, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

SOURCES : SEE Folsing's authoritive biography of Einstein in any bookstore, look in the index, he has quotes of Sir Edmund Whittaker that Poincare published Relativity in detail before Einstein, and also look in index for Hilbert, Folsing documents Hilbert's publishing the Field Equations to complete GR before Einstein, to whom Hilbert later gave the Equation and Einstein then re-published it, it is all in Folsing. SEE also Whittaker's 1953 book he calls it Poincare's formula E=mc2 five years before Einstein. 69.22.98.146 20:41, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks - I've added Folsing's biography to the references on the "Disputes" page. Amazon's "search inside the book" couldn't find "Poincare" inside it, which probably says more about Amazon than about the book. --Alvestrand 02:39, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

I have only read material from Bjerknes's site, not his book, but he says he's Jewish and proud of his heritage. I am open-minded on this issue and applaud you for starting the new article. Can you state why you think Bjerknes is anti-semitic? green 65.88.65.217 19:08, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

See the reference on the bottom of Christopher Jon Bjerknes to a defense of David Irving, which I found when I googled for his name. I was surprised to find it. Where does he say that he's Jewish? --Alvestrand 02:39, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

I also was surprised at his defense of David Irving and his association with holocaust revisionists. I don't think anyone should be imprisoned for questioning the existence of the holocaust. Laws allowing such prosecution seem an overreaction to the holocaust. However, the case for Bjerkes being a crank is getting very strong imo. I also noticed that seems obsessed with Einstein's Zionism, as if that's necessarily a black mark on Einstein. green 65.88.65.217 03:44, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

http://home.comcast.net/~xtxinc/Response.htm

"In conclusion, we should all acknowledge the importance of recognizing and recording the facts of the history of the theory of relativity and the history of the "insane publicity" which has promoted and which continues to promote Einstein, virtually to the exclusion of his predecessors. We face a moral imperative to give Einstein's predecessors justice, if only posthumously, and we must acknowledge their legacy. We have an obligation to the science of history to accurately record the past. It was for this purpose of accurately recording the history that I wrote my book. I am quite proud of my Jewish heritage, and if John Stachel wants to change the subject to anti-Semitism, I will join him in condemning it in all its forms, and go about the work of a historian recording the facts surrounding Einstein's career of plagiarism, even if it means enduring Dr. Stachel's petty insults. I do not think that alarmist slogans and attempts to render the subject taboo have any place in a scholarly exploration of the facts." green 65.88.65.217 03:44, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

One other thing; does Poincare's clock synching method consist of using a light source placed equidistant from two stationary clocks? If so, it seems to deny the existence of an ether since such a method implies that the speed of light is the same in both directions regardless of whether the frame is at rest wrt the ether or not. I am confused on this point and would appreciate clarification from any knowledgeable individual. If Einstein adopted this method, he also implicitly denied the ether, as distinguished from just making the ether hypothesis "superfluous". green 65.88.65.217 19:08, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Add on: If I have correctly stated Poincare's clock synching method (I am not sure of that), and if this is the method used by Einstein in his 1905 paper, then I would have to agree with Anon69 that Poincare denied the existence of a preferred frame (the ether) and that notwithstanding what many commentators claim, so did Einstein. green 65.88.65.217 19:41, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Correct the intro

Forget the antisemitism crap. -- No more distractions. -- The INTRO must be re-written to become consistent with facts. -- H.E.Ives (1952) proved that Einstein's 1905 derivation of E=mc2 was a tautology, which proved NOTHING. -- Poincare did publish E=mc2 in 1900 (Whittaker 1953). -- Hilbert did first publish the Field Equation to complete the Theory of General Relativity before Einstein (Folsing). -- The so called General theory is a misnomer by Einstein, and is only a theory of gravity (Keswani 1966, and V.Fock ). -- So how do we re-write the INTRO ? -- Any suggestions ? -- 69.22.98.146 04:06, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

I'd make specific suggestions, but not in polite company. The facts are in dispute, and, your ranting and raving to the contrary, a solid majority opinion, both on Wikipedia and in the science history world, holds that the intro as written is fair. --Alvestrand 04:24, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

BULL !!!

BE SPECIFIC Alvestan, You are not addressing my precise SOURCES. 69.22.98.146 04:44, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm collecting the sources you mention, but it's hard, since you don't give complete references, just an author last name and a year. For some of them (like Bjerknes' book), I've also managed to find other people's comments on it - the reviews on amazon.com were interesting!

Among the things you haven't mentioned is Stachel's note that Hilbert's article, dated Nov 20 by Hilbert, was altered substantially from the version that's in the printer's proofs dated Dec 6 - there's probably multiple ways to explain this, but it does throw your rant about "five days" into a strange light. See CRS' response to Winterberg, referenced on the "dispute" page. --Alvestrand 04:56, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Is that that same old reponse they had, that they couldn't get published anywhere ? -- I think so, it's crap. 69.22.98.146 05:02, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

No, it is not the old version of their response. In the old version, they admit that:

the Editors of Science submitted his paper to us for comment, and that we prepared a substantial set of comments that he received. It was on the basis of these comments that his paper was rejected. We quote from the letter of Stewart Wills, Online Editor, Science, dated 9 January 2003.

We have now received a response from the authors of the original paper, which is enclosed for your information. On evaluation of the comment and response, we regret to say that your comment received a lower priority rating than other technical comments under consideration. As a result, we won't be able to publish it. We believe that, at this point- particularly in view of the age of the original article- this discussion is best pursued through new papers and contributions in the specialty history-of-science literature than in the Technical Comments section of Science.

If I interpret this correctly it means that Science has dealt with an accusation of bad scholarship by having it refereed by the authors of the paper it criticized, and then based its rejection upon their opinion alone. A highly unusual way to proceed, unless you have a strong political pressure group trying to defend an otherwise untenable theory against criticism.De kludde 21:10, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

It is perfectly normal to send a paper criticising a particular paper to the authors of the first paper for comment. Quite often the second (perhaps revised) paper is then published and the authors of the original paper write a rebuttal to appear immediately after. If so both the second paper and rebuttal are sent to referees. Clearly in this case the issue was going to consume a lot of space on an issue of the history of science, in a Journal concerned with science, rather than its history. The editors of Science say that a history of science journal is much better equipped to evaluate this controversy, and they clearly right. It seems a big step to assume "a strong political pressure group" influenced them to do what is perfectly normal. I don't think the paper Science rejected has appeared in a history of science journal, has it? What does that tell us? That Winterberg was discouraged by one rejection and never submitted it elsewhere? E4mmacro 21:42, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Winterberg in fact got a revised version of the paper published in a German English-language journal - "Zeitschrift für Naturforschung". See Disputes about Einstein's claim to the relativity theories.

Thanks to Anon for pointing out that Winterberg's paper was eventually published in a peer-reviewed Journal (as was Logunov/Mestvirishvili/Petrov. I don't think that the way 'Science' dealt with the accusations against CRS was appropriate for a journal devoted to the impartial investigation of facts. Not to mention the fact that a quarter of a page of their source was missing can be construed as bad scholarship, and accusations of this type usually go to an independent referee, not the accused party alone. I am familiar with the procedure as I have seen it in action when someone lost his PhD after his thesis turned out to be based on fraudulent evidence. If 'Science' thinks that a journal devoted to the study of the history of sciences is better equipped to evaluate the controversy, they should not have published the CRS paper claiming to bring a decision of that controversy. CRS basically made an accusation of plagiarism against Hilbert, even though they didn't call it that way, just as the attackers of Einstein don't normally use the p-word. After 'Science' had published such a paper, fairness towards Hilbert would have commanded that they investigate accusations of fraud made against the authors of such accusations. At the very least, they should have published a note pointing out that CRS had failed to mention that part of the proofs was missing, and that a debate about the significance of this fact was going on in journals devoted to the history of physics.De kludde 19:58, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

As for my suspicion that there is a strong political pressure group behind their efforts to discredit Hilbert, this is what anyone with a modicum of common sense would suspect, given they way this debate proceeds. Moreover, CRS and their sycophants are also making such claims, at least indirectly. They did this in the initial version of their response to Winterberg, and they did it again when they published a polemical article, written by Renn against Wuensch in a daily newspaper in November 2005. On the same pair of pages was an article, written by Wazeck about the Nazi opposition to Einstein on the same pair of pages. Naturally, Renn's allegations about the proponents of Hilbert were rather unspecific and stopped short of being justiciable insults. But at least for me, mentioning antisemitism in the Weimar time and then, in the next paragraph, continuing that one has to keep that in mind ("Dies muß man sich klarmachen") when taking a closer look at the current Einstein-Hilbert debate, is not that far away from accusing Wuensch and Winterberg of Nazi sympathies (see the response of the Hilbert proponents containing links to the Renn and Wazeck articles.De kludde 19:58, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

keep the disputed sign there until you do 69.22.98.146 04:59, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

The attackers seem generally to have had no problem getting published, although Bjerknes' book was supposedly published from a "vanity" publishing house - Amazon doesn't give publisher data, and I can't tell if Library of Congress does, so I can't test that. Ives' 1952 article seems to have appeared in the Journal of the Optical Society of America, for instance - and Bjerknes' response to Stachel's criticism appeared in the magazine "Infinite Energy". But just saying "Whittaker (1953)" is not a complete reference. --Alvestrand 05:14, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

