Einstein Ain’t No Einstein

[Solitaire]

Einstein: From Icon To Con-Man

Henri Poincaré had developed the theory of relativity by 1904. This was
before Einstein's 1905 paper on relativity. Einstein had read Poincare's
work on relativity up to 1902. It is on record that it kept him "breathless
with excitement for weeks". Einstein denied reading Poincare's 1904 paper.
Our belief in Einstein's greatness depends critically upon whether or not
we believe him on this point.

Sir Edumund Whittaker disbelieved Einstein. Why? Because Einstein in 1905
used the terms used in Poincare's 1904 paper, but not earlier. I pointed
out that Einstein used a peculiar term, used for the first and last time
in Lorentz's 1904 paper, which too Einstein denied reading.

Just found this. Might take a long weekend and look this over.
I probably won’t understand the math, but I will be very amused.

P.S. Could someone find evidence for Stigler’s Law?
I need to win a Nobel.

 

[Giordano]

Just found this. Might take a long weekend and look this over.
I probably won’t understand the math, but I will be very amused.

P.S. Could someone find evidence for Stigler’s Law?
I need to win a Nobel.

This might help:
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2576/was-einstein-a-plagiarist

In summary: as for all scientists Einstein's ideas grew from foundations established by others. Poincare's concepts were among those important for Einstein's formulation of Special Relativity but the key paradigm-shifting aspects of Special Relativity were Einstein's creation. General Relativity was even more Einsteins own.

Much of the criticism presumes that the physicists of the era were just plain stupid and didn't notice that Einstein's work was stolen from Poincare's publication. That even Poincare didn't notice. Doesn't that sound a bit unlikely?

There has always been a cottage industry in attempting to deny Einstein's contributions by charging him with stealing from others, etc.Some of it is the desire of some to pull down anyone else of note. And of course... well no reason to Goodwin the thread.

BTW- there have also been personal attacks on Einstein claiming he was promiscuous, etc. Interestingly he probably was! I guess lots of curly hair is appealing on physicists just as much as on rock stars.

 

[theprestige]

As theoretical physics continued to explore higher-energy regimes at the start of the 20th century, many physicists began to grapple with the increasingly obvious limitations of classical physics. Between 1905 and 1913, Einstein integrated the work of several of his peers, along with his own work, into a coherent new theoretical model.

I guess it's hard for laymen to imagine that Einstein did not work alone, and that there was actually more than one brilliant theoretical physicist in Europe at the time, and that they shared ideas and built on each other's work. For the Bill Nye/Dr Tyson/IFLScience audience, Einstein must have been either a lone genius or a fraud.

 

[Giordano]

In terms of Stigler's Law- certainly all discoveries are based on the work of others. But it is the specific individual or team who brings it together in a practical, convincing, or clear manner who (justifiably IMO) receives the credit. Sure thousands of people developed the basic ideas and the individual components necessary for the telegraph, yet Morse was the individual who brought it together in a way where it was practical and lead to its widespread implementation. Darwin and Wallace relied to a large degree on observations and ideas by others, yet they were the ones who pulled these together into a greater whole in an understandable and convincing manner that others before them did not. More recently I've heard people criticize Steve Jobs and Apple as not being creative because they use technology first developed by others: there were digital music players before the iPod, Xerox developed the GUI, IBM/Bell South had already combined a cell phone with a PDA, etc. Yet there were reasons people flocked to the Apple products and not to their precursors: the Apple products brought together these technologies in special and creative ways such that people actually wanted to use them! That was Jobs's genius.

More broadly I define a genius as someone who looks at what other people have been able to see for many years but puts it all together in a novel way that yields a dramatic new insight. The truly brilliant new ideas look obvious in hindsight- yet they eluded all others until a genius came along and understood what the others did not.

 

[ServiceSoon]

I wonder if the promotion of demigods hinders the progress of humankind's discoveries. I'd wager that it creates more unrealistic exceptions and other negative emotions which lead to discouragement of prospective experts in the field than creating healthy idols that assist people to succeed.

 

[Major Major]

There has always been a cottage industry in attempting to deny Einstein's contributions by charging him with stealing from others, etc.Some of it is the desire of some to pull down anyone else of note. And of course... well no reason to Goodwin the thread.

