Talk:Annus mirabilis papers

message: How about the links between Henri Poincaré's work and special relativity? David.Monniaux 30 June 2005 21:30 (UTC)
: Poincaré anticipated SR, and was working on it at about the same time as Einstein.  However, Einstein was unaware of Poincaré's work and published first.  It is interesting to note that Einstein's paper was at first dismissed because most scientists wanted to see what Poincaré came up with.  When Poincaré finally published several months later, he had devised the full set of coordinate tranformations for SR (which is now called the Poincaré group), but otherwise did little more than reiterate what Einstein had already published.  So Poincaré's findings were a major coup for Einstein, and helped to validate SR.
: As for mentioning all that in this article:  I do not see much need.  This is about Einstein's miraculous year.  Let Einstein and his achievements be the focus here.  If you want that role discussed, I would suggest covering it in the history of special relativity page, which currently fails to describe how SR came to be accepted over time, and is therefore in need of editting to cover that.  --EMS | Talk 1 July 2005 04:20 (UTC)
: Hmm didn't see this before I corrected and expanded some comments about FitzGerald. Well someone else can delete it. And does anyone know this reference to Lorentz 1903, said to contain the Lorentz transformations? There could be one, since Lorentz first wrote the LT in 1899 (with an undetermined pre-multiplier on the RHS) but the final form Lorentz wrote was in 1904, not 1903, as far as I know. — Preceding unsigned comment added by E4mmacro (talk • contribs) 00:32, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Poincaré

message: The article states that "scientific colleagues available to discuss his theories were few". According to Jürgen Neffe: Einstein (2005), , the role of his friend and colleague Michele Besso has to be considered very important; Einstein and Besso talking through the problems on their daily walk to work and back again. Also Besso was one of the first to be informed when Einstein finally had found the clue to these problems. Shouldn't he be mentioned? Alpine-helmut 10:31, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Michele Besso

message: I have removed the text that I did for a simple reason:  It is fine to reference the controversy about Mileva's role in the creation of the 1905 papers.  However, the removed text rules on aspects of that controversy, and that violates the Wikipedia NPOV policy.  --EMS | Talk 1 July 2005 04:04 (UTC)
: The PBS website and the book (an almanac on Einsteins's life) both discuss the so-called "controversy". The info is asserting the facts, with sources (eg., reputable scholars argue). Go get the book, it clearly states Mileva's role was suggesting improvements, proofreading the papers, and indicating if there were inconsistencies. If ppl did that today, they would get credit for authorship. -Anon [204...]
:: Anon, please sign your edits (note to other editors: 204... has hundreds of edits, and is not a newbie, she's just impolite). Then everyone will know you're the same on pushing your tesla-philia at Nikola Tesla and subpages. Puffing up Mrics roles doesn't help either. Asserting that marginal sources trump all other refs doesn't make sense. William M. Connolley 2005-07-05 16:19:43 (UTC).
::: WMC, I'll sign with Anon.
::: Go focus on the greenhouse pages as you have no idea about history.
::: Marics role is a fact and asserting the accepted sources lends to this. The Almanac references is a 2005 publication (brand new!); older sources would not have this (as it has been a left out historically).
::: -Anon (PS., having so-callled tesla-philia is the same as holding the views of Lord Kelvin [contributed more to electrical science than any man up to his time], Ernest Rutherford [all scientific men will be delighted to extend their warmest congratulations to Tesla and to express their appreciation of his great contributions to science], and Arthur Compton [Tesla is entitled to the enduring gratitude of mankind] (among others) then that's ok, I'd rather be that than a erronous debunker.)
:::: If you want to be deliberately impolite, you can. William M. Connolley 2005-07-05 19:35:14 (UTC).
:::: I seem to know it rather better than you.
:::: Maric role is pure speculation. You seem to be boosting her because of some vague connectin to Tesla. William M. Connolley 2005-07-05 19:35:14 (UTC).
::::: I'm not being impolite, it's perfectly acceptable to edit wikipedia as an anonomous user.
::::: You do know about ecological topics (don't doubt that; your edits there seem respectable), but your logic and histrocal knowledge of science (in particular physics) is lacking (to say the least).
::::: Maric role is NOT speculation. Read a bit, you might learn something. Goto your nearest library and see it they have the "Einstein almanac (2005). Some authors state that Maric was important to his work (like doing the math for him). I am stating facts, unlike your actions which are not malice nor ignorance, just stupidity (because you are ignoring facts). -Anon
::Those tasks don't generally earn authorship (you should see the input some reviewers make into papers, often without even being thanked as "and two anonymous reviewers" in the acknowledgements).  Authorship is supposed to go for "substantial contributions".  Granted, it sometimes goes for political purposes, but generally reading a paper and suggesting improvements/pointing out inconsistencies does not earn one authorship.  If it did I'd have another dozen pubs to my name by now :)  Guettarda 5 July 2005 16:45 (UTC)
::: "substantial contributions"? A large degree of Einstein's work was done with Mileva input, she made improvements and made efforts in the common endeavor. He may have drove it, but she helped accomplish it. Einstein stated that it was their work on relativity. She just didn't get the credit in the end (as is commmon, women in history have historically been left out of acknowledgements in progess (with a few exceptions)).
::: -Anon (PS., just to note: Einstein didn't like the statistical work, so she did the math for him; that's pretty substantial)
::::Hey, I was just going by what you said.  Guettarda 5 July 2005 20:02 (UTC)
::::: She did the math for him. -Anon
:::::: Maybe.  It is not impossible that this is so.  However, it is not well documented that this is the case.  That is the reason for my stand on this issue.  --EMS | Talk 5 July 2005 23:19 (UTC)
I was wondering why Mileva didn't publish separately and independently after she and her husband parted. If she had the abilities that are attributed to her, she could have easily demonstrated them.Lestrade 16:26, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Mileva's role