I suggest you leave the Intro basically as is for the time being, but add a section which lists some of the outstanding disputes that have recently arisen -- such as whether Einstein used Poincare's results without proper citation and the plausibility that he was aware of them; and e.g. whether Ives presents a good argument that E's derivation of the famous equation is wrong. This requires some analysis of Ives' 1952 paper. I also suggest you do this with other editors, and ignore the offensive individual. His view is distorted by an obsessive Einstein hate agenda, like Bjernkes as I am coming to believe, and nothing can be gained by engaging him in discussions. green 65.88.65.217 05:36, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

I suggest linking to the Disputes about Einstein's claim to the relativity theories article in the intro.De kludde 21:10, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Stachel was not even worth responding to. 69.22.98.146 05:30, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Folsing has it all, Whittaker's quote, and how Hilbert discovered the Field Equations and sent Einstein a copy which Einstein re-published five days later, see Folsing. Also, Whittaker's famous 1953 book calls it Poincare's E=mc2 in 1900, five years before Einstein. 69.22.98.146 05:22, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

I still miss a citation for Folsing. --Alvestrand 07:19, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

ASK for FOLSING on Einstein in any bookstore Licorne 14:28, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

OK Good, I see E=mc2 is now removed from the Introduction, good. -- Now, please see Kip Thorne's p. 117 in his popular book he writes that credit MUST go to David Hilbert for the Field Equations. -- And note that the Field Equations ARE THE THEORY ITSELF. -- The Field Equation is to GR the same way that Maxwell's Equations are to Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism ! ! -- David Hilbert called it (general relativity) MY theory of gravity (MEINER THEORIE). -- Note GR is NOT a general theory of relativity, it is only a theory of gravity as Hilbert correctly called it. -- Einstein mistakenly called it GR which is a misnomer. - All this needs be in the article for accuracy. 69.22.98.146 13:53, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

To Alvestrand: Let's be very careful not to distort history. Worst case scenario; Einstein flat-out stole Hilbert's equations. But it was Einstein, working with Grossman, who had the crucial physical insight to model gravity as a distortion of spacetime using tensor fields. Clearly, it was exceeding difficult to work out the details -- in this case the field equations -- but without the physical insight and the tensor modeling there would have been no details to work out. This is the ultimate reality of the situation. Einstein was open about his progress and problems. He gave several lectures at Goettingen in 1915 about GR which Hilbert attended. Without Einstein, Hilbert would not have known about the theory, its progress and problems. Without Einstein there would be no GR. green 65.88.65.217 16:29, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Without Newton there would have been no GR. -- Without Grossmann there would have been no Einstein. -- Einstein couldn't do it. -- Hilbert 's genious did it.69.22.98.146 20:40, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Depending on what you believe about $E=mc^{2},$ you risk adopting a position which would be perceived as hypocritical by most unbiased observers. Poincaré observed that electromagnetic radiation can be considered as a fluid with mass density equal do energy density divided by $c^{2}.$ whereas Einstein predicted that a body emitting a certain amount $E$ loses mass $E/c^{2}.$ While this is not what was stated by Poincaré, it is what everyone familiar with Poincaré's result would suspect. In this case, if you follow the majority opinion on Einstein, your view is that this was not just "a bitch working out the details" or "exceeding difficult to work out the details", but the most important contribution to the subject, for which Einstein should receive all the credit for $E=mc^{2}.$ By constrast, you are apparently willing to believe that Hilbert worked out a mere detail of a theory estabished by Einstein.

To De kludde: I didn't mean to give the impression that the discovery of the field equations was a mere detail. Hardly. If Einstein used Hilbert's solutions, he should have given Hilbert credit. But since there was so much work that anteceded their discovery, I think name-sharing would have been appropriate in this case -- to wit, the Einstein-Hilbert field equations. If you take Einstein's irate comment at face value -- what he was sharing with a friend, not intended for posterity -- apparently he (Einstein) believed he had derived the equations on his own and that Hilbert was trying to get credit for the entire theory. It is therefore conceivable that both derived the equations independently. Otherwise, why would Einstein have been so irate? green 65.88.65.217 03:36, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree that name-sharing would have been appropriate. But Einstein's irate reaction can easily be explained by assuming that he did not want to share his fame with Hilbert. While it cannot be ruled out Einstein developed the field equations independently, a look at the November 18 Mercury paper makes that unlikely. I am not going to discuss this here, as it might be more appropriate for the Talk on Disputes about Einstein's claim to the relativity theories.

That this is not the case can be seen from the Wikipedia definition of "scientific theory":

In various sciences, a theory is a logically self-consistent model or framework for describing the behavior of a certain natural or social phenomenon, thus either originating from or supported by experimental evidence (see scientific method). In this sense, a theory is a systematic and formalized expression of all previous observations made that is predictive, logical, testable, and has never been falsified.

The Einstein-Grossmann Entwurf paper is, of course, a theory in this sense because it contained field equations. However, it is a theory which had to be abandoned. Take the Einstein-Grossmann paper and remove the field equations, you no longer have a theory (because no falsifiable predictions can be made without the field equations) but a mere program for building a theory. It was Hilbert who finished this program, creating the modern theory of gravity. Therefore, credit for this achievement should go to both Einstein and Hilbert.

Agreed. I would add Grossman as well, as does Norton. green 65.88.65.217 03:36, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

In fact, this is already generous towards Einstein because there are similar cases where the scientists starting such a program for creating a theory get less attention than the ones who finished it. For instance, consider non-abelian gauge field theory created by Yang and Mills, for which t'Hooft proved renormalizability, while Weinberg and Salam got most of the credit for the theory of electroweak interaction they obtained by finishing this program.De kludde 21:10, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

It is true Poincare's E=mc2 was for the case of radiation. Sir Edmund Whittaker nevertheless called it Poincare's E=mc2 because even though derived for a special case it was correct, and later generalized. --Also, it was not Einstein who generalized it, it was Planck, -- Ives (1953) showed that Einstein derived nothing, a tautology. -- Einstein was TRYING to derive Poincare's E=mc2. 69.22.98.146 21:34, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Hilbert who called it MEINER THEORIE. --If Grossmann and Einstein couldn't do it, that's the way it goes. -- And why should Hilbert remember Einstein, when Einstein didn't remember Grossmann ! -- 69.22.98.146 21:39, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

In physics if you can't put ideas into equation you are just blowing smoke. 69.22.98.146 19:45, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

To Alvertrand: Norton's paper at www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/papers/decades.pdf gives a balanced view of the history of GR and concludes that it is the work of three individuals -- Einstein, Grossman and Hilbert. green 64.136.26.226 19:52, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

To Nikodemos: I reverted your latest edit, which was incorrect. Einstein was not the sole author of the theory of relativity as your edit suggests. It was originally developed by Lorentz and Poincare. Einstein changed its postulational basis in his 1905 paper, in addition to making some innovations, e.g., his method of deriving the Lorentz transformations from his postulates. It is not factual correct to state that Einstein was the "author" of the theory of relativity. green 65.88.65.217 20:34, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Henri Poincare COMPLETED the Theory of Relativity. -- Lorentz couldn't do it. -- Lorentz was more of an experimentalist. -- 69.22.98.146 20:43, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Sigh... I wish those who lengthen sections indefinitely would break them up once in a while. This is hard to read. And the page needs archiving... --Alvestrand 07:19, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Whittaker's credibility

To Alvestrand. You probably know from the Poincare page that I think Whittaker is a tad one-sided on the E = mc^2 issue. On p.51 Whittaker writes

"In 1900, referring to the fact that in the free aether the electromagnetic momentum is 1/c^2 times the Poynting flux of energy, suggested that electromagnetic energy might possess density equal to 1/c^2 times the energy density: that is to say E = mc^2."

Whittaker did not mention that Poincare did not believe this result and advanced it as a criticism of Lorentz's theory. He did not mention that Poincare called it a "fictitious" density and that Poincare had no idea where the mass came from; it was just created and if it was real mass this creation would violate the conservation of mass principle. Nor did Whittaker mention that Poincare retained this view until 1904 at least, since he discussed this problem a number of times in his popular science books from 1902-1904. (I am not knocking Poincare, just pointing out that Whittaker did not mention all this). On the next page Whittaker jumps to a paper by Lewis (1908) where he says that Lewis "affirmed" that a body absorbing energy dE increases its mass by dE/c^2, and

"affirmed that the mass of a body is a direct measure of its total energy, according to the equation E = mc^2. As we have seen, Poincare had suggested this equation but had given practically no proof, while Einstein, who had also suggested it had given a proof (which however, was put forward only as approximate) for a particular case [if Einstein's case is particular, then Poincare's case is even more so - e4] (Whittaker 1953, p 52, comments in [] by me)"

You will notice that Whittaker does not mention that Lewis was affirming Einstein’s (1905) and Planck’s (1907) result and suggests he was affirming Poincare’s result. Apart from the downplaying of Einstein's efforts, Whittaker is wrong to say that Poincare had suggested this equation in the sense that (Einstein and Planck and) Lewis had meant. Poincare (1900) had meant nothing of the kind, and had no idea of it in his book of 1904 (This result would have solved the whole problem of mass violation, energy violation, momentum violation that Poincare couldn’t solve and which he still in 1904 thought cast doubt on Lorentz’s theory). Nor did Poincare mention E = mc^2 it in his 1905 paper or his 1906 paper (I may have missed it in the 1906 paper, can anybody else find it?). It seems very difficult to imagine that Whittaker couldn't see the difference between Poincare's "ficititious fluid of radiation" and the different idea that a body had less mass when it cooled down (lost heat by any means, so I conclude he sees what he wants to see. E4mmacro 22:51, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

