Talk:Albert Einstein/Archive 14

message: I hope this doesn’t trigger yet another round of fruitless discussion, but… How do other people feel about changing “German-born” to “German-Jewish-born”? Such a change would satisfy my concern that the first sentence be brief and defensible against additions of other labels such as Swiss and American. I previously proposed something similar, but Geeman objected for reasons I do not understand. Perhaps this is something we can agree on. --teb728 21:17, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm thinking now about a new formulation which be something like a "German Jewish scientist" (I'm still not sure but in the next few days I will since I promised Schulz with a quick answer)which any one could interpret according to his/her understanding about ethnicity and etc (Stephan Schulz suggested that it would be "German scientist born to a Jewish family" (a formulation which I first asked him about)."German-Jewish born" isn't a very good definition for my understanding (and I can be wrong as my English is limited ).And any ways -any solution should be on the open paragraph only and should be widely accepted .--Gilisa 07:08, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  People can make there own judgments on ethnicity and nationality this way Epson291 07:21, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

text: I think "German-born" gives the wrong impression - one of the absolutely central things about Einstein was his Jewishness and he widely known now around the world as first and foremost Jewish - also, given his persecution by the Nazis, we should surely mention it in the introduction. "German-Jewish" would be more accurate and also more sensitive to his memory and to the man he was. LiberalViews 19:42, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

text: This has been thoroughly discussed and debated (check the Talk archives).  Einstein wasn't an "observant" Jew, and his personal religion differed from Judaist doctrine, so his Jewishness was not "absolutely central", and is not among the very first things that need to be mentioned.  There is ample coverage of his Jewish heritage, religous ideas, and connection to the Zionist cause within the article.  The present introduction seems to be the most tolerable to the article's editors in general, and has been stable for quite some time now.  Please don't mess with it. — DAGwyn 22:08, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

text: The problem was/is that once you start attaching labels to Einstein, other special interests try to attach their labels to him too, and it becomes a mess.  The only reason I left "German-born" in that sentence when I last edited it months ago was because that was needed to explain why the article had a just exhibited a link to an audio file giving the German pronunciation of "Einstein".  Note that we haven't labeled him up front as "German", nor "Swiss", "American", "Jewish", or "vegetarian", even though each of those is mentioned in the body of the article.  Our article does contain the information about Einstein's Jewish heritage, albeit in a different place than the Encyclopedia Britannica.  The Wikipedia is a different venue, and attaining consensus (or at least stability) is one of our requirements.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by DAGwyn (talk • contribs) 23:45, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

text: Notice also that this article mentions his Jewish family in the first sentence of the body of the bio. (Wikipedia is a little unusual in that its articles begin with a brief summary.) --teb728 01:03, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The first line (again) 

message: :GA review (see here for criteria)
#It is reasonably well written.
#:a (prose):  b (MoS): 
#It is factually accurate and verifiable.
#:a (references):  b (citations to reliable sources):  c (OR): 
#It is broad in its coverage.
#:a (major aspects):  b (focused): 
#It follows the neutral point of view policy.
#:Fair representation without bias: 
#It is stable.
#:No edit wars etc.: 
#It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
#:a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales):  b (appropriate use with suitable captions): 
#Overall: 
#:Pass/Fail: 
This article is very well written, and appears to be very complete and informative. It's a pretty good and accurate description of Einstein's life. A good, thorough copyedit would be good, as there are still a couple errors in the prose, mainly things like some structural grammar and punctuation issues (commas not being there when they should, etc).
:The article was overhauled by a copy editor several weeks ago.  Generally when I notice grammatical or punctuation errors, I just fix them.  If you know of any, please do the same or at least point them out. — DAGwyn 23:21, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Generally we have added references when they have been requested.  Who has the time to find a reference for every single phrase? — DAGwyn 23:21, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Every single phrase doesn't have to be cited; just information in quotes, and information that is challenged (citation needed templates), and information that is likely to be challenged (specific figures, numbers, hard data, etc). Dr. Cash 06:13, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

text: Frankly I would prefer much of that text removed altogether.  It should be in a detailed  book-length biography, but is generally unimportant trivia.  Most likely it is all covered in Clark's biography.  Unless specific statements are challenged, why should they have to have individual sources given? — DAGwyn 23:21, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

text: This is so well known that nobody had asked for a reference; I'm sure one can be found if it is truly necessary.  This text and the surrounding text were thrashed out quite some time ago and represent consensus among the editors.  My own research in physics was in this very area, and I worked hard to ensure that the text was descriptive, factual, and neutral.  That Einstein did not succeed in his program is acknowledged by virtually everyone in a position to have an educated opinion about it. — DAGwyn 23:21, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

text: I see that the Encyclopedia Britannica Online also calls Einstein's attempt "unsuccessful". I have added one of many possible references that say essentially the same thing as the text in our article. — DAGwyn 21:47, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

text: That's mentioned in the League against Imperialism article. However, I was unable to find a reliable reference for his being honorary president at that session; it appears that Nehru was h.p. at that congress, and Einstein may have been h.p. later on.  I revised the text accordingly and added the best readily-accessible ref I was able to find. — DAGwyn 23:21, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

text: This is explained further in the linked Leó Szilárd article and in the Einstein-Szilárd letter article (the link to which I have just restored). — DAGwyn 23:21, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

text: This is also referenced in the Thomas Stoltz Harvey article. — DAGwyn 23:21, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

text: The linked Walhalla temple article is the appropriate place for that reference.  A Google searh turns up plenty of potential references for its enshrinees. — DAGwyn 23:21, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

text: That was a very recent addition, well-known and mentioned (also unsourced) in the Yoda article.  I've added the first authoritative reference I found using Google. I also restored the lead sentence from the deleted paragraph; it seems worth stating (and doesn't seem to need sourcing). — DAGwyn 23:21, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

text: A copy editor attempted to convert references to Harvard format as an "experiment".  There would be a lot of work involved in converting everything to either form. — DAGwyn 23:21, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is not an excuse to not do it. I don't think the article can be called "good" with two major different forms of referencing being used like this; it's horribly confusing. Dr. Cash 06:11, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think I completed the conversion of Harvard references—except for one Pais reference which is already in a footnote. Does it bother you that page references are lost in the process. --teb728 22:01, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That bothers me somewhat (loss of page references).  Why is it that they can't be included?  (I thought they could.) — DAGwyn 22:29, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, page number can be specified, but it makes it a lot more complicated in the case where there are multiple references to a work (like Pais (1982)). Without page numbers you give the full inline citation once and subsequently refer to the original citation by name. That is what Dr. Cash started and I followed. With page numbers you need the full citation for each different page set. Except for Crelinsten (2006) and Pais (1982) I put them back in.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by TEB728 (talk • contribs) 00:36, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Loss of page numbers in the citations is a big problem. The best solution in my view is to have each note be a citation with page numbers, to a corresponding entry containing complete bibliographic information  in a "References" section. See for example Attalus I. Paul August ☎ 19:19, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

text: One other minor issue. Could you change the name of the 'Einstein in popular culture' section. For one, WP:MSH states that the article title shouldn't be used in section headers, so 'Einstein' should be removed. The other issues is a general discouragement of 'in popular culture' sections, as they tend to invoke list generation and random trivial facts by anonymous editors. Although this section seems reasonably good and well written, there's still the referencing issue with the second paragraph, and this could spawn more garbage easily added to the article by anons and other vandals. Dr. Cash 05:24, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

text: *Renamed to Impact on popular culture. --teb728 22:04, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  GA Review 

message: Can someone please add an important quote to Einstiens article? It is "We cannot fix our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them" Thanks!!! Dustihowe 16:10, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, but this article (or Wikipedia generally) is not a collection of quotations. The Wikiquote article is an appropriate place for your quote. And indeed there are several versions of the quote there. --teb728 17:52, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request 

message: I added the IPA for Einstein in English (check if correct).  His being German/Swiss would account for the German (and native) pronunciation.  Since he became an American citizen however, and lived in the United States the rest of his life, it's only fair to include the English pronunciation of his name, otherwise it would appear to the reader only the German way to say it, is proper, when the truth is, no one speaking English would say, "shtein" instead of "stein" when speaking German names. Epson291 08:10, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I wonder if the article need either IPA – or the audio file. --teb728 08:53, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed the English IPA but kept the "German:" tag on the previous one.  I fear that if we start including mispronunciations of his name in other languages it will turn into another instance of "everyone wants a piece of Einstein". — DAGwyn 20:23, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: How often do you hear English speakers call him // as opposed to  //? Which is the “mispronunciation”? --teb728 20:38, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  It's not a mispronunciation, thats how its pronounced in English.  Consulting the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the ONLY pronunciation listed is /staɪn/, it doesn't even list /ʃtaɪ̯n/at all, even as a secondary pronunciation.  Regardless if you think its a mispronunciation, it's the way you say his name in English.  The reason of course, is a sh sound is not made, since there's no "h".  Epson291 21:45, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

