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Mrs Einstein the real genius?

ynot

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I saw a TV program yesterday that suggested (apparently with credible evidence) that Einstein’s first wife may have been the brain behind E=MC2 and TTOR.

Thinks . . . The theories of a woman . . . It all begins to make sense now! :D :boxedin: me hidding from females everywhere.
 
I saw a TV program yesterday that suggested (apparently with credible evidence) that Einstein’s first wife may have been the brain behind E=MC2 and TTOR.

Thinks . . . The theories of a woman . . . It all begins to make sense now! :D :boxedin: me hidding from females everywhere.

I've heard that, too.

Unfortunately, it breaks down.

Einstein's first wife was a mathematician, and a better one than he was. It's natural to assume that she must have been behind it all.

However, it breaks down because all the math of Special Relativity, besides being High-School math, had already been worked out long before, by such luminaries as Lorentz, Fitzgerald, and Poincare.

Einstein's contribution to Special Relativity was not in the math, but in the insight. He came up with the beautiful theory that makes it obvious how things have to be that way. It's totally understandable to everyone.

Einstein also went on to do General Relativity, which is also beautiful. He had help for the math, there, too. Some from David Hilbert. Some from Emmy Noether. If you want a woman to blame, pick her, because she was one of the towering geniuses of the 20th century.
 
Since this is an Einstein thread - I guess I feel bound to point out that Al got his Nobel prize for his contribution to the photo-electric effect.

Of course, he's remembered for Special Relativity and his theory of Gravity.

E=mc^2 is a special case of a more general equation
[latex]$E=\gamma m_{0}c^{2}$[/latex]

Genius is subjective.

Newton was a genius.
Newton had a cat.
He invented the cat-door ... takes genius to do that: sticking a small door inside a normal-sized door, for the use of the cat no less, didn't occur to anyone before that. (Though small doors in very large doors had occurred quite a while ago...)
He cut a door into his house door for the cat to get in and out of - very clever.
His cat had kittens.
He cut little doors for the kittens.
Newton was a genius.

Einsteins "genius" shows the same sort of flair.
Other contributions include stuff like a statistical treatment of brownian motion.
 
Oy gevalt !

I saw a TV program yesterday that suggested (apparently with credible evidence) that Einstein’s first wife may have been the brain behind E=MC2 and TTOR.

Thinks . . . The theories of a woman . . . It all begins to make sense now! :D :boxedin: me hidding from females everywhere.


I don't think that Einstein was the actual originator of the famous e=mc² equation nor its interpretation.

My understanding is that the e=mc² equation was first introduced in the book 'Physics of the Ether' in 1875, by Samuel Tolver Preston, some 4 years prior to the birth of Einstein (born 1879).

Einstein may have arrived at the same equation, but he was not the first to find or interpret it.

I find it hard to believe his wife had much to do with it.




Please consider the following reference URLs:

wbabin.net/ajay/sharma3.htm

atlascom.gr/EMC2.htm

rarebooksmailinglist.com/pipermail/rarebooks_rarebooksmailinglist.com/2004-July/001089.html

*

:o)
 
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Oy gevalt !

Something odd in the forum.

When I tried to post URLs it said I haven't posted enough messages (at 15) yet to obtain the privilege, but they still showed up anyway!

Kids, can you say: 'bug' ?

LOL
 
Last edited:
Something odd in the forum.

When I tried to post URLs it said I haven't posted enough messages (at 15) yet to obtain the privilege, but they still showed up anyway!

Kids, can you say: 'bug' ?

LOL

Last edited by Lisa Simpson : Today at 06:46 PM. Reason: linkage

Must have been magic! :rolleyes:
 
So Einstein didn’t do it, he just put it all in a user-friendly package?

I‘m not much in to hero worship so I couldn’t care less if Einstein did it or not. I’m more interested in trying to gain a better understand and analysis of the theories he has helped to make popular. I’m a compulsive inventor and I’m aware that my inventions are substantially no more than a collection of past inventions that I’ve put in a new package. I have another thread in the Religion and Philosophy section (Cleverlution - The evolution of cleverness) to discuss this very point.
 
"It's not the first person to discover something who matters. It's the last."
 
So Einstein didn’t do it, he just put it all in a user-friendly package?

Yes in the sense of no.

Other people had come up with the math, but it was just ad hoc.

Einstein was one of those rare people who can see through the bullsh!t.

That having been said, probably, nobody would know who Einstein was just for Special Relativity. But he also came up with General Relativity, which was much more insightful and courageous. When it correctly predicted the precession of Mercury, that's when he got his props.
 
Something odd in the forum.

When I tried to post URLs it said I haven't posted enough messages (at 15) yet to obtain the privilege, but they still showed up anyway!

Kids, can you say: 'bug' ?

LOL
You can post the text of the URL, but it won't become active ... it dosn't turn into a hyperlink. Just try sticking the "url" bv code around some words and you'll see what I mean.
 
Yes in the sense of no.

Other people had come up with the math, but it was just ad hoc.

Einstein was one of those rare people who can see through the bullsh!t.

That having been said, probably, nobody would know who Einstein was just for Special Relativity. But he also came up with General Relativity, which was much more insightful and courageous. When it correctly predicted the precession of Mercury, that's when he got his props.

Well done that man! (Einstein)
 
Something odd in the forum.

When I tried to post URLs it said I haven't posted enough messages (at 15) yet to obtain the privilege, but they still showed up anyway!

Kids, can you say: 'bug' ?

LOL

It is to prevent spammers from registering, posting their links and then moving on.

Stay a while... you'll get your 15 posts soon enough. Edit to add... it says you joined a year ago, come on! Hang out here for a while!

Anyway... I think I saw part of that same program.

Einstein met his first wife while attending university. The biographies I have read did not depict her as a co-worker, but there may be more information that has come out since all of his papers were released to the public. There are several myths bandied about him that were reinforced by a pair of very loyal secretaries. They even went so far as to prevent family members (like one of his sons) from publishing during Einstein's life... and they held on to the Princeton papers until they died (and one lived for a very long time).

Most of the prior information was gleaned from:
The Private Lives of Albert Einstein
 
I figured

It is to prevent spammers from registering, posting their links and then moving on.

Stay a while... you'll get your 15 posts soon enough. Edit to add... it says you joined a year ago, come on! Hang out here for a while!


I kind of figured it was something like that.

I have a bad habit of forgetting where I posted. Sometimes I can't find it again.

Now that I discovered the e-mail notification option, it's easier to keep up.
 

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