E4mmacro, do you really want us to believe that $E=mc^{2}$ in the sense of Einstein and Planck is difficult to guess if one has the result of Poincaré? If a body cools down, it emits electromagnetic radiation which Poincaré tells us can be considered as a fluid with mass density equal to the energy density divided by $c^{2}$. The total mass of the fluid is the energy divided by $c^{2}$. Isn't it natural to assume that this is the mass lost by the body as a result of cooling down? The more intelligent high school students would we able connect the dots, when informed about Poincaré's work. And for this reason, Whittaker was justified to treat the Einstein, Planck and Lewis papers as part of a development started by Poincaré (and, perhaps, JJ Thomson).De kludde 23:47, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

It may appear easy now, but the fact is that Poinacre never did connect the dots in the easy way you say. So I guess it was not so easy then. Poincare is on record in 1904 as being baffled by Madame Curie's radium experiments. He had no idea where the energy came from. And the technical reason why he couldn't get Einstein's results is that, although Lorentz had shown mass varied with velocity in 1899, Poincare still did not believe it until 1905. You need the mass being $\gamma m$ before you can get Einstein/Planck result. And even when Poincare did believe it, 1905 and 1906, he still did not produce Einsteins's or Planck derivation. So Poincare did not do everything, what's the big surprise? E4mmacro 00:42, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Whittaker has little credibility on this issue, and one day it might be worth listing all the mistakes of facts, as well as the correct things, in his chapter on "The relativity theory of Poincare and Lorentz". It will be worth only when those who use Whittaker as an infallible published source are taken too seriously. E4mmacro 22:51, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

On another point De kludde. A body can cool down by convection or conduction, not just by emitting radiation. Einstein (Ann. der Phys, v17, 1905) started with a radiation process "if a body gives off the energy L in the form of radiation, its mass diminishes by L/c^2" and immediately extended to any form of losing energy. "The fact that the energy withdrawn from the body becomes energy of radiation evidently makes no difference, so that we are led to the more general conclusion that the mass of a body is a measure of its energy-content." Whether one agrees with the reasoning or not it is clear he is talking about something very different from Poincare's 1900 "momentum of radiation", and Whittaker should have realised that.

Einstein then immediately applied the new result to the Madam Curie/radium problem that Poincare (1904, Science and Method) had no answer to. Thus: "It is not impossible that with the bodies whose energy-content is variable to a high degree (e.q. with radium salts) the theory may be successfully but to the test (Einstein 1905)". Einstein finishes off by going back to the radiation process "If the theory corresponds to the facts, radiation conveys inertia between the emitting and absorbing bodies". He means the mass (inertia) lost from the emitting body, is gained by the receiving body. Poincare, on the other hand, said the "ficitious mass" was created (appeared from nowhere) when the radiation was emitted and was destroyed (disappeared to nowhere) when the radiation was absorbed. Poincare never suggested that the mass of the emitter or the receiver changed when radiation was emitted or absorbed. Now you can argue that Einstein should have mentioned Poincare's "fictitious fluid", or J. J. Thomson or any others who nearly got the result in Einstein's sense, and you may argue that Einstein "must have known" of these results. Einstein might counter claim that the "momentum of radiation" was as old as Maxwell's radiation pressure and required no reference and in any case Poincare never repeated or used his equation again after 1900, and that he (Einstein) was unaware of Poincare (1900). But Einstein is not my point here, Whittaker is: Whittaker never mentioned all the above things which show Einstein (1905), Planck (1907), Lewis (1908) meant something different from Poincare (1900); Whittaker never clarified what Poincare meant or said. These are more reasons why I say Whittaker is not a reliable source on the issue of Poincare/Einstein and E = mc^2. E4mmacro 02:09, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

One point I tried to make was that Whittaker's sentences are ambigious enough to make the casual reader think that Poincare had suggested that "mass of a body is a direct measure of its energy content, accoding to the equation E = mc^2", something Poincare never suggested. Either Whittaker was careless, or lacked some easily gathered knowledge of Poincare's writings, or lacked good enough judgement to assess the material available, or something worse. In any case, I caution against relying on Whittaker's word as definitive. You have to check it. E4mmacro 04:44, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

To forestall any possible flaming by anon69,I will mention that Ives J Opt Soc Am. V42, p540 1952 claimed Einstein’s “proof” was a tautology, J. Riesman and I. G. Young, JOSA, v43(7) July 1953, disputed Ives’ assertion, defended Einstein’s proof and his physical insight. In reply Ives, JOSA, v43(7) July 1953, reasserted his claim that Einstein’s assumption was not a valid physical consideration. E4mmacro 22:51, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Whittaker correctly called it Poincare's E=mc2. -- Poincare correctly derived it first, for radiation, and Max Planck extended it, to massive bodies. --69.22.98.146 23:30, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Apart from the two extra words "correctly" the information you wrote is contained in the analysis above. So I can't imagine you think what you wrote is a rebuttal. Thanks for repeating it, anyway. I will repeat it too: we know Whittaker called it Poincare's E = mc^2. E4mmacro 07:30, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

And, in case anyone doesn't notice, the analysis above is about Whittaker, what Whittaker says, what he notices and what he ignores or doesn't know. E4mmacro 07:35, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Why hasn't the massive Einstein lobby published dozens of articles contradicting Ives ? -- Interesting they haven't. -- 69.22.98.146 23:45, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

If anyone cares about it, perhaps they think Riesman and Young's paper is enough. You may as well ask why hasn't the anit-Einstein lobby published dozens of articles proving Einstein's derivation was wrong (rather that just quoting Ives). The answer would be, because these supposed papers would be nothing new, if they merely repeated Ives. So we have two published papers which contradict each other - an insoluble dilemma for anyone who thinks anything published is auotmatically correct. Everyone else has to read Einstein, read Ives, read Riesman and Young and read Ives's answer to them, try seriously to understand what each is saying, and come to a reasoned judgement. You can see above a reasoned analysis of Whittaker. One doesn't have to agree with it, but it shows what is required. i.e. something different from the endless repetition of the parrot cry "Whittaker called it Poinacre's E = mc^2", something that isn't diened in the above analysis of Whittaker.

Ives answered them and they had no response. Licorne 14:31, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Institute for Advanced Study

The link to Unified Field Theory is incorrect. It links to GUT, which is something later, and different. I think the former was an attempt to unify gravity and EM. green 65.88.65.217 05:18, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Green stop wasting people's time will you 69.22.98.146 05:20, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually there's a point here .... Unified Field Theory as Einstein imagined it is not necessarily the same thing as a GUT. But the link is useful in context. I moved the link to the term "unification of the forces" a little later in the paragraph. --Alvestrand 05:26, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

It's improved. I added one sentence for further clarification. Check it out. green 65.88.65.217 05:47, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Einstein's letter to Zangger

I would like to know from the defenders of Einstein's cause what they think about a letter from Einstein to Heinrich Zangger written on November 26, a day after Einstein submitted (if I am correct) Hilbert's field equations as his own:

Die Theorie ist von unvergleichlicher Schönheit. Aber nur ein Kollege hat sie wirklich verstanden und der eine sucht sie auf geschickte Weise zu 'nostrifizieren' ***. Ich habe in meinen persönlichen Erfahrungen kaum je die Jämmerlichkeit besser kennen gelernt wie gelegentlich dieser Theorie ***

The theory is of incomparable beauty. However, only one colleague has really understood it, and he is trying to 'appropriate' it *** in a clever way. In my personal experiences I have rarely come to know the wretchedness of mankind better than while developing this theory ***

What do the astericks above signify? Thanks, green 65.88.65.217 23:01, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

The asterisks are placeholders for omitted portions of text.De kludde 23:26, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Regardless of what one assumes about the content of Hilbert's November 16 letter, Einstein's accusations against Hilbert are brazen beyond any comparison. The only thing Einstein knew at this time was that Hilbert had started his own research in a field started by Einstein, a procedure which is perfectly normal in science, and that he intended to publish his results. The preserved part of the printer proof mentions Einstein's previous work. The only reason for which Einstein may have feared that Hilbert might not duly mention him is perhaps the example given by his, Einstein's, use of ideas of Henri Poincaré without attributing them to their author. The November 1915 events are indeed a good lesson about the wretchedness of mankind, but is was Einstein's own wretchedness which resurfaced after it became apparent earlier when Einstein plagiarized Poincaré.