The one I heard was that his first wife had done all the real work, and that his giving her his Nobel Prize money was his way of admitting that.

(It was his divorce settlement.)

 

[Steve001]

This dramatization is worth watching available on YouTube

Oscar winner Geoffrey Rush stars as legendary intellectual Albert Einstein in this series that tracks the famed professor's life. The story spotlights Einstein's humble origins as a young, rebellious thinker and his struggles to be recognized by the establishment of academia before finally being accepted by his peers and achieving celebrity status following the disclosure of his theory of relativity. The series also delves into Einstein's personal life, which includes complicated relationships with the likes of his two wives, two children, and the various women with whom he had extramarital affairs. The drama series is based on the book "Einstein" by Walter Isaacson.
First episode date: April 25, 2017
Network: National Geographic

 

[TragicMonkey]

Einstein was a great visionary. When he spoke of "spooky action at a distance" he was predicting the invention of Chatroulette.

 

[Beerina]

Einstein was a great visionary. When he spoke of "spooky action at a distance" he was predicting the invention of Chatroulette.

I have yet to achieve supraluminal simultaneity of outcome measurement over that thousands-of-miles communication link.

But I am a dedicated amateur scientist.

 

[Solitaire]

It takes about an hour to read, but it never gets any better than the summary.
Apparently, he’s angry about another who copied he work and by transference,
winds up accusing Einstein of copying others work. He even tries to disprove
the existence of Euclid. So, moving on.

 

[catsmate]

I believe the plagiarism accusation has been addressed but I'd like to point out that Raju is, to put it mildly, a crank.

 

[barehl]

I've read that about 90% of the theory of special relativity had been published by others. And, it was likely that if Einstein had not come up with it that someone else would have. And I've read that nothing concerning general relativity had been published and that there was no expectation that someone else would have come up with it.

Then I think about calculus which was invented independently by Newton and Leibnitz. This seems amazing until you realize that before these two, a subset of calculus was used by Kepler to create the second law of planetary motion. And then you have the fact that Darwin came up with the theory of evolution well ahead of his peers and yet Wallace came up with a similar theory. This sounds remarkable until you understand that Wallace not only read The Voyage of the Beagle by Darwin but also Vestiges of the History of Natural Creation which was not published until years after Darwin had begun his theory.

As for Einstein's wife actually creating the theory of special relativity. As I recall, she was quite good with math and physics but had written nothing that suggested that she either authored or collaborated in the theory. Nor would that be consistent with Einstein's later, general theory, published after they had separated. Even further, if Mileva was the source then I don't see how Einstein could have had discussions with Bohr in 1927 without looking like Donald Trump speaking without a teleprompter and making a fool of himself.

More broadly I define a genius as someone who looks at what other people have been able to see for many years but puts it all together in a novel way that yields a dramatic new insight. The truly brilliant new ideas look obvious in hindsight- yet they eluded all others until a genius came along and understood what the others did not.

I'm not sure that I could agree. Kepler didn't create his theories until he had access to Brahe's data. The data Darwin based his theory on came with the voyage of the Beagle. Giving up on established ideas is not easy. The Wright Brothers didn't want to reject Lilienthal's lift/drag tables. Einstein didn't want to reject Newtonian physics. Of course, if Newton had the same information that Einstein had he would probably have rejected the same ideas himself. I didn't really want to give up on Turing's notion that the brain was a computational device. But keep in mind that Turing died while computers were still not very powerful and much less was known about the brain. Will my ideas look obvious in hindsight? Maybe they will.

 

[catsmate]

I've read that about 90% of the theory of special relativity had been published by others. And, it was likely that if Einstein had not come up with it that someone else would have.<brevity snip>

Yep, right back to the FitzGerald contraction.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

Yep, right back to the FitzGerald contraction.

Yep. It's been quite a while since college for me, but I remember being struck by the number of different names the equations were attributed to. And then realizing that quite a few of those names were fully a generation ahead of Einstein.

 

[ddt]

Yep, right back to the FitzGerald contraction.

Lorentz contraction, you surely mean?

I remember being struck by the number of different names the equations were attributed to.

 

[Segnosaur]

The whole premise is silly.

Here is how Einstein really discovered relativity...