text:  And to comment on other languages, there is clearly no justification, and I imagine no consensus, for any other languages to be added (in addition to this being the ENGLISH Wikipedia.  But listing it as the only pronunciation is misleading to readers, because it would lead someone looking at this page to say ʃtaɪ̯n, which would be a nonstandard pronunciation of the name. Epson291 21:45, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agreee, they probably do not even need either IPA or the audio file, but I didn't plan on removing the German pronunciation. Epson291 23:43, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Certain foreign names would benefit from IPAs, though. Saparmurat Niyazov comes to mind, though rather than learning how to pronounce foreign names, I do realize people would rather mangle them long enough to fit into the morphology of their native lingo (a habit I've always found intensely disrespectful, regardless of how widespread or well-founded it might be). --Agamemnon2 05:24, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

text: I don't want to battle over this.  But please, let's not allow any other pronunciations to be added (French, Swahili, whatever). — DAGwyn 00:10, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  You mean like the halva article? Epson291 06:01, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  IPA 

message: Why isn't the Nobel Prize icon next to his name? MLK, Elie Wiesel, and Al Gore all have it.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.255.141.51 (talk) 19:31, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: MLK, Elie Wiesel, and Al Gore don't have "Notable Prizes" fields in their infoboxes. Einstein does, and there is a Nobel Prize icon next to the Nobel Prize listing in his Notable Prizes field. One Nobel Prize icon in the infobox is quite enough. --teb728 19:47, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You are right, I apologize. I missed that icon. (69.255.141.51 14:18, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Note: Just to check, I clicked on a link in the list of Nobel Laureates at random, and in that article the same scheme was used as we have for Einstein's info box. — DAGwyn 15:08, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nobel Prize 

message: Of the three paragraphs below which were in the ‘Religious views’ section, user , with "Removed advertisements for causes with minor or nonexistent connections to Einstein" in the edit summary, removed the first two entirely and removed the second sentence from the third paragraph:
(1) Einstein championed the work of psychologist Paul Diel, which posited a biological and psychological, rather than theological or sociological, basis for morality.
(2) Einstein was an Honorary Associate of the Rationalist Press Association beginning in 1934, and was an admirer of Ethical Culture. He served on the advisory board of the First Humanist Society of New York
(3) His friend Max Jammer explored Einstein's views on religion thoroughly in the 1999 book Einstein and Religion: Physics and Theology. Corey S. Powell,God in the Equation: How Einstein Became the Prophet of the New Religious Era (2002 ). God in the Equation: How Einstein Transformed Religion (2003 paperback ). Both editions New York: Free Press. “In creating his radical cosmology, Einstein stitched together a rational mysticism, drawing on—but distinct from—the views that came before.”—Corey S. Powell. (God in the Equation on Google Book Search.) in the 2002 book God in the Equation: How Einstein Became the Prophet of the New Religious Era, considers Einstein the founder of what Powell, the executive editor of Discover magazine, calls sci/religion.
In the next edit, the same user, with "EB online article has less information than we do, and contains errors which their editors refused to correct" in the edit summary, removed the  template.  Perhaps it should be restored (see what links to it), I don't know.
I will leave the Paul Diehl, Rationalist Press Association, Ethical Culture, or Humanist Society material and citations to others, because I'm not equipped to evaluate them.   The Powell book is not an “advertisement” for anything.  I restored the line, simplifying its citation. — Athaenara  ✉  08:04, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem we have is that everybody tries to claim a connection with Einstein in order to promote his own agenda.  Einstein certainly was not a founder or prophet of the "new religion" Powell espouses.  Citing Powell adds nothing about Einstein to the article, and amounts to promotion of "Original Research", which is against Wikipedia rules.  A link or citation ought to add value to the article, which is already too long (it contains other trivia that could be removed with an increase in article quality).  — DAGwyn 20:15, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removal of content and citations 

message: Epson291 changed the German and English pronunciations from [] and  respectively to [] and [] with the summary “Confused, one IPA had slashes, the other brackets, changed the second IPA to square brackets.” I know that for most people there is no difference. But if we are to use only slashes or only brackets, it should be slashes. In case you are interested, brackets indicate an exact phonetic pronunciation. Slashes indicate a phonemic pronunciation, where the exact pronunciation depends on the dialect. In particular, the exact pronunciation of  depends on whether one speaks a rhotic dialect. --teb728 t c 07:15, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I didn't know that, but thanks for passing that along. With the use of the IPA template for the German, and the IPA-eng template for the English, the English API has an extra "IPA:" in front of it.  Is there a reason even for that template? Can we just switch it to the standard API one? It's not really a big deal, it just it looks a little inconsistent on the very first line of the article.  Epson291 (talk) 12:11, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I don’t insist on the IPAEng template. But the advantage of it is that it adds “IPA:” with a link to a pronunciation guide tailored for English for readers mystified by IPA. -teb728 t c 20:37, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pronunciation again 

message: and a poll of prominent physicists named him the greatest physicist of all time.[4] The reference links to a BBC web site which refers to an article in Physics World, instead link directly to the article published in Physics World, apart from being the original source it's far more interesting. The link is:
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/851
Jellycats (talk) 23:44, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. — DAGwyn (talk) 00:33, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Change reference 4 

message: I've been trying to find out exactly what the nature was of Einstein's formal education beyond secondary school.  The WP entry merely says "Einstein graduated in 1900 from ETH with a degree in physics."  The entry's source footnote links to a biographical site which states is no more helpful: he "...enrolled at the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich. Albert graduated in 1900 with a degree in physics."  I don't know about anyone else here, but the term "degree" doesn't satisfy my curiosity.  What kind of degree? -Associate? -Ph.D?  Surely we can do better than that!  Does anyone have any reliable info about what level of a degree it was, and if there was a field of study more specific than just "physics"? Bricology (talk) 02:01, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Pais (p. 521) describes what he received in 1900 as a "diploma, which would entitle him to teach in high schools." As it says in the article, his PhD was granted in 1905.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by TEB728 (talk • contribs) 03:17, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for that info.  So can I take that to mean that his earlier "diploma" would've been the equivalent of a Masters Degree (required to teach in HS today,and the necessary step before a Ph.D)? Bricology (talk) 05:19, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I doubt that it’s safe to project early 21st century standards on the late 19th. I know Einstein entered ETH in 1896. I suspect he attended no classes after his 1900 diploma, only researching his thesis (and other papers) and working. From 1902 at least he was at the patent office in Bern. --teb728 t c 07:27, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

text: There is no obvious mapping between degrees issued at that place and time and degrees issued today. Why do you care?  — DAGwyn 01:00, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Einstein's formal education 

message: Does anyone else have a problem hearing his entire name on the audio file at the very benginning of the article? I propose we take it off until a better one is found.
128.194.21.91 (talk) 21:11, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Audio File 

message: The only US museum dedicated to Albert Einstein is at Landau, a family run retail store that sells fine woolens.  There have been proposals to have the State of New Jersey build a museum to Einstein; so far the State has declined to do so.  Further information about the Landau Museum is available here:  http://www.landauprinceton.com/einstein-museum/ 17:44, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Albert Einstein Museum 

message: why dont u have that famous picture of him with his tongue out?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.155.201.195 (talk) 20:51, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That picture, together with some other Einstein trivia, was moved to Albert Einstein in popular culture. --teb728 t c 21:19, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Picture 

message: It would be good to add some info on his sense of humor or a few quotes. Anyone know any sources?--DatDoo (talk) 03:54, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Einstein quotes belong in Wikiquote:Albert Einstein. --teb728 t c 04:08, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sense of Humor 

message: I removed the following problematic paragraph:
:Albert and Mileva's marriage was beset with financial worries, and the couple divorced in 1919 after a prolonged estrangement.  Mileva had become the primary parent for their sons. Einstein had but occasional contact with Hans, who developed mental illness and became institutionalized. Eduard became a successful engineer and eventually reconciled with his long-absent father. Only two months after his divorce, Albert married his longtime companion and second cousin, Elsa and moved to Princeton, New Jersey. This union produced no children.
If the marriage was beset by financial worries, there should be a citation. In any case contrary to the implication, such worries probably were not the cause of the divorce. Hans was the engineer, and Eduard the schizophrenic. Contrary to the implication, Albert and Elsa moved to Princeton many years after their marriage.
:There were many problems with the recent attempt to break out the marriage-and-family-life to a separate section.  I have just finished editing the article to straighten these out. — DAGwyn (talk) 00:49, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed paragraph 