message: I restored the words "is a debated question", replacing "is uncertain".  There seems to be some active debate and question in this regard, as shown by the footnotes.  William's wording so watered down the sense of controversy that it seemed to me to be trying to sweep the issue "under the rug".
The Mileva issue, as best I can tell, is a legitimate question.  I myself don't care that much about it either, but in my mind the issue now is "either you do or you don't".  Either it gets mentioned and is treated appropriately, or it is dropped completely from this article.  Since it seems legit and of current scolarly interest, I feel obliged to support the cuurent status quo.  --EMS | Talk 21:00, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Restored some wording

message: Is this a recent term, invented near the 100 year anniversary? Or earlier? E4mmacro 00:37, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Take a look at at this.  It's a list of references, many dated before 2005.  It seems that it was before the 100th anniversary. Tiny.ian 17:03, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  When did the term "Annus Mirabilis" first appear? 

message: When I read this I had firmly in my mind that there were 5 papers in 1905, not 4.  Checking out the AIP website Einstein Chronology for 1905 seemed to confirm this.  6 submissions in 1905, one of which is his doctorial dissertation which is still referred to as a paper, and one of which is not published until February 1906 - so I make that five papers published in 1905, not four. Zebedee1971 10:43, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Were there not five publications in 1905?

message: :Three of those papers (on Brownian motion, the photoelectric effect, and special relativity) deserved Nobel Prizes according to some physicists. Only the paper on the photoelectric effect would win one. 
This doesn't read well. Papers doesn't get Nobel Prizes, and you don't "win" them. I think the section should be removed. The introduction already makes it clear that the papers where important. Zarniwoot 01:37, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Papers

message: "changed Man's view on space and time"? I guess everything is relative, even where gender is concerned?
:I'm gonna change this mankind's or humankind's to "the world's".  Anyone object?  Tiny.ian 17:04, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: "changed Man's view on space and time"