Moreover, is Einstein's nervousness about Hilbert's achievement consistent with your view that this was just a "a bitch working out the details"?De kludde 21:12, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

You say the printer's proofs. Did Hilbert's published paper refer to Einstein? 220.237.80.193 02:38, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

An excellent question! green 65.88.65.217 02:54, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

I really must read additional analyses of this issue before reaching a definitive conclusion. However, istm pretty clear that we would have no GR were it not for Einstein. He was the prime mover and had been for around 10 years. As I indicated above, he gave several lectures at Goettingen in 1915 which Hilbert almost certainly attended, giving the state of his research and its problems. I see them as a "heads-up" for Hilbert, to catalyze his work (and Noether's) as a collaborator -- someone that Einstein solicited when his theory was near completion. It would not surprise me if Hilbert solved the field equations first, given that that was what he was tasked to do. Nonetheless, I think the theory owes its existence to Einstein. As for the 1905 paper, one of its original features is that Einstein derived the LT's from the two postulates of relativity, not from physical hypotheses related to an ether. There is no evidence this was done by Poincare. If this is an incorrect assessment, then someone should be able to produce a link to Poincare's paper where he does so. But so far, there are no links, only repetitious bombastic claims. Poincare was already a very famous fellow in 1905, when Einstein was an unknown. If Einstein had simply reproduced Poincare's results, it is certainly odd -- indeed egregiously implausible -- that the scientific establishment didn't notice Poincare's achievement and defaulted to Einstein. green 65.88.65.217 23:01, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Claim that Poincare's 1905 paper (4 1/4 pages) is identical in content to Einstein's much longer paper 1905

YES, Einstein's (Sept)1905 paper was identical in content to Poincare's (June)1905 paper and with no new interpretations, and not a single footnote, PLAGIARISM, by any definition. 69.22.98.146 21:22, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

It is relevant to plagarism charges that Einstein 1905 paper was submitted on 30 June 1905 (19-21 days after the appearance of Poincare's short paper in Paris). But "identical in content"? Poincare's 1905 paper was 4.25 pages long. How long was Einstein's 1905 paper - considerably more than 4.25 pages? Einstein's paper had, for example, the relativistic Doppler formula, Poincare's 1905 did not. Einstein took a different approach to the force on a moving charge. Poincare followed Lorentz, the moving charge was moving relative to both the rest frame and the moving frame. Einstein needed to only have the charge at rest in the moving frame. Just another content difference. E4mmacro 07:44, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

The discovery content was identical, and you know it well. Licorne 14:34, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

To 69. If your purpose is to denigrate Einstein, you would have a much better chance of saying that he worked from Lorentz (1904), just as Poincare did, but did not credit Lorentz the way Poincare did. The idea that Einstein had the opportunity from 9 or 11 June (when Poincare's 41/4 page paper appeared) to 30 June (when Einstein submitted his paper to Annalen der Physik) to plagarise Poincare's paper (published in Paris) seems far-fetched. On the other hand Einstein could have had plenty of time to read Lorentz 1904, the acknowledged expert on electrodynamics at the time (I am not saying he did). It seems your pro-Poincare stance stops you taking the best anti-Einstein stance available to you. Irony is so ironic :) E4mmacro 11:17, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I edited the first paragraph as follows:

Albert Einstein (March 14, 1879–April 18, 1955) was a theoretical physicist, and is widely regarded as the greatest scientist of the 20th century. The generally accepted view is that Einstein is the originator of the theory of relativity. However, the theory has historical roots in previous work by Hendrik Lorentz and Henri Poincaré that contains many (but not all) of the same results. He also made major contributions to the development of quantum mechanics, statistical mechanics, and cosmology. He was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize for Physics for his explanation of the photoelectric effect in 1905 (his "miracle year") and "for his services to Theoretical Physics."

I don't think there is any dispute as to what I refer to above as "[t]he generally accepted view". I also gave Lorentz and Poincare due credit, but it is surely not true that Poincare's 1905 paper is identical in content to Einstein's 1905 paper. E.g., it doesn't contain the same interpretation of E = mc^2. green 65.88.65.217 23:19, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Green are you re-writing the article ? GOD HELP US. You know nothing at all of physics ! ZERO ! 69.22.98.146 23:25, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

To Green. Your rewrite (above is very fair and balanced. Well done. Will it survive? Who knows. E4mmacro 10:50, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Surely you jest. It keeps getting reverted even though it's completely in accord with the historical facts! What I wrote isn't even controversial (except from an obsessed, anti-Einstein pov). green 65.88.65.217 20:06, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

To E4: Thanks for confirming above (under Whittiker section) that Einstein's 1905 paper was not identical in its results to Poincare's paper of the same year. green 64.136.26.226 23:55, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Green you are a new-comer here, E4 agreed long ago that the two papers are identical. - And in the section above E4 is talking about a different 1905 paper, so Green please bug off will you. 69.22.98.146 00:03, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

That is news to me. I think the content of Poincare 1905 is different from Einstein 1905 (the relativity paper submitted 30 june 1905) (see below). Maybe you are confused. I remember you told me that Poincare's 5 page paper of June 1905 is identical in content to Poincare's 60+ page paper of 1906 (written in July 1905, published in 1906). I merely thanked you for making your view clear - if you thought I agreed with your view I apologise - I was maintaining a tactful silence. E4mmacro 07:52, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

To E4: I need to correct my previous comment. I was interrupted in my editing -- otherwise this comment would have appeared earlier. The famous equation appears in Einstein's last paper in 1905. This, together with the fact that Poincare never mentions said equation in his unique 1905 paper, makes the latest Intro (edited by Anon) unconscionably misleading. It gives the fallacious impression that Poincare's relativity is identical to Einstein's relativity. As we have discussed ad nauseum, Einstein gave a dramatically different interpretation to the famous formula which is clearly part of relativity theory. Also, as an aside, I am pretty sure that Poincare did not derive the LT's from postulates as Einstein did in his 1905 paper on Electrodynamics, the one that Anon is comparing to Poincare's unique effort that year. If he did so, why would a complete unknown (like Einstein in 1905) have been given accolades, whereas an already famous man, Poincare, was ignored for that achievement? It makes no sense whatsoever, because it didn't happen that way! I have to leave soon so I suggest that someone else correct the Intro. green 64.136.26.226 00:21, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

To 64: It depends what you mean by the Lorentz transformations. If you mean only x',y',z',t' = f(x,y,x,t) then Poincare did not derive them at all. He got them from Lorentz (but he used a slightly new notation and re-arranged them algebraically, and named them the Lorentz transformations). Unknown to Poincare the LT had beed published in 1897 by Joseph Larmor. Poincare (1905) pointed out that these transformations formed a group and satisfied the principle of relativity. If by LT you mean x',y',z',t' = f(x,y,x,t) plus something extra, the way Maxwell's equations transform, then Lorentz made at least one mistake in the second bit, which Poincare corrected. Poincare does seem to have been guided by the Principle of Relativity in the way he corrected the mistake. E4mmacro 11:07, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

To 64: You also ask why was an unknown like Einstein given accolades, when a famous man like Poincare was not? I think the answer is that generally the theory was at first considered to be Lorentz's theory (not Poincare's not Einstein's). Some like Planck noticed Einstein, but Poincare consistently referred to it as the "Lorentz's new mechanics"; Poincare never claimed it was his theory. In the 1912/3 edition of a German book book "The principle of relativity" the author list was Lorentz, Einstein and others (with no Poincare). When GR was confirmed in 1919 (Eddington's eclipse experiments) Einstein became world famous and the de facto "owner" of relativity in the public mind. The later editions of "The principle of relativity" had the author list as Einstein and others. Anyone new to the theory who tried to read GR was naturally puzzled and then tried Einstein's 1905 paper which was easier to understand. Since that paper had not a single reference (which was a bit lax of Einstein and the journal, did they not have referees in 1905?), it appeared to readers in the 1920s that the SR came from nowhere, with perhaps a lingering bafflement as to why the principle equations were called the Lorentz transformations. I think I got this interpretation of the history from Herbert Dingle. It sounds plausible to me. E4mmacro 11:48, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Green please telephone E4 and let him fill you in. 69.22.98.146 00:23, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

The latest version has the baseline value of not being misleading, but it is too watered down. green 65.88.65.217 00:35, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Would you rather we tell the truth ? 69.22.98.146 00:38, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Malice or poor prose?

I draw your attention to the following excerpt, especially the last sentence.

Max Planck had made the formal assumption that energy was quantized in deriving his black-body radiation law, published in 1901, but had considered this to be no more than a mathematical trick. The photoelectric effect thus provided a simple confirmation of Max Planck's hypothesis of quanta.

Can I suggest:

Max Planck had made the formal assumption that energy was quantized in deriving his black-body radiation law, published in 1901, but had considered this to be no more than a mathematical trick. The photoelectric effect was thus afforded a simple confirmation by virtue of Max Planck's 'trick'.

That preserves a relationship in the subject of the two sentences, without the absurdity of implying a mathematical trick is a theory.

There's other examples of this sort of hack in the text: it's not looking too good right now. And after having read this talk page I can see there is a determined effort to revise the mainstream history. Maybe y'all should do something about this--wouldn't want to be in your shoes trying to sort out the good from the malicious, but that's where you are.