message: Shouldn't we have a daughter article on this subject? We have one for Charles Darwin's views on religion, and Einstein is of similar notability, both in general and for his religious views. There also seems to be a whole book on the subject (Einstein and Religion : Physics and Theology by Max Jammer, also used as a reference at one point). If someone can write an almost 300 page book on this topic surely we can write an article on it. Richard001 (talk) 00:18, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Feel free to create one, and perhaps move much of the current text from the religious-views section of the Einstein article to the daughter article, which of course should then be linked to.  Frankly, I don't find Einstein's views on religion to be very interesting. — DAGwyn (talk) 04:54, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: If you do create one, do not attempt to present your own conclusion on his views based on Einstein quotations. As was pointed out in the preceding section, that would be WP:OR. —teb728 t c 05:32, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I'm familiar with what OR is. I'm not really intending to create one myself, it was just a suggestion for people working on the article to consider, if they already haven't. This article can still of course become an FA (again) without there being a subarticle on religion, but it certainly can't provide all the encyclopedic information that could be provided on this aspect without giving undue weight to religion. Richard001 (talk) 06:48, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

text: Note that I did overhaul the section somewhat to put the information into a more coherent order.  I'm not convinced that much more needs to be done in this area. — DAGwyn (talk) 21:11, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Albert Einstein's views on religion 

message: Aren't these contradictory labels? Socialism (as preached by all socialists except the libertarian socialists) requires the use of force which contradicts the tenets of pacifism. afr3 (talk) 07:54, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That is a simplistic view.  Pacifism is largely about avoiding war, and even an agressive socialist might believe in that.  Also, even if the ideas were blatantly contradictory, so long as Einstein really did believe in both of them then that should be reported. — DAGwyn (talk) 17:34, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Socialism and Pacifism? 

message: I've read numerous times in biographies and scientific books that Einstein was at one point offered to become President of Israel shortly after it was created, but he turned the offer down..
Is this true? I see no mention of it in the article...
Gamer112 (talk) 07:36, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: 1 (read 1952 section) & 2. AgnosticPreachersKid (talk) 16:18, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: And it is in the article—in the last paragraph of Albert Einstein#Zionism —teb728 t c 19:22, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Offered Presidency of Israel? 

message: Albert Einstein's father died in 1902, shortly after giving his permission for his son to marry Mileva, and not in 1910, before the birth of his second grandson.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.59.61.49 (talk) 01:09, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for pointing that out —teb728 t c 02:52, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hermann Einstein 

message: Can anyone direct me to a resource that indicates which languages Einstein was fluent in?  I'm guessing German and English, doubtfully Yiddish...but any others?  As a pioneer in a rapidly developing area, I expect he'd want to keep up with breakthroughs in the journals of his era. I've found it a curiously difficult thing to research for any historical figure, at least in terms of generating a complete list. Asat (talk) 13:51, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think Einstein was ever very fluent in English.  So far as I am aware, he relied on German translations of scientific work written in other languages. — DAGwyn (talk) 17:29, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Einstein spoke German, French, and English. He could easily hold conversations in the latter two languages, but even after he moved to America, he preferred writing in his native German. When he dictated a first and second draft of the letter to Franklin Roosevelt regarding atomic fission, working with Leo Szilard, he did so in German. WalterIsaacson (talk) 21:41, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: can you provide a pointer to a reliable source that covers this? it would be useful for addition to the article. Anastrophe (talk) 21:53, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I wrote a biography of Einstein that came out last year (my Wikipedia moniker is my real name). I went through thousands of his letters, speeches, audio recordings, and interviews at the Einstein Papers Project at Cal Tech and elsewhere. Because this falls, I assume, into the category of "original research," I did not feel it proper to make a change in the article based upon it. There is no single sentence in my book making this point explicitly. WalterIsaacson (talk) 16:24, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

text: When Born was in Scotland and Einstein was in America, Born suggested that they
write in English. Einstein said that he preferred to write in German. He said that he could
remember the English words all right, but could not cope with the treacherous spelling.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.138.211.50 (talk) 09:35, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  His languages? 

message: It would be cool if putting in Nick The Greek's reported nickname for Einstein redirected to this page.
69.108.24.80 (talk) 16:40, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: So what's stopping it from doing so?  And what are you talking about? — DAGwyn (talk) 15:14, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

text: Snopes reviews the story and says its status is “Undetermined.” —teb728 t c 19:12, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Can "Little Al from Princeton" redirect here? 

message: Einstein was a Zionist and supporter of Chaim Weizmann and Theodore Herzl, but the article so far has much more of his criticism of the far right in Israel/the Yishuv.  Consequently, it looks like he was far more critical of Israel and its founding than he actually was.  I am a new editor on Wikipedia, so I am hesitant to be aggressive on this issue - I have to date made only minor modifications pending further talk and consideration. - Jameseavesjo
:: First of all, welcome to Wikipedia!  Second of all, I have a feeling that snippet was chosen on purpose to distort Einstein's views, and the changes you made were certainly accurate. A look around on the internet shows a lot of this anti-Israeli/anti-Jewish propaganda, distorting Einstein (for instance).  I welcome you to make more aggressive ones provided they are done in a NPOV fashion and sourced.  Epson291 (talk) 08:12, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I would add that generally speaking the Einstein article would be improved more by removing unnecessary or misleading text than by adding more text.  It is already too long, and the section on Zionism is unbalanced by including more detail than is in most other sections. — DAGwyn (talk) 23:06, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: While I agree with most of the comments, above, I would add that the section in question is reasonably well written and appropriately referenced. I would say that the whole article could stand some editing and the moving of some sections into sub-articles. Sunray (talk) 00:49, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Views on Zionism 

message: Citizenship in Switzerland is by canton, rather than nation-wide. Perhaps this should be made clear in Einstein's biography. --Wloveral (talk) 21:48, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it would raise more questions than it answers, and really is unimportant to dwell on. — DAGwyn (talk) 22:11, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: OK. --Wloveral (talk) 23:44, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Swiss citizenship 

message: I don't know if anybody ever looked at what a complicated citizenship life Einstein had. From the Wiki article on Einstein, section "Youth and Schooling" it says.
:The Einsteins sent Albert to Aarau, Switzerland to finish secondary school. While lodging with the family of Professor Jost Winteler, he fell in love with the family's daughter, Marie. (Albert's sister Maja later married Paul Winteler.)[11][12] ... In 1896, he graduated at age 17, renounced his German citizenship to avoid military service (with his father's approval), and finally enrolled in the mathematics program at ETH. ...
So from 1896 he was a stateless person (refugee?) living in Switzerland in the Canton of Aargau. Was renouncing German or Württemberg citizenship that easy for a 17 year old -- even with his father's approval in 1896?
:In 1896, Einstein's future wife, Mileva Marić, also enrolled at ETH, as the only woman studying mathematics. During the next few years, Einstein and Marić's friendship developed into romance. Einstein graduated in 1900 from ETH with a degree in physics.[13] ... On 21 February 1901, he gained Swiss citizenship, which he never revoked.[14]
And in February 1901 he received Swiss citizenship in the Canton of Zürich.
The site:  which is given as reference number 13 above further states: 
: He did manage to avoid Swiss military service on the grounds that he had flat feet and varicose veins. 
On site , listed as reference number 14 above, it indicates that he renounced his German or Württemberg citizenship on January 28, 1896 so he was stateless for over five years.
The same site appears to indicate that he took Austrian (Austro-Hungarian?) citizenship in 1911 as part of a University posting in Prague, Bohemia. It also indicates that Einstein regained German citizenship in April 1914 , before the start of WW 1, as a result of his entering the German (Prussian?) civil service as a member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences and professor at the University of Berlin. Loosing it in March 1932 when he left Germany. Were the Austrian and the second  German citizenships job related documents?
From 1932 to 1940 he only held Swiss citizenship. And in 1940 he received U.S. citizenship.
Does anyone else think that just the various citizenships that he held was complicated? I won't even start on his two marriages. The first one was quite complicated.--TGC55 (talk) 01:38, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: This talk page is for discussing improvements to the Albert Einstein article. It is not a forum for general discussion about the article's subject. Essentially everything you say is already in the article. Unless there is there some change you are proposing to the article, your comments are off-topic. —teb728 t c 03:38, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for your comments and the suggestion. As far as Austrian citizenship, one site said that Einstein had to declare his religion as "Masonic" to receive the Prague University posting as well as "beg" to receive Austrian citizenship.--TGC55 (talk) 01:22, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  5 years as Stateless Person & 2x avoidance of Military Service 