message: I have added an improve tag to this article.  The content is largely fine, but the writing style is very rough. Michaelbusch 16:07, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree.  If anything, the fact that the quotes and referencing of these papers being past tense should be a tip off enough. Tiny.ian 19:48, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've gone through much of the text, basically only correcting tenses.  (I might have misspelled some words) Someone else, please go through it and correct anything I may have missed.  I'd like to see some sources, but dont have time to look for them. Tiny.ian 21:14, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Improve tag

message: I'm substantially opposed to this idea.  This article is on the various papers, not one in particular.  If one is merged, all should be, and I don't believe that to be a good idea.  If anything should be done, the article on Über die von der molekularkinetischen Theorie der Wärme geforderte Bewegung von in ruhenden Flüssigkeiten suspendierten Teilchen should be improved upon, and if any other related articles are stubs, improve those as well.Tiny.ian 17:21, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Merging brownian motion

message: I am thinking of adding a personal observation, though it is one anyone else can verify.  If you go into a large, university library and look at the old, dusty bound journal volumes of Annalen der Physik, one always stands out.  Volume 17, 1905, is always cleaner, brighter, and newer-looking than the ones around it.  And with good reason. Apparently in most libraries, given the content of that volume, it is often stolen by Einstein "fans."  The libraries keep having to order new copies.  I suspect that volume has been reprinted more than any other single volume of the journal, because of these articles.  Bigmac31 (talk) 21:12, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Shiny new journal volume 

message: According to the current version:
The Nobel committee had waited patiently for experimental confirmation of special relativity; however none was forthcoming until the time dilation experiments of Ives and Stilwell (1938), (1941) and Rossi and Hall (1941).    
Schafly has questioned the accuracy of this and I tend to agree.  I've read that he didn't win the Nobel for SR because of the conflicting opinions about priority.   Also, it seems inconsistent with the fact that Einstein's theory is experimentally indistinguishable from Lorentz's or Poincaré's. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cardinality (talk • contribs) 22:53, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I have heard several theories. Some say that the Nobel committee did not want to give a prize for pure theory; some say that there was a priority dispute; some say that they did not believe relativity; there may be other theories as well. There is certainly no consensus that the committee was waiting patiently for time dilation experiments, and I very much doubt it. Roger (talk) 23:55, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The method for resolving this question about content is clear under Wikipedia's content policies and guidelines: Report what the reliable sources say about why Einstein didn't get a Nobel for SR (or, alternatively, why he did get the Nobel for the photoelectric effect only). If the reliable sources differ, give proportionate weight to each view. Above all, report only what the reliable sources say, not Wikipedians' conclusions (even if a consensus) derived from what the sources say; the latter is prohibited as original research. Finell (Talk) 00:53, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why didn't Einstein get Nobel for SR? 

message: "The theory, now called the special theory of relativity, distinguishes it from his later general theory of relativity, which considers all observers to be equivalent." ??
This sentence makes no sense. The theory distinguishes WHAT???
Perhaps "is distinguished from" is meant, I don't know. What I DO know is that GR does NOT consider "all observers to be equivalent"!! (all inertial observers, sure. The same Laws of Physics apply to any frame of reference (whether inertial, accelerating, or in a gravitational field), sure; but all observers are NOT equivalent (pseudo-forces).) So, this sentence not only suffers from grammatical issues, but fails in describing GR correctly.173.189.74.162 (talk) 20:45, 11 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Editing needed 

message: As it currently stands, the title of this article capitalizes both Annus and Mirabilis while the first sentence capitalizes Annus but not mirabilits, and the last sentence of the introductory paragraph capitalizes neither word. This should be cleared up.
Since neither word is capitalized in Latin, I see no reason to capitalize either one in English. Maybe in German, "Annus" would be capitalized as a noun but there's no reason to do so in English.
Thoughts? - DavidWBrooks (talk) 19:35, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  why is it capitalized? 