On a second read I understand the intent of the author... still, it's clumsy

168.253.132.188 07:12, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

168.253.132.188 07:03, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Quantum hypotheses

My understanding is that Planck assumed something a little different. He assumed that a vibrating system (the atoms in the walls of the black-body container) could change their energy only by a discrete amount. That is, he assumed the vibrational states of the oscillators were quantized, so the energy of oscillation of the matter could be $jh\nu$, for integer values of j only. He did NOT assume that the electromagnetic energy in the black-body container was quantized. It is a slightly different thing to say energy was absorbed or emitted from the oscillators in discrete amounts, those amounts depending on a physical property of the oscillator (the matter) - its natural frequency $\nu$. My understanding is that Einstein (in the photo-electric paper) turned it around, or extended it to the radiation, introducing the photon at the same time. Well that is what I think I was first taught, anyway. E4mmacro 07:26, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

You may be well informed about this. But it still means that Planck did not consider his quantum hypothesis to be mere mathematical trick, as the original (biased) Wikipedia article claims.De kludde 17:15, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Max Planck had the wisdom to let future experiments show the full extent of the possible applicability of QUANTA. --Poincare did the same when he first discovered E=mc2, it no doubt occurred to Poincare the future possible ramifications of his formula E=mc2, but like Planck he showed the wisdom to not speculate until experiments could confirm. -- Poincare no doubt had in mind the obvious possbility of m=E/c2 being a real mass - it was no doubt obvious for him to consider such. Licorne 14:41, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Have they worked out yet on this page that Licorne is 66/69? E4mmacro 20:34, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

It hasn't been mentioned. It's an intelligence test of sorts, and if one passes, the individual is assured that his/her IQ is above 61. LOL. green 65.88.65.217 02:46, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Link to Priority Page directly FROM THE INTRO

The Intro is clearly inaccurate, but no one can re-write it without making Einstein look like what he really was, a plagiarist. -- So the next best thing would be to keep the politically correct crap in the Intro to please those who are religiously attached to the myth, but to have a link FROM THE INTRO to a Priority Page for those who want hard facts and dates. Licorne 14:50, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Taking Suggestions

The Intro still needs re-wording to make it factual. Any suggestions ? -- Problems are that it was David Hilbert who first published the Field Equation which completed the Theory of General Relativity and which legitimately gives Hilbert rightful claim to the theory, and Henri Poincare completed the Special Theory of Relativity three months before Einstein. -- So how do we re-write the Intro without calling Einstein a plagiarist ? Any suggestions ? Licorne 03:21, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

I think the Hilbet issue is adequately dealt with in note 9. Paul August ☎ 05:01, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

It affects the Intro. -- I strongly disagree with the Intro, due to Hilbert's first discovery. Licorne 05:09, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

I see the tiny footnote number 9, in the general relativity section, which goes to Kip Thorne. Thorne is there misquoting Hilbert. Thorne claims in Hilbert's view of things.... --There Thorne is WRONG. --Hilbert called the Field Equations MEINER THEORIE in 1924. -- So Hilbert is the AUTHOR of the theory, not Einstein. -- Also Thorne is WRONG to say Hilbert did the last tiny steps. --Hilbert created the magnificent variational principle, which completed the theory. Finally Thorne is WRONG to say Einstein did 90% of the work. -- It was Grossmann who did 90% of the work for Einstein. --Thorne is making excuses for Einstein, because Thorne's wife Ms. Weinstein would kill him if he didn't. Licorne 15:10, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

That footnote number 9 should go to Hilbert's quote MEINER THEORIE in 1924. Licorne 15:50, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

General Relativity is a misnomer it is only a Theory of Gravity, as Hilbert properly called it. -- this must be in the Intro to not be misleading. Licorne 15:35, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

The Intro nows claims Einstein made major contributions to the development of Special Relativity. --In fact SR was completed before Einstein's first paper appeared ! -- Also Einstein's later derivation of E=mc2 was incorrect, Planck first derived E=mc2 for massive bodies, not Einstein. -- So what did Einstein contribute as it claims in the Intro ? -- Please explain ! --Licorne 15:17, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

The Intro is very misleading. -- The General Theory is a misnomer and is only a theory of gravity -- the Intro makes it appear Einstein completed Relativity which he did not. -- The Special Theory is Relativity, the General theory is just a theory of gravity. Einstein deliberately created the misnomer to hide these facts.Licorne 15:29, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

That's wrong: the article on general relativity is wrong on this point too. Einstein explained very clearly (read intro 1916, it's online) that GRT contained a theory of gravitation, it wasn't itself a theory of gravitation. But in the end only that part was retained in full. Harald88 21:36, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

GOOD HARALD, yes GR is only a theory of gravity, Hilbert always called it his (MEINER THEORIE) Theory of Gravity. -- Vladimir Fock said that Einstein's calling it General Relativity proved that Einstein never understood it. -- Grossmann constructed it for Einstein, and Hilbert completed the theory. Licorne 02:48, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Famous in 1915 or 1919?

A small point: did someone have a specific objection to the statement that Einstein became world famous after the 1919 eclipse expedition (rather than the 1915 paper) or did it just get changed back as part of the revert wars? I think "world famous" means having the NYTimes write the headlines shown in the article. I doubt there were similar headlines in 1915 when a theory was published in a germany language scientific journal. In other words: "After a dramatic prediction of general relativity, the bending of light by the sun's gravity, was confirmed in 1919, Einstein became world-famous ..." —The preceding unsigned comment was added by E4mmacro (talk • contribs) 20:02, February 14, 2006 (UTC)

YES the New York media created the Einstein Myth after the eclipse. Poincare had died in 1912, and after the war no one would defend the German Hilbert because he no doubt had put babies on bayonets. Licorne 20:21, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

I doubt the NYTimes knew of Hilbert (did Eddington ever mention Hilbert?). I guess the NYTimes thought someone working in Germany, and born in Germany, (and if they had bothered to check, with German citizenship from 1914), i.e. Einstein, was German. Or is Licorne's comment part of a Jewish conspiracy thing? E4mmacro 23:59, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

• Did Eddington discuss Hilbert: not in his (jointly authored) paper on the eclipse. As for Licorne, he's just spouting off his typical nonsense. --Fastfission 01:07, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

It was E4 who mentioned the NEW YORK TIMES. Licorne 02:51, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

• As for the popularity... he didn't become world famous (outside of the community of physicists) until after 1919. Mentioning of Einstein in American newspapers was almost nil before 1919 (the only real incidence was he was one of many German scientists who signed a petition against WWI, and that gets mentioned); between 1919 and, say, 1922, he was discussed in well over a hundred articles in major U.S. newspapers, according to a ProQuest search I conducted. --Fastfission 01:18, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Intro is still wrong

Henri Poincare completed the discovery of Special Relativity on 5 June 1905, before Eistein's first paper even appeared, so Einstein is NOT the AUTHOR of relativity. Also, David Hilbert first correctly published the so called General Theory of Relativity on 20 November 1915, before Einstein. So the INTRO must be changed. -- Also, Hilbert called the theory his (MEINER THEORIE) Theory of Gravity. - Einstein later republished Hilbert's equations mistakenly calling it a General Theory of Relativity, a misnomer. -- All this needs be clearly reflected in the Intro. -- Licorne 20:25, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree with yout that the statement "author" of GRT lacks subtleness, and might be considered POV. I wasn't inspired with a good objective alternative though. Maybe someone else will get a good idea how to phrase that in a straightforward but undisputable way.

Some of Einstein's contributions to SRT in 1905 "after the fact":

- published derivation from minimal assumptions (which, btw, some regard as the most important step; but that's a matter of taste of course)

- published symmetrical ("relativistic") Doppler effect

- published the "mass corresponds to energy" interpretation of E=mc2

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Harald88 (talk • contribs) 21:33, February 14, 2006 (UTC)

GOOD HARALD, yes Einstein was after the fact. -- and GOOD HARALD Einstein was NOT the AUTHOR of GR. -- you better be careful Harald, fastfission will be calling you names too, soon enough. Licorne 02:54, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I also wrote above: Einstein: he was the first to present that equation as implying the equivalence of mass and energy content. Harald88 07:43, 14 February 2006 (UTC) ; moreover:

In 1905 he was also the first to make a prediction about measurable time dilation. Harald88 06:46, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Is it possible that you failed to read the replies the last time you submitted exactly this comment? There is no point in saying the same thing over and over if you are not going to listen to the replies. DJ Clayworth 20:35, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

No one had replied !!!!! Not even you !!!! Licorne 21:00, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

As I read this talk page I find almost nothing discussed except the points you bring up. DJ Clayworth 21:04, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Correct, no one can deny the facts. Not even you. Licorne 21:07, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

DJ, when someone speaks against him, he insults them; when nobody does, he takes it as evidence he's right. You can't win by argument against someone who doesn't listen. --Alvestrand 21:29, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

And DJ, he will say the same thing any number of times, at least once again for every time any statement he makes is shown to be wrong. In answer to this post he will say "I have never been shown to be wrong" or "no censorship", or something else he has already said many times. E4mmacro 23:31, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

MACROSSAN GROW UP --- HILBERT BEAT OUT EINSTEIN -- THE PUBLISHED RECORD IS CLEAR. - CORRECT THE INTRO. 17.255.240.78 01:10, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Kip Thorne's Quote is WRONG (reference 9)

Kip Thorne's quote in reference number 9 is flatly contradicted by the published record -- Hilbert did not approve of Einstein stealing credit for GR -- in 1924 Hilbert called it MEINER THEORIE in published article -- so Kip Thorne is flat WRONG -- that quote need be deleted. Licorne 21:03, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

So you only want secondary sources quoted when they agree with your misconceptions? Interesting that you can't imagine that Hilbert wasn't talking about the same thing as einstein when he said "meiner theorie".... --Alvestrand 21:31, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

This famous quote from Hilbert seems to support Thorne's view that Hilber gave credit for the theory to Einstein: Every boy in the streets of Gottingen understands more about four-dimensional geometry than Einstein. Yet, in spite of that, Einstein did the work and not the mathematicians. — Paul August ☎ 21:59, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