message: he was maried two a women and they had two sons then they had a divorce and then he got married to his COUSIN  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.45.70.134 (talk) 21:34, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  married 

message: I've changed the Jewish ethnicity to Semitic. Whether "Jewish" is an ethnicity or not is debatable, and Hebrew/Semitic is a more correct term.
Intranetusa 04:15, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That text had resulted as a consensus after a long and sometimes acrimonious debate in the Talk page.  Anyway, your position is certainly also debatable and not clearly an improvement.  While I have heard Einstein categorized as Jewish, I have never heard him categorized as Hebrew or Semitic. — DAGwyn 20:35, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Being a Jew is a race much in the same way that it is a religion.  Among Judaism, there are several different ethnic division (see Jewish ethnic divisions), but the members of the certain Jewish "rites" (if you will) are a race - descendents of Ashkenazi Jews, for example, all share some DNA.  As such, it is fair to categorize Einstein as ethnic Jew under his biographical chart (see Talk:Jew, topic 20.) Eddy23 (talk) 05:37, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Decendants of Christians will also share a great deal of DNA as well. Judaism is as much a race as Christianity or Islamism. 64.230.4.137 (talk) 08:43, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  See the article on ethnicity, Jews certainly are such.  Also, see the difference between Judiasm and Jew, they are not equitable. Judiasm is not an ethnic group, but Jew certainly is.  Epson291 (talk) 07:45, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

text:  To claim that 'Jewish' is not an ethnicity is about as bizarre as it gets. The article lists him as 'German born' - that is ignorant, stupid, antisemitic nonsense. He was not German or German born (whatever that means): that's like claiming that had Audrey Hepburn been born in China because her mother stayed overnight in Hong Kong and came into labour prematurely, she would have been Chinese. Einstein was Jewish, end of.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.142.51.19 (talk) 23:15, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you seriously dispute that Einstein was born in Germany, or that stating that fact is "antisemitic"?  The present text is a consensus resulting from long discussion and debate.  The only reason his birth place is mentioned in the lead is that it explains why the German pronunciation of his name is given there. — DAGwyn (talk) 22:17, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

text: You are correct that Judaism is a religion. Except in his youth Einstein was not a believer in Judaism, nor does the article say he was. Jewishness, on the other hand, is an ethnicity. (See the article Jew). As the article says, Einstein was ethnically Jewish. —teb728 t c 02:03, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: This issue has been debated before, more than once, and the closest we found to a consensus was to identifiy it as an "ethnicity" in Einstein's case.  As TEB728 said, Einstein was not Jewish in the religious sense.
Shalom, everyone!  I lived in Israel for six month, took a class on Jewish ethnic minorities at Haifa University, and as an aspiring cultural anthropologist, and now currently take five anthropology classes including one on Ethnicity, I have great news for you all!  Yes, wait for it... Jewish-ness is, in fact, an ethnicity.  I really don't know what you people are rambling about... frankly, don't have time to read through all these silly ideas you people have.  Jewish ethnicity is complicated, but it's a fact.  It exists.  End of story.  Learned to live with it, love it.  Oh, and unless I've been misinformed all of my life, Einstein is a Jew.  I'm a big fan of his: a bobble-head and a portrait to prove it.  But here's the kicker, to answer the none-sense about how Jewish ethnicity is Nazi propaganda!  If you convert to Orthodox Judaism, you become ethnically Jewish.  It's magical and bizarre, I know, but that's how it works.  Philolexica (talk) 14:28, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

text: For more on AE's own view of his ethnicity, see this link for the text of a letter recently   made public. (He also gives his view of religion: see the new entry by User:Malick78 in "Religion again", below) --Old Moonraker (talk) 09:09, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Letter now incorporated. --Old Moonraker (talk) 20:44, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Jewish as an ethnicity? 

message: Another editor added "Religion = Judaism" to the infobox, which I reverted because in previous reading here I'd seen discussion where the conclusion 'seemed' to be "this is far from obvious, not simple, and even applying a tag would be misleading".  
I've a question I'd like to ask, as I've not seen such a thing elsewhere, even on articles with years-long arguments on fine points, that were 'finally' resolved to one consensus or another.  Would it be useful to have a small section above that gives a short summary list of difficult/contentious issues and their consensus outcome?  Something like:
::These items have had extensive prior discussions with consensus resolutions as noted below.  Before asking for reconsideration of these, please review the archived discussions and determine the significant new points to be raised in your comments on this talk page.
::* religion - ill-defined after review from sources/interviews, so leave out of infobox
::* ethnicity - source from parents', regional/national not specified as multinational life
::* ...
I thought something like this would be a great thing to ask a new editor to look at, after reverting their reflex change of a 'difficult' item 'obvious' to them, like, uh, I just did.  :-(   Has anyone here seen anything like this done on other articles?  Shenme (talk) 22:34, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I am also confused about the religion of Einstein. I think only an expert on Einstein can give us an appropriate reply. Masterpiece2000 (talk) 05:03, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The article is currently pretty clear about Einstein's religious views.  He didn't follow any of the organized religions, and didn't think a supernatural being was involved in daily affairs.  He was almost, but not quite, pantheistic. — DAGwyn (talk) 18:07, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

text: *By the end of his life he thought religion was "childish". See here for a letter that has recently turned up. Malick78 (talk) 08:45, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

text: * Here is the Abridged letter from Einstein to Eric Gutkind from Princeton, January 1954, translated from German by Joan Stambaugh. I will now read it carefully. Einstein mentions the philosopher Spinoza - who believed that God represents the deterministic system of living nature herself. Einstein's attack on religion sounds very similar to Stephen Weinberg's interview in the BBC's Atheism Tapes, who is openly hostile against religion. --Diamonddavej (talk) 13:37, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Religion again 

message: Hi all, 
I'm about to nominate List of scientific publications of Albert Einstein as a Featured List candidate, but I'd welcome your suggestions before I do.   As you might notice, it's been a ton of work, so please be gentle in your criticisms; thank you! :) Willow (talk) 12:16, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I've now nominated it as a Featured List.   Your input there would be welcome; please follow the link! :) Willow (talk) 20:40, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  List of scientific publications of Albert Einstein 

message: In the section on religious views the following quote is found:
"In view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognize, there are yet people who say there is no God. But what really makes me angry is that they quote me for the support of such views."
Most of the quotes in this section are first-hand, direct quotes from Einstein's writings. But the source of this quote says "Albert Einstein, according to the testimony of Prince Hubertus of Lowenstein; as quoted by Ronald W. Clark, Einstein: The Life and Times, New York: World Publishing Company, 1971, p. 425."
It's important to distinguish it from the first-hand quotes in the article. It's filtered through the memories and prejudices of two people. Pol098 (talk) 12:52, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Religion: 3rd-hand quote 

message: Amatulić’s reply to BF’s 20 May post clarifies the issue for me in a way that suggests a compromise. The issue is inclusionism:
The fact that Wikipedia is a web encyclopedia has three important consequences: On the one hand, it means that virtually anything could be added to the encyclopedia. After all, it’s just gigabytes; it doesn’t cost any trees. On the other hand, it creates a practical limit on the size of articles, as discussed in WP:SIZE. In compensation for that limit, however, it encourages sub-articles; for an interested reader, a sub-article is only a click away.
The Albert Einstein article is now 83 KB long—rather over the recommended size. I don’t usually think about it this way, but I guess this fact is the main reason I resist adding relatively unimportant content to the article. Several major sections already have been split out into sub-articles. If the same were done with the “Religious view” section, the sub-article would have dozens of kilobytes available for the kind of details BF wants to add. And I would have no problem with adding them there.
As for the Bloomsbury Auctions link, the page is still there, but requires a free registration for access. I am not sure whether that sort of thing is appropriate for Wikipedia. If it is, I would have no problem with linking it from a sub-article. (The letter was estimated to sell for £8000 but sold for £170000. Wow!)
As for the Randerson article, I agree with BF that it is well written. But although it was written in reaction to the Gutkind letter, it is not a particularly good reference for the letter. Rather it seems to me its importance is as an overview of Einstein’s religious views. I think it would be an appropriate external reference in a sub-article. —teb728 t c 00:53, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Compromise? 

message: Can someone clarify what is a "Middlesex heir"? Is it someone from Middlesex County (not, I dare say, the county of Middlesex) who was heir to something? Or was there someone called Middlesex who had heirs? Myrvin (talk) 12:47, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It refers to son of the founder of Middlesex University (Massachusetts). I added a link. —teb728 t c 01:24, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cold War era 

message: The list of scientific publications by Albert Einstein is a Featured List candidate.   If you care at all about Albert Einstein articles on Wikipedia, please review the list and either support it or oppose it at its candidacy.  Thank you! Willow (talk) 18:52, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Featured List for Albert Einstein: [[Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of scientific publications of Albert Einstein|Go there NOW!]] 

