Talk:Relativity priority dispute/Archive4

message: Todorov seems to have some suspicions that Einstein got the correct equation from Hilbert's postcards to Einstein, since he emphasizes that Einstein presents the equation with no proof. On the other hand, Einstein presented all the versions without proof didn't he? Einstein stayed with Hilbert, in his house (see Folsing and Todorov), during the week in June 1915 when Einstein (at Hilbert's invitation) gave 6 two hour lectures on relativity. Who knows who suggested what equation to whom in that case: I imagine that nearly every possibility was covered and each would be capable of forgetting who said what (in fact I think this is typical). I think Todorov's summary is worth bearing in mind
:Einstein and Hilbert had the moral strength and wisdom-after a month of intense competition ... to avoid a lifelong priority dispute ... It would be a shame [if] subsequent generations ... try to undo their achievments.
Hilbert seems to go out of his way to praise Einstein and credit him, Einstein is a little more grudging in his references to Hilbert - we should leave it at that. E4mmacro 20:25, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: E4, I agree with you; and such an attitude is probably compatible with articles on Einstein and Hilbert, (if it's not too much POV to refer to Todorov as "right"!); but I fear such is really incompatible with an article that has as purpose to describe disputes... Harald88 22:01, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

text: E4, historians are that way. Even if Hilbert and Einstein made their peace in December 1915, they still want to know how things developed. Also, see the introduction to my WN Wiki article which you have read. The problem here is Einstein's November 18 letter to Hilbert, which makes it clear that Einstein had some information from Hilbert when he wrote his November 25 field equations paper. When this letter resurfaced in 1978, the peace between Hilbert and Einstein became untenable. Hilbert had left a time bomb: To permanently protect that peace between Einstein and himself, it would have been necessary to burn that Einstein letter and also the Max Born letter to Hilbert containing the information that Einstein had seen Walter Baade's notes of Hilbert's lecture. It is certainly not to be blamed upon modern historians that things developed the way they did. So the "shame" is not on subsequent generations. Shame on Hilbert for not falsifying the historical record by burning those two letters! --De kludde 19:37, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wise words from Todorov 

message: I added a line indicating that Bjerknes is a Holocaust denier. I think this bears on his credibility and objectivity as an historian, and the reader should be informed. green 193.108.45.139 19:14, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: The case against Bjerknes (revisited)

message: Who wrote this, and to what does "private correspondence" refer (in the cory/Winterberg section)?
: "... attempt to placate Dr. Winterberg, who continues to threaten a law suit" (private correspondence).
Private correspondence is usually meant to be private (i.e. not revealed) but this may be nit-piking. I guess the author meant "personal correspondence" - a letter from Stachel to the author (whoever it was who wrote this). But since we don't know to whom Satchel wrote, the reference is pretty useless as it stands. E4mmacro 00:25, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's me - and yes, it should be "personal correspondence" - I'll add the recipient. --Alvestrand 20:14, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think we should include the lawsuit info unless Stachel publishes it somewhere online. I don't think it matches up with WP:V. --Fastfission 03:24, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: After rereading WP:V, I agree. WP:V is actually stronger and more specific than WP:NOR. --Alvestrand 06:52, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't, by the way, doubt it at all that this is why they took it down. But we should stick with the "official" reason, for both ours and their sakes. If Stachel wants to make it public, he has the ability to, of course. ;-) --Fastfission 14:24, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Private correspondence? 

message: Just a question: did Poincaré or Lorentz dispute Einstein's priority?   Bubba73 (talk), 05:03, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Poincare always refered to it as Lorentz's theory of "The princople of relativity". Lorentz often credited Poincare and Einstein for correcting a mistake he had made. And I think Lorentz accepted that Einstein had a different view of the theory from his own. See the Lorentz and Poincare pages. E4mmacro 08:51, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  According to secondary literature, in the time of Lorentz the theory was known as that of Lorentz and Einstein. Since that acknowledged Lorentz (incl. his priority), while Poincare didn't value his own contributions, there was nothing to dispute. Harald88 09:10, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the information.  Several years ago I read a quote of Poincare where he was awfully close to special relativity.  I don't think the quote is one of the ones given in WP articles, but I don't know where I read it.  It said something like "in the future, we may have to regard ..." and then gave some SR results.  But it seems that he didn't quite make the final step and accept the things as physically real.  At least that is my impression, I'm not an expert on this.   Bubba73 (talk), 00:15, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Possibly it was in Poincare's 1904 paper; it may be worth to have another look at it, as Einstein's 1905 SRT paper looks like a reply to the challenges as outlined in one of his papers (that one, if I remember well). Note that what you call "the final step", concerning physical "reality", does not belong to modern physics but to philosophy. Harald88 02:10, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

text: Yes, it's strange that he apparently had been unaware of some of Poincare's publications, and even not understood some of Poincare's letters. Harald88 08:03, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

text: I see that in 1909, "The theory of electrons, a course of lectures delivered in Columbia University, New Yory in 1906", with revisions and footnotes, published in 1909, Lorentz speaks more about Einstein than about Poincare. And credits Einstein with getting the charge density equation correct, apparently forgetting that Poincare had told him pretty much the same thing in his letter to Lorentz, in May 1905. Perhaps Lorentz didn't read French so well??  E4mmacro 03:28, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question about Poincaré and Lorentz 

message: At the moment, this article has a great number of quotes - and these are important. However, the references section is rather messy, and the links to it even more so - with URLs in the text, multiple different references to the same article, and so on.
I'd like to suggest (and carry out) a plan in 3 steps:
# Reformat the references section in [authYY] format, the way Einstein's works are marked now. Use  and  for the references themselves.
# Insert a new "Notes" section immediately before the "references" section, containing the  tag from Wikipedia:Footnotes
# Change all references on the page to use [authYY], page NN
I think this should give a much more reasonable layout, and one we'll be able to maintain better. But rather than rushing in and starting right away, I'd like to check first:
Does this make sense to others? --Alvestrand 08:12, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: don't understand... --Alvestrand 14:55, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I did the archiving but I have not the slightest idea what you mean by "math software" being "lost". Please clarify!!--Lacatosias 15:34, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  It might be OK now. I meant that the equations didn't appear when I initially accessed the archived file. green 193.108.45.228 15:45, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reorganizing the references of this article 

message: I see that the subject has been changed of that of priority (which is verifiable in parts) to that of "credit"- which is purely a matter of taste. At least the priority dispute (= the main subject!) must be emphasized in the intro. I now correct that; further improvement may be needed. Harald88 07:35, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I didn't intend to change the subject - what I was trying to do to the intro was to make it clear that there exists a majority opinion on priority, but that this majority opinion has been challenged. Thanks for doing it better! --Alvestrand 09:41, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  change of subject 

message: It seems that someone has been inserting a couple of claims in the article with reference to this URL: 
But this hasn't been added to the references. I'll try to do so, and make the proper linkages (as well as reading the article and trying to see what it actually says). --Alvestrand 14:25, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rothman article