WHERE DID YOU GET THAT SUPPOSED QUOTE ? Licorne 02:56, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Hahaha -- amazing that YOU were the one the first bring in Kip Thorne's opinion on this, but only when you were happy taking it out of context and interpretting it the way YOU wanted to. But now that the full quote is included and Kip Thorne's meaning is clear, suddenly he becomes a bad source, suddenly his quote becomes a liability rather than a benefit. How intellectually dishonest can you get? --Fastfission 22:36, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

fastfission how childish ! -- Kip Thorne is human, he makes mistakes, and his quote in reference number 9 is indeed a mistake by Thorne. Licorne 02:59, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Oh come now, you don't think it is a mistake. I have it on good authority that you think he says what he says because "if he didn't, his wife Ms.Weinstein would kill him." I'm not the only one who detects an anti-Semitic streak in such a comment, but I'll just leave that aside, because your dishonesty is more than enough in this instance. --Fastfission 04:44, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

KIP THORNE IS CERTIFIABLY WRONG ON THIS ONE (reference 9). -- GR BELONGS TO HILBERT.- HILBERT PUBLISHED GR BEFORE EINSTEIN 17.255.240.78 01:07, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Harald please remove footnote number 9, Thorne clearly missed Hilbert's famous MEINER THEORIE in 1924. Licorne 03:02, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

It is an OUTRAGE that Hilbert is NOWHERE even mentioned in the article ! -- He should be right in the Intro ! -- Licorne 03:04, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

The published record indisputably documents that HILBERT is the AUTHOR of GR. -- Correct the Intro. Licorne 03:06, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

See [5], which notes that although Hilbert submitted his original article on November 20, 1915, ... the proofs of Hilbert's paper (dated 6 December 1915) do not contain the field equations. It also excerpts the following:

In the printed version of his paper, Hilbert added a reference to Einstein's conclusive paper and a concession to the latter's priority: "The differential equations of gravitation that result are, as it seems to me, in agreement with the magnificent theory of general relativity established by Einstein in his later papers". If Hilbert had only altered the dateline to read "submitted on 20 November 1915, revised on [any date after 2 December 1915, the date of Einstein's conclusive paper]," no later priority question would have arisen.

Please stop pushing the minority anti-Einstein POV. The Rod 03:44, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

NO Rod, Your source is outdated, Corry was destroyed in Z.Naturforsch last year. Hilbert's proofs do contain the Field Equations in full. -- Also the quote in your source confirms what I said, that Hilbert published the Field Equations FIRST: your source quotes Hilbert pointing out that Einstein's work was LATER. -- That is precisely why Hilbert correctly called it Meiner Theorie. Licorne 03:57, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I assume you are referring to the Winterberg paper. If I recall, he does not say that the proofs contain the field equations in full; his entire argument is based on the fact that part of the Hilbert proof he looked at was simply missing and thus no answer could be easily drawn from it. I'll give you some time to review the article yourself and decide on what you want to insist on, before calling you intellectually dishonest again. I'm happy to provide a copy of the Winterberg paper to anybody who wants it by e-mail, though I don't think it is of very much value. (For the record, the authors of the original article think that Winterberg concentrated on something completely inconsequential, and ignores all of the other differences in the proofs.[6] Personally I think the fact that Winterberg cites his major contributor to the paper as being the certified nutball Bjerknes does not help his credibility, and neither do his ties to Lyndon LaRouche, but that's just my take on things.) --Fastfission 04:25, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

It is true that part of the paper is missing. But the fact, pointed out by Winterberg, is that Corry/Renn/Stachel made their argument without pointing this out to their readers, a clear and dishonest violation of principles of scientific research, similar to an experimental physicists mentioning only the results he likes while keeping silent about the facts he dislikes. By contrast, Winterberg simply points out that the missing part of the proof may have contained the equation, and presents his argument (based on a comparison of text preceeding the gap with text from the published paper) that it has contained the field equations in explicit form. Wuensch does the same thing, and bases her attempt to reconstruct the missing text upon the preserved text of lectures of Hilbert on the subject. If CRS had done the same thing, presented the facts they have together with their speculation that the missing piece did not contain the explicit field equations, no one would have critized them.De kludde 17:11, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, they claimed it wasn't relevant to their argument. I haven't gone over the technicalities of it very closely, but it doesn't seem like an inplausible reply, and they also go into some detail in their long-reply looking at some of Winterberg's assumption as well. I'm not sure who gets the "bad behavior" award (Winterberg calling them frauds, them calling Winterberg paranoid), but in any event I brought this up primarily to emphasize that unlike Licorne's claim, the Winterberg paper does not settle things -- at best, it indicates towards the conclusion that the CRS paper does not settle things, at worst, it does not do even that. --Fastfission 17:54, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

It does not surprise me at all that they say it is not relevant. This is so because the fact that part of the proofs is missing is hard to overlook. And if they failed to mention a fact to their readers which is relevant and inconvient to them, and which is hard to overlook, this means that they violated the principles of good historical research. It is in a way close to fraud, and could totally destroy their reputations as historians of science.De kludde 22:38, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I wonder how I have to understand your assertion that you have not gone over the technicalities of it very closely. Do you understand what the principle of least action is, and what it means to calculate a variational derivative? But even so, you can look at the formulation of the Hilbert field equations (wrongly attributed to Einstein) in the Wikipedia article on the subject. They clearly fit on the missing piece of paper, which means that CRS have to come up with some argument supporting their assertions that they have not been there. This they failed to do, however. And even if they had done it, it would still have had the character of a speculation, contradicted by practically all the other facts around the issue.De kludde 22:38, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't really matter what I individually understand about the mathematical disputes -- it is not our job on Wikipedia to discern out the "ultimate truth of these things" but rather to report on the state of the mainstream research primarily, and fringe research secondarily if at all (see our policy on Neutral Point of View and No Original Research). I find the boundary-work here ("who gets to write about these things?") fairly humorous, since half of this involves physicists pretending to be historians in the first place. ;-) But seriously, what matters here is assessing what is the mainstream POV and what is not. I think it is pretty clear that Winterberg and Bjerknes are not the mainstream POV in this case, whatever one thinks of their ultimate accuracy (I'm doubtful of it, myself). --Fastfission 03:10, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

I am not sure about the ties between Winterberg and LaRouche. Could you give further comments? While I hold LaRouche in low esteem, I do not see why such ties necessarily discredit him as a physicist. As for Bjerknes, he is never listed as a substantial contributor to the Winterberg paper. Winterberg pointed out to Bjerknes what CRS failed to mention in their paper. Bjerknes then wrote a book about relativity, which for the first time reprinted the extant part of the printer proofs. Bjerknes also brought the Logunov paper to Winterberg's attention, and read the manuscript before its final publication. It was perfectly natural to mention him for this.De kludde 17:11, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I bring up Bjerknes simply to emphasize that Winterberg is not working here with respected historians -- he's working exclusively with a fellow who is known to have a major anti-Einstein bias, self-publishes, and has no positive reputation within the historical or physical community whatsoever. Whatever one thinks about what that indicates for his overall reputation, I think it indicates strongly that Winterberg should not be considered a "consensus" historical opinion, but is rather somewhat more fringe. As for the LaRouche connection, when I get home later today I'll be happy to write up a summary of it with some citations (I am away from my home office at the moment, where my books relating to the subject are). I stumbled across Winterberg and his LaRouche connections some time ago in connection with other research I was doing. Personally I think it again serves to bode poorly on his historical aptitude (I make no judgments of his aptitude as a physicist, of course, but he would not be the first physicist who made a poor historian). My memory of it is that he got connected with the LaRouche people in the 1970s as part of their fusion power advocacy wing, wrote a book for them, and then got involved in some issue relating to whether certain German scientists had done bad things during World War II. This is discussed in Dennis King's Lyndon LaRouche and the New American Fascism, though I don't have the exact page numbers on me this minute (but I have the book at home). There's a nice picture of LaRouche and Winterberg in one of LaRouches' "autobiographies" too, if I recall. But anyway, I'll write that up in a little more detail. --Fastfission 17:54, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Okay -- I wrote up all I had on him as a new article. It is now at Friedwardt Winterberg. Enjoy. --Fastfission 03:10, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

One last little thing I stumbled across. The Corry paper authors apparently took down their long response (which Z. Naturforsch refused to publish) from the site linked above at the request of Winterberg. However one can still find the full version with the Wayback Machine, if one is curious. --Fastfission 04:34, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I think you will find that "the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science has decided to replace the original" after Prof Winterberg complained - the authors seem to imply they would leave it there, if it were up to them. In my opinion the short reply is more effective than the longer reply which was marred by insults (I remember when I first read the long reply last year sometime I was a little doubtful about which side to believe because both sides seemed to have reached the paranoid stage). I think there is lesson for all those who like to indulge in personal attacks - the attacks just detract from one's argument. (End of sermon, thanks) E4mmacro 08:00, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

fastfission you are wrong on all counts. Z.Naturforsch did NOT refuse to publish a response by Corry - Corry withdrew his response and could find NO ONE who would publish it anywhere. Also, the Field Equations are still in the proofs in several equivalent forms -- Corry was not smart enough to realize that not enough had been cut off by someone with their little razor blade. Also Winterberg is a top notch theoretician, who received his PhD from Werner Heisenberg at Goettingen University (Germany's MIT). Licorne 05:00, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, Z.Naturforsch refused to publish without modifications. I don't know the nature of those, but anyway one can read Corry's full account in the link above of his side of the story. I never, by the way, disputed that Winterberg was a physicist; my comments are merely on his reliability as a historian. Both of my assertions about him (the LaRouche connection, the reliance on Bjerknes) are true and verifiable. In connection with the question of his respectability as a historian, it should also be noted that the one other time I am familar with his "historical" contributions it has had something to do with denying the culpability of accused German war criminals or something along those lines (it has been some time since I looked into him, for totally different reasons than this). Happy to provide citations to whoever wants them on any of these points. --Fastfission 17:27, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I actually asked Stachel about the Winterberg attack. He informed me that they had put up a longer reply on the Max Planck Institute website, but it was removed and replaced with the shorter reply after Winterberg threatened a lawsuit against the institute, leaving only the shorter note in place. So much for Winterberg's respect for the free exchange of ideas. --Alvestrand 11:39, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