message: It somewhat bothers me that the change to refer to the list of scientific publications has lost the non-scientific publications.  Perhaps the original "Works" article ought to be restored. — DAGwyn (talk) 18:50, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm sorry that it bothers you, but it was requested at the FLC for List of scientific publications by Albert Einstein.  After opening the discussion at Talk:Works by Albert Einstein, I waited almost three weeks before making the redirect.  A glance at the final version shows that there were only two non-scientific works in that list.  CheekyMonkey felt that starting a new List of non-scientific publications by Albert Einstein with only two elements would invite an AfD.  If you're enthusiastic about writing that non-scientific list, more power to you! :)  You'll find everything you need in the Schilpp reference, augmented by the Collected Papers.  The number of non-scientific publications is almost exactly 40% of the number of scientific publications, so you'll have an easier time than I did, if you choose to contribute that way. Willow (talk) 19:25, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Works by Einstein 

message: The way that section was written seems to conflate Judaism and Zionism, and implies Einstein's cultural and religious background automatically associated him with the actions of Israel's government, despite the fact that his philosophy and writing imply otherwise.  Perhaps that section should be renamed "Einstein's relationship to/philosophy on the state of Israel".
Absolute Relativity (talk) 03:55, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. In fact, the article states that he was a cultural Zionist, which is someone who is specifically not a political Zionist, and yet this is in a subsection of the article titled Zionism in a section of the article titled  Politics. I've tried to reword this in a more specific manner. ← George [talk] 20:50, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Was Einstein a Zionist?(raise eyebrow) 

message: "In a 1954 letter, Einstein rejected the idea that the Jews are God's chosen people." Okay, this is very interesting, but shouldn't this be in the religious views section, not the politics section?Whyzeee (talk) 08:46, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it was well placed in Zionism section: Although it mentions God, it is not really about religion. Rather it describes his feelings about the Jewish people, which elucidates his attitude on Zionism. If it is kept at the new location, it should be merged (or at least linked to the preceding paragraph, which is based on the same letter. —teb728 t c 18:06, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Jews are not chosen people" - why is this in the Zionism section? 

message: It seems odd that under the "influences" section there is only one mention. At the very least I think the following should be added:
Baruch Spinoza
Immanuel Kant
Ernst Mach
I imagine there are others but these three, at the very least, strike me as some that should be mentioned.
Somrh (talk) 06:58, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Gee, how about Gauss, Reimann, Levi-Civita, etc.?  I have trouble in general with the "Influences" portion of the Infobox; what precisely is it supposed to mean??  DAGwyn (talk) 22:28, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: According to Template:Infobox Scientist/doc, The “Influences” parameter is supposed to be “any notable scientists who influenced the scientist significantly.” Taken literally that would exclude philosophers like Spinoza and Kant and mathematicians like Gauss, Riemann, Levi-Civita, (and Marcel Grossmann, who is listed now). (The “Influenced” parameter is supposed to be “Any notable scientists significantly influenced by the scientist.” For Einstein that’s pretty much equal to “notable 20th century physicists.”) —teb728 t c 23:21, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: So filling in those entries seems problematic to me.  How about leaving them blank? — DAGwyn (talk) 16:10, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

text: I would probably question the criteria listed in the "influences" section. It would be hard to deny, for example, the influence Spinoza's philosophy had on Einstein's rejection of quantum theory or how Mach's positivism (which could have very well been contributed by a "philosopher" rather than a "scientist", not that the division between the two is terribly clear in some cases) influenced his work on special relativity. Clearly mathematicians, such as Gauss, shouldn't be discarded as potential influences. Where would science be without mathematics? Here again, the divisions between "mathematician" and "scientist" aren't always entirely clear and to a large extent are quite arbitrary. Mathematicians have been making contributions to the sciences as well. We might throw in Poincare as another example. Somrh (talk) 02:35, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Influences 

message: In the Collaboration and conflict section, there is a link to determinism in the sentence 
Einstein's disagreement with Bohr revolved around the idea of scientific determinism
. This needs to be changed to a link to Scientific determinism, which is pointedly different than the philosophical question of determinism that is currently shown. 75.151.79.169 (talk) 20:53, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Scientific determinism currently redirects to Determinism. — DAGwyn (talk) 21:18, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Correct improper link in Collaboration and conflict section 

message: A physicist in Prague, Ludek Zakel, claims to be the son of Albert Einstein and his second wife, Elsa,
given at birth in a Prague hospital to Mrs. Zakel, whose own son, born at the same time, had died.
(Zakel himself has no web presence that I can find, so I conclude he was not, himself, a notable person.)  Stories about Zakel and his claims have been published the NYT http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE4DC1F3AF931A15754C0A963958260 and in TIME magazine, although that was a long time ago, and I found no TIME article on the internet.  The story presented in the NYT article is believable, and so I think that reporting this claim is appropriate on this page.  What do others think about this?  (Please read the article before deciding.) Vegasprof (talk) 20:56, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The claim doesn't seem plausible to me, and anyway, without reliable documentation it shouldn't be included in an encyclopedia. — DAGwyn (talk) 13:08, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ludek Zakel 

message: this article is way to long! shorten it to seperate articles--Nick54321blastoff (talk) 05:03, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: There is a lot to say about Einstein..  The regular editors of the Einstein article have reduced its size considerably from what it once was, and try to minimize the amount of new material that gets added, much of which would qualify as "trivia".  I don't know how the article could be split up without causing more inconvenience than it addresses. — DAGwyn (talk) 22:50, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree with both of you. The religion part is disproportionately long, and if Nick or someone else could condense IT a bit, perhaps everyone would be happy.Sfahey (talk) 00:32, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Way too long! 

message: hi, 
he's been nominated 50 times before receiving the prize.  i think this is quite an interesting info. 
216.80.119.92 (talk) 20:14, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: He was less than 50 years old when he received the prize so he couldn't have been nominated in fifty different years. —teb728 t c 21:25, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: good thinking! yeah, i don't know specifics about the way nominations were counted... 216.80.119.92 (talk) 22:08, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  nobel nominations 

message: You wouldn't know it from this article! 99.140.200.24 (talk) 03:23, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: You must have been reading a vandalised version then. - Tbsdy lives (talk) 06:03, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  I thought that Einstein was human 

message: I have here a toy that my colleagues bought for my little daughter. The toy is made by the "Baby Einstein Company, LLC". Down the bottom of the packaging it says:
:"EINSTEIN and ALBET EINSTEIN are trademarks of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. All Rights Reserved"
Surely not! Can anyone confirm? - Tbsdy lives (talk) 06:05, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It's covered by the last paragraph in the "Legacy" section of the article. — DAGwyn (talk) 21:20, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not actually. It mentions that he gave his work to them but not his name. Is that even possible? Can you trademark a name? - Tbsdy lives (talk) 05:56, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: This is simple to settle. Go to the USPTO webste, click on "Search" in the right hand column, click on the "New user search", enter "Albert Einstein" into the search box, and watch the results. There are 10, including a trademark for "Were Albert Einstein and Charles Darwin Idiots?". There are 3 trademarks on simply "Albert Einstein"; two owned by "Hebrew University of Jerusalem", and one owned by "Yeshiva University". --Alvestrand (talk) 13:43, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Whoa, there's nothing to settle here! I'm not trying to cause conflict, I was merely pointing out that this wasn't covered in the legacy section. Thank you for the further info though, very interesting. - Tbsdy lives (talk) 09:51, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Name trademarked? 

