Einstein put it all together and made the necessary conceptual leaps for SR, which is more than I can say for the others you mentioned. Also, Newton could have never done anything he did if he was using the mathematics of Euclid's day. You can't hold against him mathematical advances of his time. The math had nothing to do with GR, it was just there. None of the people who developed the math even conceived of such an idea.
Posted: Thu Aug 11, 2005 2:44 am Post subject: You worship a mighty small god
Chris Osborne wrote:
Einstein put it all together and made the necessary conceptual leaps for SR
In your zeal to worship A. Einstein you've forgotten to be rational. Albert Einstein only posed the objective of general relativity in mathematical terms. Hilbert constructed general relativity first and with great elegance. He showed A. Einstein the final answer. If the individual who completes a mathematical problem first is to get full credit for everyone else's contribution (as you claim in the case of SR), then you ought to be worshipping David Hilbert.
I think you misunderstand my statement: "Einstein could not have discovered general relativity in 100 years without the mathematicians of his day." If Einstein only had library access and a team of translators for all the published books and articles of the world, it wouldn't have helped him. Solving the objective of GR required talented mathematicians much smarter than Einstein to work on the problem. See What Einstein Learned from the Mathematicians (and not just Marcel Grossmann).
Modeling gravity as spacetime curvature isn't as brilliant as you think. There are at least four distinct physical forces in the universe yet only gravity is modeled as the curvature of spacetime. Who is to say that Einstein didn't take us in the wrong direction? Alternative points of view haven't been ruled out. There is no computing of geodesics in a geometric model of electromagnetism, for instance, when trying to figure out the trajectories of charged particles.
Quote:
Einstein has always denied to have known Poincaré publications. It’s hard to believe as his friends Maurice Solovine and Carl Seelig, report Einstein had read the Poincaré book “La Science et l'hypothèse” (no absolute time, no absolute space, no aether ... ) around 1902-1904. This book was commented at their reading commitee « Académie Olympia » during several weeks (ref. 8, pages 129 et 139 ; ref. 9, page VIII and ref. 17, page 30). His position at the Swiss patent office in charge of “electromagnetism” implied that part of his job was to read and summarize the main publications on this topic (he summarized several papers from the French “Academie des sciences”).
At the end of his life, Einstein wrote in 1955 in a letter to Carl Seelig:
«There is no doubt, if we look back to the development of the Relativity theory, special Relativity was about to be discovered in 1905. Lorentz already noticed that the transformations (named Lorentz transformations) were essential in the Maxwell theory and Poincaré had gone even further.
At that time I only knew Lorentz work of 1895, but I knew neither Lorentz nor Poincaré further work. This why I can say that my work of 1905 was independent »
http://www-cosmosaf.iap.fr/Poincare-RR3A.htm
This quote contradicts your worshipful devotion to a feigned superhero. Albert Einstein admitted the inevitability of special relativity being finished by someone in 1905.
I estimate that special relativity was 80% complete when Poincaré discovered the Lorentz group. It's very likely that credit for the remaining 20% belongs, primarily, to Mileva Maric. Where is the logic in physicists worshipping Albert Einstein for his 10% contribution to special relativity?
Eugene, since when does 80% + 20% + 10% = 100%? A boastful mathematician such as yourself should not be making such careless errors.
Eugene Shubert wrote:
Where is the logic in physicists worshipping Albert Einstein for his 10% contribution to special relativity?
Why don't you tell me Eugene? Surely there must be a reason why Einstein is so universally renowned for his talents, even within the physics community. If all he did was make some minor contributions then why DOES he get so much credit? I say it's because you are distorting the facts and putting an anti-Einstein spin on them...and thus the rest of the world has it right. What's your explanation Eugene? Are we all much dumber than you are?
I'd also like to know what is up with your crusade to bring down Einstein. Why do you care so goddamn much?
Eugene Shubert wrote:
Modeling gravity as spacetime curvature isn't as brilliant as you think. There are at least four distinct physical forces in the universe yet only gravity is modeled as the curvature of spacetime. Who is to say that Einstein didn't take us in the wrong direction?
Look, you clearly have not studied GR in any real detail. Work out some curvature terms for a spinning black hole. Then see if you still think this is easy.
Gravity can be modeled by geometry due to the equivalence principle. The others forces have nothing like that.
Eugene Shubert wrote:
Alternative points of view haven't been ruled out. There is no computing of geodesics in a geometric model of electromagnetism, for instance, when trying to figure out the trajectories of charged particles.
EM doesn't have an equivalence principle. The gravitational charge is exactly the inertial mass of the body in question. The electric charge has nothing to do with the inertial mass. You don't have the same connection between the dynamics and the kinematics. Two particles of different charge will fall at different rates in the same electric field. You can't take an approach analogous to GR to model E&M. When you really get down to it, this is ultimately the reason why it is so difficult to unify gravity with the other forces.
(1) Galileo was certainly responsible for the First Law, regarding objects moving in a straight line.
(2) It's hard to deny also that Galileo deserves the credit for the observation that gravity acting upon various sized objects follows a simple acceleration law independant of mass.
(3) Not only did Kepler gather the observations required to establish elliptical orbits, and calculate the fact of equal-area sweeps, and angular velocities, he practically discovered the Inverse-Square Law as well.
(4) Others before and beside Newton proposed the Inverse Square Law, and the only thing Newton added was the proposition of an instantaneous action-at-a-distance force to account for it. This of course is a great accomplishment, but the gravitational theory had prominent flaws from its inception, acknowledged by its author, and challenged successfully by his contemporaries.