You can get the full reply at the link above, it was archived by the WayBack Machine. It accuses Winterberg of being paranoid (personally I think such accusations are in bad taste), but also goes very carefully over the argument and the equations. --Fastfission 17:30, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Alvestrand, if you contacted Stachel, would be willing to contact Fölsing as well? The opponents of CRS (and thats not just Winterberg, in case you haven't noticed yet) quote him as saying that not to mention the cut to the printer proofs is comparable to an experimental physicist omitting unconvenient data. Fölsing is, as far as I can see, not publisher of a research paper on this subject and for this reason he is more likely to be an independent witness than Stachel. Stachel can probably be considered to be biased towards his own party.De kludde 17:11, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Stachel says the main reason for withdrawing the original response was the fact that Winterberg felt insulted. This may well be the case. The original version of the Winterberg article was sent to CRS by Science and then rejected based upon their opion alone. A predictable response, given the fact that Winterberg's claims can well be construed to be an accusation of bad scholarship against these authors. Winterberg must have perceived this as an indication that there is a movement for falsifying the historic record about the matter, and added suspicions about forgery and a few comments about scientific hoaxes like the Piltdown man hoax at the end of his paper. Note that his comments were still not political in nature and did not mention Jewish or Zionist interests. It is the CRS response which completely dragged things on the political arena by making comparisons with "german physics" during the 1930s and "bourgeois genetics" in the Soviet Union. Renn has done a similar thing recently, in the newspaper article discussed here. The pattern in both cases is that one of the authors of the CRS papers is attacked of using unscientific methods (justifiably so, given their silence about the missing part of the proofs and their absurd claims that Hilbert introduced a trace term into his equations in December 1915), to which they respond by attempts to swing the nazi club against their opponents. Now, who is obstructing the free exchange of ideas?De kludde 17:11, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Corry withdrew his response, because all he could offer was a childish personal attack. -- That is why NO ONE will publish the response from Corry who's reputation is today nil. --Licorne 13:22, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

We're getting pretty far outside the bounds of verfiable claims here, though I know that's not a new thing for you. Regardless, my point is simply that there seems to be little to no reason to think that Winterberg is at all a final word on the matter, and that you mischaracterized his conclusions on top of that. --Fastfission 17:27, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

JUST LOOK at the photocopies reproduced in Winterberg's published article of the butchered proofs all cut up ! - The proofs prove NOTHING to ANYONE ! -- FASTFISSION ARE YOU BLIND !?! -- and the field equation is still there, in the other equations ! - Corry is destroyed ! --Licorne 20:34, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I've seen the photocopies, but if you look over the CRS papers they contain much more on that question. And it is you who claimed that the proofs proved something, not me: "Hilbert's proofs do contain the Field Equations in full." Why is it you change your story every other posting? By the way, in order to establish someone as "destroyed", you'd have to show that mainstream researchers considered him "destroyed", not just that you find Winterberg compelling. --Fastfission 20:38, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

It is OBVIOUS, that I was saying that it proved NOTHING for corry's argument. -- It proves everything for Winterberg, which is why this REFEREED paper was accepted for publishing. --Corry is destroyed.-- Licorne 21:10, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

To Fastfission, your personal attacks against Winterberg are irrelevent and prove nothing. -- ALL THAT MATTERS is that Winterberg's observation that the field equation is still contained in the proofs was in fact heavily scrutinized by REFEREES who certified Winterberg's correctness. -- That is all that matters here. -- Corry is destroyed. -- Licorne 21:19, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

MEINER THEORIE

Hilbert called GR Meiner Theorie in 1924, the exact reference is D.Hilbert,Grund Lagen der Physik, Mathematische Annalen, 92, p.2, 1924. Licorne 03:30, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Harald you are the only one I have any intellectual respect for there. You display intellectual integrity at times. I suggest this to you Harald, that the Intro be re-written vaguely by saying simply that Einstein made contributions to Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, etc etc. -- Also, Hilbert should definitely figure prominantly and by name, in the GR section, as soon as the Field Equation is mentioned. -- And Kip Thorne's reference number 9 does NOT suffice, it is wrong. -- Hilbert clearly did NOT credit Einstein as Thorne's quote states. Licorne 05:10, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

To Harald: The Intro is flatly contradicted by the published record which indisputably credits Hilbert with the discovery of General Relativity on 20 November 1915. The Intro is in total contradiction with the published record. Licorne 13:33, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the dispute article should be linked to the intro.De kludde 17:13, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. The "dispute" is not something taken seriously by most historians, and most of the people on the "dispute" page who promote the idea of the "dispute" are not historians and are not respected in the historical community. If mentioned at all, it should be mentioned in the context of the disputed things themselves, later in the article where they appear in more detail. The intro is for the basics. See, for example, how the Apollo moon landing hoax accusations article is dealt with at Project Apollo. --Fastfission 20:58, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

There is NO dispute. The published record is clear, GR belongs to Hilbert. -- The INTRO must be corrected, to be in accord with the published record of the discovery of GR by Hilbert on 20 November 1915, a published fact. -- Licorne 21:04, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Concerning Hilbert and GRT: If it is true that the field equations are relatively unimportant because the Einstein/Grossman Entwurf paper is the only major step, then why does the wikipedia article on General Relativity give 1915 as the date of publication of GRT, and not 1913 (the year the Entwurf paper was published?)De kludde 17:13, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

"Hilbert called GR Meiner Theorie in 1924, the exact reference is D.Hilbert,Grund Lagen der Physik, Mathematische Annalen, 92, p.2, 1924." — Die Mathematische Annalen are online, so this can easily be checked. That page is at [7] (I'm not sure the URL will work; if not, follow the link in Mathematische Annalen). The words "Meiner Theorie" do not appear. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 20:29, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I have photocopies of the original, in German, it is there MEINER THEORIE. Licorne 20:40, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, the link I gave goes to The Center for Retrospective Digitization, Göttingen State and University Library, and they say it is scanned from either the original or microfilm. I doubt that would be incorrect.

Where do your copies differ from the Göttingen version? Are you sure of the page number? -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 20:48, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, it is on page 2, at the very beginning of the article. Thank you again. Licorne 20:59, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

My German is not so great (I'll go over the parts I'm having trouble with with a dictionary later when I get the chance), but it seems to me that on page one he refers to the "general relativity theory of Einstein" and says that his contribution is putting it into a more simple and natural expression of it. (Die gewaltigen Problemstellung und Gedankenbildungen der allgemeinen Relativitätstheorie von Einstein finden nun, wie ich in meiner ersten Mitteilung ausgefürht habe, auf dem von Mie betretenen Wege ihren einfachsten und natürlichsten Ausdruck und zugleich in formaler Hinsicht ein systematische Ergänzung und Abrundung.) Though I think all of this is rather inconsequential to the decisions made regarding this encyclopedia article (this definitely crosses the lines of WP:NOR), especially as the crucial question is not what Hilbert may have claimed at one point, I'm somewhat curious about it in general. The selection with the "meiner Theorie" is part of a longer paragraph, and I'm having some difficulty figuring out whether or not Hilbert is intending at all to weigh in on the priority issue. The paragraph in question is:

Seit der Veröffentlichung meiner ersten Mitteilung sind bedeutsame Abhandlungen über diesen Gegenstand erschienen: ich erwähne nur die glänzenden und tiefsinnigen Untersuchungen von Weyl und die an immer neuen Ansätzen und Gedanken reichen Mitteilungen von Einstein. Indes sowohl Weyl gibt späterhin seinem Entwicklungsgange eine solche Wendung, daß er auf die von mir aufgestellten Gleichungen ebenfalls gelangt, und andererseits auch Einstein, obwohl wiederholt von abweichenden und unter sich verschiedenen Ansätzen ausgehend, kehrt schließlich in seinen letzten Publikationen geradenwegs zu den Gleichungen meiner Theorie zurück.