message: There is a mistake in the second paragraph, in the following statement: "and his general theory of relativity, which extended the principle of relativity to non-uniform motion,".  To show that this is a mistake, I quote from the popular General Relativity textbook entitled Spacetime and Geometry: An Introduction to General Relativity, by Sean M. Carrol.  In section 1.2, p.11, he says: "The notion of acceleration in special relativity has a bad reputation, for no good reason...In particular, there is no truth to the rumor that SR is unable to deal with accelerated trajectories, and general relativity must be invoked.  General relativity becomes relevant in the presence of gravity, when spacetime becomes curved."
I am not well enough versed in relativity to change the article.  But would somebody else please correct this mistake? --Singularitarian (talk) 06:59, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, you are 100% right about the current view about the domain of applicability of special relativity, and you have an excellent reference, but Einstein's intent was indeed to "extend the principle of relativity to non-uniform motion", so the sentence was factually correct. So I slightly modified the sentence to accomodate for Einstein's intent and the current view. DVdm (talk) 16:10, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Note that the technical issue is debatable anyway; for example, SR applied to the task would predict half the deflection of light by a massive object that GR does.  And Einstein knew that SR as a field theory was unable to correctly predict centrifugal effects, which violated Mach's principle; this was a major factor motivating his development of GR. — DAGwyn (talk) 19:22, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Special Relativity can handle non-uniform motion 

message: It's a famous picture, why isnt there something on it in wikipedia? there are reasons why this happened, you know. just google it and you'll see Devrit 03:26, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It's at Albert Einstein in popular culture. (Doesn't Google list that?) It was moved there with some other trivia that really doesn't belong in a biography. —teb728 t c 22:32, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tongue picture 

message: Hello,
I would like to add Princeton University Press' newly formed Einstein Page (http://press.princeton.edu/einstein/) to list of external links.  
Thanks,
Watson  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Watsonwang26 (talk • contribs) 15:37, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Add Princeton Univerdsity Press's Einstein page to list of External Links 

message: Is it true that Einstein was member of German Democratic Party ??? (I heard that a lot but I haven't found any evidence)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.164.238.230 (talk) 15:58, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Einstein - German Democratic Party ? 

message: Accoording to his article, Rabindranath Tagore is Bengali, not Indian as described in the caption beneath the picture with him and Einstein.211.30.122.32 (talk) 02:52, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tagore was not Indian 

message: Ohanian, Hans C., Einstein's Mistakes: The Human Failings of Genius, W.W. Norton, 2008. Gwen Gale (talk) 07:39, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Review on new book 

message: I thought Einstien was very religious.  I thought he also read the Bible five times.  By the way, he was not Jewish. I'm agreeing with the article or whatever it was up top. P. S. I think you need to change it or "update it." Coralandstarr (talk) 18:30, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: This is my nominee for talk page post of the year. -TremorMilo (sorry not logged in)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.218.53.49 (talk) 02:33, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Indeed, this talk page post is pure gold. Just wanted to say I enjoyed reading this article thoroughly, great sourcing throughout. Are there any other statues of Einstein? 13.16.137.12 (talk) 13:38, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Einstein once said that he believed in Spinoza's God who revealed himself in the harmony of all being. In other words, he believed in a relationship between objects not between sentient beings. Torricelli01 (talk) 22:30, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Just telling you! 

message: I have Asperger's syndrome, and taking that into account, we're pretty sure that Einstein had Asperger's as well. I know that Asperger people learn in different ways than normal people. From what I heard, I'm certain that Einstein failed arithmetic. And it seems to me that these sources written in the 2000s that say he was a top student in elementary school are done by leftists who want to rewrite history.
Let me note that it is commonly written that FDR was a great US President and that his New Deal got the US out of the Great Depression, all of which is very doubtful. We believe that hiring more people for jobs would better do the trick rather than more federal gov't intervention. We believe it was the entry into World War II that really ended the Depression.
Unless you guys have some really good reasoning why I shouldn't leave this "top student" part out, I don't think it should stay. Let's try three days, if there's no response to this, I will proceed to remove this sourced note. Marcus2 (talk) 23:28, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Einstein was a good student in school. The "Einstein failed arithmetic" meme  came from a misunderstanding of the Swiss grading system, which used higher numerical grades to signify better performance (as opposed to the German system, where 1 is the best grade and 6 is the worst). See e.g. , ,  --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:49, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't quite understand the first sentence in your post - why does the fact that you have Asperger's mean that you know Einstein had it? However, putting that aside, you say "from what I heard" Einstein failed arithmetic. Unfortunately because you think you've heard something somewhere that doesn't mean you can start deleting referenced information from wikipedia. If you can find a reference to say he failed mathematics then by all means put it in as a qualification to what's already there. As for the stuff about "leftists trying to rewrite history" that's your own point of view, which you are entitled to, but wikipedia is all about verifiability, not what you or I think is true. I've heard too that Einstein may have had Asperger's but I think you will find that the general consensus is that making a medical diagnosis of someone who is no longer alive is very unreliable. However, if you can find some references about the possibility of him having Asperger's, I think it would make an interesting addition to the article Richerman (talk) 00:11, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

text: Well said, Richerman. I learned my lesson about removing sources from articles. That's why I brought this up on the talk page before the possibility of reverting it! I recently informed another Wikipedian that he was removing sourced material, so I reverted his edits. You may think I don't get the picture, but I do. Marcus2 (talk) 00:46, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: also please dont accuse 'leftists' of doing anything you don't like - clearly any uninformed person would assume, by what you have written, that 'rightists' are ignorant fools who want to rewrite history according to their misconceptions.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.158.183.6 (talk) 01:03, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Schooling" dispute 

message: Naturally this article needs to cover Einstein's religious views. However, should the infobox include "religious stance"? See the discussion on removing religion from the infobox for scientists. --Johnuniq (talk) 23:59, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: This is a proposal for removing the religion field from the infobox. If anyone has any strong feelings about whether the religion field should be in the template, they should add their opinion. Nbauman (talk) 18:45, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Religion field in info box 

message: I have seen a claim, on various places on the internet, and in a publication, that Einstein's last words are lost; since he said them in German and the only other person present didn't speak it. I cannot, however, find a reliable source for this. Is the statement true or false, and should it be mentioned either way? --70.171.186.233 (talk) 02:51, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: It was in the article for a while, but it was deleted as trivial. —teb728 t c 04:32, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  last words? 

message: In the long list of Einstein's ever-changing citizenship, there is a gap between 1896 and 1901.  Does anyone know what his citizenship would have been during this period?  Why the gap?  Udibi (talk) 06:49, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: He was stateless during that period. He renounced his German citizenship in 1896 and acquired Swiss citizenship in 1901. In between he was not a citizen of any country. —teb728 t c 22:37, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

text: The article already says he remained a citizen of Switzerland and the United States for the rest of his life. I would say that tagging him with an explicit "Swiss-American" label would put undue emphasis on his citizenship—particularly in light of his opposition to nationalism. —teb728 t c 03:17, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citizenship 

message: Deleted. Original here. --Old Moonraker (talk) 15:42, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Possible [[WP:COPYVIO]] from ''[[New Scientist]]'' 

message: Why isn't there a mention about the famous tongue picture? 62.173.86.208 (talk) 13:30, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: It's in the subarticle Albert Einstein in popular culture. —teb728 t c 21:30, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  tongue 

message: Youth and schooling:  
* "Albert Einstein was born into ...  electrical equipment based on Direct current. The Einsteins were not observant of Jewish religious practices, and Albert attended a Catholic elementary school." 
→ nobody, not even einstein, begins his schooling in a gymnasium!
* "In his early teens, Einstein attended the Luitpold Gymnasium (today Albert-Einstein-Gymnasium). His father intended for him to pursue electrical engineering, but Einstein clashed with authorities and resented the school regimen. He later wrote that the spirit of learning and creative thought were lost in strict rote learning." ... 
→ the gymnasium cannot have been (very) progressive, if einstein resented the school regime to the point of not 	finishing school.
* "Rather than completing high school, Einstein decided to apply directly to the Eidgenössische Polytechnische Schule ('Poly', today ETH) in Zürich, Switzerland. Lacking a school certificate, he was required to take an entrance examination, which he did not pass, although he got exceptional marks in mathematics and physics. ... ...to finally enroll in the mathematics program at the 'Poly'. ... In 1896, Einstein's future wife, Mileva Marić, also enrolled at the 'Poly', as the only woman studying mathematics and physics. During the next few years, Einstein and Marić's friendship developed into romance. Einstein graduated in 1900 from the 'Poly' with a degree in physics." 
→ ETH is the newer name (since 1911) of what was called "Eidgenössische Polytechnische Schule" ('Poly') in einsteins youth.
Marriage and family life:  
* "Albert and Marić divorced on 14 February 1919,  ... Einstein married Elsa Löwenthal (née Einstein), who had nursed him through an illness."
→ i think it is appropriate to mention the fact, that elsa löwenthals maiden name was einstein, allthough she was only second cousin paternally.  --Ajnem (talk) 18:31, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I made a couple of your proposed changes, removing the first mention of gymnasium, and adding Elsa's maiden name. I wouldn't object if someone else made the other changes, but: I don't see a point in removing "progressive" (BTW that's not why he dropped out.) And I don't see a point in getting technical about the name of ETH. Are you saying they were not maternal side cousins? —teb728 t c 05:46, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  why not start by correcting a few factual errors? 