message: I'm not sure if this is worthy of being included in the actual article, but i would've liked to be able to see something like:
TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal format:dd/mm/yyyy  # "Currently only format yyyy (default) is supported"?!? WTF?
Period = from:1 till:546                             # 1 = 01/01/1905, 365 = 31/12/1905, 546 = 30/06/1906
ImageSize = width:839 height:220                     # width = 10 (left margin) + 546 * 1.5 (scaled for legibility) + 10 (right margin)
PlotArea = left:10 bottom:10 top:10 right:10
Colors =
  id:gray4 value:gray(0.83) # lightgray
  id:gray2 value:gray(0.75) # silver
  id:gridline value:gray(0.9)
  id:lightblue value:rgb(0.69,0.69,0.99)
  id:lightred  value:rgb(0.99,0.77,0.77)
BarData =
  bar:Timeline text:
  bar:Z        text:                 # Zurich
  bar:D        text:                 # Doctoral Disertation
  bar:E        text:                 # Einstein papers
  bar:spacing  text:
  bar:R        text:                 # Received at AdP
  bar:P        text:                 # Published by AdP
PlotData =
  bar:Timeline from:  1 till: 31 color:gray2 text:"Jan\n1905"
  bar:Timeline from: 32 till: 59 color:gray4 text:"Feb\n1905"
  bar:Timeline from: 60 till: 90 color:gray2 text:"Mar\n1905"
  bar:Timeline from: 91 till:120 color:gray4 text:"Apr\n1905"
  bar:Timeline from:121 till:151 color:gray2 text:"May\n1905"
  bar:Timeline from:152 till:181 color:gray4 text:"Jun\n1905"
  bar:Timeline from:182 till:212 color:gray2 text:"Jul\n1905"
  bar:Timeline from:213 till:243 color:gray4 text:"Aug\n1905"
  bar:Timeline from:244 till:273 color:gray2 text:"Sep\n1905"
  bar:Timeline from:274 till:304 color:gray4 text:"Oct\n1905"
  bar:Timeline from:305 till:334 color:gray2 text:"Nov\n1905"
  bar:Timeline from:335 till:365 color:gray4 text:"Dec\n1905"
  bar:Timeline from:366 till:396 color:gray2 text:"Jan\n1906"
  bar:Timeline from:397 till:424 color:gray4 text:"Feb\n1906"
  bar:Timeline from:425 till:455 color:gray2 text:"Mar\n1906"
  bar:Timeline from:456 till:485 color:gray4 text:"Apr\n1906"
  bar:Timeline from:486 till:516 color:gray2 text:"May\n1906"
  bar:Timeline from:517 till:546 color:gray4 text:"Jun\n1906"
  bar:Z from:1 till:546 color:white textcolor:blue fontsize:M text:"\nUniversity of Zurich"
  fontsize:XS
  at:120 mark:(line,black) text:"30/04/1905\n- received disertation"
  at:208 mark:(line,black) text:"27/07/1905\n- approved"
  at:380 mark:(line,black) text:"15/01/1906\n- awarded degree"
  color:blue                                         # Einstein papers
  bar:D from:100 till:120 text:"30/04/1905\n- molecular dimensions"
  bar:E from: 57 till: 77 text:"18/03/1905\n- Photoelectric effect"
  bar:E from:111 till:131 text:"11/05/1905\n- Brownian motion"
  bar:E from:161 till:181 text:"30/06/1905\n- Special relativity"
  bar:E from:250 till:270 text:"27/09/1905\n- Mass–energy equivalence"
  bar:E from:333 till:353 text:"19/12/1905\n- Brownian Motion"
  bar:spacing from:1 till:546 color:white textcolor:blue fontsize:M text:"\nAnnalen der Physik"
  bar:R from:1 till:546 color:white
  at: 77 mark:(line,black) text:"18/03/1905\n- Received PE"
  at:131 mark:(line,black) text:"11/05/1905\n- Received BM"
  at:181 mark:(line,black) text:"30/06/1905\n- Received SR"
  at:270 mark:(line,black) text:"27/09/1905\n- Received MEE"
  at:353 mark:(line,black) text:"19/12/1905\n- Received BM2"
  bar:P from:1 till:546 color:white
  at:160 mark:(line,black) text:"09/06/1905\n- Published PE"
  at:199 mark:(line,black) text:"18/07/1905\n- Published BM"
  at:269 mark:(line,black) text:"26/09/1905\n- Published SR"
  at:325 mark:(line,black) text:"21/11/1905\n- Published MEE"
  at:404 mark:(line,black) text:"08/02/1906\n- Published md\n- Published BM2"
LineData =
  color:gridline width:1
  at: 31                                             # jan-feb
  at: 59                                             # feb-mar
  at: 59 frompos:95 tillpos:120 color:blue           # repair overwrite of main bar...
  color:gridline
  at: 90                                             # mar-apr
  at:120                                             # apr-may
  at:120 frompos:95 tillpos:120 color:blue           # repair overwrite of main bar...
  color:gridline
  at:151                                             # may-jun
  at:181                                             # jun-jul
  at:181 frompos:40 tillpos: 55 color:black          # repair overwrite of SR mark...
  color:gridline
  at:212                                             # jul-aug
  at:243                                             # aug-sep
  at:273                                             # sep-oct
  at:304                                             # oct-nov
  at:334                                             # nov-dec
  at:334 frompos:95 tillpos:120 color:blue           # repair overwrite of main bar...
  at:366 color:lightred                              # start of 1906
  color:gridline
  at:396                                             # jan-feb
  at:424                                             # feb-mar
  at:455                                             # mar-apr
  at:485                                             # apr-may
  at:516                                             # may-jun
  color:gray2 # silver
  atpos:150 from:1 till:546
  atpos: 85 from:1 till:546
  color:blue width:1
  at: 77 frompos:55 tillpos:99
    points:(125, 39)(248, 33)
  at:120 frompos:150 tillpos:165 # doctoral disertation
  at:131 frompos:55 tillpos:99
    points:(206, 39)(306, 33)
  at:181 frompos:55 tillpos:99
    points:(281, 39)(411, 33)
  at:270 frompos:55 tillpos:99
    points:(415, 39)(495, 33)
  at:353 frompos:55 tillpos:99
  color:lightblue
    points:(539, 39)(614, 33)
    points:(579, 150)(614, 35) # doctoral disertation
                               # instead of:  at:404 frompos:150 tillpos:35
I'm just going to leave it here, in case anyone else would similarly enjoy a quick overview. -- 86.121.67.127 (talk) 14:15, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Timeline 