Perhaps someone with some better German can help with this. --Fastfission 21:20, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Hilbert there says that Einstein in his LAST publication, has FINALLY come to the equations of MEINER THEORIE. - as clear as anyone could say it ! -- Hilbert is clear on his priority. -- Kip Thorne's quote in reference 9 is clearly WRONG. --Licorne 21:28, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

You have a pretty bad history of taking things out of context (remember it was you who was championing the including of the Kip Thorne quote originally, but only if the full quote was not included), so I don't think we're going to leave it to your take on things, thank you very much. Besides, the question has never been what Hilbert thought about it, but what independent historians have concluded (see our policy on No Original Research). For those interested, I've typed out the German of the non-technical part of the article here. I'm happy to help work through the translation, so we can see exactly what it is that Hilbert reffered to once as "his theory". --Fastfission 21:41, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Stop playing Stupid. -- It is obvious I was saying that Thorne was correct when he said the Field Equation belongs to Hilbert, BUT he was WRONG when he said Hilbert did not claim priority. -- YOU GOT IT NOW ? ? -- Licorne 21:49, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Oh yes, it's quite obvious that you were happy to quote Thorne, cite him as an authority, ask if others had read him, etc., as long as people didn't actually quote him completely. You never indicated that it was taken out of context until it was pointed out to you, and then you made up excuses for why Thorne was wrong. Don't you agree that such behavior is a cause for suspicion? That it looks like you were trying to intentionally mislead? And yet, you have never admitted to it, or provided the slightest explanation -- all you do is make excuses for Thorne, rather than offer accounts of your own errors. This is why I do not trust you. --Fastfission 22:37, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

What is your problem man ? I simply say that Thorne did make one mistake, what is wrong with that ! Licorne 23:27, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

My German isn't so hot (babel de-1), but I read "den Gleichungen meiner Theorie" as "the equations of my theory". My sense of the logic of the paragraph is that Einstein's been wandering all over the place, trying different things, but has now in his last publications returned to the equations of Hilbert's theory. Note that I don't accept the theory that equation = theory; theories have text that relate them to the real world, not just equations. So Hilbert could have a theory that contained an equation that Einstein wanted to use in his theory, without the two theories being equal. I think. (BTW, I upgraded this para from 4th level to 1st level - it seems separate from the above topics, and the ToC looks awful) --Alvestrand 21:45, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I just told you what it says . Licorne 21:50, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

GR indisputably belongs to Hilbert. -- The INTRO must be corrected. Licorne 21:53, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

• You can keep repeating that as much as you'd like, but the fact remains that there seems to be quite a bit of people who do dispute that, and most of the people who think it belongs to Hilbert are, frankly, not representative of mainstream historical opinion. By the way, are you familiar with Tilman Sauer's article on the "missing page"? If you're interested, I could send you (or anyone else) a copy. Tilman Sauer, "Einstein Equations and Hilbert Action: What is missing on page 8 of the proofs for Hilbert’s First Communication on the Foundations of Physics?" Arch. Hist. Exact Sci. 59 (2005) 577–590. --Fastfission 22:37, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

The published record is completely on my side. -- If you have anything from Sauer that might challenge the published record, post it here by all means. Start a new topic and post what you claim to have. Licorne 22:41, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

The only "side" that an encyclopdia article is allowed to take, is to cite facts about opinions as well as (more importantly) bare facts by themselves. Up tot the reader to decide. It's that simple. Harald88 06:40, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

OK I saw Tilman's paper, it changes nothing. -- the Field Equation is still imbedded on other pages which were not cut off, as Winterberg clearly shows. Licorne 23:01, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I translated the start of Hilbert's article, as posted by Fastfission, and I noted that in the third paragraph, Hilbert appears to ascribe GR to Einstein. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 22:56, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but what does he know? He's only a dead German....--Stephan Schulz 23:14, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes Hilbert says Einstein did produce a magnificent Theory, but LATER. (it's easy when someone already gives you the right answer). Licorne 23:03, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Some quotes

There are several quotes from Hilbert which seem to support Thorne's view that Hilbert gave credit for the theory to Einstein. Both of the following quotes are given in both Phillip Frank's, Einstein, His Life and Times, Da Capo Press; Rev edition (May 1, 1989), ISBN 0306803585, p. 206 and Constance Reid's, Hilbert, Springer; 1 edition (April 19, 1996) ISBN 0387946748, p. 142

• Every boy in the streets of our mathematical Gottingen understands more about four-dimensional geometry than Einstein. Yet, despite that, Einstein did the work and not the mathematicians.
• Do you know why Einstein said the most original and profound things about space and time that have been said in our generation? Because he had learnt nothing about all the philosophy and mathematics of time and space.

On the same page Reid goes on to say:

• To Hilbert, The beauty of Einstein's theory lay in its great geometrical abstraction; and when the time arrived for the awarding of the third Bolyai Prize in 1915, he recommended that it go to Einstein "for the high mathematical spirit behind his achievements

J J O'Connor and E F Robertson, Hilbert referring to the Corry, Renn and Stachel paper Belated Decision in the Hilbert-Einstein Priority Dispute, Science 278 (14 November, 1997) write:

• Many have claimed that in 1915 Hilbert discovered the correct field equations for general relativity before Einstein but never claimed priority. The article [11] however, shows that this view is in error. In this paper the authors show convincingly that Hilbert submitted his article on 20 November 1915, five days before Einstein submitted his article containing the correct field equations. Einstein's article appeared on 2 December 1915 but the proofs of Hilbert's paper (dated 6 December 1915) do not contain the field equations.

As the authors of [11] write:-

In the printed version of his paper, Hilbert added a reference to Einstein's conclusive paper and a concession to the latter's priority: "The differential equations of gravitation that result are, as it seems to me, in agreement with the magnificent theory of general relativity established by Einstein in his later papers". If Hilbert had only altered the dateline to read "submitted on 20 November 1915, revised on [any date after 2 December 1915, the date of Einstein's conclusive paper]," no later priority question would have arisen.

Paul August ☎ 06:23, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Paul you are wrong, Hilbert said LATER regarding Einstein's work. Licorne 14:08, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

In sci.physics.research and sci.physics.relativity, recently evidence was cited for the allegation that Hilbert was fooled into thinking that Einstein had priority, while all evidence shows the contrary (I now have no time to elaborate on this, I go on vacation, sorry). Harald88 06:35, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

RESPONSE to Paul August: WHO THE HECK is Philip Frank ? ? -- Don't believe what Frank says, look at what Hilbert himself said in the published record Hilbert published it MEINER THEORIE, that is what counts, the published record. Licorne 14:01, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

RESPONSE to Paul August: WHERE THE HECK have you been ? ? - those Proofs prove nothing at all for Corry who was destroyed in Z.Naturforsch last year. Licorne 14:06, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Einstein, Smoluchowski and Brownian Motion

Mr. Anon69, in the discussion above you claim that "Einstein's solution for Brownian Motion was copied line for line from Smoluchowski." Could you give more details? Which paper(s) of Smoluchowski did Einstein copy from? Did Smoluchowski have $E[x_{t}^{2}]={\frac {kT}{3\pi \eta r}}t$, the equation used by Jean Baptiste Perrin to determine $k$?

I attended a conference in Paris about three years ago by Jean-Paul Auffray, with Jules Leveugle, they both were aware of this fact that Einstein copied line for line Smoluchowski's equations for Brownian motion. If you contact them I'm sure they have your precise answer. Max Planck credited Smoluchowski with the solution of Brownian motion, not Einstein. This is on page 258 of Jules Leveugle's magnificent book at the Ecole Polytechnique, for consultation. Copies of Leveugle's book are in other major Physics libraries in Paris, for consultation, I believe at the Institut Poincare, and probably the Bibliotheque Nationale. It is Leveugle's unabridged book Poincare et la Relativite: Question sur la Science. I believe Jean-Paul Auffray speaks perfect English, Jules Leveugle reads several languages including English. Licorne 03:52, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

BLATANT CONTRADICTIONS in the article

1) That Einstein was the author of General Relativity is in blatant contradiction with the published record. -- Hilbert published it FIRST, on 20 November 1915.

2) What were Einstein's major contributions to the development of Special Relativity ? ? -- PLEASE NAME JUST ONE ? ?

3) The reference number 9 (Thorne's claim) is blatantly contradicted by Hilbert's Meiner Theorie. -- GET RID OF THORNE'S QUOTE NOW ! !

Licorne 04:23, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

ad 2) I named them above, in answer to your same question. And I forgot to mention one, I'll add it now. Harald88 06:28, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Harald you youself had said AFTER THE FACT, did you not ? ? -- And the Intro says in the development. -- How can after the fact be in the development ? ? -- You clearly have a contradiction. -- Let me ask you once again: What were his contributions to the development ? ? Licorne 13:36, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

• You first point is, as noted, highly disputed and repeating it again and again is not helping anything. Your third point is a non-point. Just because Hilbert once elliptically referred to something as his does not make it his, and more to the point on Wikipedia our job is to use mainstream secondary sources, not primary sources. See our policy on No Original Research. Also, simply repeating your claims does not make them so, nor does it move any of this forward. --Fastfission 13:29, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Fastfission can you not read plain Engilsh or German ? ? -- Hilbert states categorically it is his theory, which Einstein later republished. - Can't you plainly read that ? ? -- So, Thorne is absolutely wrong -- you don't want to use a standard source if it is clearly wrong, do you now ? ? Licorne 13:39, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Fastfission you are wrong, the first point is NOT highly disputed, rather , it is universally recognized that Hilbert discovered the Field Equation to complete the theory, before Einstein, who could not do it, see also Einstein-Hilbert action, Einstein was unable to do it. -- Hilbert's name MUST be included in the article, right in the Intro, so as to not be misleading to readers. -- Hilbert was the AUTHOR not Einstein, by the published record. ---- Licorne 13:48, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Source of name "relativity"?

Does anyone have a quote for the source of the name "relativity" for the Special Relativity theory? The History of special relativity article says:

The original title for Einstein's paper translates from the German as "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies". Max Planck suggested the term "relativity" to highlight the notion of transforming the laws of physics between observers moving relative to one another, and the term 'Special' was later given to it by Einstein in order to distinguish it from the general theory of relativity.

But that article is light on citing sources. --Alvestrand 09:09, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Keswani(1965) asserts that Relativité is Poincaré's word, that Einstein ripped off from Poincaré. Keswani points out this proves that Einstein WAS INDEED reading Poincare contrary to Einsteins's denials later in his life. Licorne 13:30, 16 February 2006 (UTC)