message: *there is one very good reason, why the "Luitpold Gymnasium" should not be called "progressive": because according to the article itself ("Einstein ...resented the school regimen. He later wrote that the spirit of learning and creative thought were lost in strict rote learning"), it wasn't, and contradictions should be avoided! besides, i have a vague memory, that the school was militaristic and antisemitic, but i'm not sure.
*the Polytechnic/ETH change is of a certain importence: the 'poly', as it is still called occasionally (the annual ball of the ETH is still called "Poly Ball", the cable car, going up to the ETH is still called "Poly Bähnli") started as a school, not a university - for political reasons. and there were no accademic degrees until after einstein finished his studies there, which explains, why he got a teachers degree, and why he later got his doctorate from the university of zürich, not the polytechnic. so i suggest the fellowing changes:  
"Rather than completing high school, Einstein decided to apply directly to the Eidgenössische Polytechnische Schule (later Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule ETH) in Zürich, Switzerland. Lacking a school certificate, he was required to take an entrance examination, which he did not pass, although he got exceptional marks in mathematics and physics. ... ...to finally enroll in 1896 in the mathematics and physics program at the Polytechnic. ... In the same year, Einstein's future wife, Mileva Marić, also entered the Polytechnic to study mathematics and physics, as the only woman. During the next few years, Einstein and Marić's friendship developed into romance. Einstein graduated in 1900 with a diploma as a teacher for mathematics and physics."  
if i'm not mistaken, both einstein and maric studied mathematics and physics. if that is so, please make the corrections.
* and no, i'm not saying that the einsteins were not maternal side cousins.--Ajnem (talk) 18:25, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  to whom it may concern 

message: ... On 14 May 1904, Albert and Mileva's first son, Hans Albert, was born in Berne, Switzerland. Their second son, Eduard, was born in Munich Zurich on 28 July 1910.--Ajnem (talk) 08:57, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please correct error: Marriage and family life 

message: you should include that he also took albanian nationality.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.156.173.181 (talk) 19:05, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  nationalities 

message: what did he practice?
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.198.216.115 (talk • contribs) 19:45, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: See Jew for the meaning of the word. —teb728 t c 00:20, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: He also had frizzy hair. I bet the IP didn't know that, either. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 00:40, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  JEWISH???? 

message: Under "Publications," the citation for "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies" is given as being in the 17th issue of Annalen Der Physik, while it is actually published in issue 10. Velcrocookie (talk) 22:45, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: You are correct that it was published in volume 17 issue 10. But the entry doesn’t give the issue number, just the volume number. —teb728 t c 05:01, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Incorrect citation 

message: There is an obvious error in the residency where it says Switzerland (1901-55)
BMatsuyama (talk) 00:29, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Where do you see that? The infobox says (correctly) that he was a citizen of Switzerland for those years. I don't see anything that says he was a resident for those years. —teb728 t c 04:32, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  error 

message: Isnt there a actual list? of books you can buy today ?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.250.214.96 (talk) 18:19, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  List of books 

message: Impressive list of achievements in the intro, but shouldn't that list be somewhere in the text, and the list in the intro transmogrified into a paragraph describing his main achievements? After all: many of those items in the list are connected to each-other, f.ex. perihelion advance of Mercury (the planet! not the metal), and frame-dragging, are just corollaries of the general relativity. Therefore their mention could be subclauses or minor clauses after a main clause describing general relativity. ... said: Rursus (bork²) 08:58, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  List in intro? 

message: "At his mother's insistence, he took violin lessons starting at age six, and although he disliked them and eventually quit, he later took great pleasure in Mozart's violin sonatas."
This isn't cited.
A more correct version can be found here: http://www.oxfordtoday.ox.ac.uk/2008-09/v21n2/06.shtml
as well as countless other reputable sources.
The majority of children who take lessons under their parent's "insistence" do not enjoy the lessons.  This doesn't mean that Einstein quit or didn't enjoy playing.  Playing and practicing are quite different. He played throughout his life, was considered to be quite good and clearly enjoyed himself. 
Some sources say that his violin playing played an integral role in his ability to establish his theories.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.13.53.174 (talk) 22:46, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please correct -Einstein didn't quit the violin and he enjoyed playing throughout his life. 

message: Shouldn't it be mentioned that many psychologists believe he had Asperger's Syndrome? TomCat4680 (talk) 07:51, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, they're just speculating, possibly to improve public awareness of these issues...call me cynical :) so I'm not sure it should be in this article. It's here though. Sean.hoyland - talk 04:03, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Asperger's Syndrome 

message: Not a content issue but a possible html syntax problem:
When using Windows XP, Internet Explorer 7, and Adobe Acrobat
(both versions 6 and 8), the "printable version" of this page...
  http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Albert_Einstein&printable=yes
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  title=Albert_Einstein&print.log
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All latest (v2.29) DejaVu fonts are installed, and never a problem
with "printable version" to Adobe with any other page.
LBruns (talk) 13:58, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Adobe Distiller fails on Printable Version 

message: was there a misunderstanding in the 1905 papers I thought the first paper was amout Quanta light?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.198.216.115 (talk) 23:07, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, the first paper was on the photoelectric effect, which you might say was about quantum light. That is what the article says. For more info see Annus Mirabilis papers#Photoelectric effect. —teb728 t c 00:10, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Correction ???? 

message: EPR gets mentioned twice in the article but only in the most unillustrative way (in the intro it is just thrown out as an accomplishment, no elaboration; in the later section, it is described about its concern about non-locality, which is a very poor way of conveying what it means to Einstein). May I suggest that the intro bullet point be changed to "The EPR Paradox, a fundamental challenge to the metaphysical basis of quantum theory", and the later part be changed so as to convey that EPR is about whether or not quantum mechanics can be regarded as a "complete" theory, that is, whether it is a description of how the universe works or what our limitations for knowing it is. This was considered for many years to be a simply metaphysical question, unresolvable through experiment, but decades later Bell's theorem managed to show that aspects of it are indeed testable experimentally, and that these experiments have been carried out, and it turns out that Einstein was in fact incorrect—that the limitations of knowledge about quantum systems are inherent to the systems themselves, not simply to limitations in human knowledge. --140.247.242.83 (talk) 19:33, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  EPR 

message: On his quote about what world war 4 will be fought with, he did not say it will be fought with rocks, but sticks and stones. Please correct.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.58.161.219 (talk) 21:44, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Misquote 

message: Einstein is sometimes quoted by defenders of Pope Pius XII for saying that the Church was one of the only institutions that kept a voice during the national-socialist Reich. The quote is interesting because it provides insight on his views on other religions than his own, especially Christianity.  ADM (talk) 08:58, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Have you read this ? Sean.hoyland - talk 11:22, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: It's neat that the writer can try to methodically deconstruct the quote like that. Anyways, the only thing it can really confirm is that TIME magazine really did print such a statement back in 1940. Perhaps a historian working for TIME could be able to give further clues about the quip. ADM (talk) 11:40, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I suppose the reason you bring this up is to suggest that it be added to the article. Whatever validity the quote may have, it belongs (if anyplace) in Wikiquote:Albert Einstein (not in Wikipedia). That is the place for miscellaneous quotes. —teb728 t c 19:46, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

text: Wikiquote also doesn't have a list of quotes that Einstein probably didn't say. That seems like a good policy for this article too. Sean.hoyland - talk 17:58, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Quote about Pius XII 

message: Since Einstein is heralded as one of the smartest people to ever live (if not the smartest), I think it would be a good idea to mention his IQ somewhere, if it's known what it was.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.218.92.119 (talk) 01:11, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I've never heard any report of his IQ. At his level I doubt it is even measureable. —teb728 t c 01:49, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: You'd be surprised. Though I'm sure Einstein would have scored very highly on an IQ test, those with 'immeasurable' scores on IQ tests are virtually absent from the list of people who have attained Einstein's heights of prodigy. They don't even come close. IQ tests aren't a terribly accurate or scientific way of measuring intelligence, and they tend to ignore the creativity, innovation, or I daresay diligence that drives the world's greatest minds. That, coupled with the fact that Einstein probably never took an IQ test, irreconcilably excludes the mention of his IQ from this article.--71.187.100.24 (talk) 15:28, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Einstein's IQ 

message: The Link to Luitpold Gymnasium is wrong. Quote from the article:
Albert Einstein is not an alumnus of this school.
He was on a school called "Luitpold Gymnasium" that is called now "Einstein Gymnasium". The todays "Luitpold Gymnasium" is not that one so please remove the link to that article. 138.246.7.49 (talk) 18:11, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Luitpold Gymnasium 