message: There's always a judgement call in which words to hyperlink in an article, but as a general rule less is more, because linked words make sentences harder to read and to understand. In particular, WP:Overlinking says not to link "Everyday words understood by most readers in context". A judgement call here is whether to link "time" which is a very common and easily understood word, in the introductory sentence talking about space, time, energy and mass. I unlinked it, but I think thats a very close call. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 14:26, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hyperlinks 

message: I've always seen the Wuderjahr refer to 5 papers, not just four, and the University of Zurich dissertation A New Determination of Molecular Dimensions is arguably more important than Does the Inertia of a Body Depend on its Energy Content?. The dissertation was significant in advancing the atomic theory of matter, while E=mc^2 was basically a throwaway; der Alte had already done all the heavy lifting in On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 00:10, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: , yes, also as listed at this page. If the majority of sources say five and not four, then the article should be updated accordingly. Mathglot (talk) 17:29, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I do believe that the dissertation was published in 1906. This would mean that, while it was completed during Einstein's annus mirabilis, it was not published in said year. The Morrison Man (talk) 12:41, 28 November 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe that a doctoral thesis is always published by the university; his PhD thesis was completed on April 30 and submitted on July 20th, 1905. I also believe that the 1906 paper in Annalen der Physik was a revised version, not the original thesis. I was going to give some citations on the importance of the papers, but then I realized that arXiv is not a WP:RS -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 16:41, 28 November 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Number and significance