(5) The Third Law (Action Reaction) is intuitively simple, but Newton was unable to formulate it relativistically and only Mach properly formulated it 300 years later.
(6) Newton's kludge of 'Absolute Space' was an admittedly bumbling way to avoid the problem of centrifugal force, which he never solved. It was left to other mathematicians to formulate rotational motion and angular momentum in the way we accept it now.
(7) Leibnitz can easily be called at least the co-author of modern Calculus, having not only formulated it independantly of Newton and done it before Newton, but also having produced a far superior version of it, along with a brilliant notational system which allowed for double and triple integration, something Newton could not do in his system. The version of Calculus we use today is Leibnitz's, and not just the notation.
(8) In Newton's favour, we can say this: He was English. And he was a Christian heretic who would certainly reject modern 'scientists' as an evil cabal of apostate criminals of the lowest kind, who are all going to hell.
viva Newton.
I said that credit for the remaining 20% belongs, primarily, to Mileva Maric. It's obvious that she was at least an equal partner with Albert on special relativity. In 1987, Einstein's letters to Mileva Maric were published. There is clear language in the letters that makes them sound like research partners: "How happy and proud I will be when the two of us will have brought OUR WORK on the relative motion to a victorious conclusion!" Einstein's contribution was that he recognized the importance of the work of Lorentz and Poincaré. Mileva, it is believed, solved the math of SR. Einstein married Mileva on January 6, 1903, not for love but because he admired her intellectual independence and mathematical talent. He once said that he was lucky to find Mileva, "a creature who is my equal and who is strong and independent as I am". Do you think that she just stayed home all day and did nothing while Albert had to work full-time as a patent clerk?
The 10% comes from my being maximally charitable toward Einstein. I'm giving Albert joint custody of the paper, "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies".
It seems to me that Einstein used Mileva Maric to establish himself in the scientific community and then got rid of her when he attained it. There is evidence that Mileva was an equal but silent collaborator with Albert on Brownian motion. She was doing research on Brownian motion. The winter semester of 1897 to 1898 Mileva spent in Heidelberg. She was fascinated with a lecture about the relationship between the velocity of a molecule and the distance traversed by it between collisions, and wrote about it to Einstein.
Also, as part of a legal agreement in a divorce settlement, Einstein gave Mileva all the money he received from winning the Nobel Prize for physics in 1921.
Chris Osborne wrote:
Surely there must be a reason why Einstein is so universally renowned for his talents, even within the physics community. If all he did was make some minor contributions then why DOES he get so much credit?
I've already answered that question:
Eugene Shubert wrote:
Insights on the physics community's shameful exaggeration of Einstein's abilities and originality, and the creation of Einstein's superhero status, are mentioned here:
Surely there must be a reason why Einstein is so universally renowned for his talents, even within the physics community. If all he did was make some minor contributions then why DOES he get so much credit?
I've already answered that question:
Eugene Shubert wrote:
Insights on the physics community's shameful exaggeration of Einstein's abilities and originality, and the creation of Einstein's superhero status, are mentioned here:
I stopped reading as soon as I saw this: "However, the conversion of matter into energy and energy into matter was known to Sir Isaac Newton."
I don't expect nonscientists to unerringly discern all the facts and what is and isn't relevant data in a technical argument 100% of the time. Do you? The link answers your question if you had the courage to see the truth and put aside your petty objections. Are you always full of reasons not to look or probe in depth? I assure you that I am able to recognize pertinent data in this dispute. Consider these observations, for instance:
I'd also like to know what is up with your crusade to bring down Einstein. Why do you care so goddamn much?
I will give you two answers. Briefly, I proclaim the agenda of Jesus Christ. The three angels' messages of Revelation 14:6-12 is the everlasting gospel in an end-time setting. The first angel's message contains an argument against Einstein's religion (pantheism, the worship of nature). I like to think that I'm giving that message.
Second: I believe in the golden rule (Matthew 7:12). I want people to represent me fairly. Even if I was dead, I would still want people to honor the truth enough to speak the truth about me.
David Hilbert and the Axiomatization of Physics (1898-1918)
From Grundlagen der Geometrie to Grundlagen der Physik
Series: Archimedes, Vol. 10
Corry, Leo
2004, XVII, 513 p., Hardcover
ISBN: 1-4020-2777-X
About this book
David Hilbert (1862-1943) was the most influential mathematician of the early twentieth century and, together with Henri Poincaré, the last mathematical universalist. His main known areas of research and influence were in pure mathematics (algebra, number theory, geometry, integral equations and analysis, logic and foundations), but he was also known to have some interest in physical topics. The latter, however, was traditionally conceived as comprising only sporadic incursions into a scientific domain which was essentially foreign to his mainstream of activity and in which he only made scattered, if important, contributions.
Based on an extensive use of mainly unpublished archival sources, the present book presents a totally fresh and comprehensive picture of Hilbert’s intense, original, well-informed, and highly influential involvement with physics, that spanned his entire career and that constituted a truly main focus of interest in his scientific horizon. His program for axiomatizing physical theories provides the connecting link with his research in more purely mathematical fields, especially geometry, and a unifying point of view from which to understand his physical activities in general. In particular, the now famous dialogue and interaction between Hilbert and Einstein, leading to the formulation in 1915 of the generally covariant field-equations of gravitation, is adequately explored here within the natural context of Hilbert’s overall scientific world-view.
This book will be of interest to historians of physics and of mathematics, to historically-minded physicists and mathematicians, and to philosophers of science.
Written for:
Historians of physics and of mathematics, historically-minded physicists and mathematicians, philosophers of science
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