message: After a very distasteful experience with the FA process I have abandoned work on this article.  I have done a lot to it to get it up to status and if someone is interested they should be able to get it to FA status relatively quickly. Most of the remaining work is related to cleaning up and pruning down the references. I only post this here in the hopes that someone will take on the daunting challenge of navigating the hurdles and politics of the FA process. Just a heads up if you haven't been a major contributor to the article already, don't bother.--Kumioko (talk) 15:32, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, I have an idea on how we can proceed with this - this is the sort of vital article which we should prioritise as featured. First of all, comprehensiveness and weight issues. I will list at Peer Review to make a dedicated page and give it the ooomph to get it over the line. I am no expert on Einstein but feel bad about how the process has worked out. i don't lay the blame on anyone and let's try to work from here. Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:27, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Good luck. --Kumioko (talk) 13:00, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Featured article status 

message: i was a certified nursing assistant in the 90's, i do not have the exact years however. dr. chowla, (who worked with and under Albert Einstein), was a patient there at Bethesda. The name was later changed to community care center. Dr Chowla was in his final years, and he was a patient in a very very understaffed facility, given very minimal care. He was slow on his feet, and very hard to understand, he spoke very slow and very softly. He was also a bit crippled up with what was referred to as elenphantitus, in the groin area. And as mentioned before being short staffed no one was around much to talk or help him out. One one particular day, have a bit of free time, helping him walk across the room, i asked him about his book case and hid collections of books the book case was filled with. It took a long time for it to register what he was talking about, i glanced at the books on the way by, and noticed there were several books by Albert Einstein, he kept trying to tell me he was in those books. After we got him seated again, i took up looking at some of them books, he had photographs, you could tell they were him, and of course, Albert Einstein, and there were many author signed books written to Dr. Chowla, from Albert Einstein, in fact there was a treasure trove of books and pictures and hand written signatures and notes, over a long span of time in this collection in this book case. Upon his death, no one came to collect much, and it was boxed up and put into storage, inside the facility, and some went to an outside storage aread, that i do not know of. There is a tremendous amount of knowledge, and information in the small area of Laramie, Wyoming, a terrible shame it is being lost sitting rotting in boxes somewhere around there. I have given my email address, if someone can contact me somehow, i would try and give any helpful information i might be able to give, as far as staff, and people who worked there around that time, and see if some of theses items could be retrieved, and archieved, and hopefully put in a museum somewhere.
thank you Justin Fredricks
<email removed>
—Preceding unsigned comment added by Justinfordman (talk • contribs) 06:09, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  i know of a lot of lost information books and pics of albert einstein in Laramie, Wyoming, USA 

message: I noticed the wikipedia article states that Roosevelt received the letter from Albert Einstein on August 2nd, 1939.  This information is incorrect!  The letter was finished and written on August 2nd, but Roosevelt did not receive the letter until October 11, 1939.  The source referenced in the article was correct,
http://www.mphpa.org/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=172
but apparently misread by the author of the wikipedia article.
64.251.144.132 (talk) 00:35, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Fixed. Good catch. --Old Moonraker (talk) 07:20, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  The letter written to Roosevelt 

message: I made the proposed copy editing changes I referred to above, but I saved the material I replaced on my computer and can add it back if too many people lose their sangfroid over this.  It seemed to me that we really need to step back with this.  
I got through the first 1/3 of the article with additional copy editing (as far as the section on collaboration with others), and will come back later in the week to finish.  --Auntieruth55 (talk) 20:53, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  copy editing changes 

message: I fixed  a couple of minor punctuation problems and mismatched verb tenses. 
In this section (Paper on mass–energy equivalence) the footnote is not formatted properly.  Or maybe that is the way you are formatting some of his letters?  That is confusing to me.
The ethnicity thing.  Perhaps a way to deal with it is not to deal with it, but to say instead in the first sentence where he was born.  For example:
Albert Einstein (pronounced /ˈælbərt ˈaɪnstaɪn/; German: De-Albert Einstein.oga [ˈalbɐt ˈaɪ̯nʃtaɪ̯n] ; 14 March 1879, Ulm, Württemberg, Germany – 18 April 1955, Princeton, New Jersey, US) was an ethnically Jewish,[1][2] German-born, theoretical physicist of the 20th century best known for his theories of special relativity and general relativity and his lifelong support for a Jewish homeland and the Zionist movement.
  
Einstein He also contributed to statistical mechanics, especially his treatment of Brownian motion, his resolution of the paradox of specific heats and his connection of fluctuations and dissipation. Despite his reservations about its interpretation, Einstein also made contributionscontributed to the development of quantum mechanics and, indirectly, quantum field theory, primarily through his theoretical studies of the photon.[3]   
By linking to his scientific work and to Zionism, we draw attention to the three things which shaped his life.  We don't need to say 20th century, because that is self-evident.  We don't need to say "German" because that is also clear from the place of birth, and the box, and you go into it in detail later.  By breaking the paragraph after that point, we focus attention clearly on his major contributions and the Jewishness issue.  The second paragraph of the intro then deals with additional contributions.  I suggestion using the word "contributed" (or something like it), rather than "he made contributions to..."  Much more active tense.  If you want to add religion, put it in the box as "Agnostic"...no need to make a fuss over it.  He didn't, after all! 
Good article.  It needs another pair of eyes to make sure it's consistently punctuated.  --Auntieruth55 (talk) 15:36, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds sensible to me. Feketekave (talk) 17:46, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: so .... should we do it?  so much fussing ....?  All in favor, say AYE...--Auntieruth55 (talk) 19:52, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Aye, basically, but one quibble. It is far from clear that Zionism (or his support for a Jewish homeland in whatever incarnation) is the only public position that Einstein is known for among the general public, or even the main one. His (conditional) pacifism is at least as well known. There is also the issue that, while Einstein called himself a Zionist, his positions in that respect were of a kind that fell outside the mainstream of that political movement as soon as the state of Israel was founded. Wouldn't it be better to say "and his support of both pacifism and a Jewish homeland"? Feketekave (talk) 14:17, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  additional comments 

message: This edit "condensed" the section, but the next-but-one edit, from the same contributor, deleted it in favor of a small infobox. Can this important period in Einstein's life be satisfactorily represented in an infobox? I suggest reinstating the contributor's "condensed", textual version.  --Old Moonraker (talk) 06:49, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi I'm the editor who did both changes, based on FA review comments.  The website that the material came from was challenged as a reliable source. The non-challenged material was included in captions for pictures and the info box.  I'm going to recommend, also that more pictures be added.  While certainly his relationships were important, they were not part of his "notability" While I have no issue with reinstating the text material, I think it will get in the way of any positive FA assessment.  Comments?  --Auntieruth55 (talk) 15:41, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I've just come from looking at the FA review: that's a depressing read. I can't see the article being promoted anytime soon, but that's no reason to reinstate anything that may have doubtful sources and so delay the process further.  I maintain, however, that the "marriage and family life" topic is important and can't be covered adequately by an infobox. So, the corrected text needs to be reinstated, and not as in my earlier suggestion. Example: the information from "Oregon Public Broadcasting" regarding the attitude of AE's mother  that User: Auntieruth55 deleted (as I now see, with some justification) is contradicted by a seemingly more reliable  print source: In Albert's shadow , page 9, and would need to be corrected and referenced properly before being put back. A lot to be done. --Old Moonraker (talk) 16:36, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the fix. --Old Moonraker (talk) 20:31, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Marriage and family life" deleted 

message: As much as everyone would like to co-opt Einstein, he was first and foremost a physicist. His contributions to physics are many, but it is important to list those which are foundational. The ones listed in the intro (with the exception of capillary action) are all enormous contributions, which would justify an article on someone else, had someone else discovered them. Unfortunately, I restored this by copy and paste, so there are missing references and bold and the like.Likebox (talk) 17:56, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Physics 

message: I removed the following from the Cold War era section:
:Although Einstein had long been sympathetic to the notion of vegetarianism, it was only near the start of 1954 that he adopted a strict vegetarian diet.
I personally don't think this belongs in the article at all, since it seems not to have played a major role in Einstein's life.  It certainly doesn't seem like something that should be discussed in a section largely devoted to Einstein and the Cold War.  Does this really truly belong in the article?  If so, is there a better place to put it? Sławomir Biały (talk) 14:03, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I think this is an interesting fact and makes sence in the contex of his veiws on war, killing, etc.  Bigweeboy (talk) 20:44, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

text: I would think in a Personal life section myself. Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:21, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

text: I forgot to mention one other thing.  The source, the International Vegetarian Union seems to be fairly dubious, particularly for establishing the requirement of WP:WEIGHT for inclusion in the article.  Is there a more neutral source on the matter? Sławomir Biały (talk) 14:44, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: (hahaha) yes indeed... Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:38, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

text: How about a Coleslaw era section ? Sean.hoyland - talk 15:59, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vegetarianism